Autophagy

"My Ability is..." Song Lei started talking. He wasn't sure what he was going to tell these people. He didn't want to reveal his ability this early on. Although he somehow trusted Old Wolf, he couldn't possibly trust his newly-found seemingly crazy teammates. He quickly thought an ability up. "Strengthened neural functions."

Some of the people in the room whispered into each other's ears while some didn't say anything. The red-haired man put one of his feet on the table.

"Is that so? That definitely suits a sissy guy like you," he sneered.

Song Lei looked at Old Wolf without saying anything. No one seemed to care about the red-haired man's rude behavior.

"Can you elaborate on that please?" The woman named Fu Ah asked. She had been indifferent to Song Lei's presence since he came in but now, she seemed intrigued.

"Although I haven't been able to experiment a lot, I think that my cognitive abilities have become much more developed," Song Lei explained as best as he could.

"Hmm... What about your senses?" Fu Ah kept asking.

"They have also developed a lot. I wouldn't be able to beat Xiang Yimu without them."

"Well... It seems about right. I would like to do some examinations on you but that'll have to wait."

Song Lei sat down and started waiting for Old Wolf to talk. The stuff he had just said wasn't all made up. He had been trying to assess his stats a little bit since he first upgraded them. After doing some educated guesses, Song Lei was able to deduce some stuff about the stats.

The mind stat would basically strengthen his brain. This meant that his cognitive abilities, senses, imagination, and all the other stuff that would be done by his brain would get better.

As for the body stat, it would strengthen his body and metabolism without changing anything physically. He thought that it might have some effect on his senses just like the mind stat but he wasn't sure.

He still wasn't sure about the soul stat. It was still an abstract concept for Song Lei. Was the soul some kind of energy? Was it located in a different dimension? He had a lot of questions but little to no answers.

"Well... That's it for the introduction. I don't want to waste more time so let's continue with the meeting. We have to rearrange our layout. You know that the 14th-floor resident Xiang Yimu and 12th-floor resident Tao Cai have died. We have to replace them," Old Wolf said. "We only have one extra. So someone will have to guard 2 floors on their own until we find a replacement."

This time, the red-haired man pulled out a knife from his pocket and charged at Song Lei. He was immediately stopped by the others.

"I'll kill you!" The red-haired man roared. He kept swearing and swinging his knife at Song Lei non-stop. Song Lei didn't move or show any emotions on his face.

"Floor 12 will be assigned to Lu Peng from now on," Old Wolf continued while pointing at the red-haired man.

'Oh... So that's why,' Song Lei quickly realized what the red-haired man's problem was. 'He's angry because he has extra work to do...'

Song Lei had thought that this Lu Peng guy was angry at him because he had killed his friends or something. But that didn't seem to be the case.

After Lu Peng calmed down, Old Wolf started talking again.

"I'm sorry Lu Peng but you are the closest person to the 12th floor."

Lu Peng clicked his tongue without talking back. Song Lei was a bit surprised that Lu Peng had actually stopped making a scene. Song Lei glanced at the person next to him.

'Oh..?' After looking at the person for some time, he realized that this person was the Buddhist monk casting the searching spell on him back in room 1401.

The monk realized that Song Lei was looking at him and smiled.

"Hello, young man. I'm Gao Jing. We didn't have a pleasant time back in room 1401 but I hope that we will get along from now on," the monk whispered to Song Lei. Song Lei smiled back at him.

"Nice to meet you. I have a little questi-"

"Leave this stuff for after the meeting."

Song Lei nodded and stopped talking. Old Wolf slowly knocked at the table and gathered everyone's attention.

"Now that we've decided the 12th floor's temporary guardian, It's time we talk about Song Lei," said Old Wolf. There were some soft whisperings in the room. "After thinking a lot, I've decided that Song Lei will become the guardian of the 14th floor."

"Old Wolf! Are we really going to let him off the hook? I think he should be punished heavily for what he has done to our former teammates," Lu Peng said calmly. Old Wolf sighed.

"I've thought about that too. I think that this subject should be decided by voting," Old Wolf answered. "Those who want Song Lei to be punished, please raise your hands."

8 out of 11 people raised their hands.

"Those who are against Song Lei being punished, please raise your hands."

The last 3 people raised their hands including Old Wolf and the black-haired foreigner. Song Lei started sweating coldly after it was decided that he would be punished.

"It has been decided by a majority of votes that Song Lei will be punished," Old Wolf announced unwillingly. "Song Lei will take over all of the expeditions for the next two weeks."

After the punishments were decided, Lu Peng started giggling silently.

"Isn't that a bit too harsh?" A blue-haired woman asked. She was one of the 3 people who voted against punishment.

'What's up with these people's hair colors?' Song Lei thought to himself.

"Those are the rules set by the faction leader. When someone commits murder against those of the alliance, they'll be punished severely if it's decided that they'll be punished at all," Old Wolf explained calmly. "The reason why we're not executing him is that he has joined us."

"But-" Blue-haired woman's sentence was cut off.

"Xu Chang... That's enough," Old Wolf said.

Song Lei didn't really understand what was going on. What was an expedition? Why was it considered a severe punishment to have to go to one and why was this blue-haired woman so concerned about him?

The meeting went on for 15 more minutes and topics like ration distribution were talked about. After the meeting was over, people quickly left the meeting room, leaving Song Lei and Old Wolf alone.

"That pitying look is really unsettling," Song Lei complained with a smile on his face.

Old Wolf didn't respond.

'I hope you survive Song Lei,' he thought. 'You have to....'