Current currencies: 19502 Spirit Fragments, 109 Vision Slivers.
Wu Xiaoming was able to earn back a lot of the lost Spirit Fragments, mostly because of what he did to help Kiyohide - after visiting him in the hospital, the following night he found he was 3000 Spirit Fragments and 10 Vision Slivers richer. Still no experience gained for him, presumably because he did not actually defeat any spirits or ghosts or other creatures.
He spent the last night "casually farming" in the area around his father's place. The long-tongued women and the imps provided almost negligible experience and currencies, but they did present to him a chance to practice his combat skills and boost his own confidence - at times he really needed it. It was a good decision - for the first time ever since he came to this world, he had a firm enough grasp of his way of combat: how to strike, how to dodge, when to use what skills and spells. His mind no longer went into a state of slight panic before every fight.
Right now though, it was probably time to start exploring and actually "farm" more experience again. If Leslie McKinsey decided to venture somewhere dangerous to shoot the show, he would need to be better at handling whatever these haunted places would throw at him. That meant more strength, more usable skills, more resources and generally more power.
Before heading into the jump point, Wu Xiaoming double checked his own status again. The two morningstars were in their best condition right now , thanks to his discovery last night the work bench he brought back from the office building DID indeed allow him to spend Spirit Fragments to repair them: just by placing the weapon on the bench, he would instantly have a rough idea how much it would cost. To fix the simple morningstars, it cost around 200 Spirit Fragments each. But the Rusted Grim Enchanted Sword, on the other hand, apparently needed at least five thousand Spirit Fragments, more than twenty Vision Slivers and some other materials he did not even possess yet. So a fragile cannon it still was.
He had no injuries on him, no "debuffs" of any kind as he could tell, and he had plenty of Qi and Spirit resources - not in numbers, but just a general feeling, like he was refreshed from a good night's sleep.
He chose to come to the office building again - because last time, he found the work bench, and maybe he could find some more. Next time maybe he could try and look for a factory, or a weapon shop, he could very likely find something useful there. Though, it was still unclear how these usable items manifest in the ethereal realm.
"Brains!" "Overtime! Overtime!" Two loud yelps came at Wu Xiaoming from both sides as he descended the stairs from the roof. A thin man with melted skin and in a fully stained office uniform, and a fat man with almost fully exposed facial bones and muscles charged at him.
Wu Xiaoming simply jumped forward to evade both attacks, turning his body in the process. A thin beam of golden light shot from his left index finger, piercing the thin zombie's head and splattering its brain matter all over the wall behind. The fat zombie collided with the thin zombie's headless body and tumbled on the ground.
"Slash." Focusing on the fat zombie's neck, Wu Xiaoming uttered.
An energy slash instantly severed the fat zombie's crooked head from its muscle and fat covered neck. The cut was clean and smooth, not even a single trace of skin still connecting the head and the neck.
"Hmm." Wu Xiaoming was definitely not expecting this - from his own experience, the slash attack was generally strong enough to cut a large gash on this kind of target, but not so clean, and not so straight through.
He walked closer to the fat body, on the ground there was a clear, thin long mark - left by his slash attack.
Did helping Kiyohide also give him a boost with his Law of the Words? Maybe, very likely, actually. He made a mental note, that he should help the other unfortunate spirits more proactively in the future.
He went through all the rooms on all the above-ground floors without much hassle. There were a total of around fifteen zombies of different shapes and sizes, all of which were just as weak as the first two.
He strolled around the ground floor, both inside the building and outside. There seemed to be no entrance leading to anywhere below the building. It seemed strange, because the office buildings he was used to all had underground structures, either parking lots, server rooms or just for other purposes.
Across the giant parking lot stood another office building of similar size and design. Wu Xiaoming hesitated for a brief moment before he began to head for it. It was not that hard a choice - a similar building indicated similar monsters, and maybe similar rewards.
No entrance to lower levels, just like the previous one. And when he came in through the front door, something thin, adhesive and thread-like stuck to his face - like spider's web. After realizing this, he immediately lowered his body as he removed the web from his face - it was quite sticky, much more so than regular spider webs.
These webbings were quite hard to spot - even when he focused and looked around carefully, he could barely make out where the webbings were coming from. They seemed to be lacking in all visible properties, not even strange energy signatures like the other unclean beings in this realm.
Something was definitely wrong here. Definitely a different kind of environment from the previous office building. He proceeded to the stairs, coming into contact with another piece of webbing along the way.
He slowed down to check around as he was about to enter the second floor. No zombies, maybe some webbings in the air. He scooched out of the staircase step by step, then into the closest room through a door to his left.
What awaited him was not zombies, but a bunch of light gray cocoons of irregular shapes. More webbings were in the air, enough for Wu Xiaoming to see them clearly as they were blocking the light from outside of the window.
With much more careful moves, he approached the one cocoon closest to him. It was also one that was slightly wider than the average but shorter. As he got closer, he had to push away more webbings in his way, and eventually when he got close enough, an ugly, barely human-shaped skeleton revealed its gray, cracked and slightly dusty crown. These were not cocoons - but wrapped prey, possibly already dead ones.
"Holy." For a brief moment Wu Xiaoming wanted to leave, but the sudden fear and disgust did not sway him. He had seen quite a lot by now, and this level of disturbing was just not enough.
The webbing around the body was tighter and sturdier than the other webs in the air, it was almost like nylon. With a few utterances of "slash", he was able to open up the wraps and access the remains inside.
They were not the remains of a human, but a small humanoid creature - roughly the height of a child, but with wider shoulders, sharp nails and fangs. There were several crooked and coarse horns protruding from the forehead, and one horn was even coming out of the left nose hole.
He unwrapped a few more of these unfortunate prey. Most of them looked more human, and two of them were clearly not: one had what looked like a tail and a longer snout, the other was like a cat. All of them were only bones now.
It was at least good, and refreshing to know that the creatures inhabiting this place were not on the same side by default. Though, it was still a concerning thought how big and complex the food chain was.
Just as Wu Xiaoming was done with the investigation and ready to leave the room, a dark figure flashed by the door of the room.
"Motherfu - " Wu Xiaoming was too experienced to think this was just his paranoia, he took one wrapped prey and pulled it off the ground - it was lighter than he thought. Then he approached the door from the side with lightened steps. After a deep breath, he held his morningstar in his right hand, and threw the wrapped prey out the door using his left hand.
Two sharp insect-like legs covered in black exoskeleton shot at the wrapped prey, impaling it in an instant, almost completely ripping it apart.
"Attack!" Wu Xiaoming lunged out from the side of the door the very next second, shooting a beam of golden light at the direction from which the two legs came, as well as unleashing an energy attack in the same direction.
The creature waiting to ambush him let out a high pitched screech and threw another swift jab at Wu Xiaoming. The long, sharp and hardened spider leg clashed with his morningstar mid-trajectory, knocking the morningstar out of his hand and sinking its tip into Wu Xiaoming's right shoulder.
The sharp pain almost made Wu Xiaoming convulse, he pulled himself out of the way as fast as he could. But he had to go back into the room, for the creature outside was just standing in the way between the door and the staircase.