65: Human (弍)

Ning could not clearly see what most of the children looked like, but he did see a few of them snicker when the little girl asked the question.

"No, the leader found it on the beach, so I brought it here." There was an emotion in Hyesi's voice that Ning could not immediately identify.

"See! I told you, he can't kill a fish like this. That was done by a chieftain," the little girl said, then prepared to leave.

"Yeah, he's too weak," another boy said. Soon, that boy said something about Hyesi being too weak, then left.

"Weak? This guy? He can easily carry a fish weighing over a hundred pounds, and you say he's weak?" Ning was a little surprised to hear this, and the children's answers were also somewhat strange.

Hyesi slumped his shoulders and walked out of the center of the village. When he arrived in front of a stone house, he took the fish inside and threw it down along the wall.

Ning saw that there were many other such fish in the room, wrapped in something resembling white sand. "Is that salt?" he thought. He did remember reading something about salt being a preservative. Perhaps it was.

The boy named Hyesi began to pull on the spear, trying to extract it from the fish's body.

"Oh no, System. Exchange bodies with that spear right now." he commanded.

<The System does not recommend you exchange bodies with a weapon> "Just do it," he said, somewhat frustrated.

<Confirmed>

His consciousness transferred to the weapon, then Hyesi walked out of the room, taking the weapon with him.

"Hey, Hyesi, why are you back so soon? How did it go with killing Fufuriki? Was it because you were too weak that the leader sent you back?" an old man asked bluntly. Although old, this man looked energetic and was physically as capable, if not more so, than all the men he had seen in the village.

"No. We found a fish on the beach, and the leader told me to bring it back. The rest of them went to kill Fufuriki," Hyesi said.

It seemed he was already used to being insulted about his strength every day.

"Good. Good. We must kill that demon as soon as possible. Otherwise, we will starve to death." The old man then returned to his own things, no longer paying attention to Hyesi.

Ning listened to this, his curiosity exploding. "Monsters? Runes? What are those?" He began to wonder.

Hyesi returned to a small house, which, like the others, was built of stone. Inside, there was a tall, dark-skinned woman doing something with a pile of quartz-like stones.

"Hyesi? Son, why are you back so soon?" she asked, then immediately asked again with a serious expression, "You didn't shirk your duties, did you?"

Hyesi immediately shook his head and said, "No, no, no, Mother," and began to explain what had happened again.

"I see. Well then, go train. I'll finish this tomorrow and give it to you," she said.

Hyesi placed the spear against the wall, then went somewhere else. Ning didn't know what to do now. He didn't want to attack humans, but he was starting to feel like he had no choice.

"Oh, if..." He looked at the woman in front of him who was processing stones. "I'm a genius," he thought.

"Hey System, use the Parasitic ability on that woman over there, then transfer to the largest stone in her hand," Ning said.

<Confirmed>

The System did not ask for any confirmation and directly followed the request. Ning immediately felt his consciousness shift, then felt it shift again.

"Oh, my goodness. I feel like throwing up." he thought. Suddenly, he felt something poke him. "What the hell is this?" He looked in other directions and was surprised to find that the mother was trying to poke a hole in the stone.

Before he could do anything, she succeeded. "Oh my! System, how much energy did I just lose?" he asked, feeling a huge wire pass through his body.

<You lost 12,000 energy>

"This is too much. Why did you switch me to something that got pierced?" he began to complain.

<This stone was the largest one you ordered>

"I—I—you don't have to answer that question," Ning said, feeling sad about the loss of so much energy. "Open Status."

Status:

Name: Ning Ruogong

Energy: 802,513

Skills: Synchronized Thinking, Basic Mapping, Novice Klavis Language

"Oh, I have more than I thought." He was surprised to see that he had nearly a million energy. "Hmm... Should I buy something else?" he began to wonder.

"No, I should focus on finding a way to leave here, but I don't want to teleport."

He began to think of various ways to leave, but only one idea felt like the best.

"I need a human body," he thought.

"Hey System, how much energy does it cost to create a human body?" he asked.

<The cost of a human body depends on the specifications>

"Specifications? Like height and weight?" he asked.

<Not just height and weight. Your skin color, hair color, amount of hair, physical age, the body's mental processing ability, and so on.>

"Uh... That's a bit hard for me to imagine. What about my previous body on Earth?" he asked.

<A mediocre human body will cost you 100 million energy>

"Mediocre—how dare you? Also, if it's mediocre, why is it so expensive?" he questioned.

<Generating mass from energy requires a large amount of energy>

<Would you like to add it to the auto-buy list?>

He asked, "After I have a new body, can I still add all the modifications you asked about before?"

<Yes. The System can make any changes>

Ning breathed a sigh of relief and said, "I see, that's a relief then. Add it to the auto-buy list."