He Yuan and 888 arrived at the System space at the same time.
Coincidentally, they landed at the same spot, mere inches away from each other so 888's line of sight landed on He Yuan's chin. He was taken aback for a bit before blinking and tilting his head upwards.
"Hey." He Yuan said with a wide grin and a small wave as he looked down at his system. Memories from the realm were speedily swirling through his head but he constantly supressed them.
888 glared and took two steps back. He adjusted his glasses before taking another look at his host. Yang Xue was two inches shorter than he was so being faced with the disparity in height between Yang Xue and He Yuan all of a sudden had been mildly surprising.
It was also noteworthy that He Yuan's soul was now much more denser. He was still a little translucent but his soul body was leaning more towards being opaque than transparent. This ended up giving him a faint glow. Good.
He Yuan still had a big smile on his face and watching the way his host's beady eyes lit up, the way his lips slipt apart, the way the rest of his features seemed to light up, and the way.... 888 blinked... He Yuan had a dimple???
How had he never noticed that? It was just one. On He Yuan's right cheek. He subsconsciouly cocked his head to the left, clueless to the fact that his own lips had arched in a small smile at some point. He was strangely happy at having to look at his host's own face again.
And then he caught onto what he was doing and immediately froze. What was he doing paying unnecessarily close attention to He Yuan?
At that moment, the system suddenly turned around to leave and He Yuan's shoulders relaxed. He needed to meditate. The speed at which the memories of the last realm was flashing through his mind had increased and he was beginning to get a headache.
He knew helping him the last time had taken quite a toll on the system and he didn't want 888 jeopardizing his soul body in order to help him. That was why he'd been trying so hard to maintain his expression since he stepped into the System space.
888 was about to teleport out of the room when his mind trailed to what had happened the last time He Yuan tried to meditate.
The more task realms his host powered through, the more fragile his mental state would become. Even if his mental fortitude increased after each realm, the increase was not enough to fortify He Yuan's mind against the piled up experiences.
At present, constant meditation had supressed the compiled memories from five different realms but without a mental fortitude manual to train with, it would no longer be enough.
This meant that if He Yuan's mental fortitude was not increased in time, his descent into madness would start from him being unable to differentiate his experiences in one realm from his experiences in other realms and then being unable to differentiate between what he'd experienced in the body of a leaser and his very own experiences -especially memories of his origin realm.
Soon, his own reality would become mixed up with the reality of the leasers and he would begin to attempt to live out the sequence of the leasers' lives in the Soul Realm which would be difficult to enact as the people he would think he knows - that is, the inhabitants of the various tasks realms- do not exist in the Soul realm.
Lastly.... Madness.
As much as the Soul realm looked peaceful, the descent of Taskers into madness was not as rare as one would have liked to believe. On the contrary, it was very common and that was why very, very, verrry, few Taskers actually made it to the Ultra level and transferred over to the Realm of Realms.
888 turned to He Yuan once more and that was when he noticed the slight struggle in his host's eyes. His heart trembled slightly. It was clear as day that the memories were begining to take it's toll on him and possibly, the memories of all the other realms were also beginning to surge up! He grit in teeth in anger. "If you're having issues why not say it? What are you acting so tough for?!"
He Yuan winced at the venom in the system's voice. He quickly waved his hands, like it would somehow defuse tthe tension in the air. "It's not that bad."
888 eyed his host's clueless expression and remained silent as he contemplated whether or not to inform He Yuan of how serious this was. As much as he didn't want his host to begin to feel pressured about his barely sustainable mental fortitude and possible descent into madness, he also did not like the fact that He Yuan might be caught offguard in the event of an unforeseen circumstance.
He sighed. "Hurry up and meditate." He decided to tell his host after.
He Yuan did not dare argue. He walked straight to the other room and positioned himself cross legged in the middle of the white fluffy rug and throw pillows.
Next, he closed his eyes and began meditating. Two seconds in, he inhaled the familiar fragrance of soul incense and felt much more relaxed.
After lightning up the soul incense, 888 walked over to the edge of the bed and sat down with his arms crossed. He planned to watch and gauge He Yuan's limit before offering help. This was because the energy he had used to ease He Yuan's pain the last time was not his system energy but his very own soul energy.
Which meant that the more he used, the weaker his own soul became and the less dense his soul body became. No soul could continue to exist without soul energy.
He Yuan steadied his breathing and began suppressing the memories he'd gotten from Yang Xue. Once the last of it was almost supressed, the memories began flashing through his mind at extremely high speed. "Ugh!"
888 dashed to his feet immediately and directly flashed to his hosts's side with distressed eyes.
The memories He Yuan had gotten from Mo Sheng used that window to slip through the suppression holding them down and now two different sets of memories were interlapping and flashing through his mind. It hurt a lot but then it suddenly stopped hurting and a cool feeling washed over his soul.
888 hands trembled when he finished trickling some of his energy into his host. He felt a little tired. He slowly walked over to the bed and laid down with his feet touching the ground.
When He Yuan finally opened his eyes, he was feeling infinitely better and the headache was gone. He looked around until his eyes moved to the bed and landed on his system. "888?"
888 sat up then. "Hm?"
He Yuan stood up with a frown. The system looked drained. Just like the time he had... His eyes widened and he walked over to the silver haired man. "That cool feeling just now. It was you?"
"En." 888 hummed as he massaged his forehead and directly explained the mental fortitude problem to He Yuan.
At the end, He Yuan was quite shocked. Not because he was unaware of the dangers low mental fortitude could cause but because he'd been of the belief that although the experience of each task realm affected the Taskers, it was not to a damaging point.
He felt uneasy in his heart. If the rate of Taskers who made it to Ultra level was so low, what was the benefit of becoming a Tasker in the end? It was Impossible for a novice to be able to afford a mental fortitude manual and that was the same for intermediate Taskers.
By Advanced level, a Tasker would have managed to gather enough merit points to afford a manual but what if they go crazy before then? Or worse, what if they were unable to cultivate their mental fortitude to a suitable degree in record time and ran mad before their mental fortitude became strong enough?
He Yuan was a little panicked at that thought but he quickly calmed himself and then another thought crossed his mind and he eyed his system. If Taskers were so susceptible to madness then like 888, a lot of systems could've used their energy to help. Unless... He sat next to 888 and whispered softly, "What did it cost you to help me?"
888 remained silent. It was easy for He Yuan to mistake his system energy for his soul energy. This was because in the task realms, he was only able to use his system energy and whilst that energy did not take anything from him, using it arbitrarily could incur punishment from the Upper echelons.
In the Soul realm, on the other hand, all systems regained access to their soul energy whilst the system energy was sealed up but He Yuan was unaware of this so in his mind, the energy that 888 had used to help him was the same energy he used in the task realms.
The confusion now came from the fact that making use of his soul energy affected him deeply and He Yuan was able to detect that. Explaining this would only cause He Yuan to feeling guilty and even more pressured so 888 vaguely answered, "It doesn't cost much."
Seeing the uneasy look on 888's face, He Yuan chose to swallow his queries. For now. He drummed his fingers and changed the topic. "Merit points are gotten from goodwill done in a task realm right?"
888 nodde but then held up a finger. "I know what you're thinking but it doesn't work like that. You can't farm for Merit points by delibrately performing charity and such in the task realms. That wouldn't count."
He Yuan waved his hands in the air and groaned. It appeared the entire Merit point system was aimed to hold Taskers back. Like the Soul realm delibrately didn't want Taskers to succeed.
888 massaged his brows with a sigh. "We'll think of something."
He Yuan nodded and clicked on his stats panel then.
[Name: He Yuan]
[Age: 28]
[Level: Intermediate]
[Experience Points: 135,000 (+100,000]]
[Soul Energy: 690 (1,200)]
[Intelligence: 205 (+270)]
[Strength: 315 (+100)]
[Luck: 45 (+50)]
[Charisma: 115 (+245)]
[Mental Fortitude: 265 (+205)]
[Merit Points: 600 (+200)]
[Belief: 300 (+2200)]
[Acquired Skills: Entry Level Medical Practitioner, Amateur At The [Strongest Martial Arts].]
[Halos: Halo Of The Undead, Halo Of The Sword Ancestor.]
[You Have Received 50 Attribute Points.]
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