8 Qi Condensation Stage

<You've unlocked the Blood Element>

The voice that kept urging me to awaken from my slumber suddenly spoke up after the loud ping in my head. Since the voice was so near that I imagined it speaking in my head, I hesitantly opened my eyes in confusion.

"Who are you?" I asked, trying to sense if there was some sort of entity amidst the bright white light that surrounded me.

To my perplexity, however, there were no signs of it anywhere.

"What's this about the Blood Element? I've never heard about it before. Is this a new element? Based on the amount of Qi I gathered, I should've unlocked all the elements right? Why did I just unlock this Blood element?" I asked. "And who are you? How come you could talk to me in this space? Are you God? Am I really already dead?" I bombarded the voice with questions that floated in my head. There was too much I wanted to answer but I stopped asking since there was no response.

That's right, the questions were answered by a long span of silence. I strained my ears, waiting for an answer, but there were none. The voice was so random, speaking only when it was convenient for her. It's like when you're in a call with someone and they wouldn't even speak after answering your call.

How irksome!

And why am I addressing the voice as her? That's because she has the voice of a woman in her twenties. I have no idea if I'm hallucinating or not but I heard the female's voice loud and clear. There was no way that's not real!

Just as I started asking myself some pressing questions about the mysterious being that spoke to me, I felt something warm in my hands. It was the weirdest feeling of all since I haven't felt it in a long time.

That's right, warmth.

It's been so long since I felt warmth in my hands and I was surprised at how new the feeling was. Since that feeling was withheld from me all this time, I almost retracted my hands from the somewhat new feeling but then, I overcame that urge.

Maybe the warmth I'm feeling right now is a clue regarding the identity of the mysterious voice.

While I was thinking about that, I felt another odd feeling in my body. I felt my teeth sinking into someone else as something warm accidentally flowed in my throat. That unknown liquid was brimming with Qi so I decided to let it flow down my stomach even though I was oblivious as to what it was.

"What's this?" I asked myself. The longer I drank the liquid of life, the more it tasted delicious.

After a few seconds, the warmth on my hands began to turn cold but that questionable liquid flowing through my throat filled me with calmness. It was warm and slightly viscous to taste yet it was so delectable that I didn't want to stop drinking it.

Still, I didn't open my eyes since I know that that would spoil the taste of whatever I'm drinking. I still don't want to see the truth even though I could feel that I'm drinking something.

"AAAAAGGHHHHH~!" I heard a scream.

What? A scream?! Why is someone screaming in the space where I'm in? Is this supposed to happen when someone's dead? That's odd.

I don't know when it happened but somehow, the strong white light that encompassed me had mysteriously vanished. All this time, my eyes were glued shut but the urge to open them was becoming more and more tempting since the white light isn't there to stop me anymore.

Then I felt a soft gush of wind whistle past my face, ruffling my hair and making my nose tingle.

Wait, wind?! Why am I feeling the wind this time? Is this some sort of phase that the mind goes through when someone died? What's happening here?

Seeing that the bright light was gone, I finally mustered the courage to open my eyes.

The enormous amount of information that flooded my brain almost made me faint the moment I saw my surroundings.

The first thing I saw was a girl, bawling her eyes out as she looked at me while clinging to her mom. She looked like she was scared out of her wits as she buried her face on her mom's skirt. Meanwhile, her mom was cupping her hands over her mouth as if restraining herself from screaming. Her legs were shaking like a rattling alarm clock and her eyes were darting here and there as if she was looking for an escape route.

Both of them were wearing dirty clothes that resembled rags sewed together. By the looks of it, I assumed that they were beggars.

Honestly, why are there beggars in my mind? I'm already dead, aren't I?

Nevertheless, I decided not to turn a blind eye to them because I'd rather do good things in my fleeting moments than become a person who ignores everything just because he's dead.

"Ummph-mmm-mmnph?" I tried asking them if they were okay but my mouth seemed to be stuck on something.

And that's when I realized that I was biting on something. By now, the mysterious liquid was beginning to taste even stronger and somehow, it started to taste gamey.

I looked down to see what I was drinking. For a moment, I thought I was drinking tomato juice or something of the organic sort, like carrot juice.

My heart skipped a beat and I dropped whatever I was drinking.

It was a man, a man in his twenties. He was dead, cold. And I've been sucking at his, no, I've been biting at his neck and I pretty much drained all his blood. Moreover, I seemed to have drained him with all his Qi.

You meant to tell me, all this time I've been biting people and that's how I gathered my Qi?! No, that's just my imagination. I'm sure I wasn't like that. There's no way!

"Wai... no.. no... this is not happening." I shook my head as I thought about all the other people I've sucked the blood out of.

I screamed until I felt my voice cracked. It was too much!

One moment I was dead and the next moment, I was biting someone's husband. I meant sucking blood, not biting. That statement is a bit misunderstandable.

I just assumed that the man I bit was the little girl's dad and the woman's husband. I cautiously approached them, hoping that I could apologize.

"No! D-don't come near us, please!" The lady whimpered as her daughter buried her face even more on her skirt. "Please, I'm begging you!"

They probably misunderstood my shout as a war cry and the fact that I bit his husband was unforgivable, I could totally understand her reaction.

"No, you misunderstand I... " I mumbled. "I died and... I'm sorry I su-, bit your husband."

Suddenly, the mother's face softened a little bit. "Wait, you can still talk? Are you infected? Wait... you don't look infected... "

"Wait, what are you talking about?" This time, I was the one confused.