Chapter 38: Death?

"Foundation upgrade?"

Richie had been scrolling through the system store for a while now, he had seen many weird things that caught his eye, but the thing that interested him the most was the foundation upgrade, it costed 150 alchemy tokens and Richie was extremely curious on what it could do.

Richie then opened the description tab of the item, it basically said that it was a major improvement to ones foundation, being able to improve the foundation by 100%. it also said that it was repurchase able for a higher price.

What did this mean, well it meant that effectively, Richie's overall prowess would be improved by 100%, he would become twice as strong!

It would also allow him to go further in his cultivation and receive less bottlenecks, not that he had any anyway.

Richie had 190 alchemy tokens, therefore he decided to purchase the foundation upgrade.

Richie's body began to slightly elevate, he then involuntarily closed his eyes, his entire body began glowing a black and slightly yellow light, then Richie collapsed to the floor.

A horrible pain assaulted Richie, it felt like thousands of needles were being poked into his body whilst he was being burnt Alive, it was a horrible feeling.

Richie's body began twitching on the floor as he screamed in pain, Richie could feel his entire body become more sturdy as his meridians began to shift.

His skin began to peel of and his bones started degrading. Before he knew it, only his soul remained, it was the size of a peanut, it was average.

Richie's soul had not gone under any tempering before so when his soul was exposed to the air, even more pain overwhelmed Richie.

Richie knew that if he lost consciousness now, his soul would extinguish.

the pain went on for hours and Richie was at his wits end, he couldn't bare the pain anymore.

Richie's limited vision began to fade as the world around him turned to black.

Darkness, it was scary yet also comforting, Richie felt detached from his previous mortal body, his soul was free, in this dark abyss.

It was comforting to know that he would be able to live forever here, yet also scary, he knew where he was, he was dead, gone.

Richie felt an extremely comfortable feeling was over him as he began exploring this world of darkness.

Richie was so comfortable here, he never wanted to leave, everything. was. so. soothing.

*sigh* with this sigh, Richie let everything go, his mind was drawn to a white light in front of him, he floated aimlessly towards it.

He was like a moth to a light, he simply couldn't resist it. He reached out to touch it.

But he couldn't. The light which was soothing to the eye became blood red as a hand gripped his soul, he was being pulled away, but he didn't resist, upon entering this place he forgot about all of his worries. He didn't care anymore.

He was about to fully enter the light, but then...

" Get the hell back here, I'm not letting you die yet, not now that I know who you really are"

A voice came from behind him, it sounded vaguely familiar, it pulled Richie away, he screamed.

He wanted to go into the light, not away.

"nooo! take me back"

"like hell I'm letting you go!" It was the system.

"think of your family, how are you going to save them, how are you going to help them, you need to help them, to help me, to help this universe!"

"my... family?" Richie had forgotten about his family, yeah, his family, his mother, his father, he was alive. His soul had been once again ignited, with the will to survive.

Be turned around to look at the system, what he saw, was a blurry face, it stared at him, filled with hope, and expectation, the expectation that Richie would reach out and grab his hand.

He grabbed the system's hand, but the now demonic hand from before was stronger, he was losing grip, about to be pulled into the blood red light that he presumed to be hell.

He couldn't hold on any longer, his hand slipped from the system's, he was tugged into the light, never to be seen again.

But was he really gone?, no, what the demonic claw took was not Richie, but his unwillingness and resentment to all, it had taken the fake Richie.

And what it left, was the real Richie.

Out of the red light came a fragmented piece of Richie's soul, there was somthing carrying it, it was gold, it was silver, it was bronze, red, blue,green,orange,purple,pink,yellow, all of the colours, every colour to ever exist, all condensed into that ball of light, that ball, was Richie's spirituality, his will, his life, and most importantly, his trait, unique to him alone.

This trait was the will of the divine alchemy, the hope of the old universe.