Ning couldn't tell what most of the children looked like, but he could see a couple of them snickering as the little girl asked the question.
"No, The leader found it on the beach, and I was made to bring it here." There was a sort of emotion in Hyesi's voice that Ning couldn't identify at first.
"See! I told you he couldn't kill such a fish. It was a leader who did that," the little girl said as she started leaving.
"Yeah, he is so weak," another kid said. Soon the kid all said something about Hyesi being weak and left.
'Weak? This guy? He picked up a fish over 100kgs in weight like it was nothing and they are calling him weak?' Ning was surprised at what the kids were saying.
Hyesi slumped his shoulders as he walked away from the center of the village. When he reached one of the stone homes, he took the fish inside and dropped it along the wall.
Ning saw that there were many other such fishes encased in some white sand-like object in the room. 'Is that salt?' he thought. He did remember reading something about salt being preservatives. Maybe that was what it was.
The boy called Hyesi started to pull on the spear to lodge it out of the fish.
'Oh no, system. Switch body with that spear right now,' he ordered.
<The system does not recommend you switch bodies with a weapon>
'Just do it,' he said as he was a little frustrated.
<Confirmed>
His consciousness shifted to the weapon that was then taken away by Hyesi as he went out of the room.
"Hey, Hyesi. Why did you return so fast? What happened to killing Fufuliki? Did the leader send you back because you were so weak?" an old man bluntly asked him. Even though the man was old, he seemed to be full of vigor and had a body as good if not better than all the men he had seen in the village.
"No. We found a fish on the beach and the leader made me bring it back. The rest of them went to kill the Fufuliki," said Hyesi. It seemed he was used to being insulted about his strength on a daily basis.
"Good. Good. We need to kill that demon as quickly as possible. Or we will start to starve to death." The old man then returned to his own thing and ignored Hyesi.
Ning listened to all of this with intense curiosity. 'Demon? Fufuliki? What are those?' he started wondering.
Hyesi then returned to a small home, made up of similar stones as all the other homes. Inside was a tall and buff, black skin woman currently doing something with a bunch of quartz-like stones.
"Hyesi? Why did you return so soon my son?" she asked and then immediately asked once more with a serious face, "You did not run from your duties, did you?"
Hyesi immediately started shaking his head, saying, "No, no, no, mother," and started explaining once more what had happened.
"I see. Alright then, go do your training. I will finish this and give this to you tomorrow," she said.
Hyesi put the spear along the side of the wall and went somewhere. Ning didn't know what to do now. He didn't want to move onto the humans, but it started to feel like he had no choice.
'Oh, what if…' he looked at the woman in front of him working with the stones. 'I'm a genius,' he thought.
'Hey system, use the parasite ability on that woman over there, and then switch body to the biggest stone in her hand,' said Ning.
<Confirmed>
The system didn't ask for any confirmations and immediately did what it was asked to do. Ning immediately felt his consciousness shift, then once more felt it shift again.
'Oh, god. I feel like throwing up,' he thought. Suddenly, he felt something poke at him. 'What the hell?' he looked towards the direction of what was poking him and was shocked to see that the mother was currently trying to poke a hole through the stone.
And before he could even do anything, she succeeded. 'Oh my god!! System, how much energy did I just lose?' he asked as he felt a giant wire pass through him.
<You lost 12,000 energy>
'That is so much. Why did you have to switch me to something that was being pierced?' he started making complaints.
<This stone was the largest one as per your orders>
'I— you didn't have to answer that,' Ning said as he felt hurt at so much energy being lost. 'Open status,'
[Status
Name: Ning Ruogong
Energy: 802,513
Skills: Simultaneous Thinking, Basic Map, Beginner's Klavis Language
]
'Oh, I still have more than I thought I would have.' He was surprised to see the nearly million energy he had. 'Hmm… should I buy something else?' he started to wonder.
'No, I should instead focus on leaving this place somehow, but I don't want to teleport.' He started thinking of various ways to leave, but only one idea felt like it was the best one.
'I need a human body,' he thought.
'Hey system, how much energy do you require to make a human body?' he asked.
<A Human body's cost depends on the specifications>
'The specifications? Like height and weight?' he asked.
<More than just height and weight. The color of your skin, the color of your hair, the amount of hair you have, the age of your body, the mental processing capabilities of your body, and many more.>
'Uhh… that's a bit too much for me to think about. How about for the exact body I had back on earth?' he asked.
<A mediocre human body will cost you 100,000,000 energy>
'Mediocre— how dare you? Also, why is it so expensive when it's mediocre? ' He questioned.
<Creating mass out of energy requires a lot of energy>
<Do you want to add it to the Auto Buy list?>
'Can I add all of those modifications you asked about before even after I get my new body?' he asked.
<Yes. Any changes are possible with the system>
Ning sighed in relief as he said, 'I see. That's a relief then. Add it to the Auto Buy list.'