Autophagy

'Well then, it's best to choose something that is high value,' Song Lei thought. He read through the list once more before turning his head towards Wei Ya.

"Is this the whole list?"

"Yeah. These are everything that you can get with your current branch level."

"I see... Let's do it like this then..." Song Lei said as he gestured to Wei Ya to give him a pen. Wei Ya rummaged through the briefcase and managed to find one pretty quickly. She then held it out towards Song Lei.

After taking the pen from her hands, Song Lei quickly chose what he wanted. He then handed the paper back to Wei Ya.

Looking over the paper, Wei Ya raised one of her brows.

"Are you sure about this?" She asked. Wondering what she was talking about, Wei Zhong slightly leaned towards her to read what Song Lei had picked.

"Yeah," Song Lei answered with a faint smile on his face. As Wei Zhong saw what Song Lei had picked, an angry expression appeared on his face.

"Selfish bastard..." He muttered silently. Suddenly, the whole room felt heavy as if they were inside a pool of mercury. Although it didn't affect Song Lei much, the newbies were barely keeping their consciousness.

"Calm down brother. It's not good to judge his decisions," Wei Ya did her best to calm down her brother.

"He is clearly thinking of using them on his own," Wei Zhong growled. Although they were talking silently, every other person in the room could hear what they were saying. Gradually, as Wei Zhong calmed his pressure down. The newbies started becoming curious.

"Can we see what the branch leader picked?" One of them asked. Hearing his question, Song Lei turned and looked at him properly for the first time. He had dark brown hair and messy facial hair with a rather narrow chin. This person's name was Leon Parker. According to what was written on the CV, he had rather weak telekinesis abilities that could be improved with constant practice.

"This isn't confidential so it's okay I guess," Wei Zhong said as he snatched the paper from Wei Ya's hands and handed it to Leon.

Leon was visibly confused after seeing Song Lei's choice.

"Umm... What were these 'blood beads' exactly?" He asked. Before the Wei siblings could answer his question, one of the other newbies hit his hand on the table.

"Fuck! You really chose blood beads!? How do you expect us to survive in this shitty place with no food to eat!? You are one bastard of a branch leader!" He shouted at Song Lei in anger. This person was Lukas Stampf. He had curly brown hair with a chiseled chin that didn't really suit his lanky body. Wrinkles had appeared on his face out of anger, making him look older than he was.

Lukas' ability was an affinity of weaponless close-quarters martial arts. He could apparently quickly learn any kind of martial arts, ranging from boxing to taekwondo. He could also improvise upon them.

As Song Lei thought about the prospects of Lukas, he ignored the fact that he was being shouted at. He could somewhat understand what they were feeling.

"Well now," Song Lei said. "There's no need to be angry. I have enough food for everyone here for the rest of the month. So don't worry. If we have food problems, we can just change our choice of supplies. Isn't that right?" He asked as he looked towards Wei Ya. 'After all, being able to choose whatever I want from the system shop is much better,' he thought.

"Mm. That's no problem. We, Wei siblings will be handling the shipments for this branch so you can ask us when we come for the next one," Wei Ya said. With Song Lei's words, the anger filling the atmosphere of the room started calming down.

"I mean... It's fine if it's like that..." Lukas muttered awkwardly as he sat back on his chair. He felt slightly ashamed at the fact that he had gotten so excited before listening to Song Lei's explanation.

"You get excited too quickly, Lukas," a gentle voice resounded throughout the room. It was a soft, river-like, and feminine voice that could captivate any person that heard it. Song Lei turned his head to look at the person that had just talked.

This woman was called Nakajima Rei. She had a wide face with big, brown eyes that were slanted downwards. Her hair was a dark shade of blue, reaching as low as her waist, and covering her forehead with relatively long bangs. Her ability was interesting. Not even she knew exactly what it did. However, it seemed like she could better use her voice compared to the others. Song Lei could somewhat imagine her utilizing her voice like a siren in the distant future.

"Shut up," Lukas said as he folded his arms in front of his chest and looked away from the table, awkwardly looking at the walls of the room.

The other newbie that had come to inform Song Lei of their arrival, Jin Ru, sighed deeply. This caused all the eyes in the room to turn towards him.

He had dark gray hair that was styled in a bowl-cut. He was wearing rectangular glasses that enhanced his already-nerdy looks.

His ability was a rather awkward one. He had the ability to not sleep. He could basically never do so and his mind would never get tired from lack of sleep. Unfortunately, he still got tired from physical activities as much as others. This particular ability out of three especially bugged Song Lei. He could imagine how the others could train in their abilities, however, he couldn't think of anything for Jin Ru.

"W- What why are you looking at me?" Jin Ru asked, indicating that he had nothing of importance to say.

"A- Anyways," Wei Ya said as she felt that it was time to continue. "You've read through their CVs, right?" She asked. Seeing Song Lei nod, she took the papers back from his hands. "You can now request one of them to be replaced with another newbie. Or you can simply disband this branch. This is the last time I'm asking you, as from now on, these people will come under your responsibility."

"Mm," Song Lei nodded. "They're great," he praised calmly. He wanted people with interesting abilities that he could help develop. They would become his potential allies in the future that could help him achieve his goals. And although he was skeptical about some of their abilities, he felt that these people were good enough.

"That's great then," Wei Ya said as if a great burden was lifted from her shoulders. She slightly tugged on her brother's sleeve. This caused Wei Zhong to snap out of his trance-like state where he was trying to calm himself down. Seeing the gesture being made by her sister, he took out another paper from the briefcase and held it towards Song Lei.

"When you sign here, you'll have officially become the branch leader for the Hammer Branch...."