Simple paper could work, but very likely a wooden plaque would work better - Wu Xiaoming held one in his left hand, with the symbols for a fire talisman freshly drawn on. With the soapberry wood staff in his right hand at the ready, he raised the wooden talisman and slammed it down on the floor.
Fire exploded from the wooden plaque, igniting the entire doll as well as the curtain and even a small patch of the ground. The tree creature burst out from the doll screaming and wailing. Yet it did not even get a chance to attack, before its head was greeted by the forceful swing of the soapberry wood staff.
"Crack!" The tree creature's head burst into several chunks of broken wood, still burning and smoking. The doll itself exploded, ashes and cinders shot everywhere.
The sight around him switched back to the house's actual look before Wu Xiaoming could realize. The furnace did not even explode. He checked his Vision Sliver count: 121. It seemed that finishing up this "boss" early had not really boosted his earnings.
It did not matter, he proceeded forward and headed towards the street where he would enter the limbo of zombies. Before long, he found the same road and rushed towards the same house where he found the zombie mask that would bring him into the limbo.
After entering, he simply grabbed the squirt gun and ran past the zombies and headed directly towards the three women - the "boss" or "bosses" of this "dungeon".
"Would you like to donate 90 percent of your brain for the - AAAAH!" The blonde woman did not even get to finish her pitch before water from the squirt gun splashed right at her face. She screamed, as her body began mutating and growing in size. But she was not able to grow to the full size monster like last time, for the soapberry wood staff had already shattered her head and caved her shoulder in before she could do so. Her entire grotesque body, along with the two blonde faceless women on her sides, exploded into countless pieces of colorful fabric and pink brain tofu.
"Now. " Wu Xiaoming walked into the ice cream shop: "What can I try?"
He picked chocolate and vanilla, but left out the coffee. But still, the shop disappeared before he could even taste anything from it.
It might just be the point - the boy did not get to have anything from the shop, and therefore he, as a "visitor" to a construct of his memory, would not be able to taste it either.
He began walking towards the Sproutlinger Hotel, following the same path last time. Though right now, he had more doubt in his mind. Very simply, after a tiresome battle against the pale humanoid creature, he was arguably in a less refreshed state than last time. Looking at his spirit and Qi bar - he had maybe half a bar of spirit, and three quarters of a bar of Qi.
But it was not like he did not have any advantage than last time - he had two more very powerful offensive skills, and one new weapon - a weapon that he began to think might just be more powerful than the baton when considering single target damage, and it did not come with any requirement on his anger management capabilities.
Current currencies: 24225 Spirit Fragments, 122 Vision Slivers. And as for experience, he was now a little bit over 30 percent in his current experience bar. Just like any other regular RPGs, as he gained more level, his experience bar would fill up slower.
"Damn. Should've - maybe could've tried the other floors." Wu Xiaoming thought back on the other floors in the Woodside Hotel - some of the floors above the pale humanoid creature's were probably filled with some terrifying creatures, even if he was not powerful enough to challenge them, he could still tried exploring the lower levels, maybe he could find something more "in his league".
He reached the front door of the Sproutlinger Hotel in no time, as nothing had come to bother him on his way. He hesitated at the front steps - he still could not decide whether he was ready.
Hesitation leads to defeat. This famous phrase flashed through his mind. He took a deep breath, looked up at the front gate and the empty lounge, then turned around and began exploring the surrounding area instead. He was hesitant, so no need to go fight in a battle where he would almost surely lose.
It seemed like a good idea to take a look at the immediately adjacent area last time, including the parking lot. If there were some enemies spread sparsely around that he could farm, that would be wonderful.
He walked into the area of the parking lot. Just as he expected, it was completely empty, with cracks of different sizes sprinkled around everywhere.
He located the position where the poor soul fell in the physical realm and walked straight over with slow, light steps. He tried activating his skill of seeing unclean energy and pushing it to higher capacity, but the hotel building was already shrouded in dark smog, it simply wasn't easy to make out whether that spot was giving off anything on its own.
White lines on the ground revealed themselves to Wu Xiaoming as he approached. He narrowed his eyes and slowed his steps some more.
It was the chalk outline of the poor guy who fell.
Now the chalk outline made more sense - the LAPD had a working relationship with the MAGLAA, and in turn for certain unnatural cases, the officers/detectives working them would get help from mediums or other "gifted" people with the right expertise. Though, he still wondered what the purpose of it was.
Dark smoke arose from within the outline, thick and rumbling. Yet when a few streams were about to flow outside, an invisible wall stopped and burned them off. Respectively, the chalk marks grayed and tarnished from the corrosion of the smoke.
A pillar of smoke formed, with glowing eyes manifesting from its main body. The chalk outline was only able to withstand so much corruption, and the smoke itself broke free before long.
Wu Xiaoming took a step back and readied a wooden plaque with fire talisman writings on it, while his left palm was glowing in golden light.
"I can't see!" "I can't see!" Human-shaped shadows made of dark smoke broke off from the dark pillar, all of whom had glowing eyes - dark orange glowing eyes, which, when they got close, turned out to be gruesome burning holes in their faces.
Wu Xiaoming immediately began backing off - these shadows obviously being summoned or generated by some kind of power from the hotel itself was one thing, their bodies being made of smoke and it could render his regular combat methods useless was another.
"I can't see! I can't see!" One of the shadows screamed while running straight at Wu Xiaoming, wailing its two charred arms. Buried in its throat area were two slightly glowing objects - like gems, bulbs, or burning balls of charcoal.
Wu Xiaoming backed off further and hopped to the side, hiding behind a wall from the building next door. But the shadow followed - without eyes, it could still sense where he was and was willing to charge his way. What made it even worse was that more shadows were following the same trail towards him.
"Oh my fucking - " Wu Xiaoming cursed in his head before shooting a beam of golden light from his left hand, striking the closest charging shadow at the chest.
Unlike the barely recognizable effect on corporeal creatures, the beam cut through the shadow's chest like a hot metal rod through foam. A ring of cinder and fire spread from the hole onto the rest of the shadow's body in mere seconds, consuming the majority of its body in the process.
The two glowing objects dropped onto the ground and shattered into dozens of pieces, like two ping pong balls made of fragile glass. This only made them more intriguing, so Wu Xiaoming just lit up his left hand again, and lessened the power of his upcoming attack.
Another beam, the next shadow charging at him melted and turned into ash and smoke. This time Wu Xiaoming jumped forward and extended his left hand at the glowing objects, with his entire arm protected by a layer of energy shield.
The objects were warm and slippery, one of them rolled out of Wu Xiaoming's palm as he tried to grab them. He retreated further and towards the familiar coffee shop so that the other shadows would not catch up to him too soon.
He took a close look at the one remaining object in his hand, and almost threw it away on the spot. It was an eyeball, covered in some kind of light brown slimy liquid.
"What the - " Wu Xiaoming dumped the eyeball into his right hand, then rubbed his palm on the wall to his side. The slime actually began to change color and even glow slightly after being smeared on the wall. He fixed his eyes on it - the colors were different, very different. It was almost as if he had never seen these kinds of colors in this realm before.
No, he definitely had not seen these colors in this realm before: they were bright pink, bright yellow, bright light blue and bright green. Just the simple brightness was something he had not seen here.