The Powerful Hallway

Ding!

[Expansion Name] Distorted Hallway

[Room Category] Large

[Specialty] Distorted Space

[Expansion Cost] 5000 Life points

[Are you sure you want to add Large Distorted Hallway to your domain?]

"Yes!"

[Deducting 5000 points. Expanding domain, please wait ...]

Pro felt his senses seem to expand out as an intangible wave tumbled through the wall and flowed through the hallway. His domain perception ability seem to activate automatically as Pro zoomed out and saw the map of his domain slowly expanding. The hallway on the map slowly faded in as Pro felt the intangible power flow into those areas.

As the hallway gradually filled in, to Pro's shock, the hallway shown on the map was not a straight hallway! The hallway was actually square-shaped with four separate but connected hallways. There were two strips of hallway that was longer than the other two, and they serves as the rails of the ladder to which the other two hallways connect to.

In the center of the apartment floor, there was a square-shaped block with a door on it. Focusing on this familiar door, Pro realized that this was the door to the stairway!

Across from the door to the stairway was the elevator which embedded itself in the outer wall of the hallway. The doors to the apartment rooms were also located on outer wall of the hallway. Two walls with three doors laid on outer wall on each of the longer hallways.

Between the two longer hallways, there is two isolated section of walls, one on each end of the hallways. These sections of wall have two apartment doors on them, and the side walls to their room can be seen if one walked on the longer hallways.

The wall with the elevator embedded inside is the isolated wall on the front side of the apartment building. Besides the elevator door is the door to apartment 440, the security office. Next to the security office is the door to apartment 442.

Windows on the front side allows its tenant to peek out at the street in front of the apartment building. Apartment 441 and apartment 444 happens to be the two corners of this side, but they were not connected to the isolated section in the middle because the longer hallway served as a divider in between the apartment rooms.

Using the stair area as a pivot and the front wall as the northern side, apartment 441 was on northwestern corner, which happens to be near the elevator. On the other hand, apartment 444 was on the northeastern corner. Apartment 445 was on the southwestern corner and 448 was on the southeastern corner.

On western wall, apartment 443 sat in between apartments 441 and 445. On the eastern wall, apartment 446 was located between apartment 444 and 448.

On the southern side, there is another isolated section of walls with the doors leading to apartment 449 and 447, with the door to 449 being closer to the the eastern wall.

As the layout of the hallway was ingrained in Pro's mind, Pro could feel the intangible force fading away as his senses returned to his body.

[Expansion completed. Current host domain size: 4 small rooms, 2 medium room, 1 large room]

"Phew~" Pro breathed a sigh of fulfillment, "Finally expanded ... now the mystery of the hallway should be unlocked."

Stepping into the hallway that was now his domain, Pro's lip twitched when he noticed the straight hallway. Pro then pulled up the status screen of the hallway and checked the information on its specialty.

[Distorted Space] Space in the four connected hallways is automatically distorted to form one straight, long hallway that is not connected to itself. The hallway also has a second mode where space is distorted such that the two ends of the straight hallway are connected, forming an infinite loop such that the ends of the hallway may never be reached. In this mode, anyone outside of the hallway who try to enter will be sent to the other end of the hallway instead. Host can choose to switch between these two modes anytime.

Pro's eyes glinted as he saw his new overpowered spatial power. A bunch of ways to put it to good use flashed through his brain as he couldn't help but confidently conclude, "With this hallway, my chances of survival have increased. Besides having a larger combat area, I can also easily prevent enemies from coming in and escaping!"

At this moment, Alice's head popped through the bedroom wall as her eyes sparkled in excitement, "Waaaa~ Master! Can Alice come out for a walk in the hallway now?"

Pro gently smiled as he replied, "Yes, you can Alice. You can play in here in the future."

"Yay~" Alice cheered as she hopped out into the hallway with her arms spread wide like a bird.

Seeing that she could step out, Alice giggled happily as she dashed over to Pro and hugged him in excitement, "Thank you master!"

Pro rubbed the cute Alice's head as he gently explained, "There's no need to thank me. This expansion is beneficial for both of us. You can go play here anytime unless enemies are here."

Alice nodded her head as if she was a chick pecking rice before she ran off while giggling, "Master, Alice will go bring Lil' Toi Toi to come out to play~"

Hearing the new nickname given to the toilet paper spirit, Pro's mouth twitched as he mentally said a silent prayer for the poor spirit. Pro then glanced at his status screen and bemoaned his lack of points once more.

[Name] Pro Ye

[Title] None

[Level] Low-Level Blood Spirit

[Yin Energy] 1000/1000

[Possession Object] Toilet

[Abilities]

Toilet Attraction, Constipation, Toilet Paper Illusion, Bathroom Illusion, Sh*t on the Road, Domain Perception, Yin Claws, Spirit Isolation, Master Key, Nasty Service, Pain in the Ass, System Library, Extra Toilet(1)

[Domain]

Small Bathroom(444), Small Bedroom(444), Small Charred Bedroom(446), Small Charred Bathroom(446), Medium Living Room and Kitchen(444), Medium Charred Living Room and Kitchen(446), Large Distorted Hallway

[Subordinates]

Alice, Toilet Paper Spirit

[Life points] 20

"With this, I have some confidence in dealing with whatever the Black Death Society sends, even if it's an official mystic," Pro thought as he saw Alice bringing the toilet paper spirit out into the hallway to play.

Watching the happy Alice and the reluctant toilet paper spirit for a while, Pro then strolled through the hallway to check the possible future expansions.

"Let's see if there are any special rooms," Pro muttered with a hint of hope.

Pro strolled up to one apartment room after another, checking the next possible expansion into each of them. To his disappointment, there were no special expansions for apartment 442, 448, 449, 447, 445, 443, and 441. It seems that they were just normal apartments like apartment 444 and 446, but apartment 446 got a special set buff due to being burned thoroughly.

Of course, Pro was not an idiot that would burn all his possible domain. Although the charred apartment was still usable, it was not as useful as an intact apartment.

After checking apartment 441, Pro turned towards the elevator and walked up to it. Unsurprisingly, the elevator melted into the wall as he got closer. Knocking on the solid wall with his hands, Pro rolled his eyes as he didn't care.

"If I'm correct, the stairway is now open to me. Heh, so what if the elevator refuses to serve me," Pro grumbled as he turned towards apartment 440.

Seeing the expansion notice for apartment 440, Pro's face lit up.

[Expansion Name] Guard Room

[Room Category] Small

[Specialty] Night Patrol

[Expansion Cost] 200 Life points

"Although I don't know that specialty's effect yet, it seems to be very useful," Pro concluded as he thought of the possible effects, "Not only that, this room expansion is cheap! Unfortunately, I can't check the expansions for the bedroom and bathroom until I expand into the living room area. Still, I'll probably pick this expansion up first if there's nothing else better."

Glancing at his pitiful amount of points, Pro sighed before he walked down the hallway to check on his final destination. It didn't take long for Pro to reach the door leading to the stairway. Pro took a deep breathe as his eyes lit up with a hint of expectation. He then pulled up the information for the stairway.

[Expansion Name] Linked Stairways

[Room Category] Large

[Specialty] Linked Entrances

[Expansion Cost] 5000 Life points

Seeing another special expansion, Pro couldn't help but be a bit excited. As he saw the name of the specialty for the stairways expansion, Pro came up up with a possible conjecture, "Maybe that specialty lets the domain controller to link one entrance with another for fast travel? This would be useful in many ways ..."

Pro drooled over the many ways that he could play around with his visitors using this possible effect, but he snapped out of his trance after a while as he reminded himself, "Of course, the effect may have limits or be completely different. I'll have to wait until I expand into it to see, but that is a long way from now."

Pro clutched his chest as if he was in pain as he saw the cost of 5000 life points. He then brushed away the status screen with a wave of his hands.

"It doesn't matter how expensive it is Pro, you will eventually get there," after cheering himself up with an encouraging monologue, Pro then calmed himself down as he took a step forward and into the stairway.

[Warning! Host is leaving his designated domain. Host's spirit will gradually dissipate when outside his domain. Once the spirit dissipates, the host will cease to exist.]

[Time remaining until spirit dissipates: 600 seconds]

Ignoring the warning, Pro smiled as he glanced up the concrete stairways. He could see the vast and amazing opportunities in front of him, waiting for him to harvest.

Although Pro can't wait to begin harvesting other floors, Pro knew that he is still rather weak as 10 minutes may not be enough time to explore an entire floor. After all, just climbing up and down the stairs may already chip off half the time.

Not only that, there are unimaginable dangers to other floors. After all, the one originally guarding the stairway was a mid-level blood spirit. With this thought, Pro couldn't help but feel a faint sense of danger. After all, if he can invade other floors, it means that powerful spirits from other floors may also invade his floor.

Returning to his domain, Pro then tested his hallway's distorted space ability to see how safe it is. After switching the hallway mode to infinite cycle mode, Pro took a step forward and watched his surroundings blur for a bit before it returned to normal.

It was then that Pro realized he had teleported to the other side of the hallway, and the elevator swiftly melted into the wall as if sensing his existence. After going back and forth a couple of times, Pro returned the hallway to normal mode and secretly breathed a sigh of relief, "At least other spirits will have a bit of difficulty invading my domain if I pay attention."

However, it is easy to stop weak spirits as the system will alert him in time, but if strong spirits come and break through the barrier too fast, Pro will have no way to stop them. Pro scratched his head in worry for a bit before he decided to worry about that once the time comes. Plopping down onto his bed, Pro relaxed a bit before he went back into work mode.

"For now, I need to harvest more points. I need this for expansion and also to repair my domain when being invaded, but now that I am not as desperate for time as before, I can finally spend some time to satiate my knowledge," Pro thought as he opened the system library to browse the memories of the blood spirit.

[Name] Unknown Blood Spirit

[Gender] Male

[Age] 55

[Life Details] The blood spirit recalls being pushed off the stairs by ...

Skimming through the tragic life details of the blood spirit, Pro finally found the part regarding the blood spirit's knowledge of other floors. It was then that Pro discovered in horror that there is actually a dangerous society bound by rules in the building!

According to the blood spirit's knowledge, the single digit floors below the 7th floor are known as the lower layers. Usually, the most powerful spirits on these floors are baleful spirits, and these floors are mostly filled with lingering spirits.

Starting from the 7th floor upwards, the danger gradually increases! As the floor number goes up, the number of baleful spirits housed on the floor also spikes! There may even be a rare cases of blood spirit hiding on these floors! These are the weaker blood spirits who have escaped from the upper floors, but even weak blood spirits are still powerful evil spirits!

Once the floor number hits double digit, the danger spikes even more. Each double digit floor is usually filled with baleful spirits, and the weak won't survive. Also, each of these double digit floors will definitely have a strong blood spirit ruling over them! These double digit floors up to to the 13th floor are called the middle layer.

Then, the final layer is called the upper layer, also known as the danger zone. This is the 14th floor of this building, and the blood spirit always senses intense danger from there. The blood spirit never dares to go up there, but he knows that multiple powerful blood spirits in the double digit floors actually originate from up there.

As for the blood spirit itself, his place of residence is the 11th floor. His powerful control over the stairway along with his mid-level blood spirit power allowed him to control a floor all alone, but he is still kept his vigilance against the floors above him. When a blood spirit tried to invade his domain, he simply sent them away by linking the door of his floor to a different floor.

After acquiring this new knowledge by reading the blood spirit's memory, Pro couldn't help but feel a cold sweat as he realized that there are even more dangerous blood spirits in the building. Not only that, they even have a society which they rule, signifying that they have intelligence to some extent!

Although Pro felt the danger, Pro also discovered some opportunities from this info. He also confirmed his speculations regarding the stairway's linked door power.

Pro was then distracted by the sunlight that began to stream through the window. Soaking up knowledge also soaked up the time. It was already time for another day of work.

Pro hollered out to Alice who was still playing with Toi Toi, and they prepared for another day of harvest. Now, Pro did not hold back his urge to harvest the full 30 points because this floor can now be considered to be safe. Even if the visitors are weakened horribly, they won't be target by any spirits on this floor and will be able to safely leave.

Seeing his points being bumped up from 20 to 140, Pro smiled as he hugged Alice while welcoming another night. Just when Pro was about to continue to his advertisement campaign on the computer, he sensed that some living individuals has entered his newly added domain!

Activating domain perception, Pro saw three individuals dressed in black robes cautiously entering the hallway. Zooming in, Pro recognized the familiar pin on their robe. The Black Death Society investigators were here!