Rain was sitting on his bed, receiving the full memory of the Poison Claw practice from the chip. After returning home, he had slept for five hours and eaten some fruit. During that time, the chip processed all nine moves of the Poison Claw. Now, he had "mastered" the moves, but he knew he hadn't truly mastered them. While fighting the wolf, he understood how the moves were performed and how to mobilize the energy the body for utilizing the full power of the move, but his body lag when mobilizing the energy from various part of the body to unleash the full power of the move. He knew he had to practice the moves himself in the real world to make them instinctive.
He also needed to stop refining his hands and feet because it was affecting his coordination, reaction time, and speed. Rain was deep in thought about his next steps. He had ordered the poison stone, which would arrive in a few hours. So, he asked the chip to take control of his genetic energy, then lay down on the bed and waited. After some time, he entered his soul space and saw the form of the super healing lizard above the chip. It kept forming and disappearing due to errors. He watched it for a while but soon grew bored.
He thought about the black void outside the soul space, recalling how he had merged it with his dream space earlier. Curious if there was any difference now, he tried to spread his consciousness outside the soul space, but he was stopped by a barrier that felt stronger than before. He tried again with more force, and suddenly, he broke through. In front of him, white mist flowed around, with intermittent black mist rushing toward his soul barrier, colliding with it before dissipating.
He examined his surroundings, gauging where he was. "Looks like I'm in the sky." Below him was an ocean, and billions of bubbles clustered together like a vast island or continent floating in the water. Between him and the bubble continent were 22 bubbles floating at different heights, with his own bubble in the clouds. Rain noticed that while all the bubbles were similar in shape, they varied in size. His bubble, though high in the clouds, was smaller than the 22 floating in the air, and many bubbles hovered just above the ocean.
He realized that these bubbles represented the souls of the living in this world. The reason his bubble was in the clouds was likely due to the merging of his dream and soul spaces. The size of the bubbles, he reasoned, reflected the strength of the individual to whom the soul space belonged. He also noted that the ocean was black, and black mist climbed from it, colliding with the bubbles—mostly the ones floating above the ocean, though some reached the ones in the air and his own.
Rain considered the characteristics of his world and concluded that the black ocean was tied to the ghosts, with the black mist representing them. As he looked farther out across the ocean, he saw other bubble continents, some with bubbles floating in the air and some without. In the distance, the black ocean turned grey in two places where bubble continents had bubbles floating above them. He noticed bubbles similar to his own in the clouds, but unlike his, they shone with white light, casting brightness into the grey waters below.
He thought, "If my world lacks a defence against the strange and unknown, then these two worlds have defences in place."
Just then, he received a message from the chip stating that the outer layer of the super healing lizard had been formed. However, Rain was more focused on testing his ability to reach out to the two places. The northern area was closer than the western one, so he extended his thoughts northward. As he passed over the black ocean, he felt uneasy, sensing monsters lurking beneath, ready to devour him if he fell.
Eventually, he reached the grey waters, where the bubbles floated slightly above the surface. When a person died, the bubbles shattered and fell into the water. He observed a bubble with cracks forming, which then healed, only for more cracks to appear. Over time, the cracks spread faster than they healed. Rain understood that the person to whom this soul space belonged was fighting to stay alive. He sympathized as the cracks grew and the healing slowed. An idea struck him, and he rushed toward the bubble, entering it through one of the cracks.
Suddenly, his vision went blank, and he screamed in pain—worse than anything he had felt before, even compared to his injuries from the wolves or the acid. When he opened his eyes, he was back in his room. "What happened?" he wondered.
He quickly re-entered his soul space and carefully inspected it. His soul was now 10 percent smaller, and on the northern barrier of the soul space, a spinning circle had formed. He watched it for a while and noticed that the circle was slowly growing larger. He attempted to cross the soul barrier again but found he lacked the strength to do so. Cursing his recklessness, now he has a spinning circle in his soul barrier, and he did not what it does and investing his thought in another person soul space was a result of his diminished soul power, which left him unable to cross the barrier again.
Not expecting an answer, he asked the chip, "Will my soul recover as it was before?"
The chip replied, "Yes, in three months, your soul will be as it was."
Rain was elated at the news. He then turned his attention to dissolving the blocks in his genetic energy. He had noticed that removing the genetic waste forming the blocks caused his genetic energy to decrease, but dissolving the waste increased it slightly. Though the process was time-consuming and difficult, it was worth it. He had not yet reached the limit of his genetic energy in the beginning D-rank realm, so wasting any of it would be a mistake. With that thought, he got to work dissolving the genetic waste.