Chapter 5: First day on the job
Alan's vision went black but was restored the next second.
He seemed to have teleported by a park because he saw children playing tag with one another across the grass, adults sitting down on blankets or tables talking to one another about their day and some teenagers playing football with a makeshift goal using their spare shirts as the indicator.
Alan didn't recognise the park as it didn't look like one of his local ones. This park was mainly grassy with a few benches and chairs while one of his local parks would have had many swings, slides and other equipment around for children to play with. It even had some outdoor gym equipment for free use, like a treadmill that would push you back the faster you ran on it.
Seeing the joyous atmosphere made Alan reminisce about the times he took his wife out for walks on his rare free days, since he was most busy, thus gradually spending less quality time with her.
However, to make up for it, he always tried to take her out when he was free, but since he couldn't travel too far in case work called him in, he would take her out around their neighbourhood.
'Okay, I'll focus on the ants first.' He thought as he walked around the park, looking for any signs of ants.
While he waited for his job to start, he experimented with the system and learnt it had its own rule section and some general information.
It told him that the living cannot see him, nor can the physical objects of the world touch him. Essentially, Alan was like a ghost to the mortal world as he traversed and did not have to worry about scaring anyone.
He also learnt that he can bring out a compass that's used by Grim Reaper to help find souls which Alan thought to be very helpful.
He thought about a compass and extended his bony right hand. The surrounding cloak reacted and extended around his hand, slowly forming a black compass and breaking off from it.
It created a dark black compass with the ideal size for Alan's hand, making him very impressed by the Grim Reaper's power.
'This uniform is so convenient, I wonder if it could make anything else.' He wondered as he stretched the compass out, seeing if it would point him in his desired direction.
The crimson red pointer inside the compass spun quickly and slowly stopped in the direction of 'N'.
Alan headed north, past the children that were unknowingly playing around him. Still not used to being invisible to them, Alan tried not to bump into any of the children or any physical object like a bin.
He realised it was pointless of him to do so, but he still wanted to be as normal as possible while being a Reaper.
He continued following the compass's directions until it pointed to West, which he followed accordingly.
Eventually, at the furthest corner of the park, where no one was around except if they passed it by walking around the park, he found a small dirt hole that seemed to have a few ants walk in and out of it.
'I found the ant's hideout!' Alan felt quite excited as he was walking around it but then realised something very crucial.
He did not know what an ant soul looked like, nor how to actually guide the said ant soul…
'System, how do I see the souls and retrieve them?' Alan thought to himself, hoping the system had an answer.
[As there have been complaints issued in the past by Reapers about the influx of souls they see in their day to day lives...]
[The God of Death changed the powers of the Reaper's soul eyes from a passive skill into an active one...]
[Thanks to the God of Death's magnanimous act, Reapers could go around the living worlds without being bombarded by random souls.]
'Okay, so it's a skill of mine? Open stats' Alan thought.
Name: Alan
Job: Grim Reaper (20 minutes)
Species: Undead(Skeleton)
Reaper Lv: 1
balance:0
Exp: 0
Skills: Soul binds, Soul eyes, Soul transfer
It surprised Alan as two recent additions to his skills were apparent compared to last time where only soul bind was there.
'Did those two appear because I became an official reaper?' He wondered.
'How do I activate my skills system?' Alan had no clue on how to activate his skills, so he could only turn to the system for help.
[Think of the skill]
'Real helpful system…' Alan thought sarcastically. If his face could frown, he would have the biggest frown possible right now.
'Activate soul eyes' Alan tried to use his skill by just thinking about its name.
[Soul eyes activated]
A prompt sounded in his head as he felt a surge of energy connecting to his eyes, making the outer edges of his sight hued with blue.
If Alan could see himself right now, he would see his empty eye holes glow a faint blue colour.
Though his eyes felt strange, he looked down towards the ant hole and could see many ants on the surface with a brown aura surrounding them.
'Are they the dead ants?' He wondered as he inspected and noticed that he could also see brown dots underneath the ant hole.
'Amazing'
Alan tried to grab one ant glowing in brown and could hold it!
'So I can touch souls…'
Alan felt quite impressed and pleased from discovering all these new things he can do now as a Grim Reaper. He found it oddly satisfying.
'Activate soul transfer'
[Activating soul transfer]
Alan's hand had a soft glow of blue which caused the ant's brown aura to be engulfed by the blue aura and then the ant became transparent until it completely disappeared.
[Congratulations! You have successfully guided your first Ant soul!]
The system rang in his mind and showed its interface in front of him.
'I did it… I guided a soul!' Alan raised his arm in happiness.
But, he quickly put them back down, realising how ridiculous it was for him to do such a childish action.
*Cough* He gave a quick cough to compose himself and picked up the ants glowing in brown to his hands.
'Soul transfer'
[Congratulations! You have guided 2 Ant souls!]
[Congratulations! You have guided 3 Ant Souls!]
[Congratulations! You have guided…]
Constant messages filled Alan's head for each ant soul he guided.
'So annoying.' He thought to himself.
Alan guided the ants from the surface with his skill until he saw no ant souls.
'Now, to get to the bottom ones, can I…' While he was guiding the surface ant souls, he wondered how to get the ones underground, as there were many of them.
He stuck his hand in the ground, hoping it would phase through like he wanted to.
And sure enough, his idea worked. Alan's hand effortlessly passed through the rock hard ground and grabbed the brown dots.
'Soul transfer'
[Soul transfer activated]
Instead of grabbing them and pulling them to the surface to activate his skill and repeat the process, Alan tried just activating the skill, causing his hand to glow blue and slide his hand across the underground, like a boulder, and guide all the ant souls that came across his path.
[Congratulations! You have…]
The system's congratulations kept ringing inside Alan's head, showing that his tactic was working.
After a few minutes, all the ant souls around him were cleared away.
'Open Job.'
You must complete all daily tasks:
Guide the souls of 10,000 dead ants (100/10,000)
Guide the souls of 100,000 baby larvae
Guide the souls of 10,000 mosquitoes
Reward: 10 experience points, 50 coins.
'I still got a long way to go…'
Alan sighed and continued to follow the compass.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone