Rin was awaiting our return at the basecamp. I quickly finished packing up and we set off.

Rin stayed quiet and didn’t seem interested in talking. That’s somewhat normal for her though.

Anyway... since Rin didn’t seem interested in talking, I took the opportunity to explain some warding principles to Sidney. Although warding is pretty much useless against powerful monsters, it can increase Sidney's overall power level relatively quickly.

Sidney has already reached a relatively decent level of skill in regards to fighting. She’s at the point that, even now, she should be able to survive the initial section of the tutorial with the traps.

Although considering that I managed to survive it with zero training, that isn’t exactly an impressive feat.

Whether she can survive the wilderness portion of the zone is still questionable.

Unlike myself, she wouldn’t be able to avoid the majority of monsters.

Additionally, the tutorial zone has actual monstrosities in the wilderness portion, such as that enormous basilisk. It’s way too dangerous. Especially considering that’s only one of many monstrosities in the tutorial.

Technically, if she stuck around the starting area and left after the basilisk fought another monster on the 14th day, she would probably be fine. After all, that’s how I survived that section with zero training and a relatively weak stealth ability.

However, that isn’t what I want. I’d be forced to babysit her afterward in the Second Zone if she did that. I’m hoping she’ll be able to obtain a powerful ability there.

The best case scenario is heading further out, killing an ability or inheritance granting monsters (or monstrosity) and escaping the zone. I had planned on having her and Bai Xiaobao doing before leaving the zone with the void flower.

Since Rin has sent Bai Xiaobao off and informed me the void flower was a terrible idea… that plan is dead in the water.

Still, Sidney has a fair shot at acquiring her own ability in the zone. Although I don’t know the limits of her corrosive power, she might be able to safely obtain the oldest turtle shell.

If she successfully kills the turtle occupying the shell and binds it, she would gain an insanely overpowered defensive ability.

Of course, she’s far more likely to fail at obtaining it than to succeed. I doubt even God-hunter could leave a scratch on it.

As I said, an incredibly overpowered defensive ability.

Worrying about acquiring it is for another time though. For now, Sidney still needs to master enough skills to guarantee her survival against the normal monsters in Hell Difficulty.

She would have to travel for a period of time in that wilderness to even considering reaching an inheritance or ability granting item.

Well, beside the basilisk manual, which I will also have to inform her about. Personally, though, I’m not confident acquiring it is worth the risk for her…

Thinking back on the situation, even that baby basilisk could have easily petrified me if I was even slightly unlucky.

Petrification in that situation is equivalent to death.

Actually... didn’t Rin say something about an anti-petrification potion. I know my blood has anti-petrification properties, but by itself it should only work on already petrified beings.

If Rin can potentially create an antidote or vaccine that prevents the petrification from taking effect, that would be preferable. I’ll have to talk with her about that later. That, along with some other items, would greatly improve Sidney’s chance of survival.

Ending my train of thought, I moved back at the problem at hand. Sidney had been asking about how I create a barrier with wards.

“Essentially, creating a barrier involves utilizing and amplifying the stacking principle of environmental mana. Once the density of environmental mana reaches a certain amount, it can maintain that state relatively easily. Thus, once it becomes clustered together it becomes a cheap and easy to maintain as a physical barrier.” I explained the principle behind the creation of barriers.

Waiting until I receive some affirmation from Sidney before continuing onward, which appeared in the form of a small nod.

“The tricky part of creating a barrier is both getting the mana into that position and stopping the corrupted mana in the environment from corroding the rest of the mana and ruining the ward. The trick to create a longer lasting barrier is learning delaying the speed of the mana’s corruption.” I informed, laying down my understanding of the principle behind the barrier ward.

Actually, when I tested this out for the first time, I assumed it was worthless. The barrier was too easy to break and when I increased the density of mana to make the barrier stronger, the speed of corruption drastically increased.

Basically… A stronger barrier requires a higher density of mana. A higher density of mana increases the speed of the mana’s corruption. Thus, the stronger the barrier, the shorter it lasts.

“Corrupted mana?” Sidney asked, hearing the term for the first time.

“A mutated, more powerful form of mana. Extremely dangerous and extraordinarily useful. It’s what people’s bodies use to improve their ability, disregarding some rare exceptions that utilize other methods of improving in power.” I explained, avoiding the topic of corrupted mana slowly destroying this universe.

While the destruction of the universe is a topic that I will have to cover at some point, I’d rather focus on learning at the moment. Who know how long it would take to completely explain the gradual destruction of the universe.

The only good news on the topic of the universe’s eventual destruction is that it will take awhile. It’s the destruction of an entire universe after all. We’re far more likely to be killed by the influx of monstrosities after the safe zones are destroyed than the eventual apocalypse.

I’m somewhat lost on how to deal with the apocalypse actually. While fighting and absorbing the mana of monstrosities would limit the damage of corrupt mana, it wouldn’t solve the core problem. The very existence of corrupted mana.

Dealing with monstrosities would, at most, create a new equilibrium that continuously delays the oncoming apocalypse. In my opinion, that’s not exactly a great plan for preventing Armageddon...

Then again, it isn’t a terrible plan. In my old universe, people were aware of the potential heat death of the universe. Yet, nobody particularly cared because it would take something like several quadrillion years. A long enough period of time that you would be hard-pressed to find someone actively worrying about it.

The problem that this universe is having is corrupted mana reduced the timeline of the universe’s destruction to a few mere centuries.

Granted, that not really someone with a normal human’s lifespan would worry about.

However, the reason the people in this universe freaked out is the majority of people had already because immortal or had long enough lifespans that they could be called functionally immortal (perks of living in a extremely old universe).

Going from immortality to an existence with mere centuries of life… Yeah, I’m not surprised they freaked out.

…and I’m getting distracted again. I thought I’d gotten better at avoiding random tangents.

What was I doing?

Look around at my surroundings randomly, Rin traveled a fair distance away. Meanwhile Sidney seemed busy attempting to memorize the information I’d been teaching her.

Have you noticed yet?

Noticed? Have I noticed what?

Rin hasn’t even glanced in your direction the entire day. She’s completely ignoring you.

Spending some time watching Rin, I realized God-hunter was right.

It’s not particularly abnormal for her to not be glancing at me. However, her reactions aren’t normal.

She isn’t simply ignoring my existence or expressing a lack of awareness for my actions, as that wouldn’t be particularly unusual. Rin is actively avoiding glancing in my direction.

If I speed up to walk into her field of view, she’ll turn her head in another direction to avoid looking at me.

It’s a subtle reaction that I hadn’t noticed before, but it’s a worrying one.

“Sidney, why don’t we take a break while you test out creating a barrier? I need to go talk with Rin for a bit.” Indicating for Sidney to stop, I paused and gave her something to do while I moved aside.

Rin also paused and stopped walking when I slowed down. However, I walked ahead of her and indicated for her to follow.

Once we were out of audible distance, I spoke up. “Rin, I have a few questions to ask.”

Rin nodded, providing acknowledgement that she could at least hear me.

…However, her eyes stayed locked on the distance. Avoid any and all direct contact with me.

Rather than step directly into my main question, I decided to start with a more neutral topic. “That anti-petrification potion you talked about earlier… can it act as a vaccine or preventative measure to stop petrification from taking hold? Is there even a way to make a potion that has that effect?”

Rin visibly relaxed from my question and answered quickly, “It’s possible.”

“That’s good…” I studying her reaction carefully as I bluntly asked, “One more question then, why are you avoiding me?”

Rin instantly tensed up again before instantly refuting. “I’m not avoiding you.”

However, her rebuttal wasn’t particularly convincing. Her shoulder are far tenser and body language changed significantly… that along with fact she has continuing to stare of into the distance nearby instead of in my direction tells a different story.

It doesn’t take a genius to understand she’s lying.

In fact, with just her body language, it would take an idiot to believe she’s telling the truth.

However, her response is suspicious as well. Normally in the situation where someone asked ‘why are you avoiding me?’, a normal response would’ve been confusion before asking 'why do you believe I’m avoiding you?'.

Instead, Rin instantly understood what I was talking about and refuted the statement.

“Do not lie to me. If you don’t want to tell me the truth, fine… but don’t lie to me.” I barely managed to keep the anger out of my voice.

That… that pisses me off. I’ve always avoided lying to her, even when I wanted to keep secrets. Yet, she lied directly to my face and considered me stupid enough to believe it.

Walking past her, I stating. “Let me know when you want to tell me the truth instead of denying a problem exists.”

I’m no longer in the mood to deal with whatever her problem is. I went with the good intentions to try and help solve the problem and only up getting lied to.

You’re being too harsh. You can’t expect others to hold the same standards as yourself.

Maybe, but she still lied to my face.

No, she didn’t. She’s avoiding looking at you. She isn’t avoiding you. There’s a difference. Technically, what she said isn’t a lie.

That’s… true. She walked over and talked with me, technically, she isn’t avoiding me.

Realizing I been mistaken in my judgment, the majority of my anger dissipated.

While it’s a technicality, I’d taken advantage of similar technicalities in the past to say… misleading statements.

Sighing to myself, I realized I was going to have to apologize later.

For now, Sidney’s seems to have messed up in creating a barrier. She released a cloud of blackness that surrounded her instead of physical barrier.

Although I have no idea what Sidney did, she probably needs my help.