“I’ll give the payment right before we enter, then,” Adam said while putting up a strong front, but in reality, he was worried that Fabian would snap and just attack him right there.
after all the temperament change that came with Fabian’s newfound strength has made him difficult to deal with for all the camp members.
Fabian staired Adam down while Adam did not flinch back.
“Fabian calm down, if you make a commotion, Noelani will be alerted.” Harris tried convincing Fabian.
“Hmph! Fine, but you’ll have to pay an extra stone.” Fabian said as a way to get back at Adam.
“Where am I going to get a mana stone from?!” Adam exclaimed.
“Borrow it! I’ll cover you for now, but I’ll keep adding interest every day you don’t pay it back.” Fabian said with a smirk.
“… fine, but the interest should be applied every week.” Adam agreed, getting another stone is no problem, he could make some excuse for another stone.
“Heh, okay.” Fabian interpreted Adam’s acquiescence of his impulsive demand as fear.
“So, Fabian, what is the plan? Noelani has someone always covering the entrance of the dungeon, how do we enter?” Harris saw it was a good time to switch the subject to something he was interested in hearing.
Adam was confused, Harris helped him right now to smooth things over with Fabian, but from the interactions for the past week or so, he thought that he and Harris were on bad terms.
Perhaps it’s not that Harris is helping him, but it's more true that Harris sees his own actions as helping himself.
“That’s true, if we want to enter, we will have to fight their team, which will be tough considering their team all have skill orbs,” Fabian explained.
Many were tense at the mention that they would have to fight another person, especially a tough team like Noelani’s. This would be true for most people in the camp, back on earth, no one would participate in such violent actions.
“But luckily I found another entrance!” Fabian said.
Everyone’s eyes lightened up when they heard that.
“It seems that a skilled shadow has a digging skill that lets them dig extra tunnels. I found one by accident and was able to reach the dungeon area.” Fabian continued.
“How do you know it’s the same place as the dungeon?” Someone asked.
“You’ve all must have heard that the dungeon has an extremely condensed dark miasma that allows the shadows to move faster and strengthen their power. When I tried exploring the tunnels, I was able to reach an area that fit the description.” Fabian answered.
“How are we going to explore the dungeon when it’s so dark?” Karen asked worriedly.
“How do you think Noelani explores the dungeon? They use an innate orb’s purification dome.” Harris said.
“Is that how they do it? But doesn’t the innate orb not move once it’s turned on?” Adam asked.
“Of course, you wouldn’t know this, but during the night and the light of the clouds is cut-off, the innate orbs can be moved easily,” Karen said in a condescending way.
Adam did not even look at her but mentally noted this info. It’s normal for this team’s members to know about these things unlike him, they have been taking care of their own orbs after all.
Adam, on the other hand, never checked on his innate orb after giving it to Noelani. After all, it’s an expendable spare in his mind.
“Not just at night, but as long as the light from the clouds is completely obstructed, then the orbs can be moved and don’t even appear in the orb space,” Harris explained.
Harris then looked at Fabian and asked.
“But, what if Noelani got a hint from her talent skill and learns of our plans, she may already have a clue of our plans.”
“Hmph, while her talent skill is really useful, it’s inconsistent about what the info she gets,” Fabian answered.
Adam thought back at all the info she gave everyone, Adam noticed over the past weeks the info was detailed but as time went by it became less useful.
However, he was not sure if it was because of the talent skill or if Noelani was purposefully withholding information.
“Besides, I’m confident her bestowed info is only about shadows and the miasma, while info about people and individuals is not much.” Fabian continued with a sneer.
“How do you know that?” Karren asked.
“That’s not your business to know!” Fabian snapped.
Karen went quiet and did not say anything.
Adam saw Fabian’s outburst and was suspicious about what Fabian knew that made him get angry, it seems the answer touches on a secret of his.
But knowing Karen, she would have snapped back at anyone who shouted at her, but Fabian is the rock of the group.
His overwhelming strength has more than provided for the team in terms of stones, at least in the beginning, but his biggest contribution is the opposition to Noelani and the rest of the camp.
Whenever there were issues the members encountered with Noelani and her main team, they would use Fabian as their backup.
This behavior may help with short-term conflicts but over time it has strained the team’s relationship with the rest of the camp. That’s cause Fabian is not the type of person to deescalate situations but escalate.
After Adam got the details of the plan, he left Fabian’s shed.
He did not want to spend another moment in there if he does not need to.
Adam walked towards a shed and opened the door.
The shed’s door uses a flexible wooden hinge to allow the door to move, but this causes difficulty when moving the door and it would snap back into place after letting go.
Adam entered the empty shed; it was his own.
He bought it using excess seeds he gathered, which includes the seeds from the first duplication, in fact, nearly half of the seeds he used to pay were from that duplication.
He went to the fireplace, made from rocks and a chimney made of the same trees as the rest of the house.
It looked to be running out of fuel, so he took some of the wood by the side and put it in the fire.
‘It’s nice to be home.’ Adam thought with a smile on his face, many troublesome things happened, but what gives him some comfort is this new place he calls home.
Adam looked to a corner where there were makeshift weights and exercising equipment.
“Alright let’s exercise.”
Since Adam was not in shape when he got to this world, he’s been facing more trouble than he needed to.
Plus, if he wants to compete with people like Gan and Fabian, then he needs to improve.
Adam took out a mana stone and ingested it.
As soon as the stone entered his stomach, he started to feel radiation coming from his stomach.
‘It would really hurt if the stones don’t dissolve’ Adam had a tangent thought and smiled.
Adam shook his head and cleared the distracting thoughts and focused on the energy radiating in his body.
‘I still can’t seem to control it.’
The energy moves around his body without his control, Adam is familiar with controlling mana after using his talent skill many times, but he could feel the mana moving around his body is different somehow.
He had a feeling it's not his own mana but knew that it would speed up his own mana recovery that allows the use of the talent skill.
‘It could be that my body is ‘digesting’ this mana and turning it into my own.’ Adam thought.
In the end, he shrugs, these things can be figured out later.
Adam picked up the equipment and started exercising.
Back on earth, recovery and injury were things that slowed down a person’s improvement when exercising.
But it was discovered after using a mana stone with exercise can greatly help with these problems.
It would feel like you had unlimited stamina and are able to push yourself as hard as possible and not worry about having muscle cramps the next day.
In fact, you would feel even better and usually more motivated to exercise all over again.
This boon could make anyone become an Olympic athlete, even without the physical buffs from the mana stones themselves.
Unfortunately for most people, they can’t always use mana stones for exercise due to their short supply.
But that’s not a problem for Adam.
Because of this, Adam was able to improve at great speeds and keep up his training consistency.
However, two weeks is not enough time to catch up to the physical conditioning of Gan who has honed his body over many years.
