“What is wrong with all of you?! What both Fabian and Adam have experienced is an illness, they are still human, not cattle you all can decide to kill at any time!”

Gideon, who was passionately yelling, stood in front of Gan and a few others that we're preparing to go out to hunt Adam.

“It does not matter whether they are ill or turned to something else. If they threaten our survival, they must be delt with. Your opinions don’t matter, now that the dark miasma has cleared up, we’re going. Now move aside!”

Gan commanded Gideon.

“No!”

Gan was angered with Gideon’s answer, so he prepared to move.

“Look it's Noelani!”

Someone yelled out in the crowd.

Everyone quieted down and waited until Noelani reached them.

Noelani was walking without any purification dome, however, there are faint sparkling remnants on a part of her clothes.

If Adam was here, he would figure out that it’s the remnants of his innate orb that was in Noelani’s possession.

“What’s going on here?” Everyone could tell Noelani had a gloomy expression, it seems something went wrong on her trip.

“Adam has turned into a dark spawn and we’re going to go after him, but Gideon has been stopping us,” Gan answered Noelani’s question.

“He’s still human, we can’t just-” *smack*

Before Gideon could voice out his opinion, Noelani smacked his face, even though Gideon had some physical improvements from the mana stones, he was still no match to Noelani and was knocked to the ground from the slap.

“Gan is the extension of my authority, if any of you dare get in the way of my authority, you will get hurt,” Noelani said.

“You can’t- oof”

Gideon’s words were cut short by Noelani's kick.

“Foolish old man, you saw what Fabian had become, would you call that vile thing ‘human’, are you going to risk everyone’s lives just for your useless sense of morality?”

“Take him to his shed and I’ll adjust it so that he can be confined for a few days.”

Noelani sentenced Gideon to imprisonment.

It can be seen how Gideon’s influence in the camp has declined, by looking at how no one aided him.

After Noelani took over all corruption shadow hunting and made all the competent hunters in the camp join her team, everyone started trying to suck up to her.

Even those who were more aligned with Fabian and Gideon have also gradually started appeasing Noelani and trying to get on her good side.

It could not be helped; everyone is just trying to survive.

“Should we go out searching for the dark spawn?” Gan asked Noelani after Gideon was carried away.

“No, I know where he is, but there is something I want to do before we start hunting him,” Noelani said while looking at the sky.

‘There should be sometime before the light reaches its zenith.’ She thought.

“Gan, tell me what happened, how did Adam get away from you? you should have captured him at least if you didn’t kill him.” Noelani asked with an angry tone.

***

“So, this is the island core?” Adam, alone in the dungeon, was looking at a black-colored crystal sphere with flashing dots of light popping up and disappearing frequently.

It took a while for the corruption shadows to dig this thing up.

“Hmm, perhaps this core thing has something to do with the innate orb.” He conjectured.

“There is also this slimy goop connected to it, it’s probably of the same origin as the ooze on my body, considering how it looks similar and is also purifiable.”

Adam studied the black slime on the ground, the purification dome has a small effect on it and can’t purify it, but at least it seems to stop it from growing while being in the dome.

It seems the reason Noelani came here is to purify this ooze and control the island core. Next, he looked towards the luminous snake.

“My dome could not purify it, so it must be that snake which purified the slime connected to the island core.”

“Right now, I can’t duplicate that snake since it would take way too much energy. The max energy I can have in my body is over 20 units, in the appraisal facility’s standards. But I probably need much more mana to do that.”

He next looked at what he’s been working on; 11 innate orbs, an inactive one, and a few spare mana stones.

“I have already duplicated enough things to completely clean this room of any miasma, even the shadows that were following me, I don’t need them right now and I can give the skill orbs to other shadows when I later need to.”

“But the ooze on my body has expanded by a lot, and the only way to regress the growth quickly is through…”

Adam looked at the light snake and shivered, he still fears the pain he felt when in contact with the snake.

“But Noelani said that it was possible to get away to cure myself by using this island core, at the very least, I hope there is a way to control the symptoms. If I can do that then…”

Adam smiled in excitement and put his hand on one of the innate orbs.

 

“Finally, a way to upgrade the innate orbs! I’m so happy with myself for figuring this out!”

Adam guessed that since the black ooze was giving him a universal type of mana, like the mana type inside of the stones, and that this mana is a level higher than the mana that is gained from corruption shadows.

Combining that guess with the fact that mana stones recover innate orbs energy, he wondered what would happen if the innate orb got mana of a higher level.

Once he tried that, it started showing, (lv 2: 7/100), which means that if he can get a 100 of level-2 mana units into the innate orb, it will upgrade.

“Well, let’s stop being distracted. Let’s see what this island core has in store for me.”

Adam went to the island core and put his hand on it.

*jolt*

The next moment, Adam's eyes went blank and accompanied with a jolt to his mind.

Adam could no longer see the dungeon or the island core that was in front of him.

Instead, he finds himself in a black space, with multicolored dots of light whooshing all around, their paths are erratic and constantly changing, and the colors of the dots change inconsistently as well.

Adam looked down to see himself here, but when he moves, it feels like moving in a greasy substance.

‘This feels icky and unnerving, it’s like being in the dark miasma, it has a mental effect and not just a physical one.’

Adam was able to move by just thinking and once he decided to move in a direction, all he had to do was think it and his body would go that direction.

He reached one of the lights, which looked like a blue-colored wisp. Once he reached out his hand, the wisp moved in his direction.

Adam grabbed it, the feeling was like holding cotton, but he could feel something strange, Adam felt it was like a skill orb.

Even though Adam did not understand how skill orbs do magical things, but by being in contact with a skill orb and focusing on it, he can feel something difficult to describe.

Perhaps the feeling is a particular sentiment, an idea, or a concept, it felt like all those things combined, it was hard to decipher what it was, but it could be sensed, nonetheless.

“This thing is giving me the same feeling as a skill orb, but there is something different.”

“Hmm, if I had to name the difference …. I guess It’s simpler? Incomplete? Not sure.”

“Perhaps it's used for skill orb creation.” Adam did not forget why he was here, he wanted to figure out how to create skills.

Adam thought of something, he raised his hand, soon numerous dots of light started to move in his direction.

This place seems to be controlled by his mind which is why he thought of trying to combine these wisps to create a skill orb.

Soon, the multicolored wisps started molding themselves together. Soon, the wisps turned into a multicolored crazily oscillating orb.

Adam was not sure what to do now, but now that most of the multicolored wisps have joined together, he could see 11 dots of light that weren’t moving and seemed very far.

Feeling the “closeness”, he guessed those were his innate orbs, he also saw a snake-like light and could guess the source.

Adam wanted to try something; he commanded the orb to move into one of the innate orbs.

As he suspected, the orb moved in the direction of an innate orb.

Adam saw the multicolored orb enter an innate orb; he was excited to see what happened.

But, soon he could see many dots of lights, also entering the innate orb.

Adam was watching this calmly but started to panic when he saw the great speed of the colored light dots entering the orb.

Before he could do anything, he saw the light dot representing the innate orb flash and explode.

Adam had a bad feeling, the next moment, he felt as though he was slammed by a bus.

Once his focus came back to his body, he saw himself flying and then smashing into a wall.