[Although this slumber is only a simple session of meditation in which he familiarizes himself with the 'great' Corruption energy in his case, he shouldn't wake up before you reach him.]

"He stays dormant for that long?"

[The process takes a lot of time due to both the restricted ability of the artifact and the limited control that the demons' have over this space. According to my database, the Demons keep this state to pass the time till the target that has been completely converted into a 'Corrupted Puppet' makes its way to their location due to the puppet's natural instinct to reach the closest Corruption energy user to it.]

"So… in order not to mess up and leave early before the target is completely Corrupted, the demon goes to 'Sleep' and waits for the 'Alarm Clock' puppet to wake him up…? Isn't that simply too much of a time waste in the demon's case?"

[Not at all. After all, the Corruption Puppet that is produced through this procedure can't be compared to normal Corrupted in any way. Not only does their memory become almost completely browsable to Corruption users, but they maintain their mental ability without any flaws other than being subordinate to the first Corruption user that imprints their energy on them. It's totally worth the time spent making it. Furthermore, a Corruption Puppet wouldn't waste much time as it would be able to sense the Corruption user's location, hence spending minimum time to reach them.]

'Does that mean I was targeted for the sake of information?'

Though I wasn't exactly sure how the demons of this domain had information about me, and even managed to spot me under disguise, I wouldn't be surprised if it was the combination of one of the branch abilities of the 'Demonic Sovereign' coupled with some special communication tool.

On the other hand, what I was more sure about was that they likely targeted me for my memory since my prowess wasn't that 'stellar' yet…

[Once again, there is no need to overthink it. Even in the worst-case scenario where the demon realizes something is wrong, you will be able to get out of here early as long as you manage to kill him before he manages to use his home advantage…]

"It's not like I got another option anyway."

While I was worried about how the situation would be in the Fire Domain in a few weeks, I was stuck here for the time being, so there was indeed no need to overthink what I'm incapable of reaching.

'Besides, it's not as if having to stay here for long is entirely a bad thing…'

"Come on Light, let's get running."

I already had a plan in mind as I got up and started going forward…

`~~`~~`~~`

12 hours later...

"Time for food!"

"Meow!"

Originally, when I had no information about my location, I would have chosen to maintain limited speed so that I could stay on the move for as much as I could to find some clues considering the situation, and that was what I exactly did in the eroding illusion, but the situation was different now after I listened to Long's explanation.

Back then, I was completely under the effect of the illusion whereby I could only think of escaping and leaving the place without considering anything else. Not to mention eating, I didn't even think about sleeping for one second, it was obvious that the illusion set the condition for me to feel desperation as early as possible.

However, that was no longer the case, my mind was completely clear now so I chose to do things differently, in a way that wouldn't leave a chance for Corruption to affect me once again while trying to use the situation to bring me as much benefit as possible.

In order not to spend my whole time running, I limited the time I moved out in this space to make my 'Mental Map' to only half the day while doubling my speed and choosing to rest after.

Slurp. Slurp…

After quickly making use of the recipe that I received from the hidden quest in the Nature Domain, I sat down with Light on my lap as we both ate the noodles to our heart's content before summoning my bed from the spatial ring and lying on it for an hour of rest.

'Having extended time in the Lost Realm's current state can be considered an opportunity.'

Although at least a quarter of the hour was spent playing with Light, I was at least able to recover enough to move on to the next part of my planned routine.

'Let's start with the Lightning Cell.'

Carving Elemental Control flow channels!

Having only acquired 'Myriad Dragon Cells' less than one day ago, the most I was able to do during my time in the 'System Space' was only train my control of using the only carved elemental cell that I had, but now that I had a few months worth of time to spend in this fragmented space, it was the perfect to opportunity to invest a part of this time into expanding the scope of my Elemental Control technique!

Naturally, since the ability of the technique has already been confirmed on my Fire Cell, my first choice was the Lightning Cell which was both my strongest attack element as well as my strongest weapon against the demons' Corrupted Darkness element.

Of course, this time, neither did I have the plans on going all-out using my mental energy to carve the flow channel in a mere 2 hours nor did I have the ability to induce the same effect, so I could only do it bit by bit, which was why I decided to delegate the next 3 hours of my routine to it.

With that already decided, I reluctantly stopped playing with Light as I pulled myself up and sat cross-legged before closing my eyes and focusing my 'Inner Sight' of my mental energy on the Lightning Cell situated in my heart...

'Let's see how long it will take this way…'