Fabian was walking away clenching his teeth and holding his stomach.

“Fabian! Are you okay?” It was Karen who followed him and asked.

“Shut up! Go bother someone else!” He exclaimed and walked into his shed.

Karen and the other team members, who followed Fabian, quieted down and stopped following.

Adam looked at this scene from afar and shook his head.

‘Perhaps I should start trying to get on Noelani’s good side. I can eventually try to leave the camp after getting a skill orb or something.’ Adam thought.

He shook his head and left for his shed to continue training.

As soon as Fabian entered his shed, he quickly went to his innate orb.

It’s placed in the fireplace since there is a chimney above it which will allow for the cloud light to connect with the orb.

He quickly fed the mana stones he got to the innate orb.

The next moment, he took off his shirt.

Everyone has noticed his skin’s dark grey transformation, but he made sure not to show his stomach.

Because right now, on his stomach, is a wriggling ooze that seems to be expanding from where his belly button would be.

“Darn! It got bigger!” Fabian cursed.

But in the next moment…

*sizzle*

“Ugh!”

Fabian clenched his teeth in pain.

The black goo started to shrink.

Fabian continued like this until he could not bear the pain and covered up the ooze from the purification light.

*pant* *pant*

“Damn this thing!” He said with clenched teeth.

Fabian remembers that during the first night, when everyone was trying to sleep, he felt his stomach itch.

He then found this strange thing on his belly button.

It both gave him strength but also made him mentally unstable.

Every time he loses himself as he did just now, it grows by a noticeable amount.

He also noticed that it grows slowly when he’s exposed to the miasma. He’s been sure not to leave when the miasma thickens but still needs to go for hunting and gather more stones to power his own orb.

Thinking about hunting for more stones, he’s sure that Noelani won’t allow them to go hunting while the water stream project is proceeding. It may take a couple of days, but he needs more stones and mana to keep purifying his body.

It was discovered that Noelani’s purification dome is “blocked” by the independent domes. This means Fabian must bear the cost of purification in his private dome.

He would try sneakily using Noelani’s dome, but the sound would reveal his actions and he did not want to expose his condition.

‘Just what in the world is happening to me?’ He thought while looking at ooze and the white scratch on his arm from Noelani’s knife.

Thankfully, when being illuminated by the purification light, he felt a lot more in control of his mind and much clearer, which allowed him to think of something.

‘Does this mean she knows about my situation?’ Fabian remembered how Noelani emphasized the word monster.

Fabian told his team that he was confident that Noelani’s hint skill is not useful for gathering info on people, but it was only a guess.

He did not care whether she knew or not, he wanted to get into the dungeon, even if it meant fighting his way through. He just wanted to get the other team members to go along, so he lied and assured them that Noelani would not know of their plan.

But the reason for his guess is because Noelani never seemed to care much about his transformation, which would be odd.

If she knew about the reason for his transformation, she would be much more worried about it, or at least Fabian would be worried if he was in other people’s shoes.

To Fabian, this goo seems to be turning him into one of the corruption shadows, and if that is true, then everyone is in danger of turning into them.

‘So, if she knows, why does she not care?’

He stood there for a while, with many thoughts passing through his mind, his face changed multiple times until he put his clothes back and went outside.

The moment he opened his door he saw a few of his team members waiting not too far away.

He went to them and before anyone could say anything, he started to talk.

“Gather everyone, we’re going to have a meeting.” He commanded and turned back before anyone could say anything.

“Noelani this technique is too hard.” A woman was sitting slumped while talking to Noelani. It was Sarah, who talked with Adam in the orb space on the first day.

(Author’s note: check Ch 3, buts it’s not important lol)

“You just need to keep practicing,” Noelani said while walking around a spacious room, this is the training hall she built into her home. It has many wide windows to make it feel spacious and lit up.

The hall is meant for her team, technically two teams since Gan’s team is completely aligned with Noelani’s team.

There were a bunch of her team members sitting on the floor practicing a breathing technique that speeds up the “digestion” of mana stones.

The technique allows one to affect mana from the stones which would then help reduce the strain of high consumption of mana.

“This is the method that allowed me to improve so quickly in the beginning, everyone should master it since it not only helps with training but also recovering in combat. It’s a useful tool.” Noelani continued her explanation.

“Humans don’t usually produce mana inside their bodies, it is only generated after skills are introduced into the body. However, the mana created this way is specialized for that skill type, which is why you can’t strengthen the body using your own mana.”

“However, the mana in mana stones is of the general type of mana, which is why the stones can strengthen your physique.

But because it’s not your mana that is inside these stones, they may not be controlled by you, but because they are a general type of mana, you can influence it using this breathing technique.” Noelani reminded the team of the importance of the technique.

“Hmm, by the way, Noelani, shouldn’t we share this technique with the others.” Sarah wondered.

Noelani shook her head.

“The people here are those that have potential and I truly trust with my life, the other camp members, on the other hand, most are not bad people, but can’t be completely trusted,” Noelani said to her team who were mostly younger people and still in their prime.

“What about Gideon? he’s really nice and is peace-loving.” Sarah asked.

“Like I said, not bad people. Gideon strives for everyone to be happy; he would share this technique thinking it would be good to help everyone. But unfortunately, doing so will make everyone less safe.”

After what she said, everyone knew what she meant, she was talking about Fabian’s team.

“By the way Noelani, what is happening to Fabian?” It was Gan who asked.

“I’m not sure myself, it seems he’s becoming more unstable by the day. But his strength can’t be ignored. I am sure if he was to grab me or land a hit, then it would be a severe injury.”

“He’s turning into a monster. We should get rid of him and his bunch.” It was Simone who pronounced.

Many were uncomfortable hearing that, everyone has become accustomed to fighting and killing corruption shadows, but most still have reservations against killing humans.

“Even though the independent innate orb faction is causing trouble for us, they are still a net positive for the camp. Let’s not conflate Fabian with his entire group.” Gan said.

“Yeah, that may be true, but it does not change the fact that Fabian is getting out of hand. From now we will no longer listen to his or his lot’s complaints and forcibly force the rules.” Noelani said.

“As for Fabian himself…”

She looked at everyone with a serious face.

“Tonight is the last chance I will give him, the next time won’t end so peacefully.”