Noelani was moving in the forest filled with corrupted trees.

The forest has become much more lit up since the clouds began to shine brightly and the dark miasma has thinned.

But contrary to the unusually brightened scene in the forest, Noelani had a dark face while traveling towards the camp.

‘Darn it all!’

‘My plans have been greatly interrupted all thanks to Adam!’

‘By now I should have been able to take over the island’s core and completely turn the dungeon into a great asset. But now I have to go back empty-handed and even lost my luminous snake.’

Next, Noelani looked up at the clouds.

‘It looks like I will have to leave Adam alone for now, after all, the next thing I want to do is time-sensitive, and killing off Adam can wait a few more hours.’

‘But, why does Adam have an earth control ability? How did he get his hand on a skill orb? Could it be Fabian’s skill orb?’

Fabian had several skill orbs on him, she remembers one of them was the earth clump skill.

Noelani could not have too many skill orbs on her, this is because her body can only produce a certain amount of mana, but if she has multiple skills of different types, then each skill type will split up the limited mana generated in her body.

If she’s not careful, Noelani won’t have enough mana to use any of the skills on her body.

For example, if she has skills of water, fire, and wood types, then her mana would be split into three different types, and the mana of fire type won’t be able to activate water skills.

In this case, she may only be able to use a skill once or twice.

Therefore, the best strategy right now is to only focus on one skill type.

However, a dark spawn does not have to worry about this, the corruption on their body will consume the dark miasma and convert it into a universal type of mana that they can use for any skill.

It’s why Fabian had so many skills.

‘But I left the skills with Gan and the others, the only way to get it is to kill many of my team until he finds it, no way is he that capable.’

‘Unless … It was not Fabian’s but another one he already had-!’ Noelani jolted in realization.

‘Don’t tell me he has a talent!’

Noelani’s face got even darker and paused her movement, looking back in the direction of the dungeon.

‘But I remember in the original timeline, Adam was killed and did not show any real combat strength or any significant ability. There was no sign at all.’

‘If this is true, then it is probably some kind of an earth ability type.’

Noelani knew that the most common kind of ability is an elemental one, while there are rarer ones that could be multi-element type and unique ones, like her own, which does not belong to any element.

So, the most likely kind of ability for Adam to have must be a single element type.

'How unlucky. There was another person with a talent skill on the island with me and has become a dark spawn. Now things are a lot more troublesome! Darn!'

Noelani knew better than anyone how significant a talent skill is, especially in the hands of a dark spawn.

***

Adam sat down in his purification dome with a frown on his face, there was also a hint of anxiety showing as well.

Noelani was not killed, this means he will be hunted wherever he goes.

‘Should I have gone full kamikaze and attacked her with all I had?’

Adam shook his head.

‘Even though it looks like my body has changed, my strength still has not improved much, it seems it takes time for the ooze to strengthen its host.’

‘Besides, the camp has been gathering a bunch of skill orbs for so long, I can’t imagine she does not have a way to kill me, especially with how confident she was when rushing towards me.’

Adam did not want to admit to himself that he has become afraid of Noelani, after all, no matter what challenges she faced, she would have a method to solve them quickly.

‘Perhaps, if I can survive for the next few days, I should have enough strength to challenge her.’

Adam felt the ooze that has started to reach his neck.

This thing is like an infinite supply of mana stones; however, Adam could feel the mana that comes from it is of a higher quality than the normal mana stones he used before.

Probably because it is a level-2 entity, but what gives Adam hope is that he could feel that his body is bolstering its power, much like how he felt when he first started strengthening using the mana stones from the shadows.

He can already guess why, the corruption shadows are probably level-1 which produce mana and shadow stones of level-1, these stones can only strengthen for a certain amount.

But now he is using level-2 mana, or so he assumes, he could improve himself even further.

Adam sighed and stood up.

‘I probably should leave here before she comes returns with back up. But first…’

Adam took his orb and jumped down from the ledge he was on.

The 6 corruption shadows were roaming around aimlessly, one even got stuck in the rubble.

Adam looked away from them and started to look around at the rubble thinking about how to excavate out the island core.

‘Make skills, huh?’

Adam had a smile on his face, perhaps the answer to his problems is this so-called island core.

He also assumed the core was the thing calling him, but now, he no longer could hear its calling, probably because Noelani has left.

He started commanding the shadows to use the earth clump skill to dig up the rubble.

Adam did not want to use his mana, otherwise, he would have to recover using the dark miasma and speed up the transformation.

Soon a lot of rubble was overturned, Adam could not help but sigh at how bad these shadows were at using their skills, but it was better than nothing.

*bang*

Adam looked towards the sound; it did not sound like the shadows’ digging.

Subsequently, his eyes squinted because a bright light appeared in this dim cave.

The light flashed towards a nearby shadow and sliced it in half.

Adam’s eyes quickly adjusted and saw a wavy light in the vague shape of a snake.

‘Not good!’

Adam saw the creature flash towards him.

He knew he could not dodge the snake and quickly decided on a plan.

He stood firm and raised his hand, the moment he felt contact, he grabbed forward as fast as he could.

*thud* *sizzle*

the collision made a thud followed by the sound of sizzling.

Adam was flung backward but successfully grabbed the snake.

However, Adam did not expect the sensation that would come from coming in contact with the luminous snake.

“AHHH!”

He screamed in pain, yet the snake also seemed to have been affected.

From the moment it has appeared, Adam could tell it was injured from the flickering light it was giving off.

And now the contact with Adam has also hurt it some more.

The pain made Adam loosen his arms and allowed the creature to move away.

‘No!’ Adam jolted back into focus and rushed to grab the creature.

Fortunately, he was able to grab its tail before it got far away.

“NOW!”

He shouted out his command in excitement.

The next moment, the remaining shadows used their skill to clump and gather the rubble on the snake.

The snake did not take much effort to rid itself from Adam’s grip, but could not escape in time and found its body was being wrapped in hard stone that crushed it and restrained it.

Adam looked at the snake and the makeshift restraining method he had to use on it. It seems the creature won’t last very long if this continued.

Adam quickly grabbed his innate orb and brought it to the creature, the purification dome’s light began to bend towards its head, the only exposed part, which seems to help the creature.

‘Nice! What a windfall!’

Adam could not help but think.

He checked his body, and as he felt during the contact, the ooze had shrunk back from his neck to his chest.