Far deep into the dungeon.

The dark spawn, formerly known as Fabian, has his hand over a dark orb.

Every now and then, dots of varying colors would appear on the dark orb.

The dark spawn’s face is full of consternation.

The next moment, the dark miasma swirled over the dark orb, slowly taking the form of a corruption shadow.

However, the dark spawn could feel that there was an invisible influence coming from the dark orb on the corruption shadow being created.

Soon, the shadow was fully formed, it was a skilled shadow of the fire type.

But, once the dark spawn noticed the flames on the new skilled shadow, it went on a rampage.

It started to scream and punch the walls; it seems it considered the skilled shadow a failure.

The next moment, the dark spawn jolted and looked in the direction of Noelani’s camp, as though it could see through the walls of the dungeon.

The dark spawn shouted again, but this time it was not out of anger, but a calling to the shadows.

Soon, multiple shadows, skilled or otherwise, came to heed the dark spawn’s call.

***

Back at the camp.

The tree wall that is surrounding the camp has been added with a walkway at the top of it to allow monitoring of the outside.

Adam was looking at the dark miasma that is becoming darker and darker as time is reaching midnight.

From what Noelani said, this night is when the tribulation will occur once the miasma reaches its peak.

“Hmm?” Adam noticed something and turned around.

Since it is still not midnight, his connection with the active innate orb is clear, but he noticed the connection has been cut off.

He could not see the orb's location from his angle.

But the moment he wanted to check; his body jolted.

Adam has been using mana for long enough to become familiar with it, he eventually became able to sense it and could also feel the magical energy in mana stones.

However, he would have to touch the mana stone to really sense the inner mana of the stone.

But what was strange at this moment, he could feel a strong amount of mana outside in the miasma.

“What in the world is that?!” Adam noticed that he was not the only one that felt this. Noelani’s team members were also agitated and were yelling out, it seems they also acquired the ability to sense mana.

“Isn’t it growing?” someone in the crowd asked.

Paying careful attention, Adam could also feel that the mana source seems to be increasing in intensity.

Everyone in the camp, those who could feel the mana or otherwise, were quietly staring at the darkness provided by the miasma.

Even the people who have not practiced at all with mana were starting to feel a sense of danger and eeriness.

In the next moment, the miasma hit its peak, which means it was midnight!

‘This can’t be level 3, right?’ Adam thought.

He obviously never encountered a level 3 or even level 2 shadow but doubted that these shadows could have such a profound amount of mana that he could feel it from so far away.

In his mind, he did not know what the amount of increase between each level is, but if the difference of levels is doubling the mana from one level to the next, then this mana he is feeling would be something like level 10!

In other words, if the mana in a mana stone is 1, what he feels right now is 1000 times that and from far away as well.

“Don’t worry too much everyone.” A voice rang in the silence.

Everyone turned to the origin of the voice, it was Noelani.

“A huge amount of mana is produced when a tribulation occurs and it’s not the enemies, which we have to fight, that have such mana.” She explained.

Hearing the reassurance, many calmed down, except for Adam, who noticed Noelani was carrying something in a bag.

At that moment, Adam had a lot of thoughts go through his head.

The direction she came from, the loss of connection with his active innate orb, and Fabian’s incident two weeks ago, all these observations gave Adam red flags about the current situation.

“Noelani, what’s in the bag?” Adam asked.

Noelani looked at him and smiled.

“Hmm? Is something wrong?”

“Noelani-“

Adam's words were cut off by someone’s alarming calls.

“It’s the dark spawn!”

“Oh, he’s here,” Noelani said and flashed forward.

Adam saw her movements and was amazed. When Noelani told the camp about the higher-level shadows, she also explained that to get a skill to a higher level, you need to constantly use it repeatedly until it reaches another level.

It seems to be true; her water skip skill was not this fast two weeks ago as Adam remembers.

Noelani reached the top of the wall quickly and saw the dark spawn entering the camp’s purification dome.

Beside him are two other dark grey humanoid creatures. Both of their bodies are riddled with vein-pattern protrusions.

The camp never worried about an attack on the camp base, this is because all the shadows, even the skilled shadows, would be purified if they entered the powerful purification dome of the camp.

Only the dark spawn would be able to last for a while.

But it seems these two creatures don’t seem to be struggling with this problem.

Adam even noticed that the dark spawn seems to have changed, it seems that the ooze has become darker.

“What are those things?” Someone asked.

“They are a level 2 creatures,” Noelani said, but then looked further in the miasma.

“However, they are not the ones to worry about.”

Soon a 7-foot lanky multi-limped dark creature appeared.

In the next moment, the creature flashed and slammed on the tree wall in front of it.

The wall bent but was able to sustain itself thanks to the reinforcement and multilayered design of the wall.

But seeing the great speed and strength of the creature, everyone was terrified.

For the normal corruption shadows, they were never a threat. Not because they were weak, in fact, they are incredibly dangerous if they were able to land a hit, but their speed was lackluster.

But this multi-limbed creature is much stronger, and its speed surpasses humans by a large margin.

“Noelani! How are we going to fight that?!” everyone began to panic.

But everyone looked at Noelani but saw her looking at the sky.

When someone wanted to ask what she was doing, a flash of light beamed through the miasma and into the field.

It was too quick for anyone to catch where it went.

“What was that?!” Many in the crowd exclaimed.

“If you remember, I said all humans have to face a tribulation.”

Noelani said while everyone was confused about what happened.

She looked down to the field in front of her and smiled.

“Even if you become a dark spawn.”