"Hey! Old guy, you okay in there?"
"Hmm?"
Gideon, who was confined in his shed by Noelani, heard someone calling him.
"Phan, is that you? What's the situation right now? I heard that the orbs have had some changes."
Gideon asked the caller, Phan.
Phan was one of Gideon's previous teammates but ended up joining Noelani.
"Yeah, light pillars are coming out of the orbs and reaching up to the clouds. Though Orders right now are not to approach the orbs, that's not why I am here; I came to give you some food."
An opening in the shed allowed Phan to pass a basket full of green peaches to Gideon.
"Thanks, I was starving."
"No problem."
Gideon munched on the meal the moment he grabbed the basket.
"Um … by the way-" Phan began to say something but was cut short by Gideon.
"If you're going to apologize, then there is no need, I decided to take my stance, and this repercussion has nothing to do with you."
Phan paused for a moment; Gideon's words hit the nail on the head; Phan felt guilty about what happened to Gideon.
Throughout the time they were a team, their relationship had become close.
"I'm sorry, Gideon, but I agree more with Noelani's decision; why should we risk the lives of everyone in the camp to try and help a single person that may or may not be still human? Besides, he is not a useful person to the camp anyways."
Phan shared his thoughts about Adam.
"But Noelani was too harsh when dealing with you; I'll make sure you get out of here after Noelani finishes with the innate orbs changes."
Gideon shook his head.
"If someone is useless, is it right to discard them? We don't know how long we will stay in this weird world. So, if Adam's and Fabian's cases are the precedent, doesn't that mean anyone can be killed or abandoned if they disadvantage the camp in some way. "
"Is this moral? Do you want to live like this?"
Gideon asked Phan.
Phan did not answer the questions; he was a man with a conscience and, thus, was conflicted to answer.
However, that "useless" fellow they talked about was deep in the dungeon doing some experiments.
***
Adam was standing above a small pit; it was curved and like a bowl.
At the center of the pit, a sphere was constantly morphing and changing its shape.
It was one of the earth clump skill orbs.
Adam took a deep breath.
The next moment he dropped another skill orb and quickly ran behind a nearby boulder.
Adam shrunk his body as much as he could, waiting for what was about to happen.
….
….
"Hmm? Did it not explode?"
Adam was confused.
Looking back at the pit, he saw that the two orbs were not touching; there was a small gap between them.
Adam frowned; he designed the pit especially so the two orbs would roll to the center and make contact.
He grabbed a pebble and threw it at the skill orbs, it hit, but the two spheroids did not make any connection with one another.
Adam narrowed his eyes and began to guess what was happening.
A little earlier, he was sitting down and contemplating his situation; he was mainly worried about running away or trying to defend this spot and make it his base.
Adam was unsure what to do, and his thoughts began to wander, looking for a solution. He eventually began to think about the extra copies of the earth clump skill.
Then he remembered the scene of the skills production in the island core; wisps would come together and form a globe, only then can the skills be sent out.
Since the wisps make up these skills, he wondered, can the wisps be moved and altered?
For example, switching wisps between two skill orbs.
Which led him to the idea of skill combination!
This idea made him excited, and Adam wanted to test it out immediately; he even forgot about the issue of running away. But the earlier explosion made him understand he would be playing with fire, so he is being careful with his current experiment.
Adam went to the pit and picked up the two skill orbs.
"Could it be they are repelling each other?"
Adam wondered; he slowly brought the two skill orbs together gently and cautiously.
As he suspected, the two skills repelled each other.
He thought for a moment but steeled his heart.
Adam began to apply a more potent force, trying to compel the two skills to fuse while still observing and sensing intently to notice if any dangerous signs appeared.
He wanted to find out if he could combine the skills; this would significantly factor in whether Adam decided to stay or not, which is why he was hasty and reckless.
After all, skill combination would add another direction to improve in. Otherwise, if he can only duplicate one or two skills, he would be predictable and easy to beat in combat.
Adam began to see the two orbs connect two one another and began to morph into one slowly.
He would have been delighted if not for seeing the undulation of this new skill orb increasing rapidly.
Adam remembered the previous explosion and quickly threw the orb into the pit and ran back.
He hid behind the prepared boulder and squatted down, preparing for an explosive impact.
However, nothing came.
He was confused but carefully popped his head above the boulder and looked at the pit.
"What the?"
At first glance, Adam was surprised to see nothing in the pit, not even the skill orb.
He went to the pit and examined it closer.
"What's this?"
He found small stone debris; he was sure these weren't there beforehand.
Adam picked up these small stones and inspected them.
There is nothing special about these rocks from far away, but Adam was reminded of the skilled shadow the earth clump skill came from.
"The skilled shadow body parts and the skills are closely related; I know this from creating the earth spike facility. At that time, a mostly-yellow mist converged on my innate orb, which must have played an important role in the skill creation and these 'body parts'."
"Hmm, all skills I have seen so far can be classified by an element, and the elements I have seen so far and their color are earth/yellow, fire/red, water/blue, wood/green, air/purple, dark/black. So, this means all the 'magic' I have seen so far belongs to one of these elements. so, I guess these 'body parts' are elemental materials that contain some magical property."
Adam made some analysis and conjectures.
He then looked at the luminous snake.
"However, there are skills of other elements, like the light element, I have yet to see. However, I remember seeing a few white-colored wisps in the island core, but they were usually the first to change color. As though they are the first targets to be changed."
Adam looked at the ooze that is connected to the island core.
'This thing must be the cause.'
He thought and stood there in silence for a moment.
"In the end, there are many things that I don't know, and it's difficult to figure everything out on my own in a short time. But it is a fact that this place is a treasure trove to learn and better understand the magical phenomenon in this world."
Adam's eyes shone in the darkness.
"In that case…."
"This will be my base from now on!"