Reacting to Nathan's energy, the shell released a large amount of energy into its surroundings, creating tens of lightning bolts that flew in all directions.

Realizing the danger, the three companions did their best to protect themselves from the energy, but Nathan couldn't help but end up wounded in the arm.

"What the hell happened?" Nathan asked, eyes wide open, as he looked at the shell while ignoring the wound." Shouldn't the shell release corruption instead of lightning-energy?"

"Are you alright? Does it hurt?" Marianne panicked as she began to use her life-energy on Nathan's wound.

"Now that you say it, you are right. Why has the energy type changed? As he neared the shell again, Travis asked.

Looking at it, he realized the symbol wasn't shining anymore. Instead, it had returned to its previous appearance.

"It looks like it has returned to its original state." Travis pointed."So that thing draws energy from its surroundings and then releases it, right?"

"It seems like that's the case. After all, the turtle did something similar if you think about it. Maybe there is a way to control the energy release to create attacks as the magical beast did." Nathan suggested.

"But again. Why did it only release lightning-energy? It makes no sense." Travis complained.

Hearing her companions talking, Marianne approached the shell and placed her hand on it. Carefully, she released a small amount of life-energy into the item and waited to see the reaction.

Seeing that, the other two cultivators waited patiently to see if they could get more information before continuing speculating. Under their attentive glances, they saw how the shell continued absorbing energy for a while until it stopped. At that point, Marianne used some energy to activate the item again, and the results were different from their previous attempt.

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This time, instead of releasing lightning-energy or corruption, the shell released large amounts of life-energy.

After seeing this, Marianne looked at Travis before asking.

"When you activated the shell before, did you use a specific type of energy, or did you pump it up with energy from the surroundings?"

"I used the energy on the surroundings. Do you think it could influence the functioning of the shell?" Travis asked curiously.

"I'm pretty sure this thing can only store one energy type at a time. That's why when I used life-energy to activate it, it gathered life-energy. That would mean that the first type of energy that entered the shell when you activated it with the surrounding energy was lightning-energy." Marianne explained.

"That makes sense. It also explains why the turtle used corruption while not being corrupted: the shell probably absorbed all the corruption that entered its body, maintaining it clean while using it to fuel its attacks. " Nathan explained.

Seeing the progress of their investigations, they continued recording everything they had found out and the ideas and theories they had about that matter.

In a few hours, they had identified the origin of the beast's powerful offensive and had a general idea about how it worked.

"Ok. The ultimate question is: if the symbol is what grants these capacities to the shell, is there a way to replicate it? I mean, the symbol is special because of the symbol itself or because it has been created by following certain steps?" Nathan asked.

"That's pretty easy to discover," Travis said as he grabbed a piece of paper.

With a few strokes with a pen and ink, Travis drew the symbol onto the paper as closely as he could. When he finished, he grabbed the sheet from its corner with two fingers and tried to make his energy flow into it.

As soon as he infused energy, the paper burst into flames, leaving nothing behind but ash.

"Did you just try to infuse a paper with fire-energy?" Nathan asked while rubbing his eyes with two fingers.

Travis looked at him for a few seconds while staying quiet, as if he was processing what Nathan had asked him just now. Without saying anything, he took another piece of paper and drew the symbol again before repeating the process.

This time, instead of burning, many cuts appeared on the sheet, making it fall to the ground into pieces.

"Well, we can confirm that using paper doesn't work. It is too weak to resist the energy flow through its structure." Travis said.

"Not exactly," Marianne said with a smile as she showed her companions a piece of paper glowing in pink light.

"Does it work?" Travis asked, surprised.

"It does not. The symbol is not reacting to the energy at all. It is just the paper absorbing the energy by force." she explained.

"Well, I think we will need to do a few more tests before learning how to use this," Nathan said while laughing.