Adam soon reached a relatively thick tree.

Adam checked around to see if there is anyone around but saw no one, not even the corruption shadows.

After the past two weeks, the camp has renamed multiple things and because of the corruption properties of the shadow creatures, they started to name them corruption shadows.

Following that name change, they have also named the fog that permeates everywhere as dark miasma, both because of its corruption properties and the cold/hostile feeling one gets when being in it.

Another rename is the shadow stones are now contaminated stones.

But regardless of the name changes, the camp did not shy away from, and even ramped up, the hunting of the corruption shadows.

Now they are sparsely found, even though it was found out that the corruption shadows were replenished every night when the dark miasma thickens to the max, it still could not match the rate of the camp’s hunting.

Especially after an important info was discovered and sped up the hunting of corruption shadows.

But coming back into this moment, Adam did not see anyone around, so he looked at the tree he was in front of and reached his hand out.

Adam was able to lift a piece of the tree, which was only a thin wooden slate, without looking closely, it would be hard to tell that it was a separate piece than the tree.

Behind the slate was a whole and inside was a bag, like the one Adam is carrying, which contained a sizeable number of contaminated stones.

Adam found this tree with a hole in it a while ago and got a wooden slab to fit right over the whole. He has also been busy duplicating energy stones and was able to stash some of the created stones here that he could not carry with him.

It’s just that he found out that energy stones will be corrupted just like everything else that stays outside a purification dome.

Even if he covered them as much as he could, the polluting mist, at its peak density during the night, would still corrupt the stones.

After that, he switched to just copying the contaminated stones themselves. The reason being is that when purifying with a single orb purification dome would cost around 2 points of energy.

Though he could use Noelani’s dome and not bear any costs, he was still not sure if there would be problems of re corrupting the stones, like a small energy loss or something he doesn’t know.

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But as far as he can tell, there does not seem to be any different from duplicating the contaminated or purified energy stones.

Adam had a smile on his face while looking at the contaminated stones he had been accumulating. He could not help but praise his talent skill.

After learning about skills, the camp started calling Noelani’s hint ability a talent skill since she didn’t get it from a skill orb.

Given these criteria, Adam’s duplication ability could also be classified as a talent skill.

Adam next picked up three of the contaminated stones and started duplicating them. Golden light enveloped the three and quickly took the shape of the stones.

This is a method he found that is effective to save “mental” energy, which he concluded is spent when the gold light is expanded and morphed, thus duplicating all at once is efficient in terms of mental energy.

Though he’s still not sure what it really is, just that he feels dizziness, headaches, mental fatigue, and other symptoms when it’s exhausted.

But the “physical” energy, which he believes to be the same mystical energy in innate orbs and energy stones, is still exhausted and not influenced whether the duplication happened at once or multiple times.

The camp has also started calling this mystical energy as "mana", because of the magical and non-scientific properties, and energy stones as mana stones.

*phew*

Adam was a bit exhausted, but over the past two weeks, he noticed that his mana must have increased. At first, he would have the ability to duplicate around one or two stones but now is able to duplicate three.

It was obvious that using his talent skill and exhausting his mana will increase his mana capacity over time, just like physical training.

But considering that a single stone recovers 5 points of mana for the innate orbs, that means his body has around 15 points of mana.

Adam mentally shook his head; he realizes the best use of the talent skill is focusing on the quality and not the quantity of the duplicated items.

But considering his overall situation and the conflicts in the camp, he can only keep aiming at amassing more contaminated stones.

With a mental sigh, Adam quickly put everything back as to how it is and kept vigilant against anyone that could be watching him.

After checking everything was okay, he looked at a contaminated stone that he kept instead of leaving it in the hiding spot.

He had a determined look as he was contemplating what he was going to do next.

‘Well, hopefully, things don’t turn bad.’

He put the stone in his pocket and started moving towards the campsite.

Adam started to move, but soon, he spotted a corruption shadow dwindling in the distance.

‘Oh, lucky me, there’s actually a shadow here.’ Adam thought.

The next moment, he lunged at a great speed towards the shadow.

The corruption shadow tried to turn in his direction, but before it could turn, Adam plunged his spear in the center of its body.

The spear pierced and Adam kept pushing with the spear until the shadow was impaled onto a tree.

Adam moved back to avoid any of the creature’s flailing until it stopped.

It did not take long for the creature to start dissolving and dropping a contaminated stone.

‘My strength really improved by a lot.’ Adam thought with a smile on his face. His physique has become a lot more athletic.

He looked at the contaminated stone on the floor, he can only have a single contaminated stone for his plan in the camp and it would be hard to hide an extra contaminated stone, especially since it would make a ruckus if exposed to the purification dome.

Adam shrugged and left the stone there, if he comes back here and it’s still there, he will put it in the hidden stash. If it’s not there then it’s not a big loss for him, he needs to rush back before it gets dark.

Adam began his journey back to the camp.