The group quickly reached the center of the domes, where there was a notably larger dome, even compared to Adam’s dome before he traveled.

Adam saw a woman that is arguing with a few people, it seems she’s Noelani.

Adam could faintly make out that the arguing was about the energy loss when shutting off the innate orbs, but the argument ended right when Adam and his group reached Noelani. After Noelani was left alone, Harris explained the happenings of their travel.

“You also saw the advanced shadow?”

Noelani asked Adam.

“Yeah, I saw it trying to catch someone…”

Adam begins to explain what he saw.

“The person you saw is named Mike; he was able to get away in time.”

Noelani said while nodding her head. Adam recognized the name and felt more guilty about not helping in some way, but he did not know if there was a way to help without throwing his life away pointlessly. He convinced himself that Mike was going to survive anyway, so if he had interfered, he may have perished or even hurt Mike’s chances of escaping.

“Anyways, you want to purify your stones, right? Well, I have a proposition for you.”

Hearing what Noelani said Adam’s group changed their faces.

“Wait! You want payment for purification when you were the one that told us to come here?”

Aditya said with a frustrated tone.

“it’s the same case for all the groups, not just yours, what I propose is that you give me your innate orbs instead of having to take care of it yourselves.”

“What? You can take other people’s innate orb?”

Hamza exclaimed, but his face only showed the face of surprise which was contrasted by the expressions of the other group members, their faces showed an extra emotion of worry and fear.

‘Do you get benefits if you have more innate orbs? If you can take other’s innate orb, can it be done through force or even by killing them? If yes, doesn’t this mean that everyone here could become a killer or a thief, if desperate enough? The situation could turn into a bloodbath!’

Adam's thoughts started to race with multiple questions popping up, he even doubted if coming here was a good choice.

Noelani noticed the faces of the others.

“It’s not really taking, but more like borrowing. These orbs are called innate for a reason, they are innate to the original owner, so no one really can take them. I found out that other orbs can’t normally operate under the same purification dome, the only way to do it is if you voluntarily allow one orb’s ‘essence’ inside another. The result is a ‘mixed’ innate orb which will allow two individuals to control it.”

“What would happen to the innate orb if you killed the owner?” Aditya asked.

“I don’t know, haven’t tried it.” Noelani replied with a calm face.

“But if I had to guess, the innate orb would shatter or break since these objects are so closely and magically tied to the owners.” She continued.

During this conversation, Adam did notice a few innate orbs inside Noelani’s purification dome, it seems others have chosen to go with this choice.

“What’s the advantage of having more innate orbs?” asked Harris.

“it’s nothing much, just makes purifying things easier. There is also an increase in the size of the dome as you already probably noticed. This will help us band together and fight better as a team. Plus, I will guarantee no one in my group will go hungry and will have my protection.”

The group was quiet for a moment. Adam was not sure how exactly she planned to accomplish these promises but could see she had a stone knife wedged under her belt, he did see another person with a knife, it seems it came from her. Just the fact that she could produce these could make anyone tempted to join in this dangerous situation.

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“If you don’t want to join, you can give me one shadow stone to purify one stone. I’m not an unreasonable person, you all can mull it over the night and give me your answers tomorrow. “

Hearing the price, the group had a hesitant expression.

“By the way, how do you know so much?” Adam asked the question that had been in his mind for a while now.

“I just guessed and experimented. Not everything I said may turn out to be true anyways. 😊” Noelani answered in a cheerful voice.

Adam felt something off with this response but looked at the other members who seemed to have expected the response, except for Hamza who had his eyes gleaming, looks like they also asked the same thing and got a similar response.

“I would like to join your team!” Hamza said inadvertently interrupting Adam’s thoughts.

“That’s great! How about you guys?”

With Noelani’s question, both agreed to pay the price of two shadow stones to get an energy stone. They tried haggling with her, but she would not budge. Since the group got 7 shadow stones in total, each member got 2 except for Adam, who performed so poorly during the fighting against the shadows and justifiably got one.

Adam did not agree to either of those options and decided to wait for later when the fog dissipated once again and went to get another shadow stone, at least that’s what he told everyone. He was going to try and duplicate the shadow stone.

He may even …

Duplicate the innate orb.

Adam was sitting down thinking about today’s events and about Noelani’s actions and words. There are several suspicious things, but so far, she’s been right about a lot of things. It’s somewhat unbelievable for a person to guess all the information Noelani provided so early.

Adam was in Noelani’s purification dome which has already grown much larger after more people agreed to join her group. The dome has grown around some of the surrounding purification domes, the ones belonging to people who did not agree to join Noelani.

In Noelani’s dome, her group members are eating the same fruit he ate earlier that day, the group are calling it green peach. They are huddled in a circle in one spot while a few who had not joined her are sitting in a group not eating anything, Adam was part of them. His group was people that had not been able to get two shadow stones for some reason and still did not agree to subordinate themselves to Noelani.

From the chatter coming in Noelani’s group, the word “subordinated” appears next to their names when using the appraisal facility, while Noelani’s name was added in the “owner” row, and has the word “superior” appears next to her name.

“Hmm?”

Adam saw a purification dome light disappear and then saw Aditya come into Noelani’s purification dome and go to her carrying his shut-off innate orb.

“It seems another is going to join.” Someone sitting near Adam commented.

Adam looked at the outside forest, it was nearly pitch black, much darker than when Adam first awoke to this place. After the clouds are brightened and the fog dissipated for a period of time, the reverse would occur causing the clouds to darken and the fog is once again thickened. There have also been a lot more sightings of shadows than ever before. Looks like this is the day cycle of this “world” and it is “night” currently.

A lot of the people that had set up their own purification domes found that the energy consumption on the orbs has increased by a wide margin during the night in comparison to the “morning”. This is a bigger problem for innate orbs that don’t have much energy after being shut-off. This is why many, like Aditya, have decided to join Noelani and her purification dome which does not seem to suffer from the same issue.

‘What she said, ’Just making purifying easier’, was not the entire truth. She just knows too much that everyone doesn’t.’

Adam thought, Noelani has always used some excuse to explain how she knew so much or why things are working so well for her. “I got lucky” or “I took an educated guess” were common excuses, but Adam was skeptical.

Adam sighed mentally, he’s not the smartest person nor is the most cautious. But still felt he could have handled things better than he did and not been too reckless. In this life and death situation everyone found themselves in, he has no physical advantage, it's more of a big disadvantage, nor does it seem he has an advantage in terms of smarts.

Adam looked at his hand.

‘The only hope I have is my duplication ability.’ Adam thought, feeling a little lucky for having some kind of advantage. The situation is chaotic, and the future is unsure, he does not want to depend on or be at the mercy of others, especially someone like Noelani who’s keeping secrets and likely tricking others purposefully.

Adam took out a green peach, it was one he found when he was with Aditya and the others. Noelani said it’s ok to have these purified but no shadow stone.

*munch*

He looked outside of Noelani’s dome where the fog was thickening, there were purified trees that were actively being corrupted by the shadowy fog, these trees were where some had set up their innate orbs. But many who did so quickly realized purifying and growing these trees after being corrupted is heavily taxing on energy. These were the first people who decided to quit and either join Noelani’s or Adam’s current group.

In contrast, there are more and more trees in Noelani’s dome which have already started to sprout green peaches.

But then, Adam’s eating was interrupted.

*sizzle* *poof*

“!”

Adam and others noticed a shadow touching Noelani’s dome, which was not uncommon, but the moment the creature touched it, it was backlashed and had a part of its arm blown off in a puff of smoke.

“…”

There was silence.

‘Make purification easier- yeah right!’