Ever since Dongung separated from us, Untou has remained silent. When I read his thoughts they seem chaotic and troubling, coming to conclusions before questioning himself over them. This must be a result of the impact her absence has on his emotional development. it appears to be affected his logical development as well which is interesting though I feel as though if I don't address this now, it'll become a problem in the future. The problem I run into now is how... I can read his feelings almost perfectly due to reading his inner thoughts but my response must be carefully constructed to not cause further chaos within his mind. Ultimately, I shake myself away from this minor issue, even if he does become uncooperative in the future... He cannot do anything while I remain in control.

I move quietly, trading some swiftness for lessening the sound of my roots brushing against each other as I continue to tailing Victor and Stephany. They seem too focused on escape to notice my presence behind them thankfully as there aren't many obstacles in our path to obscure myself. They now move silently, with Stephany only sparsely asking Victor to use his magic to scan the area around them for monsters... Uh oh. I am not sure of the distance of the spell. It doesn't sound like anything pertaining to the elements so I make a quick guess that it isn't apart of the field Victor is proficient in and quickly back away behind a far off corner before victor can finish the spell. I keep my eyes on him as Victor shakes his head, their voices now too far for me to hear what they're saying. I tail them from this distance as my vision flickers once more to that alternate reality, they both had long lanky figures with smiling rocky faces now. Before I could analyze their forms beyond that, my vision returns to normal and I shake off the shock. It is still difficult to get used to this skill.

I continue to follow them as they round a corner and enter an iron door that slides sideways into the wall. I approach it with haste and I am barely able to throw myself through before it closes. On the other side, I see chambers lined up in rows in a long, large fortified hallway. These chambers are rather varied with some being featureless, unopenable boxes with glass to see through to prison cells filled with plants and air breathing sea-life. The creatures that used to be housed inside these chambers have seemingly all broken out, with some still lingering in this hallway and above me reads a large metal sign simply saying "STAGE 5" allowing me to quickly decipher where we are. I hear a loud bang looking over to see Stephany aiming her gun at a large, hulking red demon with a single eye known as an Oni. A bullet was fired into its eye and it turned towards me, uttering "Help... Me" before it went limp on the floor, dead. I couldn't answer what it said as it merely confused me, was I supposed to be helping these monsters? I didn't know what the Oni did to provoke the two but that thought was brief as Victor ushered Stephaney to continue, my focus now should be to escape but I still can't help but ponder as I continued tailing them, absorbing the blood of the Oni to fill my blood supply as I do.

This hallway looks rather ruined but not overtly so. There are some shallow scratches on the walls and missing chamber bars but otherwise, it looked cleaner than I expected. Our progress was halted when we spotted a growing flame in front of us. A large pile of technical equipment had been gathered into a single spot with several small green humanoids with sharp ears and barbaric features known as Goblins. They seemed to be wielding prison bars that they've somehow sharpened into makeshift spears and they dance around the flame chanting in their goblin language. Victor and Stephany hide in a broken down chamber that resembles a sky with a bed of clouds as I simply stand there trying to figure out how to proceed.

Stephany: "What are they doing?" They both begin speaking in hushed tones that I could still hear due to Echolocation enhancing my hearing.

Victor: "Common ritual, they're trying to summon a hobgoblin with all the technology they've burned"

Stephany: "Well we gotta stop them! We can't let a stage 4 beast roam this facility so freely."

Victor: "We have no choice, if we try to intervene we'll only be wasting valuable time and it's likely we'll be killed. We aren't adventurers and none of our fields are combat related."

Stephany: "I thought you said you were an elemental mage! Summon a wave of water to clear the path!"

Victor: "I am only specialized in utility and lore research, none of which are directly combat related. Plus neither of us have the body to maintain long form combat."

Stephany: "Damnit what do we do then!?"

Victor: "I got something, stay quiet and lets move"

I could see victor close his eyes as a veil of fire light cloaks them then they disappear from my sight. It's actually odd, I can still sense them with tremorsense but my eyes can't detect them. It seems to be an odd trick on ones perception, using themselves to blend in with the light of the fire to slip past. While that is useful, I have no way to follow them without attracting the goblins attention. My extra supply is only halfway full, that Oni seemed to be larger than the security guard but still I only gained up to half when absorbing him. Perhaps the amount isn't determined by the amount of blood from the target, but always has a preset amount based on how many are absorbed? Nevertheless, I use that amount to give me a skill to get past the goblins.

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Minor skill ascension: Control earth attempts to ascend to Moderate.... Ascension complete.

No 'unrecognized method' this time? Perhaps that admin doesn't care anymore since I already gave up Dongung. Nevertheless, this is unexpected. How does this help me? I don't see any earth around other than from a few chambers and I expected a new skill, not an upgrade. I suppose I'll make use of what I can. My reach with the skill has extended so I used the magic to allow the earth to rise into an elongating clump and float over to me. I could feel it is easier to manipulate the earth but the longer I hold it, the more I feel my mana draining. I activate 'Mana Recharge' to offset the mana usage but this only slows it down meaning I'll need to finish this fast. I gather a rather large clump into a ball and attach roots to the earth as I throw it at the goblins. The clump I gathered managed to be larger than the pile so when it collided with the goblins, it also managed to break apart the pile. The goblins screamed and yelled in pain as my dirt ball hit them in them with great force and the ball exploded as it landed sending random bits of dirt everywhere giving me a rather harsh landing as well. Some were knocked unconscious, some killed, but others still remained whether by luck or sheer physical fortitude. Nonetheless, three were still able to fight and they raved angrily as they charged at me with their makeshift spears.

They came at me like wild animals but were oddly coordinated in their assault. My vision flickered very briefly to the alternate reality confusing me as I could see them leap over themselves and mix up their movements but my many eyes combined with tremorsense and echolocation allowed me to easily keep track of them. They looked like they had gray skin with shallow holes in them, smiling rocky faces replacing their own while wielding dark cylindrical stones with sharp tips. I gather more dirt under my form making a soil bed that I could move magically for swifter movement allowing me to avoid an oncoming thrust from one of the goblins by moving backwards just before it pierced my vines and roots. I continue using Mana Recharge to slow my mana loss as I maneuver around their countless thrusts and I manage to tag all three of them in their thrusting arms with my petals. I don't have much mana left before the poison takes over their bodies and they collapse unconscious yet twitching as their bodies continue to try to resist the poison. I don't waste time, I pierce each of the goblins bodies with my thorns quickly filling my extra supply with their bodies. I turn, seeing that in my fight, I lost the location of Stephany and Victor. I didn't find this to be too much of a problem, I tried to wish for escape but yet again, nothing seemed to happen. I wondered how much blood is truly needed to escape this place if even a full sack cannot grant me the wish.

I decide to save the blood for future use and continue down the hallway as my vision flickers back to normalcy. Stephany and Victor didn't go too far as they've seemed to have slowed their pace since Victor casted his cloaking spell. This means I quickly sense them and continue tailing them.

Stephany: "Those flowers are following us, took out those goblins for us too. They do look familiar to the Genie Sprout I gave Yan. Think it's friendly?"

Victor: "Don't get your hopes up, that's a Genie Swarm. They're very simple minded but have a lot of skills, we could take it on but it'll be more of a hassle than its worth."

Stephany: "Ok... How do we lose it?"

Victor: "Their sense of direction is mainly bound to the soil they're in, all we need to do is keep going and we'll lose it when we find metal flooring."

Stephany: "Ok but... That thing looks like it has eyes. A lot of eyes....." *She ends with a side glance at my direction*

Victor: "Illusion from a skill perhaps? Highly developed scare tactic? It's unlikely that those things are functional. Nevertheless, we gotta stay focused. We need to get out of this place."

Ah, they've noticed me. I guess it's only natural, that fight did make a lot of noise and I was its main focus. So they do consider me of lower intelligence, I could use that to my advantage. Though I suppose I've already been using it to my advantage this entire time. They must still believe I only have Tremorsense at its Minor level which makes me curious on the average Genie Swarm.

Nonetheless, they still allow me to tail them and as such, I continue to do so as they exit the hallway through a door signed "Department: Fortification"