After the spar with Haden, Rion didn't return to train; instead, he made his way towards the southern forest, more specifically, the cave that he had used for his little experiment before.

He zipped past the trees like a golden blur, and within a few moments, he reached the cave.

A faint smile creased his lips upon seeing the cave that had become his personal laboratory, but his smile vanished a moment later as he remembered the deaths during the last kareth wave.

Instinctively, his grip around his spear tightened, and his expression darkened. He shook his head, pushed away the gloomy memories for now and stepped inside the cave.

Just as he stepped inside, his eyes moved towards the stone slab that was covering the square hole filled with purple miasma.

He placed his spear by the wall, golden flames blazed around his hands as he walked over to the square hole and sat beside it.

Just like before, he pushed his aura inside the hole and formed a thin layer of golden aura under the lid before taking it off.

As he did, the purple miasma fell into his vision.

He channelled his aura into his narrowed eyes to peer further inside the miasma, and as he did so, a dark purple crystal the size of a pebble with barely visible, thin, glowing purple veins sticking out of it became visible.

"This has improved," he remarked while staring at it with a curious glint in his eyes.

He wanted to check if this crystal was enough for him to control the purple miasma, but at the same time, he had a feeling that he shouldn't mess around with it.

He sat down by the hole and continued to stare at it before he took out all of the grade one to grade four null cores that he had.

Piles of null cores appeared beside it, and he grabbed one of the three grade four null cores.

Similar to every other core, grade four was darker and bigger than the previous core.

He compared the crystal at the heart of the grade four core with the square hole and furrowed his brows. "They are different..."

He brought the grade four null core near to his eyes and mumbled, "This doesn't have any strings sticking out of it, and its crystal is like a diamond, while" he glanced at the square hole and added, "This has strings and its crystal is more deformed..."

A frown appeared on his face, and he murmured under his breath, "Am I supposed to be worried?"

He sat in silence for a few minutes until he came to a realisation.

"Do I have to feed it life essence similar to how kareths suck it from everything?"

A troubled expression marred his face. "What if it makes things worse?"

He thought about it for a few moments and shrugged. "Whatever, I'll just do it again."

"Even if I don't learn what I am supposed to do, I'll still learn what I am not supposed to do," he added and began to add the purple smoke within the null cores in the square hole.

The golden light of the afternoon turned into the orange of the evening as he finished adding all of the smoke into the square hole; however, he didn't stop there and plunged his hand into it.

The purple miasma rushed towards his hand like a starving beast, and his hand felt as if ants were biting all over it.

"It tickles," he mumbled as the purple miasma absorbed the life essence from him, and the more it drank, the darker it turned.

While that was happening, Rion had his Zone focus on every single moment of the miasma. As the moment passed, he realised something. "It is turning the life essence into something else... I don't feel any kind of life from it."

"If I put what I have read in my past life and what I have seen in this one, this should be the death energy, and there is a high chance that this miasma is actually the demonic energy... though, it's just a speculation," he muttered while rubbing his chin in thought.

A few more minutes passed, and all of a sudden, the miasma settled down on the dead redwood plank that was placed on the base and walls of the square hole.

Rion frowned and whispered with a puzzled expression, "Huh? Is it already full?"

He sighed.

"Whatever," his gaze and his Zone locked onto the crystal but he didn't see or feel any kind of change in it.

"It was a dud, huh..." he whispered dejectedly before he placed the lid on it and stood up.

"I'll check it after a month," he added as he walked over to his spear, picked it up and left the cave.

Just as he stepped out, he finally registered that the sun was already about to dip below the horizon.

"Blasted hell..." he cursed under his breath and quickly made his way back to his hut in the Redwood Den.

It only took him a few moments to reach the hut, and because his Zone was already active, he was able to sense Dora inside the hut; however, he couldn't understand the smoke coming out of the hut's chimney.

'What is she doing?'

He furrowed his brows, pulled the door and stepped inside.

Dora sat in the kitchen area, and upon seeing that Rion frowned because Dora had never done so before, as they usually ate the meals prepared by one of their mothers.

Hearing the door creak, Dora turned her head towards it, and her gaze fell on Rion.

Rion smiled at her, placed his spear by the wall and all of a sudden, something brown shot towards him.

He grabbed that something by the waist, and his lips parted to chuckle, but before the chuckle could escape, something locked his lips.

Rion tightened his embrace around her, and a few minutes later, she let go of his lips.

They looked into each other's eyes with a flushed look that seemed to ask for more, but both of them knew that it wasn't the time.

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