Within a dark cave, a pair of glowing grey eyes slowly opened and they scanned the environment for a while before looking ahead.

Adrian let out a sigh as his eyes adjusted. Well, there wasn’t much adjustment to be made, since he realized that the darkness was almost as bright as daylight for him.

Ahead of him and at the entrance that led into the cave, was the clone he left on lookout.

It silently sat at the entrance, looking towards the forest below and, in turn, towards the black sea, as if it were in deep thought.

But it turned around the moment it sensed that it was being looked at and that’s when it noticed that Adrian was awake. 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

"Good job," Adrian said before dismissing it.

With [Shadow Sense], he noticed the corpses of the corrupted beasts that lay just below the cave’s entrance.

They had likely been attracted by the mana that leaked from Adrian during his breakthrough, and the clone had managed to handle most of them, alone.

Fortunately, though, none were above C-Rank, so it was able to easily handle them.

Well, relatively easily anyway.

When the [Shadow Clone] was completely gone, he then focused on the improvements brought about by his breakthrough.

The first obvious change was the fact that he basically had night vision now....well, more like the darkness of night was just as clear as day for him, allowing him to see much farther and in clearer detail than would normally be possible.

Next was his mana, if before he felt it was large, now it felt as if he was holding an entire ocean of it within himself.

Speaking of oceans, Adrian suddenly paused his thoughts as he listened through the quiet night....or was it day? He couldn’t tell.

Although it sounded dull, he could’ve sworn that the black sea sounded a lot farther than it currently did.

But then again, he could’ve been too drunk on corrupted mana to be certain of how far he had heard it.

So for now, he ignored it and focused back on his increased mana pool.

It made him feel as if he could use his abilities forever, and he’d barely feel anything.

Finally, there was the new ability he gained, [Shadow Possession].

It was what one would call a broken ability, since it even allowed the clones to retain both the abilities and strength of the being they possessed.

Adrian stood up, hoping to go test it out, but he stopped in his tracks when his stomach let out a grumble.

That’s when he realized that his breakthrough might’ve taken more than an hour, especially given how hungry he was.

"Let’s deal with this first, " he muttered as he turned back into the cave since starting a fire by the entrance would only attract more corrupted beasts towards this place.

And he’d very much prefer to deal with them after eating.

Adrian walked deeper into the cave for a while before stopping at the deepest part, which wasn’t too far from the entrance.

He paused as he looked at what lay before him.

A nest.

One made of large twigs and was big enough to fit five of him, which told him how large whatever formed it was.

Within the nest was a black egg, with lighter spots on the shell, almost as big as Adrian’s head.

Normally, the smart thing to do in this situation was to leave immediately since whatever built this nest and laid the egg might just be on its way back.

And the smart thing was exactly what Adrian did....right?

"I wonder how it tastes."

«.....»

Maybe the corrupted mana wasn’t fully out of his system yet, and he was still drunk.

«That egg contains a high amount of corrupted mana,» Noctis informed as it reappeared on his head, «if you try eating it, you’ll just end up intoxicated again.»

"...." Adrian continued looking at the egg for a while before letting out a sigh and nodding, "fine, let’s not eat it."

Still, he chose not to leave just yet, not after he had eaten something first, and if whatever lay the egg returned.... he’d just deal with it.

He took out his glasses from his [Shadow Vault] and put them on again, but a frown appeared on his face as he poured mana into them.

He had expected it, but all the mana currently floating in the air was corrupted, and even the spirits, instead of looking like cute little translucent beings,

They had mutated into grotesque forms that latched onto the corrupted mana, hungrily absorbing more and becoming even more corrupted.

Since Renelle was also in this dungeon, it meant that she was also actively absorbing this corrupted mana, and unlike him, she might not have a way to filter it out.

Which meant that if he didn’t get by her side soon, both she and Crystal might also mutate.

And he couldn’t let that happen.

Still, the spirits retained their mana, even though they were now corrupted, so Adrian suddenly grabbed the one that seemed to be a fire spirit.

The spirit tried struggling, but it was all for naught.

He brought it close to the woods he had taken out of his Vault and with a squeeze, the spirit had no choice but to spit out a stream of flames onto the wood.

A moment after, the cave brightened up as the wood caught flames and Adrian finally released the corrupted spirit.

The moment he did, the spirit shot away like a frightened animal, disappearing into the dark with the others.

He paid it no mind as he immediately took out a strip of meat from the vault, completely disinterested in cooking anything grand.

He’d rather make something quick and get out of here, not because he was afraid of whatever had that nest, but because it was now very urgent he got back to his lady’s side.

He held the meat with a shadow spike over the fire and watched it start sizzling.

But just then, the sound of beating wings was heard from afar, signalling one thing.

The owner of this nest, had returned.

***

Meanwhile, out of the forest and a long way from the city that existed in this dungeon, was a ruin.

The ruin told of people living here a long time ago but they had ended up abandoning it, hence the presence of fallen houses.

In one of said fallen houses, was what seemed to be flames that brightened up the place.

Within the lit house was a man, hunched over a table, seemingly focusing on what lay on it.

The man had long raven-black hair that fell to his back. He was also naked from the waist up with what seemed to be scars riddling most of his pale skin.

There were small, almost invisible threads surrounding the table, ones that twitched with his every movement.

A moment later, he ceased all movements as he suddenly started chuckling, a chuckle that soon evolved into full-blown laughter.

After a wave of maniacal laughter, he stopped and looked back on what lay on the table before saying,

"I finally figured it out."