Chapter 87: A Small Discovery

Chapter 87: Chapter 87: A Small Discovery

They continued in silence for a while.

Then Damon stopped.

Caelia nearly walked into him.

"What is it?"

Damon didn’t answer.

His Spirit Origin had pulsed.

Once.

His expression changed.

Then it pulsed again.

Thump.

Damon’s eyes narrowed.

He knew that reaction.

He had felt it before.

A Core Spirit.

And this time, the response was much stronger.

His second core had clearly sensed something nearby.

Damon slowly smiled.

"Change of plans."

Caelia blinked.

"What?"

Damon turned slightly.

"This way."

He pointed toward another passage.

"That isn’t the route we were taking."

"I know."

"Then why are we going there?"

Damon’s smile grew.

"Let’s say my instinct just told me where to go."

This made Caelia stare blankly at him.

She had no idea what that meant.

But she had already learned that when Damon smiled like that, something interesting was about to happen.

So she didn’t argue as they changed direction.

Meanwhile, the pulse continued to become stronger.

Again.

And again.

Damon’s steps quickened.

He could feel it now.

Whatever was ahead was close.

Much closer than he had expected.

His second core had clearly grown stronger too.

The range was far greater than before.

Damon’s excitement was no longer something he could hide.

Then he turned around a wall of ice.

And finally saw it.

Damon stopped.

His eyes widened slightly.

"There you are."

Damon crouched down and carefully picked up the tiny Ice Core Spirit.

It looked like a small piece of frost that had been shaped into a seed.

Its surface was smooth and pale blue, and a faint chill spread through his fingers the moment he touched it. There was barely any movement.

Yet Damon could feel it.

Pulse.

His eyes lit up.

Another Core Spirit.

He smiled.

His Spirit Origin really was ridiculous.

Without it, this little dormant spirit might have remained like this forever. It had no clear path toward becoming a Bestial Spirit, yet his Spirit Origin could nurture it and give it a chance to become something completely different.

Damon stared at the frost seed with growing excitement.

He was already imagining what it could become.

"What kind of creature will you turn into?"

He completely forgot that Caelia was standing beside him.

Caelia watched quietly.

She still didn’t understand.

Why was he this happy about a dormant Ice Core Spirit?

Everyone knew that dormant spirits like this couldn’t normally evolve into the Bestial Stage. There were theories, experiments and countless attempts, but nobody had found a reliable method.

Yet Damon looked as though he had just found treasure.

Considering the two strange Spirit Elementals already following him, Caelia had a feeling there was something she didn’t know.

She decided not to ask.

She would rather see it for herself.

"Damon."

No response.

She sighed.

"Damon."

He finally looked up.

"Hm?"

"The Birthground is closing soon."

Damon blinked.

"Oh."

Caelia crossed her arms.

"You were planning to stare at that thing until we got thrown out, weren’t you?"

"Maybe."

She shook her head.

"You’re impossible."

Damon chuckled before putting the frost seed away.

"Fine. Let’s keep moving."

They continued deeper into the Birthground.

After finding what he wanted, the mood became much lighter.

They talked as they walked, touching on the city, the Winterbourne family and even some smaller things that had nothing to do with their current situation.

Damon also continued collecting anything useful he found.

Caelia eventually stopped questioning it.

At this point, she had accepted that if there was something lying on the ground and Damon thought it was useful, it was probably going into his storage.

Still, neither of them planned to leave immediately.

Damon was eager to start nurturing his new Core Spirit, but he understood that there was something more important.

His agreement with Cornelius.

He had asked for access to the Birthground, but in return, he had also agreed to help Caelia investigate the cause of the Frostveil Expanse’s abnormal growth and why the beast reacted differently towards the Winterbourne mansion.

They couldn’t simply leave after finding the Core Spirit.

Someone could still be inside.

An infiltrator.

And with how strange everything had become, Damon wasn’t willing to assume the Birthground was safe just because they hadn’t seen anything suspicious.

Caelia seemed to think the same.

She remained alert as they moved.

Then she stopped.

"Wait."

Damon turned.

"What?"

Caelia looked around.

"Something feels different."

Damon focused.

He didn’t have her Ice affinity, so he couldn’t sense the change in the same way.

But his White Core reacted to something else.

A faint disturbance.

He looked down.

A tiny crystal was lying between two pieces of ice.

It wasn’t much different from the others.

Damon crouched.

"What’s this?"

He picked it up.

The moment he touched it, his expression changed.

The crystal was carrying unstable Aether.

Not much.

But enough.

Caelia immediately moved closer.

"Let me see."

Damon handed it to her.

Her eyes narrowed.

"This shouldn’t be here."

"That’s what I thought."

She studied the crystal carefully.

There was something wrong with it.

The Aether inside wasn’t flowing naturally around it. It felt forced.

Damon looked around.

"So they finally started."

Caelia’s expression became serious.

They both understood what that meant.

Someone had been tampering with the Birthground.

Damon’s gaze hardened.

He suddenly felt more responsible than he expected.

He had been the one who requested the Birthground be opened.

Of course, whoever had done this might have started before he arrived.

But they had been given an opportunity because of his request.

"I don’t like this."

Caelia looked at him.

"Neither do I."

She glanced around the area.

"If you hadn’t noticed that crystal, I might have missed it."

Damon looked at the tiny object.

That was the frightening part.

It was easy to overlook.

If there were more scattered throughout the Birthground, they could have walked past all of them without realizing what was happening.

Caelia slowly connected the pieces.

"The unstable Aether we were sensing..."

"Could be connected to this."

"And if there are enough of these..."

Damon finished for her.

"They could be attracting the beasts."