Once again, Emery tried his best to probe Magus Heorgar with the aid of his [Nature's Blessing]. However, all it did was repeat the previous failure, just like his last attempt.

There was just too much of a difference between his 900 points of spirit force and the strength of a peak full moon magus, who supposedly had close to 10 thousand points of spirit force. Emery's strength was nothing but a dying candle compared to the magus' brilliant flame.

However, even though he couldn't probe the magus' spirit core, Emery still had his general knowledge and senses that told him that the magus' heartbeat and pulse were not getting better at all. Instead, as the heartbeat started to beat in a random, erratic manner, he knew the magus' condition was getting worse and worse.

It appeared there was only faint spirit energy being channeled through the magus' body, thus after a few weeks the magus immortal body started to weaken to the point of even starting to decompose.

Emery used his spirit energy to heal the magus. After half an hour, it started to recover.

As for the black liquid, however, it was from a reaction within the magus' spirit core itself, and Emery didn't have enough knowledge to deduce whether it was helping or killing the magus. Hence, he decided to just let it be.

Without much else to do, Emery stopped his healing spell and shook his head towards the red haired girl, before explaining what he found.

"Dammit! I really thought he would get better, and then we could finally get away from this accursed place!"

The girl took a deep breath to calm herself down, before she stared at him.

"Anyway, I would put my bet on that magus getting worse rather than better. So, for both the magus and our sakes, I really think we should try fighting that beholder what do you think?"

Emery looked at the girl from top to bottom. He knew from her expression and posture that she had zero concern about the magus hero's life, beyond how it could save herself, but he had to agree she was probably right about the magus' condition.

Realizing his doubts, she added, this time her desperation clear.

"If that snake girl is too scared, then we should both fight it together, just the two of us!"

The girl's previous hesitation to fight the beholder was gone and she seemed committed this time.

Emery had to admit he also wished to return to the academy as much as the girl, what blocked him from trying were all the concerning things the two girls were saying. With the way things are going; no help coming, magus Heorgar's condition, he thought it's probably a good idea to see the creature with his own eyes. Even if he couldn't defeat it on his first try, he should at least give it a look and maybe get some information about it.

However, before he could consider doing that, he needed to make sure he was already fully fitted for the task to increase his chance of not dying.

"Okay then, give me a week to prepare. If no help comes by then, we'll fight that thing," Emery said.

The next day, Emery took a deep dive into the water and once again started to cultivate the [Nature's Grasp], while consuming a few more of the [Spirit Foundation Pill]

His dark core was indeed powerful, but he believed he still lacked a Nature core that could match it and any increase of spirit force could definitely help.

[Spirit force increased]

[Spirit force increased]

[Spirit force: 954]

Three days passed. Emery stopped his training for a bit to hunt for another high-ranking monster. Once again, he managed to use his [Shaman Transformation]

Emery knew it was unsafe to push the skill like before, so as a precaution, he made sure to only use the skill for one full minute before dispelling it. Then, he went back to meditate and control the balance between his two cores once again.

From what he had seen, Emery was fully convinced that, as long as he transformed for less than a minute, the corruption would not resurface

With a few more days to go, he decided to return to his [Nature's Grasp] training one more time and used more [Spirit Foundation Pills] to boost his spirit force just to be on the safe side.

He also had one more thing he'd like to try.

Emery opened his spatial gate and took out a familiar leather-bound book. It was the expensive book he obtained for 100.000 contribution points, the [Soul-Tempering Meditation book 2]

He opened it and slowly read page by page. He took the time to remember each detail and understand the process behind it. After he flipped through the last page, the text glowed and dissipated just like usual.

The text was very inspiring. It talked about a way to strengthen one's soul, learning to use it as a sort of replacement for his senses.

However, this time, an understanding on how it worked was not enough. The book came filled with the manual and chanting that was required to temper the soul and strengthen it.

Emery decided to focus and practice it; he spent the whole day trying. All he could understand from that was, it was something that needed to be practiced over and over. Mere days would not be enough to truly understand what the manual was trying to explain. He put the idea into a mental note for later and stood up to once again find a high ranking beast to fight.

[Fey transformation]

Once again, with this form, Emery could overwhelm his opponent easily with overwhelming spells.

One minute.

Two minutes.

Right as the two minutes passed, however, Emery started to lose control and his core started to turn into a chaotic mess again. Before things went south like last time, he quickly pulled another of the red vial [Gene Suppressors] and injected himself with it.

Hah!

Two minutes of the Shaman Transformation was his uppermost limit before he lost control. The situation was not ideal, but it should be a good enough time to take a peek at the terrifying beholder.

A week passed, as planned with Annara, they were going to fight the beholder later today, but before he went to risk his life, Emery decided to find Silva first.