125: Chapter 125 Another Attempt

In the time that followed, Nie Ning began his research on the prisoner.

Unlike Ivy, the Power of Corruption in the prisoner's body was extremely stubborn, and with Nie Ning's current abilities, it was impossible to clear it all.

However, the Power of Corruption in the prisoner was relatively thin, not reaching the level of a typical Corruptor.

Since the prisoner could stimulate wind-based abilities, it was clear that his experiment had been a success.

Furthermore, the current prisoner had not yet fully mutated and still possessed his own consciousness, which was also good news for Nie Ning.

If everything went smoothly, he would likely continue to operate this way in the future.

After recording the data he needed, Nie Ning began extracting bone marrow from the prisoner's spine to produce a potion.

Although it was his first time, according to Nie Ning's theory, using bone marrow should yield better results.

Unfortunately, his own physical condition could not be replicated, so he even had to perform the drug testing himself.

Fortunately, the potion itself was very safe; the only thing to be careful of was the Power of Corruption contained within it.

However, given his own corruption resistance, the Power of Corruption in the blood was not even as strong as the feedback from the Black Tide; under normal circumstances, there should be no accidents.

...

Before long, Nie Ning once again produced the Special Blood-Coagulating Reagent.

Nie Ning looked at the potion in his hand; it was similar to the previous bottle, only the surface appeared hazy and gray.

After leaving the room, Nie Ning closed the laboratory's restriction and returned to the adjacent cultivation room to swallow the potion.

The moment he swallowed it, it felt as if a cold wind blew over him, making Nie Ning's hair stand on end and his head grow groggy.

However, this feeling passed quickly, and in a moment, Nie Ning had regained clarity.

Feeling the extra power within his body, Nie Ning tried to drive the power of wind.

As the mana circulated within him, a wild wind seemed to kick up around him, blowing the desks and cabinets in the room askew.

Nie Ning opened his panel to take a look; indeed, he had gained Basic Wind Affinity and Basic Wind Mastery.

He didn't know if it was due to human commonality, but the probability of acquiring such traits was simply too high—so high that it made Nie Ning feel a bit uneasy.

Though it was a good thing, for some reason, Nie Ning couldn't bring himself to be happy.

"Am I being too deeply affected by the corruption?"

Nie Ning couldn't help but frown.

Under normal circumstances, he would at least feel a bit of joy, but now his emotions were like a pool of stagnant water.

Something was wrong!

Something was very wrong!

"It seems I need to reduce my contact with the Power of Corruption."

Needless to say, the Power of Corruption was troublesome; otherwise, the wizards wouldn't have failed to solve it until now.

Nie Ning wasn't sure if his changes were normal, but he could try to avoid this danger.

"Advancement... I'll wait until after I advance."

Now that he had reached a critical moment, Nie Ning naturally couldn't give up so easily; everything had to prioritize advancement.

...

After acquiring the wind ability, Nie Ning returned to the previous laboratory, took some samples from the prisoner, and then humanely destroyed him.

After all, he still had to consider the issue of advancement.

For his own safety, he certainly couldn't leave behind someone who was still continuously mutating, let alone that this guy was a death row inmate.

Nie Ning looked at the other prisoner sleeping nearby, thought for a moment, and decided to first try if he could succeed in fusion.

If the fusion was successful, he shouldn't have to touch the Power of Corruption again in the short term.

...

Closing the laboratory door, Nie Ning returned to the cultivation room to begin fusing attributes.

Because he lacked the Lightning Mastery trait, Nie Ning could only try adding the lightning attribute first, leaving the most difficult part for the ice element.

As a white Elemental Sphere emerged in his hand, a wisp of electrical light flashed across its surface.

When the wind attribute appeared, a faint white vortex with a hint of green appeared around the Elemental Sphere.

The wind element rotated rapidly around the Elemental Sphere, as if pulling the lightning on the sphere along with it, causing the lightning to adhere to the vortex.

And when the lightning was completely attracted by the wind element, the wind vortex spun faster and faster, rotating around the Elemental Sphere like a stellar ring.

Nie Ning was quite surprised; he hadn't expected the compatibility between the powers of wind and lightning to be so high.

But what came next might not be so easy.

Nie Ning concentrated his attention and began to urge the ice element to attach to the Elemental Sphere.

Perhaps due to his Mid-level Ice Mastery, the ice attribute was not as violent as before, but the formed ice crystals began to rotate rapidly along with the wind and lightning powers.

Seeing this, Nie Ning immediately controlled the already fused three elements to approach the Elemental Sphere, wanting to fully integrate them into it.

Only this could ensure the integrity of the skill, rather than a state of opposition between the two sides.

This step was harder than Nie Ning had imagined.

A huge repulsive force appeared between the Five Element Orb and the three-element ring, making it impossible for the three-element ring to merge in no matter what.

'Is it going to fail again?'

Nie Ning suddenly remembered the situation during his last advancement.

As Nie Ning's pupils turned gray, the Five Element Orb was visibly tainted gray by the Power of Corruption.

The characteristic of the Power of Corruption was its extremely high infectivity.

So even though the mastery of the ice, wind, and lightning attributes was not corrupted, the Power of Corruption on the Five Element Orb still stained the three-element ring.

It was just that this process was very slow.

At the same time, the Runic Formula on the floor used to stabilize the eight attributes began to twist and deform.

And when the three-element ring turned completely gray, the repulsive force between the two suddenly vanished, and the three-element ring fully merged into the Elemental Sphere.

'That works too?'

Nie Ning looked at the Elemental Sphere in his hand with surprise.

At this moment, the Elemental Sphere was gray; the center was a vortex representing the five elements, and on the edge of the vortex, a three-element ring rotated.

Although the eight-element sphere had fused, for some reason, Nie Ning always felt it was a bit strange.

As a half-baked wizard, there were many things he couldn't fathom.

For example, right now, although the Elemental Sphere had fused successfully, he realized that there was a problem with his Runic Formula.

Perhaps it had nothing to do with the several elements from the start; it was just that his attainment in runes was too poor, leading to extreme instability between the elements.

And the creation of witchcraft was never a matter of a day or two.

He had been too hasty, thinking that constant attempts could combine the things he wanted.

Just like the Runic Formula beneath him, he had simply added another layer on top of the original; because the energy could flow normally, he thought it was the correct choice.

Nie Ning looked at the Runic Formula on the floor, which had already twisted and deformed under the influence of the Power of Corruption.

Thinking of this, the gray in Nie Ning's eyes faded, and the rune orb returned to its original state.

He wanted to see if the Elemental Sphere could stabilize in its normal state.

When the Runic Formula returned to normal, the Elemental Sphere in Nie Ning's hand began to tremble violently, and then its surface became covered in cracks like a glass ball.

'Bang!'

The Elemental Sphere suddenly exploded, but Nie Ning was not blown away.

...