I’m Trapped in a Cube - Chapter 75

The encirclement dispersed, and the Quartz Tribe  no longer paid attention to the cube in front of them.

They all rushed off in another direction, running up a passage.

Mo Ling’s curiosity surged, and he quickly followed.

He wanted to see what exactly the Quartz Tribe was searching for.

Following the mineral vein passage upward, the Quartz Tribe crossed a bridge and arrived at a platform beside a mineral vein.

There were some motionless Quartz Tribe members here, all very small, pressed tightly against the vein-clearly newborns.

But the focus was not these newborns, but a nearby Quartz Tribe member with a very tall and strange figure.

The originally transparent and crystalline quartz body was now covered in blue-green spots, like ink diffusing in clear water-very striking.

This Quartz Tribe member stared in shock at the changes on their body, watching as the blue-green speckles slowly spread.

The blue-green color didn’t directly replace the original color, but gradually dyed the surrounding transparency, from light to dark.

It was like a persistent contamination.

Mo Ling finally saw with his own eyes what Shi Beng  had described as Vein Mutation Disease.

So, this was a true infected.

The Quartz Tribe’s voices sounded like an alarm, warning that a Vein Mutation Disease infected had been found at the mineral vein stronghold.

Mo Ling had just been mistaken by accident.

The Quartz Tribe member now slowly being contaminated by blue-green was the true target of the alarm.

By now, the Quartz Tribe had surrounded the patient, some waking the newborns and urging them to leave.

The Vein Mutation Disease patient stood motionless, trembling all over, seemingly unable to accept their transformation.

“Vein Mutation Disease, leave this place!”

Faced with the disease, the Quartz Tribe showed no mercy, unanimously wanting to drive the patient out.

For them, this was the only solution.

Not killing on the spot was already the best outcome.

The infected still trembled as he explained, “It was another infected who touched me, there’s someone else, someone else, someone sneaked in…”

Someone sneaked in? Was there more to this?

Mo Ling noticed the patient’s quiet explanation.

“Could there be another infected?”

But the patient’s stammered words didn’t get his companions’ attention, the explanation drowned out by the intense sound of metal and stone.

Perhaps the disease didn’t usually spread so quickly, but the transparent quartz body made the symptoms especially obvious.

After just a short time, the strange blue-green had already started to seep from the surface into the depths, the spread of color clearly visible.

So unlucky.

As the tribe’s fear deepened, the patient stopped lingering, hung his head, and walked downward, seemingly resigned to his fate.

The circle opened a gap, but the Quartz Tribe still watched him warily, afraid he’d do something else.

Under strict surveillance and fearful stares, the patient walked off the stone bridge to the ground below.

The Quartz Tribe stood above, watching intently.

He looked back at the vein, then helplessly walked toward a passage at the edge of the clearing.

Reaching the clearing, Mo Ling relayed what he’d heard to Li Luo via the tablet.

“There’s someone else?”

Li Luo told Shi Beng to wait, then hurried after the patient with Mo Ling.

They needed to figure out what had happened.

The infected seemed unwilling to leave, glancing back every few steps at the vein he’d lived in.

But he saw Mo Ling and Li Luo catching up.

“Do you want something?” he asked, head down, listless.

Mo Ling actually saw a sense of loss in him.

He said helplessly, “You’d better stay away from me. The Vein Mutation Disease might infect you, though I don’t know if it can affect humans.”

He stepped back to keep his distance.

But Li Luo didn’t care, stepping forward and asking, “You just said there was someone else? What do you mean?”

The patient looked up, surprised. “You heard that?”

Then he returned to his helpless expression. “I just felt someone touch me while I was in the void state. I’m not sure if it was real.”

“When the alarm sounded, I found the symptoms appeared where I was touched.”

He tilted his head and pointed to his left shoulder, where there was a large blue-green patch.

All the blue-green dots in his body were connected by fine lines to this patch; by the veins, this was the source of the symptoms.

He twisted his head to look at his shoulder, his expression growing more forlorn.

“This is lapis lazuli.”

Li Luo stepped forward, examining the patch and recording it.

Her actions surprised the infected, who stared wide-eyed in disbelief.

“Have you tried removing it?” Li Luo asked.

The infected’s eyes lit up, and with a shake of his shoulder, it cracked open, a fissure appearing at the border between the blue patch and the quartz, cleanly cutting off the blue patch.

Then, the quartz on his body began to regrow, but when it reached the blue patch area, it turned back into lapis lazuli.

“There is no use,” the patient shook his head, disappointed.

Li Luo asked, “How do you feel now?”

“Very good. I can feel the powerful lapis lazuli energy, my mind is especially clear, and I have many feelings I never had before. I can’t describe it.”

He opened his hand, and a sharp lapis lazuli blade grew from his quartz palm.

The color difference made the blade look odd, but the perfect connection showed it was truly his power.

“It’s like I’ve mastered it for a long time.”

Looking at the blade, even the patient seemed confused.

He kept changing the lapis lazuli in his hand into different shapes, his sadness gradually fading, a light appearing in his eyes.

“It’s actually pretty fun. Since I was born, I’ve never felt like this before. It’s as if everything is new, and I don’t feel so empty anymore.”

He was talking about the lapis lazuli in his hand, but Mo Ling heard another meaning.

A word began to form in Mo Ling’s mind.

At that moment, Li Luo asked the question in her heart, “Are you… feeling ‘curious’?”

That’s right, curiosity.

This emotion, which shouldn’t exist in mineral tribes, had appeared in this patient.

Hearing Li Luo’s question, the patient paused.

“Yes, curiosity. Looks like I’m really sick if I can feel ‘curiosity.’ Then why was I so ‘sad’ just now? Maybe it was the reluctance of parting?”

The lapis lazuli in his hand slowly changed into the shape of a quartz vein, and he stared at it in silence.

This had been his home, but now he was no longer welcome.

Unconsciously, his face was full of “sadness.”