030 Albert's Poison

Today was the first of the weekend, Liam and the others had no classes for today, but their quest, or job, lasted for a few extra hours. Either way, they had more free time today. And it was also today, that Liam planned to learn how to utilize and make his murky spirit water, poisonous.

He wasted no time and started heading up outer peak, to Albert's villa. In the top 1000 outer court disciples, they had their own home. It was a big villa with a separate room for cultivation, alchemy, and forging. Along with other more common rooms. There was also a stronger formation protecting it from anyone not welcome.

As Liam continued to walk upwards, people were weirded out. Normally one of lower rank would not dare to go higher because it was disrespectful. All of the residents knew everyone around and above them, so they were wondering who dared to wander up. They all thought it was only a matter of time before someone decided to teach him a lesson and send him back.

When Liam reached the top 100 or the two-digit houses, someone with the golden eagle's faction emblem stopped him.

"You're also a part of my faction, and are at the fifth human realm. That's why I'll be nice and I'll tell you to walk back. I won't allow you to go any further and embarrass my golden eagle's faction." The bulky man in a black tank top stood in front of Liam, and did not allow him to pass any further.

"I'm going up and you can't stop me. I have a few words I need to exchange with Albert from the cursed." Liam said, already showing his supposed anger.

"What does one of my faction members have to say to Owen's right-hand man." The bulky man squinted his eyes, as he was waiting on what decision he should make, based on Liam's answer.

"He has poisoned me and is now trying to blackmail me for the antidote. I don't know what kind of poison it is and a general poison resistance pill of that grade is too expensive. I want him to remove it." Liam now was fuming in front of the burly man. If anyone knew this was all an act, they would have to agree that Liam was a pretty good actor.

"How dare he? What's your name and rank in the golden eagles. I will notify the faction leader to help you." The man said.

Liam was taken by surprise. He did not expect to receive help from his faction.

"There is no need. Thank you, but I want to settle this now and I don't want to waste the bosses time." Liam sounded very grateful, in hopes that the man will drop it.

"Then I'll come with you, even if he is the fourteenth best outer court disciple, he will have to comply if there's two of us." The man said with a smile, as he patted Liam's back and started walking up towards Albert's villa.

"Wait, I want to do this by myself. I want to show myself that I can do this. Please, with your help, it will ruin the whole point." Liam now sounded sad. He displayed that he wanted to prove to himself that he was strong enough to accomplish this, all in hopes that the man would drop his hand of help

"Fine, Albert's the quiet type, he would do anything to avoid a conflict or argument. I believe in you. If something happens, come to me immediately, I am Borg, rank 92." Borg smiled at Liam before he returned to his own villa.

"Thank you, Borg, I'll run right here if something happens." Liam laughed before he continued up.

Soon enough, Liam was before a villa with the number 14 on it. He knew this was Alberts's house. Luckily, he had cause enough of a scene just walking up here, and his interaction with Borg, really helped, now everyone was to believe that Liam and Albert we're enemies.

Liam went to Albert's front door and rung the bell. Out came Albert and Liam quickly whispered, adding no further explanation.

"Pretend we're having a conflict." He said whispering.

"Give me the antidote, now!" Liam demanded. Albert was surprised by what was happening.

"You're going to play dumb. What, you don't want your reputation ruined before all of these people." Liam continued.

"Calm down, I'll give it to you, come inside. You don't have to make such a scene." Albert said and Liam's goal was accomplished. He was lucky that Albert was pretty smart and he was also the type to want to stay quiet and not attract attention.

Once the door behind them closed, Albert asked Liam.

"What is this about?" He said surprised.

"You forgot to teach me how you control your poison and we're supposed to be enemies, right?" Liam answered by asking a question.

"Fine, you could have just told me the next time we met normally." Albert sighed.

"Can't wait that long." Liam said.

"Why do you even want to know, you're a water element cultivator. Even if I explain it to you, it's a small chance that you'll understand and even if you do, it's of no use to you." Albert was very curios to why Liam wanted to Learn about his poison so much.

"Well, you're going to find out anyway, when you get me my crystals for my soul pet. I am not a simple water element user. I am attuned with the Murky spirit water element. And from what I know, I should be able to use poison in a specific case, but I have no clue how to." Liam said.

"So, a combination of darkness, water, sand, toxic and pressure. What an interesting element." Albert said, to Liam's surprise.

"What do you mean?" Liam asked him.

"That's the basic combination of elements that form your element. But just because you have them in your element, does not mean you'll be good with them. For example, the sand, which is also a part of earth, you do not have a very strong connection with it. Your elemental power and control of it will be a few levels lower. That's why, you'll most likely never use them, even if you have them." Albert started explaining to Liam.

"I can control the earth element?" Liam asked surprised.

"Yes, but I told you, it will be very weak in your hands. Your best sub elements are darkness and water. And of course, your base murky spirit water element." Albert said.

Liam was shocked, even Ralph, who knew basically everything, had barely heard of the murky spirit water element and yet, Albert knew so much on it.

"You don't try to hide your emotions, huh? My family researches elements, that's how I know, if you're wondering." Albert said, before he made a gesture for Liam to follow him and then he started walking towards a certain room.

"What are we doing here?" Liam asked, when they got into the alchemy room, that was only available in the villas in the top 1000.

"This room has a formation on the walls, making it able to endure explosions and corrosion that often happens in alchemy." Albert said, before he took out two pill bottles.

"Each poison has a specific structure, like the atoms that build the molecules, the poison qi particles build the poison. Depending on how the poison particles are structured, you will get a different type of poison. To learn the poison structure, you have to ingest the poison." Albert started explaining, how his poison element worked.

"What will ingesting the poison do to help?" Liam was confused.

"Only someone with the poison element can see the structure of the poison when they ingest it. The stronger your attunement with poison, the better you can see it. This is very difficult and most that have the poison element don't even train it." Albert said to Liam.

"Why is it difficult?" Liam remained confused.

"Imagine trying to focus and learn the structure of the poison, while your whole body is burning and you feel as if every part of your body is being smashed in with a hammer and you also have to worry to ingest the poison resistance pill on time. Ingest it too early and you won't be able to learn the poison's structure and you have wasted valuable resources, ingest it too late and in most cases you're dead. Learning a weak poison is useless." Albert explained.

"Is it like this for every poison type?" Liam asked, as he was starting to grasp how this worked and he was starting to respect Albert a bit more.

"Yes, this explains how you started gaining resistance to my sleeping poison. I'll give you a chance. This is a poison pill, made with the combined and later refined toxin of several fourth human realm beasts and insects. It has the potential to kill even sixth human realm cultivators. Do you want to try and learn it's particle structure?" Albert asked Liam.

"What will happen to me, if I ingest the pill?" Liam was skeptical about Albert's motives.

You will have approximately 20 seconds to memorize the poison structure while enduring excruciating pain, and if you ingest the poison resistance pill before the 20 seconds, you are likely to survive." Albert said, sounding quite horroring.

Liam was left to decide. Finding a poison that was strong enough to be useful was very hard and expensive, a poison resistance pill of high enough grade was also very expensive. This was the perfect chance, he had everything he needed and with a master at the poison element with him. The only problem was the very high likelihood of his death, even if everything went according to plan and there was also that he was entrusting his life to a stranger. If Albert so chooses to take the poison resistance pill from him, after Liam ingested the poison, there would be nothing he could do to resist. What will Liam choose.