Help from a friend and a pot of Gu

After emerging victorious from my most recent sparring session with the only sea king in this part of the sea, I swam back to the island. Going ashore, I wandered through the Grey Terminal for awhile, scrounging around for anything even remotely useful.

"Yo boss! How you been big man? I got something good here for you." A high pitched voice rang out from my left from beside a large wooden crate.

When I turned around I saw the owner of the voice. Standing in complete contrast to his chipmunk sounding voice is a lumbering behemoth of a man.

He stands close to 8 feet tall, with rippling muscles and a stained green wife beater, a pair of boxer shorts and slippers on his feet. But by far the most eye catching thing about his is that he is completely covered, from head to toe, in intricate tribal markings resembling tattoos of black flames.

The tongues of fire coiled around every part of his exposed limbs, snakeing up his back and climbing his neck to cover almost half his bald head. With the marks ending just below his eyes. If he wore a hat and you didn't quite look at him head on it'd look like smokey eye shadow. Honestly, he looks almost like someone cosplaying Darth Maul.

"I've been good, what about you Jeffy? How's the leg?" I asked. Walking over to the tall, tanned skinned, terrifying looking man that no one in the Grey Terminal has ever even thought about fucking with. I smiled widely in greeting.

Appearances can be really deceiving. This guy is one of the kindest men around without a doubt. But because if his appearance people treat him like a thug. He even takes in and feeds the stray animals, like the cats and dogs, roaming around the Terminal. He also plays music and sings when he thinks no one is listening, it with my ears I can always hear it. His voice could give those Disney Princesses a run for their money.

"Pah' my leg's better than ever thanks to you. But enough about me, feast your eyes on this. A full set of watch makers and blacksmith tools. They're only a little rusted." Casually kicking over the massive wooden crate next to him as if to accentuate his statement about his leg, the box slid across the mud and came to a slow stop right in front of me.

"I also got a few other things too. Thought you'd like 'em." Jeffy added while rubbing a massive, callused hand across his bald head.

I met him a couple weeks ago and we've become pretty close friends. When I first met him he was trying to bench press a massive ball of scrap that had been bent and forced into shape. While he was easily lifting it the chains holding the giant metal sphere together snapped.

It crumbled instantly, burying him under nearly 2 tons of steel. His entire body had been messed up pretty bad, but since he rolled out of the way just in time, it was his leg that caught the worst of it. Luckily for up him I saw the whole thing take place and was able to pull him from the debris and fix him up good as new. Though it was only after a few healing session's and some physical therapy.

Ever since then he has called me boss and given me a share of whatever loot he finds in the Terminal. After I offhandedly told him I like to tinker he set about finding me all the best parts I could use for my projects.

"Aight man, I'll check you later. I've got to go feed Mittens. She's about to give birth so I can't be gone long. I don't want to miss it! But if I find anything else of value I'll be sure send it your way boss." Jeffy added with a toothy grin and a mock salute before literally skipping off. With his long, powerful legs it only took a few strides before he was out of sight completely.

With Jeffy gone, I returned to scavenging through the heaps of rubbish. Once I had collected a large amount of semi-decent material and added it to what Jeffy brought me, I called a wave up from the sea to drag it beneath the waters and into my deep sea cave. With that done I headed for the entrance to the cave I dug into the side of the island.

A massive crate floated behind me. I kept swimming, dragging the large scrap filled box through the tunnel entrance connecting to my work shop. When I breached the interiors surface what greeted me was a dark room with smooth walls and a set of tables in the centre, each one resembling the crafting tables in Fallout 76.

Each table was covered in various pieces of metal, all laid out in a meticulous order. From pieces of watches and parts of bicycles, to large pipes and sheets of metal; even entire support beams. The room was filled with sorted piles of miscellaneous material.

I started to sort through my most recent haul after removing the water from the metal to keep it from rusting. With my ability to see in the dark, curtesy of my Atlantean genes, I don't even need to turn on a light to get to work.

Once I was done sorting everything, I walked towards the right of my main workshop bench. Placing the watch makers tools on the table before moving on. Passing by the carfully placed components of my latest project, I stopped at a second smaller table. The second table was practically empty with the expecting of a large iron cauldron with a thick metal lid.

There's a set of small holes in the lid placed in specific intervals to allow steam to flow out when the cauldron is placed over a fire. But there is no fire beneath this cauldron. Carefully opening the lid I peeked inside and quickly closed it before something got out.

This is what the Chinese refer to as a pot of Gu. Gu is a specific type of venom-based poison.

The traditional preparation of gu poison involved sealing several venomous creatures inside a closed container, where they devoured one another and allegedly concentrated their toxins into a single survivor, whose body would be fed upon by larvae until consumed. The last surviving larva was said to hold the complex poison. And in this world insect larvae can grow to be rather large.

In this specific cauldron I placed several poisonous and venomous specimens from many different species including but not limited to; spiders, snakes, centipedes, scorpions, poison frogs, lizards, butterflies, moths, ants, wasps and hornets. If it's small and poisonous/venomous then I probably caught it and threw it in here.

I didn't stop there though. I also crushed up a lot of poisonous plants and herbs before mixing them with the poison from certain fruit and mushrooms to create a thin layer of liquid toxin that I coated the bottom of the cauldron with. Meaning they are swimming in poison while fighting for their lives.

Once everything within has been consumed and only one survivor remains I will add the larvae. I painstakingly collected close to a hundred of the tiny little grubs from all across the forest between Mount Corvo and the Grey Terminal.

Most of the larvae are from different species of poisonous moths/butterflies, or ants/wasps. When not watched carefully by the members of their colony, or kept apart on separate leaves, these particular species have a tendency to be rather cannibalistic. Something which suits my purposes nicely.

In the short time I've been on this island, I've grown resistant to the majority of toxins found in the wild. That's why I started making my own. I'm not too proud of it, but I experimented quite a bit on the more unsavoury characters in the Grey Terminal. Those that make their living by stealing from people, and killing others instead of scavenging through the piles of trash like everyone else.

It was a good way to test the effects of the poisons I created before using them myself, but it's morally questionable at a best, and downright villainous at worst. I catalogue and record all the reactions no matter how small as well as the side effects of each poison as well as any lingering issues. I also get to practice my healing abilities by curing those I poison; killing two birds with one stone. So no harm no foul right?

This particular pot of Gu is almost ready for me to add the larvae so they can consume which ever poisonous thing survives and create more specialized poison for me to test.

Looking to my right I saw a third work bench. This table was smaller than the rest. Resting on its rectangular wooden surface are several glass vials, test tubes, and beakers; each holding a strange and mysterious coloured liquid.

Next to the vials lies a series of flasks, with serval other miscellaneous objects scattered about the table; it looked like a high school chemistry set. There's even something that resembles an old fashioned pill making kit, along side a mortar and pestle and a few other miscellaneous items.

Jars containing different leaves, roots, stems, flowers, and the seeds of plants such as cinnamon bark, ginger, ginseng, licorice, and rhubarb lined the back of the table, some even stacked on one another. These are typically combined together to form of traditional tea, pill capsule, liquid extract, granule, powder, salve, or paste. Though I'm still experimenting to widen my knowledge of what ingredient has what effect.

All of the more intricate pieces of scientific equipment were bought from the nicest stores within High Town. After all, what I'm doing can't be done with common garbage found on the streets of the Grey Terminal, no matter how much I polish and clean it. Though I usually just have Morph transform into the required Beli for me. I don't plan to spend a single cent in this town.

Within several of the sealed test tubes, kept away from the other samples of previous patches of Gu, is a rather large amount of a bright blue substance. This is something I have been gathering for awhile now; the blood of horseshoe crabs.

Horseshoe crab blood is bright blue and contains important immune cells that are exceptionally sensitive to toxic bacteria. When those specialized cells meet invading bacteria, they clot around it to protect the rest of the horseshoe crab's body from harmful toxins.

Scientists used these clever blood cells to develop a test called Limulus Amebocyte Lysate, or LAL, which checks new vaccines for contamination. This technique has been used all over the world since the 1970's to stop medical professionals from giving out jabs full of bad bacteria that could make humans very sick.

If I didn't go into engineering, I definitely would have been a biochemist. I took a minor in evolutionary biology after all. Poison's and medicines go hand in hand. Too much of a beneficial medicine can turn it into a poison, and a select amount of certain poisons can be made into beneficial medicine. It's something that I've always found deeply fascinating.

My experience with biology and chemistry only go up the the advanced highschool classes I took in grade 12, and the minor degree courses I took in university, but that level of knowledge goes a long way in this world. As does my experience going in and out of hospitals since I was 4 years old.

Right now I'm working on making a universal-antidote. Though I'm hardly making any real progress. By mixing pure, distilled water with the blood of horseshoe crabs I'm hoping to combine the blood's unique antibiotic properties with the effects of my healing skill.

To that end I have been going around Edge Town and the Grey Terminal looking for sick and injured people, using my experimental serum to try and heal them. They really have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

I don't see the harm in using them as Guinea pigs, but maybe that's just me trying to justify my actions. Sometimes I'll pick out the more violent and murderous of the lot to keep my conscious clear, and inject them with the poisons I concoct just to see how they respond and how my antidote works on them afterwards.

In that regard, I wonder if what I'm doing is any different from Caesar Clown, Judge Vinsmoke, or Queen the Plague; who use their own subordinates to further their experiments. But Im no doctor. I never took the Hippocratic Oath.

Though I always do it with Morph covering my face and hair while wearing a disguise. I'm not stupid. I even wear shoes! Uncomfortable, cumbersome things. I just don't want people harassing me to heal them, or chasing me because I poisoned them.

If I had a proper culture room I might even be able to create penicillin. I would just need to cultivate a certain type of mould. Then again, I'm not sure Penicillin hasn't already been invented in this world. They do have fully functioning dentists and optometrists after all. I'm pretty sure I remember the Surgeons on Drum Island reattaching Wapol's head after he was decapitated.

Honestly, I don't really know why I'm even doing this. It's more to sate my curiosity and deal with the boredom from lack of modern entertainment systems, or proper books to read than anything else. I mean I've snuck into the Goa Kingdom library a few times for that reason, though their selection isn't the best. But If I had to take a real guess, I'd say I'm doing this because the concepts of poisons and cures have fascinated me since I was a child. I've been taking different types of drugs and medicine all my life. Nothing really ever helped.

But in this world, there are no real limits to what is and isn't possible. Traditional herbal, Native and Chinese medicine especially intrigued me alongside the early chemists of earth who were once called alchemists.

I used to dream about being a one myself. I dreamt of creating a serum that would heal my legs and save my mom from her disease. On the other end I had equally grand dreams of being a mad scientist and poisoning the people who looked down on and wronged me.

But those were just the wishful fantasies and delusional dreams of a naive/angry child. There is no such thing as a magical cure all on earth. But… in this world… why shouldn't it be possible? What kind of limits does this world have when people can teleport and clone others? So I'll make own version of a panacea, or snake oil. A true cure all!

That's why, whenever I go deep enough underwater, I look for horseshoe craps and ask them to give me a small, but generous donation. I do something similar with oysters, clams and mussels to farm pearls on a weekly basis. And luckily for me, up to one-third of a horseshoe crabs blood can be removed safely without killing them, though it does leave them a little drowsy.

These little experiments also taught me that I can't replace lost blood. Which is really good to know. Though this has done wonders for my ability to control liquids other than water. And since my own blood is weird as hell and doesn't match any known blood type, I should probably keep a decent amount in storage as a precautionary measure. It's good that I realized this now.

I'd hate to end up like Sanji in the fishman island arc…