Poison

Sky woke up panicking after an unknown time had gone by.

"How can I fall asleep now? Who can steer the ship if both Jericho and I are sleeping?"

The auto-sailing function works only if Sky has been to that part of the map he wants to be.

But for any place he hasn't explored yet he has to use the system manually to navigate his ship.

Sky exited the captain's quarters. He saw Jay and Katelyn talking, whereas Mabel was behind the wheel steering the ship.

"Morning Captain!" Jay and Katelyn waved at him.

"Morning, hope you don't mind me behind me steering your ship." Mabel said.

"Uh, no. Are we headed in the right path?"

"Yes. I have some experience navigating, not to mention I've been planning on taking this route for almost six months."

"Good." Sky sighed in relief. If they went off course it would take longer to get there, which meant time would be wasted, time that could be spent on getting stronger instead.

Sky sat down in the front of the ship. The view of the vast beautiful, blue ocean, the clear skies, it was a sight he's seen numerous times but it never gets old to see it.

Sky used his telekinesis to catch a fish to test out something he had in mind. The fish was struggling to free itself while suffocating.

"Sloth."

{Target has been slowed down by 55%}

"Dispel."

{Curse level is too high to dispel}

{Dispel: lvl 6} Sky sighed. He needed to evolve his ability to reach {curse of sloth's} level to be able to dispel it.

"Well that sucks." Sky threw the fish back to the ocean, forever that one fish will always be 55% slower until it dies.

A few days would go in a blink of an eye. Sky never stopped leveling up his skills.

Meanwhile…

The Caribbean following them were bored out of their minds tailing them.

"Captain, are they never going to make port?" Truth is they were not prepared to go to Marjack that was two weeks away. They relied on islands for food, clothes, water, and everything else they needed.

"How many days until we run out of provisions?" Tristan asked.

"Today, sir."

"Oh, that's not good. And we are still ten days away from Marjack."

"What are your orders?"

"Speed up the ship and signal them again. I'm gonna order them to dock their ship on this island near us." As they were preparing to follow Tristan's orders, the sound of cannons being shot were seen coming from Sky's ship.

"Fishmen! GO! Help them! We cannot let those two women die!" Tristan gave the orders and everyone began preparing for battle.

Meanwhile…

A few minutes ago Sky was minding his business practicing his skills.

{Skill level increased}

{Sense bloodlust: lvl 5: detect the bloodlust of others towards you 200 meters away}

Sky stood up from shock.

The direction he sensed the bloodlust from came from the ocean. Which could only mean one of two things, fishmen or mermaids.

"EVERYONE BE PREPARED TO FIGHT! WE'RE GONNA GET AMBUSHED!" Sky yelled at everyone which caught them off guard.

"Captain?" "Katelyn, Mabel, hide inside the Captain's quarters now! Jay, you protect them with Betty."

"Wait, what?" Katelyn was confused. Sky could sense the bloodlust of several others headed right towards them.

{Combat mode engaged} The cannons started firing at the ocean.

"There's no time."

"Wait, wait, wait!"

Sky opened the door and pushed all three of them inside the captain's quarters with his telekinesis and shut the door firmly.

Jay was still weak. Mabel and Katelyn were too important to die as them dying could result in him failing his quest.

Jericho however was his strongest crew member.

"Jericho, do your best and try not to die." Sky said, she was too important to die.

Jericho, who was scared nodded her head.

"LIghtning eagles!" Five majestic eagles were summoned. And Sky took out his naginata from his inventory.

'Super dash. Mana grace. Super strength.'

{Strength has increased by 25% for ten minutes} {Speed has increased by 55% for ten minutes}

{Max mana has increased and recovered by 50%}

And just then three fishermen jumped out of the water and boarded his ship.

'Sloth. Sloth. Sloth.' Sky was prepared and cursed them right away.

{Target has been slowed down by 55%}

{Target has been slowed down by 55%}

{Target has been slowed down by 55%. Target has fallen asleep for 1 minute}

Curse of sloth has a 2% chance to make a single target fall asleep for 1 minute. And so one of the fishmen was unlucky and fell face flat on the ship.

One of the fishmen swung his sword at Sky, which he managed to parry.

{The difference in strength is too much. You received 900 damage → 20% negated: 720 damage received}

Sky was sent flying back and he crashed on his ship damaging it.

The other fishermen were too busy fending off five lightning eagles and Jericho. The other was deep in his slumber.

Sky quickly reacted to the other fishermen and dodged his incoming attacks.

'Identify.'

{Kin Kin}

{HP: 1,800/1,800} {Mana: 275/275} {Str: 900 Dex: 210 Spd: 100 Int: 55 Mind: 80 Vig: 170}

{Stealth strike: lvl 8}

'Well that explains why he's so strong. And he only has one ability.'

The fishman was clearly superior to Sky in terms of strength and dexterity, but everything else Sky was superior.

{Sky Rouge} {Lvl 128} {HP: 7,990/8,710}

{Mana 5,685/5,685}

{Str: 126 + 80 Dex 124 + 50 Spd: 121 + 130 Int: 288 + 50 Mind: 200 + 150 Vig: 267 + 50}

{Stat points: 5}

Sky moved swiftly using his speed to his advantage and tore the fishman to shreds using his naginata which made him furious.

"HOLD STILL HUMAN!"

Sky wished he could use his telekinesis, but the fishman's high strength stat could easily break himself out of it.

Just then the fishman's sword was cut into pieces by Jericho. While the fishman was in a daze Sky swung his naginata at the fishman's neck, nearly tearing off his head but enough to kill him.

{Fatal strike}

{Received: 9,999 exp, 14,130 shells}

The fishman attacking Jericho was weaker than the one Sky just killed and had difficulty fighting back. Seeing his friend die and the other one sleeping it quickly jumped to the ocean fleeing for his life.

"Wow… we did it." Jericho dropped her knives and sat down out of disbelief.

"Not yet." Sky jammed his naginata on the sleeping fishman's heart.

{Fatal strike}

{Received: 13,211 exp, 27,500 shells}

{Jay Press has leveled up}

{Jay Press}

{Lvl 53}

"Now it's done." Sky was beyond relieved.

The one he just killed was the strongest of the three, his stats were around 700 on average but the sloth curse made him fall asleep and sealed his fate.

Sky saw Jay peeking out of the door with Betty on hand aiming outside. He wanted to help out Sky and Jericho but the crisis had been averted almost instantly.

Katelyn and Mabel immediately ran out of the room to check on Jericho.

"Huh, good to see you two aren't dead. Good job on killing those fishmen for me." Tristan said. Sky noticed Tristan had boarded his ship.

"Listen, you, I need you to go to that island." Tristan told and pointed Sky to an island.

"Why?"

"Just do it."

"I don't see a reason to."

"I do. You either do it or I will have you arrested for not complying with a high ranking Caribbean offer." Tristan folded his arms over his chest. Sky looked dead at Tristan's eyes.

'If only I had more power.' Sky thought.

"You have a point." Sky bit his lip and complied with Tristan.

Tristan jumped back to his ship.

"Captain?"

Everyone looked at Sky.

"We're taking a small break and we're going to that island. Anyone know how to fix this?" Sky

pointed to the damage done to his ship.

No one responded.

"Alright I'll do it." Sky said.

Sky collected the corpses of the fishmen to be sold to the Merchant.

Katelyn confronted Sky.

"What the hell is wrong with you? Did you seriously have my sister fight with you? Those fishmen were dangerous! What if she died?" Sky looked at Katelyn coldly.

"Your sister is strong, that's why I had her help me. I wasn't confident in killing all three by myself."

"But I could have helped out instead! You didn't have to pick her."

"You? Jericho is way stronger than you, Jay is stronger than you, your own mother is stronger than you, so how can I expect you to help me?"

"Well…"

"That's how it is." Sky was confident Jericho could take a few hits while he dealt with the other fishmen. However if it were Mabel or Jay they would be dead.

Sky would have chosen Mabel to help considering her speed, but Mabel is not used to fighting and would have frozen on the spot. Not only that but if Mabel or Kate die the valuable quest could cease to exist.

Katelyn left Sky alone as he repaired his damaged ship.

The Caribbean ship docked and landed before Sky's ship reached the island.

"Here, everyone have some money and spend it however you want. We'll meet back here in two hours." Sky handed everyone 100,000 shells each.

"Sky, we need to save up money and not waste it." Jericho said seriously.

"Relax, Jericho, it isn't that much. We won't be able to do much of what we want these next five months so have fun. Besides, take this time to have fun with your family."

Jericho looked back and realized Sky was right. After they reach Marjack Jericho is going to have to spend a lot of time inside of dungeons, again.

"Oh, and Jericho, are you going to sell your stuff here or do you want to sell them to the Merchant?" Sky asked.

"I'll wait till we see the Merchant again. He seems trustworthy." Jericho added.

"Then I'll sell it for you, just leave your stuff behind and go have fun with your family." Jericho realized what Sky was about to do and nodded slightly. She placed all the items she got on the ground.

They left to have fun on the island. It looked like a great island with a lot of people, lots of buildings, and everyone on the island seemed happy at a glance.

Once everyone was gone Sky took out a blue scroll to summon the Merchant. Sky has three blue scrolls remaining.

"SKY!" The Merchant said loudly with hands stretched out as if he was ready for a hug.

"You're still alive! How's life?" The Merchant said enthusiastically.

"It's fine. Here, I want to sell all of this." Sky handed him all the corpses of the monsters he's killed, and anything else he thought was useless, plus Jericho's items she wanted to sell.

"You sure? Once you sell it to me there are no take backs."

"I'm sure."

"Very well." {Received: 15.455,532 shells}

{Shells: 47.5m}

"Huh, that's a lot more than I thought." Sky was surprised.

Many might think it was easy to earn money as an exterminator, but many would be wrong about that.

Exterminators had to hire a crew, a crew that is strong enough to kill monsters, to be able to man cannons, and be able to know how to handle a ship as handling a ship requires people and manpower. And the more people in a crew the less money everyone received.

Not to mention the Captain of an exterminator crew had to pay his crew, pay their food, supply them with weapons, antidotes, have a healer/doctor on board, be prepared to handle a crew member's death as an exterminator it was common to see death.

And also every portal run is not guaranteed to give them scrolls or items which means that their hard work might be all for naught. Of course that was not all and it mostly applies to exterminators who were self-employed.

Sky did not have that problem because of his system: it gave him quests, rewards, benefits, could steer any number of ships without relying on people, and helped him in many other ways.

"Anyways, anything I can interest you in?" Sky took a loot at the special item for sale. It was a green book with an expensive looking cover.

{Poison eye: lvl 1: poisons enemies by simply looking at them damaging them over time and dealing great pain}

{Damage: 60/s} {Mana cost: 200}

{Cost: 1 player coupon}

{Requirement: 280 int} "Woah, that's really good!" Sky said. He can hurt someone without touching them.

What was more is that there does not exist a single red scroll that has a poison skill.

"It's good but you realize that any low level antidote can get rid of it?" The Merchant said.

"Still, I'll take it." Sky had one player coupon from the mission G. gave him upon entering the Land of the Dead.

{Would you like to learn {Poison eye: lvl 1}?}

{Yes} {No}

"Of course I do." {Learned new skill} {Poison eye: lvl 1}

Sky took a look at the nine quests available and accepted two that interested him.

{Quest: Kill someone while pinning the blame on someone else} {Reward: 100,000 shells}

{Quest: Hand over 20 live lobsters. Press this red button when you have the lobsters ready}

[Reward: Recipe for cooking lobsters, 500 exp}

Sadly these two quests were the best ones available.

Taking a look at the items in store Sky saw one item that he wanted to buy.

{Mask of minor illusion: Green+ grade} {400+ HP when worn. 700+ mana when worn} {Ability:

Creates an illusion of its wearer that lasts for 10 minutes: Mana cost: 150}

{Price: 800,000 shells}

"I'll take this."

"It's yours."

{Shells: 46.7m}

Sky still had a lot of money left and could earn it all back easily.

Sky placed the mask on his face. The mask was a plain white mask with eyes and a mouth.

The mask did not obstruct his view like he thought. It was as if he had no mask on his face.

{HP: 9,110/9,110}

{Mana 6,385/6,385}

"Anything else?"

"No, that'll be all."

"BYEEEEEEEE!" The Merchant left the ship.

Sky went to the island to buy the twenty red lobsters. On the way he saw an open restaurant with a few people inside eating happily.

One of the customers was eating a dish Sky was familiar with.

"Hmm… I can do this." Sky smirked. He knew how to complete a quest right then and there, but the odds were rather low.

One of the men inside the restaurant was eating a poisonous fish, a pufferfish. A pufferfish contains deadly poison, but if it is prepared correctly it can be delicious. If the fish is prepared badly the person can die.

"Here you go, sir, your pufferfish." The nice waitress handed him the risky dish.

"Finally! You know this is my first time ever eating this? A lot of people say it's dangerous but I am just so curious about it."

The one who ordered was a middle-aged man with a beer belly.

"You don't have to worry, sir. Our chef is an expert." "That's good to hear." The man placed the food in his mouth.

'Oh, wow, that is good!" The middle-aged man thought and couldn't help taking several more bites.

"Too bad people won't give it a try because it might be lethal… wait, why do I feel… OH GOD!'

His fear came to be true. He began feeling an intense pain all across his body. The pain was so unimaginable he fell on the ground and began wriggling around in pain kicking and flailing his arms.

He tried to spit out the food that caused his poisoning. "SOMEONE GRAB AN ANTIDOTE!" The waitress cried out.

An exterminator just so happened to have an antidote on him.

Usually there are different antidotes for different kinds of poison, but the antidote in this world works for most poisons, not just the ones inside of portals.

Before the exterminator could reach the middle-aged man he stopped moving and was on the ground. He grabbed his wrist to feel a pulse.

"He's dead." Everyone was shocked. This was the fastest acting poison anyone has ever seen. And there was only one person they could blame his death on, the chef who had prepared a dangerous dish incorrectly.

{Quest completed}

{Received: 100,000 shells}

{Shells: 46.8m}

"Huh, that worked?" Sky did not think this plan would work.

He wasn't surprised that the man died in three seconds because his HP was low, but was surprised that everyone actually pinned the blame on the chef.

Pufferfish poison takes a grown man hours to kill him and it took more than ten minutes for the poison to start acting up. Sky merely tried it to test out the poison.

To Sky the man looked more as if he was being choked instead of being poisoned. But the pain must be incredibly painful.

One time many years ago Sky had been poisoned. Luckily his mother always had an antidote in the house and got rid of the poison with it.

Sky remembered the pain from the poison all too well.

Afterwards Sky left the area to find those lobsters and returned almost immediately to fix his damaged ship.

{Ship repairing: lvl 2}

"Oh, yeah, forgot about that." Sky said.

Sometimes the player system was just too convenient and he was glad to have it.

Jay would return soon with hundreds of plates on hand.

"Hi, Captain!" Jay was brimming with happiness.

"Um, Jay? Why?" Sky pointed at the plates Jay was carrying.

"Oh, I thought this could help me with my aim. I plan to throw these plates and shoot them while they're in the air."

"That's a nice idea but how many did you buy?"

"Well about 10,000?"

"Did you say 10,000?" Sky asked, surprised.

"Well the truth is I wanted to buy 10,000 but they only had a few hundred at best." Jay pointed behind him.

Sky saw a few men were carrying plates and leaving it on the ground for Jay.

"I mean since we are going to be at sea for a long time I thought I might as well."

"I'm not disagreeing, I think it's a great idea."

"Really?"

Sky placed all the plates inside of cards for Jay to use.

While both Jay and him were talking he noticed someone was sneaking into his ship by climbing on the other side of his ship.

Sky smirked.

'Does this person really think he can get into my ship and I wouldn't know?'

The person was hanging on the outside of the ship dangling like an insect.

Sky casually leaned over where the person was. To his surprise Sky did not see anything but he could sense his presence.

'Identify.'

{David Go}

{HP: 400/400} {Mana: 70/70} {Str: 121 Dex: 77 Spd: 111 Int: 14 Mind: 41 Vig: 30}

{Camouflage: lvl 4}

{Stealth strike: lvl 5} {Sneak: lvl 4} {Curse of blindness: lvl 5}

{Shadow sneak: lvl 5}

{Dash: lvl 3}

{Personality: Greedy, introverted}

'Woah, we got a full fledged assassin here. Too bad for him I can sense even well hidden enemies.'

Sky was amazed that all these skills went great with one another.

Sky ignored him and waited patiently for Jericho and the others to return. He could not possibly kill his little sneaky assassin while there were so many witnesses.

Besides, he had an experiment in mind he wanted to do, and David was basically volunteering to be his test subject.

Jericho and her family returned with stuff on hand.

"Sky! We bought lots of stuff!" Jericho said.

Sky noticed they also bought stuff one would find in game stalls like the typical prizes one would expect in a carnival.

"That's nice but we need to go now." Sky was eager to experiment on his little assassin.

Jericho was taken aback Sky was impatient but they all listened to him.

The moment they left the island the Caribbean ship soon followed.

Once they were in the middle of the ocean Sky asked the crew a strange question, "Hey, someone tell me, if a person were to scream on this ship for bloody help would the Caribbean ship be able to hear it?"

Everyone looked at each other confusedly.

"I don't think they would." Mabel stated, "why do you even want to know that?"

"This." Taking out his naginata and using his expert telekinesis Sky brought David to the deck of his ship and slammed him to the floor.

David was still in camouflage and his body did not appear until Sky slammed him on the floor.

Before David has a chance to react Sky cut off his hands.

"Heal." Before David would bleed and stain his ship with blood Sky healed his wounds but they did not regenerate.

"Huh? HUH?!" David was too shocked and confused to process what was happening.

Everyone was just as confused and they stood up. When did a man appear on the ship?

"So we have a little assassin here."

"Wait, wait! I am not an assassin." David thought he should clear himself first.

"Doesn't matter. Let's talk in my quarters." Sky was surprised David was composed after losing his hands, but it didn't matter. Sky dragged him by his hair to his room.

Inside the room the screams of the man resounded throughout the ship. Jay, Jericho, Katelyn, and Mabel were all on edge and had no idea what to do.

However there was silence after ten minutes had passed. Sky came out with a card in hand and threw it at the ocean never to be seen again.

"That was fun."

"Captain, how did you know there was someone on this ship?" Jay couldn't help asking.

"Since I can feel the wind I sensed him coming a mile away." Sky gave him an obvious lie.

While his {wind ability} could help him sense invisible people his {sense} skill was simply better in comparison.

In truth {sense} could be taught and learned by his crew members.

"Sky, why was the man here?" Jericho asked.

"He just wanted to steal our valuables and maybe kill us in our sleep. But now I need a favor from all of you." Sky handed everyone antidotes.

The antidotes were placed inside of auto-injectors.

Everyone was confused. Why was he giving them antidotes?

"In exactly thirty seconds I need one of you to give me this antidote. Starting now."

'Poison eye.'

{You have been poisoned}

{Receiving 60 damage per second until poison is nullified}

{Received 60 damage → 20% damage negated: 48 damage received} Sky felt an incredible amount of pain surging through his body. It felt as if he was being burned while being stabbed by a thousand knives of fire.

'OH GOD THIS IS SO MUCH WORSE THAN I THOUGHT!' Sky thought.

Sky couldn't even move as he wanted, he was on the ground rolling around and screaming from the pain.

Ignoring his early orders Jericho immediately jammed the antidote on his neck.

{Poison has been nullified}

{New skill learned}

{Poison resistance: lvl 1: 5% resistant to poison damage}

Sky was surprised the antidote worked immediately.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!" Jericho grabbed Sky's collar.

"I thought I told you to not give me an antidote yet." Sky said.

He wanted to see if he could heal himself while being poisoned.

"You were on the ground! Screaming, in pain, I thought you were gonna die!" Jericho said.

Everyone else agreed with her.

"I'm just getting used to the poison. I need you to give me an antidote in thirty seconds."

Sky poisoned himself again and was on the ground in pain and agony.

{Received 60 damage → 25% damage negated: 45 damage received} His natural 20% damage reduction also stacked with the 5% poison damage resistance.

This time everyone stared at him confusedly.

After thirty seconds passed Jay was about to heal him but Sky stopped him.

"Not… yet… I… can… keep going!" Sky said.

{HP: 9,110/9,110} Sky was continuously healing himself while his poison resistance was improving which lessened the pain.

Everyone could not help but wonder how weird this was.

"We have a weird Captain, don't we?" Jay said. Everyone else nodded in agreement.

He might be weird but they did not hate him.