Chapter 599: Poisonous Refinement

Realistically, Liam had to rest.

As resilient as Liam was, he had gone all-out against a mid-stage branching expert right after an alchemical session. The latter hadn’t been intense, but exhaustion had piled up nonetheless.

Still, time was of the essence since Liam wanted to continue clearing his goals despite the political mess that was bound to arrive. According to Rachel, the window was narrow, too, so he had to push himself a bit longer.

The location wasn’t important as long as Liam was fast, at least for the first part of his strategy. After flying for a few hours, he settled into another underground hall and got ready for the semi-experimental project.

Liam had nothing to hide from Rachel anymore, so he summoned all his stockpiled venom, uncaring of the reactions that abundance might stir. The two amphoras and brown slab came next, as well as the almost-grey cauldron and the ceramic basin.

The fan grew grumpy since it knew what was about to happen, releasing an annoyed, high-pitched whine, but Rachel immediately shut it down. She grabbed its handle, placing it on the floor while sitting on her knees some distance from the laboratory.

A shameless call for help resounded in Liam’s mind, but he just cursed at it. ’Next time, show some loyalty. Grace is already worried as it is.’

The mental curse actually halted Liam for a fraction of a second. New troublesome developments had arrived, and he should at the very least be honest about them.

Liam started smoking as he summoned his black jade, sending a mental message and receiving a reply in the next minute. Then, another arrived before he could say anything, followed by a third, fourth, and fifth communication in a row.

By the sixth mental message, a frown had plagued Liam’s face, but there was nothing to be done. He could only obey his adorable albeit scary Dao partner.

"Rachel, your communication device," Liam requested as he reached the sitting woman, and she didn’t hesitate to comply.

Liam’s communication device didn’t only serve as a tool to unify various black jades. It could also create a channel between two or more experts who had Liam in common in that regard.

Then, after handing the long jade to Rachel, it was with some shame that Liam hurried back to his laboratory. A legendary mental clash was about to happen, and he wanted nothing to do with it.

Luckily, alchemy had a way of removing anything superfluous. Liam had also long since achieved inhuman levels of complete immersion, so the outside world vanished from his mind, leaving only his laboratory.

’The Alchemical Refinement is merely an imitation of inscriptions and formations,’ Liam thought. ’But what about evolving it specifically for poison? What about a Poisonous Refinement?’

Liam had actually already started that practice. He hadn’t given it a specific name because it fell under Alchemical Refinement, but he had quite a bit of experience with it.

The fan’s binding had happened through that field. Liam’s brown space-ring also had containers with tens of tools coated in poisonous powder, improving and changing through its power.

That had merely been Liam using his best tool for the experimental procedure, but he saw the path toward establishing it as a proper field now. He had even reviewed the topic already, and he now wielded the tools to kickstart it.

’The intent only a branching expert wields,’ Liam reviewed. ’My familiarity with poisons and ability to command them.’

Liam acted as the theory took a more detailed shape in his mind. Practice was crucial in alchemy, but he moved with all the confidence his recent battles had built.

Pouring the venom into the cauldron was the first step, and refining it came next, though that second part had nuances.

Liam knew his venom like the back of his hand. He had even completed the tests on its rank 3 version, but the current refinement aimed to accomplish quite a specific task.

With the fan, Liam only had to fill his venom with his Qi, turning it into an extension of himself that could help him during the binding.

However, the branching stage had already awarded a similar result. In but a few minutes under the black alchemical flame, the venom was tainted in a way that mimicked what Liam’s Qi did to the world.

Liam had basically poisoned the venom, allowing him to apply his newfound ability to control what he infected, to add what he swallowed to his power.

Like that, Liam could more easily apply his intent to the refinement, removing most of the venom’s deadliness, but intensifying what remained since it targeted what he needed to destroy.

By the time Liam slapped the cauldron’s side and poured its contents into the basin, the venom had paled greatly, gaining a strange luster. It was almost bright, but Liam only inspected it for a second before dropping the brown slab into it.

Liam didn’t need the slab, but experiments often resulted in initial losses. So, he used it as a sacrificial pawn to test whether he had gotten the substance right.

On the surface, the pale, venomous liquid attacked the slab’s fabric, corroding it, filling the hall with sizzling noises and releasing dark fumes. The basin was eating the item alive, but the process looked different in Liam’s expert eyes.

With the Master’s Pride and the latest iteration of the Cloud pill, Liam had learned to target the Qi rather well. Of course, complementary ingredients aided the task, even enabling it for the most part.

Yet, Liam’s intent could partially compensate for the missing ingredients. Just like the snake head had locked onto a specific target, his refined venom could gain a similar nemesis.

Which was why the slab was indeed melting under the pale liquid’s influence, but only because those parts carried Qi that didn’t match its nature.

Liam’s venom was basically purifying the item, removing any tampering, be it inscriptions, special protections, or tracking methods, since they all relied on Qi.

Naturally, the purification wasn’t exactly pure. Liam was using venom after all. He had labeled that field as Poisonous Refinement, meaning the results would be toxic.

When the sizzling stopped, Liam tested that toxicity with his own hands. He retrieved what was left of the slab from the basin, wiping it clean with a specialized tablet, ending up with a yellowish pebble barely as big as his palm.

The pebble was weaker than the slab, at least in terms of Qi, but it remained a rank 3 material. It was also strangely flexible, like solid goo, but definitely without any impurities whatsoever. It was so clear Liam could almost look through it.

Liam had no way of confirming whether the tracking method was gone since he couldn’t spot it in the first place. Yet, chances were nothing foreign had survived the refinement.

’Well, I’ll discover if this works soon enough anyway,’ Liam thought. ’It’s a pity I can’t use it as a nutrient since the Poisonous Refinement relied on my venom, but this is just the start.’

If Daniel tracked Liam through Andrew’s items, the Poisonous Refinement would be deemed a failure.

However, if nothing happened, Liam could see himself refining other materials with poisons that could benefit his cultivation. He could turn unsuitable resources into substances that could help him grow.

’If I perfect this,’ Liam pondered, greed flaring in his mind, ’Plundering will become far more worthwhile.’