Chapter 33: Left for Life, Right for Death

"Is... is it also poison?"

Gu Dao’s eyes widened, revealing despair; he wanted to say something, but the next instant his head spun, and he lost consciousness.

The mist also closed in on them at this moment, swallowing the figures of Xu Qing and Gu Dao within it.

Two hours later, at a crossroads on the edge of the forbidden zone jungle, Gu Dao felt a pain in his body, woke up, and opened his eyes.

The moment he opened his eyes, he looked around in a daze, but he quickly jumped up in nervousness.

After confirming there was no danger where he was and not seeing Xu Qing’s figure, he let out a sigh of relief and immediately noticed that the swelling on his face had gone down, and his body felt little different from before he was poisoned.

"I didn't die?"

Gu Dao’s heart raced, the feeling of having survived a disaster was extremely intense, and at the same time, he noticed a piece of bamboo beside him with a line of writing carved into it.

"Insurance has expired."

Looking at these four words, complex feelings rose in Gu Dao’s heart, and he felt even more ashamed of his previous little tricks; after a long while, he sighed softly and bowed deeply toward the depths of the jungle.

"Thank you."

Muttering to himself, he turned to look at the two directions ahead: the one on the right was the only path back to the camp, while the one on the left led away from the camp toward Songtao City.

He stood there, feeling no one around, and thus remained silent for a long time.

"The Camp Master is from the Vajra Sect, and the Vajra Sect’s sphere of influence covers all the nearby cities; even if I escape to Songtao City, I fear it will be difficult to avoid the Camp Master’s wrath, especially since all his men are dead."

Gu Dao struggled in his heart; he knew there was one way to give himself a chance to survive, which was to go to the camp and report, telling them that the child had killed the Camp Master’s subordinates, thereby throwing everything onto the child, and by relying on this, he should be able to survive.

But doing so went against his conscience, as the child had, after all, saved him; yet after pondering for a moment, the struggle in his heart turned into decisiveness.

"In this chaotic world, surviving oneself is what matters; I can't worry about others!" Thinking of this, he suppressed the guilt in his heart, his body flickered, and he sped rapidly toward the direction of the camp.

But the moment his body stepped toward the camp, a cold light whistled from behind him at an astonishing speed, instantly piercing through his skull.

With a bang, Gu Dao’s whole body shook, blood splattered everywhere, his eyes widened, and he fell to the ground, twitching a few times; the world in his eyes was covered by an approaching figure, slowly turning pitch black until it became eternal.

He died of his wounds.

Xu Qing stood before Gu Dao’s corpse and silently pulled out the iron skewer.

Xu Qing understood human nature deeply, so he had not left, but instead gave Gu Dao a choice.

The left side was life.

The right side was death.

Gu Dao chose the right side.

Xu Qing was expressionless; he took out corpse-dissolving powder and sprinkled it down. As Gu Dao’s corpse melted, Xu Qing turned calmly, flickered, and sped toward the depths.

As for the matter of the Camp Master, he couldn't be bothered to get involved.

At this moment, while speeding through the jungle, although mist existed, it did not have a particularly large impact on him, so by dusk, Xu Qing had already traversed the mist and arrived at the canyon pharmacy.

Almost at the same time he entered, a faint wolf howl echoed, but Xu Qing paid it no mind.

He first cautiously observed for a while, confirming that the small arrangements he had left before leaving last time showed no signs of being touched, and only then did he push open the door of the pharmacy and step inside.

The pharmacy was not large, with no bed for resting; only small compartments built of wood lined the walls, and in each compartment, different medicinal herbs and poison glands were placed.

Some of these herbs and poison glands had already been processed, while others remained intact; they were numerous, densely packed, numbering in the hundreds.

Xu Qing’s gaze swept over them, and a sense of satisfaction welled up in his heart.

These were what he had collected in this forbidden zone since he began following Master Bai; most of them came from the outer perimeter of the forbidden zone, with a small portion taken from the depths.

Inside, poisonous herbs were the majority, while medicinal herbs were few.

Xu Qing first checked them, then sat on the ground with a thoughtful look in his eyes.

Although the prescription for the White Pill that Master Bai gave him was hidden within his daily lessons, Xu Qing had the habit of taking notes and had a very good memory, so he had long since organized it, but... he did not have all the herbs for refining the White Pill.

"So there is no way to refine it exactly according to the prescription, but I should be able to substitute or concoct it using other herbs based on their medicinal properties."

Xu Qing muttered; he did not know if this method would be useful, but he figured that even if it failed, it could increase his experience in concocting and refining.

Thinking of this, Xu Qing waved his right hand, and immediately seven or eight types of herbs flew out from different small compartments and landed in front of him.

After checking them carefully, Xu Qing thought for a moment, left the pharmacy, and went to the backyard, where, in addition to various colorful flowers, there was a small patch of cleared mud field planted with many herbs.

These were plants that had time limits and could not be away from the soil for too long, which Xu Qing had transplanted here; over time, it had become a small herb garden.

At this moment, as Xu Qing approached this small herb garden, the wolf howling from not far away became even clearer.

Xu Qing’s expression remained as usual; he ignored it, plucked three types of herbs from the herb garden, and turned to leave.

After returning to the pharmacy, he took out a stone basin and began to concoct according to the knowledge he had learned.

Whether it was picking leaves, extracting juice, or flicking out pollen, he did it very carefully; striving for absolute precision, he continued to concoct, and the medicinal liquid in the stone basin slowly turned pitch black.

"Missing five types of herbs..."

Xu Qing looked at the small compartments around him, and after much thought, he took out some more, attempting to concoct a satisfactory effect with the help of the yin-yang dual-pole method.

But clearly, this kind of thing was very difficult, so it wasn't until a night had passed and it was dawn outside that he barely managed to combine the required herbs.

Looking at the pitch-black, sticky liquid in the stone basin, Xu Qing frowned.

This was not quite the same as the White Pill he had imagined, but since he had come this far, giving up was clearly impossible.

So Xu Qing gritted his teeth, took out a large handful of Seven-Leaf Grass, and concocted it in according to the ratio.

The next instant, the medicinal liquid in the stone basin actually began to boil, and the color showed signs of changing, but this change only lasted for three breaths before it stopped.

Looking at it, the medicinal liquid in the stone basin was no longer pitch black, but had turned brown.

Xu Qing hesitated, touched the purple crystal on his chest, and considering that his resistance to toxins was very strong, he felt slightly reassured; he raised his hand, carefully reached into the stone basin, grabbed a bit of the medicinal paste, kneaded it into the shape of a pill, and smelled it in front of his nose.

A fishy, foul odor wafted out, making Xu Qing somewhat afraid to eat it.

"Can it be eaten..." Xu Qing’s expression was somewhat conflicted; after pondering, he took the pill and walked out to the herb garden.

As soon as he approached, the wolf howling sounded again; Xu Qing did not stop his pace, passed through the herb garden, and headed straight for where the howling came from.

Soon, in a patch of weeds behind the herb garden, a large cage built of iron-vine wood appeared before Xu Qing.

Inside the cage, a thin, black-scaled wolf lay weakly.

Upon seeing Xu Qing, it immediately stood up, baring its teeth and letting out a low growl, but the terror in its eyes already showed its fear of Xu Qing.

This black-scaled wolf was one Xu Qing had encountered once while gathering herbs in the depths of the jungle; at the time, the other party had tried to ambush him, but after he caught it, he didn't kill it, instead locking it here to be a test-subject beast.

Noticing the black pill in Xu Qing’s hand, the black-scaled wolf immediately trembled and retreated repeatedly.

But it was too late; Xu Qing reached his left hand into the cage, grabbed the black-scaled wolf by the neck, and dragged it forcibly in front of him amidst its whimpering struggles.

Xu Qing was expressionless, his cold gaze fixed on the trembling black-scaled wolf, and his right hand took out the refined pill and placed it by its mouth.

The black-scaled wolf shivered even more, and finally, under the threat of death, it yielded and opened its mouth to eat it obediently.

After a while, black smoke began to emanate from the black-scaled wolf’s entire body, and it began to vomit; a large bump even swelled up on its head, and soon, with a bang, the bump burst, its body went limp, and it lay there panting.

Xu Qing frowned, threw a few pieces of meat inside, turned back to the pharmacy, and sat there deep in thought.

"How could there be no effect... The final onset of the medicinal effect has some problems; this isn't neutralizing the foreign matter, this is causing the foreign matter to explode."

A moment later, Xu Qing felt it must be due to the lack of a catalyst; he needed a medicinal primer to purify the effects of these medicinal liquids.

"As for a primer, I can use snake venom to concoct one."

With a wave of Xu Qing’s hand, three different poison glands flew over; after he squeezed out the venom, the medicinal liquid in the stone basin immediately hissed and emitted a wisp of green smoke.

This smoke contained potent poison; seeing this, Xu Qing immediately raised his right hand and waved it, creating a wind to disperse the toxic mist out of the room, and then placed the medicinal basin aside to let it ferment.

During the wait, Xu Qing sat cross-legged with his eyes closed, practicing the Sea-Mountain Art.

Until late in the evening, Xu Qing opened his eyes, checked the increasingly viscous medicinal liquid after fermentation, took some out to rub, and went to the black-scaled wolf again.

A moment later, amidst a series of loud bangs echoing, Xu Qing walked back, feeling depressed, and sat there continuing to ponder; he even took out a finished White Pill and melted it down to study it bit by bit.

Just like that, time passed, and soon six days went by.

During these six days, Xu Qing seemed to have forgotten everything outside, immersing himself in the research of the White Pill.

The herbs in the small compartments in the pharmacy had been used up by more than half, the herb garden was almost empty, and the White Pill medicinal liquid he had refined had been improved more than ten times.

As for that black-scaled wolf...

After the last test, the foreign matter in its body instantly reached its limit, even drawing in the foreign matter within the surrounding spiritual energy, and in an instant, it collapsed into a blood mist.

If not for the fact that Xu Qing’s shadow could absorb foreign matter, he feared that the gathering of foreign matter that time could have invaded his entire body.

This scene made Xu Qing feel somewhat discouraged.

But he knew that the White Pill was not so easy to refine, especially since he was concocting it without all the herbs, making it even harder.

However, despite this, his experience in concocting had increased, and at the same time, among these ten-plus improvements, the last one, while not a success, did possess some effect.

Only, this effect was the exact opposite of the White Pill.

The White Pill neutralized foreign matter, while the pill Xu Qing refined in his last attempt rapidly attracted foreign matter.

At this moment, he looked down at the stone basin in front of him.

There was a layer of green membrane on the surface of the basin, formed by the melting of the Seven-Leaf Grass, and beneath this membrane was the pitch-black medicinal liquid.

The reason for using the membrane was that once the membrane disappeared, the medicinal liquid would not even need to be swallowed; it would spontaneously attract dense foreign matter to gather.

That black-scaled wolf’s death was half caused by this point.

Xu Qing sighed, rubbed his brow, and felt the fluctuation of his cultivation base within his body, which then dissipated some of his frustration.

Although things were not going smoothly with the pill, his cultivation base had grown very rapidly during this period of practice, and now it had reached the perfection of the fifth level of the Sea-Mountain Art.

"Tonight, I should be able to break through to the sixth level."

Xu Qing took a deep breath, put the matter of the pill aside, and with anticipation in his eyes, went all out to push his cultivation base.

Living in a chaotic world, for every bit of strength one adds to oneself, the possibility of surviving increases by that much.

That night, when the bright moon hung high, a loud, booming sound erupted from within Xu Qing’s body.

This time the sound was much louder than before; Xu Qing, who had originally thought there was no filth in his body, saw his body exude a large amount of impurities once again at this instant.

While an unprecedented sense of clarity permeated Xu Qing’s entire body, a roar faintly emanated from behind him.

The Xiao shadow, which had previously only manifested when he threw a punch, now also manifested behind him; its body was larger, its ferocity was stronger, and it was no longer on one leg, but had developed two legs.

Especially... the shadow of the ghoul that appeared, its head actually faintly resembled having a horn!!

This is not a ghoul, this is a nascent form of a Kui!

The moment it appeared, a silent roar from the nascent Kui spread in all directions, causing the cries of many exotic beasts within this dark jungle to come to an abrupt halt at this very moment.

Xu Qing slowly opened his eyes, and a purple light instantly illuminated the entire pharmacy, as if a bolt of purple lightning had streaked across.

And amidst this permeating purple light and the roar of the nascent Kui behind him, the expressionless Xu Qing sitting there gave people an unprecedented sense of oppression.

After a long while, as the purple light in his eyes vanished and the shadow of the Kui behind him faded away, Xu Qing murmured softly.

"Haishan Art, sixth layer!"