484: !

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Pain like I never wanted to experience again began wreaking my body as I purposefully destroyed each and every meridian in my body. Slowly and surely, only after having destroyed all one hundred and eight meridians, and blood flowed from my mouth nose, and ears was I done.

I took an exasperated breath after another, from the agony and nerve-wracking, mind-boggling and soul-wrenching pain.

But that was only halfway through the ordeal, and that was just the easiest half.

After having finished, I slowly stepped into the Bone and Body Grinding Poison, feeling it creeping up my body and taking hasty shelter in my destroyed meridians.

My flesh felt like it was rapidly melting as if it was on incinerating fire. While my bones felt more brittle than a shard of hardened sand.

Pain was my closest companion right now, this pain brought me back to my days at the cave, feeling the helplessness of a mortal at the hands of an immortal.

The agony which reminded me of the unfilial seed I had. The treason of bloodline, the unworthiness of myself, and the weakness of the human flesh.

Dark thoughts began invading my head, making this assimilation far more gruesome and painful than it should.

But I knew one thing for a fact, and that was the only thing keeping me sane. I've been here, and I survived, I survived as an old man, weak of will and denied of choice.

I survived as an old man with a foot in the grave. I survived as an old man that had nothing left to lose. And I still survived.

Right now, I'm not that same weak old mortal.

I am Shen Bao!

The poison god's disciple.

The cultivator broke all precedents. The cultivator that challenged the divine and the demonic. A cultivator that trudged his path among enmity, jealousy, betrayal, and oppression.

The cultivator who broke the norms of cultivation, came up with knowledge and ideas that no one else could have come up with.

The cultivator is the disciple of the most illusive and mightiest of the vast expanse.

The cultivator who is most esteemed in the greatest establishment of the vast expanse and their dearest student!

The cultivator does not know what retreat is.

The cultivator who stopped an invasion from the Fire Lord himself all alone.

The cultivator is the sworn brother of Zhang Tian, the heavenly child of the Wind Realm, the Immortal Scholar.

I…Am…Shen Bao!

These words I spoke while poison dared find its way through my mouth, and as if they were words to establish myself into this world as part of it, and no longer the 'regressor' the world itself agreed.

The poison which used to be nothing but destructive pain became sweeter than the nectar of gods.

The pain subsided and instead of the agonizing feeling of my limbs feeling as if they were on fire, my skin began hardening and my flesh began reforming.

My brittle bones were reconstructed, stronger, and mightier than before. And my whole body felt as if it was being invigorated for every second I spent in the pool.

Not more than half an incense stick's worth of time, I could see that every bit and drop of the poison from the pool began dissipating.

No, it wasn't dissipating, it was being absorbed by every pore in my body. Becoming a part of me, becoming me.

I…Am…Poison!

Suddenly, as if every toxic, poisonous, venomous, and lethal substance in the Poison Mist Valley began recognizing me.

The valley shuddered at the arrival of its new ruler.

And thus I opened my eyes.

Greener than the purest of emeralds, and skin paler than death itself.

Looking around, I was stark naked with nothing to my name. My cultivation base at its lowest, as a Qi condensation level.

Yet, I felt power like never before, the power to rule over poison itself even in my weak state.

Something caught my attention. A book that looked as if it had its cover melted just enough to have the former "Imperial Corium" removed from it.

I grabbed the golden book and opened it, finding nothing inside it as all it had had fully disappeared from the Bone and Body Grinding Poison.

I smiled as I sat down with the book open in front of me.

I bit the tip of my finger and did what I 'Felt' I should be doing.

I began writing. I wrote the first line I ever remembered seeing in the first true cultivation book I've ever handled.

Poison God's Heritage

Cultivation Manual

To cultivate the Poison God's Technique, one must first severe his meridians…

I smiled as I wrote from memory, memory as clear as the day I've seen these words. A memory that I never would forget, nor will I ever allow myself to forget. 

A memory where my own fate changed, from the death of Shen Bao, the mortal city lord. To the revival of Shen Bao, the one who went against fate and stepped into the lonely path of cultivation, the most abhorred path, the path of Poison.

I wrote and wrote, and wrote all I could remember. From the spells to the skills, to the meridians needed to open.

I wrote until I was satisfied, then stood up and grabbed the book with me under my arm.

As I walked out of the area I was in I was surprised to be able to 'see'.

The atmosphere was still the same, thick in poisonous mist, but I was still able to see.

I took a breath, a deep one, and felt my body invigorated by this poison. And then I opened my mouth and became greedy.

As greedy as a snake eating more than it should, but I wasn't about to stop.

I consumed and consumed and absorbed and gobbled, poison, so much of it that it would be madness for anyone else to even think of doing. But, I never stopped. Not even when I felt bloated and on the point of exploding, I continued consuming as greedily as I could. 

And then and there, my cultivation base began rotating, spiraling to accommodate my consumption, and began my first breakthrough, then my second, and third. And thus it went on, rapidly at first, and even faster later. My climb in cultivation was unprecedented, and I was already at the Nascent Soul before I could even realize it, and my cultivation didn't seem to be stopping anytime soon.

And if you were here you'd see it. The very mist that enshrouded this valley became thinner and thinner, to the point that normal vision was all u needed to see far up ahead. And far up ahead I saw them, three cultivators that noticed me at the same time.

They looked at each other and at me, then when they saw the book on me they charged me with all they could, coming in faster than the speed of a loose arrow.

"Die!" one of them said as he wielded his sword masterfully, his swing was a clean arc that was about to rip my head in two.

And all I did was exhale a bit of what I was absorbing.

A thin arrow-like projectile of poison shot at the cultivator and landed on his chest squarely. It wasn't enough to stop his momentum and he believed that his sword would reach me before he'll have to deal with the aftermath of the poison on him.

Boy was he wrong.

The poison was so incredibly potent, that before he could even reach me with his sword, his entire body turned to sludge at my feet. While the sword flew away aimlessly.

"So much power…" I muttered, "UNLIMITED POWER!" I called and moved both my hands forward calling upon the very poison of this valley to serve and serve it did, loyally so.2

The poison from the mist shaped itself into two massive palms that slammed against each other with the remaining cultivator in between.

Nothing remained of him.

With a quick area scan I looked around and realized that Mei Ling was actually at the other end of the valley, the poison notified me.

So I followed after her, grabbing one of the cultivators' robes while I moved and wore it.

She was at the other side and I needed to get to her.

Perhaps in this attempt, she will survive.

And perhaps I'll be the one who will fulfill Du Shen's only regret.

So I moved with as much speed as I could until I arrived at the other end of the valley, only to find Mei Ling lying on the ground, purple blemishes on her neck, and her whole body was affected.

She was poisoned, but this poison isn't something I've ever seen before. It is nothing I've seen in my whole life as a cultivator, it is a poison that didn't exist in the Poison God's manual nor was it in the Lord of the Lord's library.

She was breathing heavily, steps away from the exit of the Poison Mist valley. Only then did I realize what Du Shen meant by that she cannot be saved?

It was because she was infected with this poison long before she entered the Poison Mist Valley. She hid it from him, and no matter what he tried, even on the off chance that he defeated the Fire Lord and managed to save her from his hands, she would still die to this poison.

That was Du Shen's regret. His inability to save his beloved even with this much power that I currently wield.

"But… that only applies to you Du Shen, you were too distraught to ever think of a proper solution, that's the difference between me and you. You tried your all to cure her, and the answer was simple," I said as I flexed my right fist and manifested a small black star.

"If you can't cure poison, then buy time for your patient to save them later." I pressed my palm on her chest and immediately, hundreds upon hundreds of inscriptions began surrounding her body. Inscriptions were written in the Imperial Language.

Soul Shackling Inscription.

I have to thank Meng Hao for this idea. Since he stopped his girlfriend's body from decaying by putting her in a sort of temporal seal. I now have the same method. And by sealing her body, mind, soul, and will, she will live although she is dead. She will be hanging in eternal sleep until I find the solution to solve this issue.

You gave up too early Du Shen.

I'm disappointed.

And just right then, the entire world turned brighter, and I heard a voice.

"Congratulations… you have achieved what not even I could…" The words sounded too close and too 'real' to be a recording.

And just as I opened my eyes, I saw a young man looking at me, his hair darker than the night. One of his eyes was greener than jade and the other was of pure gold.

He wore sleeveless robes and you could see the tattoo of a snake spiraling around his arms.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"You should have guessed it by now… I am…Du Shen."

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