The test to become a poison master was not that different from the tests the Alchemy school provided him with. He had to first spend some time recognizing the ingredient to see how capable he was, and then he had to go into making poisons.
There were several types of poisons with their own unique traits. Some poisons were lethal, some were not. Some were instant, and some took a long time.
Not all poisons were the same, but most could be treated with one or two specific antidote pills. However, when it came to specific poisons designed for a specific purpose, those were the ones that were the hardest to cure.
Alex made as many poisons as he knew from his various lessons. He had not only learned about poisons back in the Luminance Empire, taught by the Princess Xumei of the Royal Wei family, but also from the Nether Poison sect, who had provided him some things in secret for saving them from the mad immortal.
The treasury back in his own palace also contained a few different recipes for poisons, and along with what else was available in the continent, he had learned quite a lot about poison.
However, the knowledge about poison wasn't enough for the test. You also needed to know how to counter poisons, and those Alex had a hard time with.
Most of the time, he simply made pills that could destroy most poisons. Especially with the pill veins improving an antidote's potency by a lot, even poisons that couldn't be cured by them were.
However, here he wasn't allowed to do that and had to force himself to try and come up with a combination of natural ingredients that he could make an antidote out of that cured that very poison.
Thanks to his knowledge of alchemy ingredients, he knew a lot about how they would interact and how they could cure poisons, but it wasn't enough for him to do very well in the task.
Especially since alchemy ingredients and poison ingredients weren't completely interchangeable.
In the end, with everything he had learned about, Alex managed to reach Level 6 in the poison test. He could have gotten a lot higher had he been even slightly more knowledgeable in the topic or even had given himself some time to test it all out.
"Amazing," the headmaster said. "Not only do you have such incredible alchemy knowledge, you also have quite the knowledge in poison, your majesty."
"It's alright," Alex said. He wished it was a little more, but he didn't complain. It wasn't like he focused much on poisons anyway.
"So what I know is enough to bring me up to Level 6, huh?" he asked. "If I knew a bit more about different poisons, I could've entered Level 7, right?"
"Yes, your majesty," the man answered. "We can teach you everything you might want to know."
Alex thought for a bit. "Sure, I'll spend some time and learn here. I have nothing else to do anyway," he said. The elders behind him didn't mind at all.
"Great," the headmaster said excitedly. "Let's just have you speak the oaths and we can start teaching you the things."
"Oath?" Alex paused. "I don't want to speak the oaths. I just want to learn the information, nothing more."
"That's… not how it works I'm afraid, your majesty," the headmaster said. "It is a rule of the school that you must speak the oath before we let you learn from the school."
The elders frowned a bit. They did not want their king to be bound by any oaths that weren't necessary.
"Do the Emperor and Crown Prince have to speak the oaths too if they want to learn?" Alex asked.
The headmaster quickly shook his head. "They are way beyond us for us to force them to make such an oath," he said. "Besides the oath won't even stop the emperor since his words are the rule."
"Alright then, I won't say them either," Alex said as he brought out something. "This should stop you from asking me to do what you're saying right?"
The headmaster looked at the silver medallion with the insignia of the Dragon Emperor and was surprised. "The Dragon Medallion?" he looked back at Alex in shock. "Did… did his majesty give this to you?"
"Yes, just today. With this, I'm supposed to be just below the Dragon Emperor and the Crown Prince," Alex said.
"Then I have no authority to stop you from learning what you want from this school, your majesty," the headmaster bowed.
Alex finally smiled. "Great," he said. The medallion was already coming in handy. "Come, let me see what else I can learn here."
Alex went around the school, checking out where the rest of the buildings were, especially ones he would want to visit, like the library.
He also asked the headmaster a few other questions, which the middle-aged man answered without any hesitation.
"There are currently six Level 8 individuals and no Level 9 individual in the student body, but I and a few staff are Level 9 poison masters and quite a few of the staff are also at Level 8 and 7. " the headmaster said. "As for Level 10… I'm afraid we don't have those."
"None?" Alex asked with a surprised look. "Is it that hard to reach?"
"Rather than difficult, it's more like it's dangerous. To reach level 10, you must create a poison so potent that even a whiff of it can kill just about anyone."
"We had a Level 9 poison master try out a test to become a Level 10 poison master, and he ended up creating a poison so potent that he died from it right after making it."
"We had to evacuate the entire school back then so that they weren't affected either," the headmaster said.
"What?" Alex was surprised. "Was it that strong?"
"Yes," the headmaster nodded. "So we don't encourage people to go for Level 10. Thankfully his majesty came in time and took away the poison so we were fine, but we don't know what could have happened otherwise."
"Oh, the Emperor wasn't affected by the poison?" Alex asked, a bit surprised. Had he eaten some pill by chance?
"Oh, no. Not his majesty, the Emperor. I meant His Majesty, the Azure Dragon," the headmaster said. "He came out for a moment and quickly took away the poison so we weren't hurt."
Alex's eyes widened in shock when he heard that. "The Azure Dragon?" he asked.
"Yes," the headmaster said. "If not for his majesty coming out, we would have most likely been doomed. Even as wounded as he was, he took care of the poison."
Alex was very much surprised as what he heard didn't go in line with what he knew.
"When did this take place exactly?" he asked.
The headmaster thought for a moment and answered. "About 4 or 5 centuries ago," he said. "It's a short time ago for Saints like us."
The headmaster continued speaking, but Alex's mind wandered off elsewhere as soon as he heard the time.
'The Dragon was alive until just 5 centuries ago?' Alex thought. 'Then when the hell did he die?'
