"We should leave for now," Zhan Luoyang suggested after a bit more talking. "If people realize we're missing, they might come looking for us."
Alex nodded. "I'll go back too. I need to take the time to study this poison too," he said, feeling the poison that he had kept in his body. It was a good thing that it hadn't been destroyed just yet.
"Please tell my sister that I will come here tomorrow during the day," Alex said. "With a simple mention of me needing to make some pills, I shouldn't cause much attention toward this place."
"That will work," Zhan Luoyang said. "I will take you back then."
Alex nodded. He walked up to Hannah and gave her one last hug before walking away. The Crown Prince still seemed completely taken aback by everything he had heard that day.
They stealthily made it back to their rooms. Before leaving him there, however, Zhan Luoyang remained to say something.
"About the poison, Your Majesty," the woman spoke. "I haven't had the time to figure out what it is, but I have a guess, and I suggest that you be very careful."
Alex nodded slowly. He knew the poison was dangerous. That need not be told. "You know what it is?" Alex asked the woman.
"A guess," Zhan Luoyang corrected him. "Given how difficult of a time we're having because of the poison, I guessed that it was not something normal. I had suspected it being a high-level poison, and now as each day passes by, I become more and more certain that the poison we're dealing with is a Level 10 poison."
Alex's eyes narrowed a bit. "Level 10?" he asked, his mind already searching for the information he knew he knew. A look of understanding flashed through his face.
"Yes," he said slowly. "That is possible."
He remembered the tale of the Level 9 Poison master making a poison so potent that it had killed him the moment he created it. The Azure Dragon himself had to come and deal with the poison and take it away.
Could he have given it to the Dragon Emperor then? And he used it on his sister?
The possibility was there.
Even if that was not the case, the possibility of it still being a Level 9 or a Level 10 poison remained, and that made it quite deadly. Alex had to be extra careful about it. He had to be careful how he approached the entire situation.
After Alex voiced his understanding of the matter, Zhan Luoyang left him and went back to her room.
Alex began preparing the pill for his sister to close her Dantian. That was the most important thing he had to do for now. Even more so than trying to come up with a way to heal her poison.
He knew healing would take some time, so it was necessary to first deal with the symptoms before going for the disease.
Alex had the ingredients on hand, many of which he had used before, so improving the recipe came rather easily. With the ease also came a free time where his mind wandered.
He had still not gotten over the surprise that his sister was here. Had he known that, he would've tried his damn hardest to be here as soon as he could. Hannah was still alive. His aunt would be so happy to learn that. Not just her, but his father and mother would be happy too.
She was poisoned, sure, but he was going to fix it. Wasn't he? Could he fix it if it was a Level 10 poison?
Understanding a poison was mostly easy if you knew what the ingredients were beforehand. If not, then it became slightly more difficult. Based on the effects of the poison, one could also determine what the poison did and how one could fight it back.
If the poison gave a headache, Alex would have to make a pill that stopped the headaches.
If the poison made one's arm numb, Alex would have to make a pill that made the arms's senses overwork to feel it.
Explaining it that way was making light of how difficult it was to make antidotes, but that was the gist of the matter.
To get rid of a poison, one needed to fight back the things that it did, and then destroy it from the system.
'I wonder if the Saint Nullifying pill will do anything,' Alex wondered. It nullified the effects of a pill on a body. Surely a poison couldn't be that different. He would have to see it tomorrow. For now, he needed to think about the poison.
It took merely 2 hours for Alex to come up with a recipe for the pill so that it could create Pill Clouds. After that, he was free to test the poison.
Alex readied himself after a bit and let go of the defense he had put around the poison. As soon as the poison disappeared, it started attacking his body.
Alex held back on his body's ability to destroy the poison and suffered because of it. He could feel the burning pain in his veins like fire walking through it. He could sense his meridians being wounded as the poison made its way along.
But… that was it. Nothing else happened to him at all.
'It has a corrosive nature to it,' Alex thought to himself. 'Corrosive, and freely moving inside the meridian.'
But aside from that, the poison did nothing to the body.
'It is a poison that attacks the spirit then,' Alex thought. This part he was a little more fearful about. The prospect of having to reveal his spirit to the poison did not bode well with him.
'Just a bit,' Alex thought and tore off a piece of the poison before sending it into his Dantian. The moment he allowed that, the poison immediately found its way to his Dantian on its own. Alex didn't even have to do anything.
'That's another thing,' Alex thought, memorizing that part of the poison as well.
Then, the poison reached his Dantian, where he left it to do its thing. He wanted to see what the poison would do.
Before the poison could do something, it completely fell apart and died all of a sudden. Alex didn't even have the time to stop that from happening.
"Dammit!" he thought slightly. He had controlled his body from dealing with the poison, and that had been hard. Now, it seemed he was going to have to stop the Yin Qi to do so as well.
The high-level Yin Qi hadn't destroyed the poison but rather made it impotent. Either way, Alex needed to deal with his Yin Qi before bringing the poison.
He protected the ball of poison in his body and started cultivating with his Yang Qi. After half an hour of cultivation, he sensed no more Yin Qi in his body and brought another small ball of poison into his Dantian.
This time around, the poison was more free than last time and thus acted immediately, latching onto his spirit that was inside the Dantian.
Alex finally felt the effects of the poison in full force.
It was maddening.
