There was a moment of hesitation, just the slightest bit before they accepted. However way Lucius wanted to look at it, there was going to be some sort of resistance to his sudden question. After all, he was basically asking them to hand over a piece of their culture after all.
"Our ways are yours... you are the Shri'killian, the Chosen One. It would be an honor to teach you," one of the cheiftains said, glancing over at its comrades.
"Very well, then, follow me. You'll teach me while the others collect a few materials," Lucius replied, before gathering his group and heading out as well. Hannibal stayed behind on guard duty, and Asclepius was currently running poison trails with the two arachnids.
*
"There are four forms in the use of the arts," one of the bigger chieftains explained as the laevyes picked branches nearby an open patch of grass.
"The first form is accumulation... the forming and storing of poison," it explained.
"Poison cannot be used indefinitely. One can only use what one has stored. For instance, we store our poison in our caps," the chieftain explained, pointing towards its mushroom cap.
"For the Shri'killian, I assume it is within the tail," it said, pointing towards the stinger-flower tip of Lucius's tail.
Lucius nodded in agreement, unsure where else it would be stored. HE highly doubted it was in his horns.
"To gather poison, focus the food you have eaten towards your storage area. We produce poison of the flesh of those we consume," the chieftain explained before closing its eyes. As it focused, a thin layer of purple gas surrounded its body, signifying that it was using poison arts.
Lucius closed his eyes and tried to mimic it, but after a few minutes of trying and failing, he came to the conclusion that he was missing something.
"How do you 'focus' the food into your storage organs? Is there something you are supposed to imagine specifically?" he asked, still attempting to perform the first form.
The chieftains merely looked at each other, unable to answer his question.
"We have no idea, we just control the food towards the area... there is no other way we can say it," one of the chieftains said almost apologetically.
"Control? Did you just say control? Like Elmando?" he asked. They had said 'focus' at first, but if it was 'control' instead then perhaps it had something to do with the control skill.
It made sense since it was a skill granted by the shri'killian and besides this wasn't the first time a skill of his was compatible with Elmando.
Lucius tried again, this time using Elmando within his body, and just like he thought it worked.
~Well, I am sort of vegetation so I gu-~ just then it occurred to him. If Elmando could be cast on himself, then didn't that mean it could be cast on others? A dangerous skill, especially for vegetative beings.
~How come they've never attempted using it on me?~ he wondered. Even when they had encountered Pagan, how come they hadn't used it? ~Are they just oblivious to the fact?~ he thought, though he would keep the fact in mind.
After a few minutes of focusing food toward the tip of his tail, he could feel a cold moisture condensing on the surface of his skin.
"W-Well done, Chosen One," one of the chieftains whispered.
"Why are you still surprised?" another asked, looking at Lucius as if he were a wild beast, a sort of primal fear in its eyes.
~Too fast? I don't have time to feign weakness, I have to learn this today,~ he decided, before asking the chieftains to move on to the next step.
"The next form is expulsion. There are many ways to expel poison, depending on how forcefully you do it," one chieftain explained, before expelling a cloud of poison.
"With little to no force, you expel is like this," it said after.
"With a little more force," it continued, the cloud of poison now streaming out like steam out of a hot kettle.
"And with more force than that..." at this point the stream had turned liquid, and a small puddle soon formed around the chieftain.
"I see..." Lucius whispered before doing just that. With the help of Elmando it was more or less intuitive. With a little bit of force, he released a cloud of gas around the tip of his tail. A little more and a jet of poison gas shot in the direction his tail was pointing. And with a little more it turned liquid. Though he still had quite a bit of force at Elmando's disposal.
~I wonder,~ he thought before using all his force. There was a build-up for a moment before a beam of poison liquid was sent towards the sky, jets of poison gas being sent out all around it.
"W-What was that," one of the chieftains asked as Lucius felt his reserves run dry.
"It's similar to what the old man could do," another whispered thoughtfully.
"But the old man was a-" a chieftain was about to say before the other's gazes silenced it. Lucius was currently too busy trying to replenish his reserves to pay mind to their ramblings.
By the time Lucius had regained his reserves, the members of the F and C department had completed their gathering. After properly loading them onto the wagons, they proceeded towards the 'dummy' camp.
Once they arrived, he gave the available stone axes to the group so that they could create stakes for the traps that Lucius had planned out.
"Okay, what are the next forms?"
"The next form is control, this one should be easy for the Chosen One. Simply control the poison as you would mushroom," one of the chieftains explained, before expelling a cloud of poison and manipulating it into different shapes.
Lucius tried as well and found that he could control it on his first try. After moving the cloud around a little, he tried to move the chieftain's cloud as well, wondering whether he could manipulate the poison clouds of his opponents if need be.
Right as he stretched out his mind to control it, he met some resistance to his pull, like a small rock hanging onto his slither of control.
~It must be 'his' Elmando,~ Lucius thought to himself, realizing that the resistance must be the chieftain's own pull on the cloud. Using a little more strength, he was able to yank control from the chieftain, and the latter fell to the ground, eyes rolled to the back.
"W-What happened?" the other chieftains stuttered, running to surround their comrade.
~I see. It's the equivalent of completely breaking its mind,~ Lucius realized, feeling no presence coming from it with his earth sense.
~Spacial Cleanse,~ he chanted, healing the chieftain without being noticed.
"Are you okay? What happened?" the other chieftains asked their fallen comrade came to.
Lucius studied it thoroughly, looking to see if realized that he had caused this to happen.
"I-I don't know... it felt like I was being... pulled," it explained, though it was still clearly confused.
~So they aren't even aware of this concept of... control theft. Perhaps it's because they are still low-tier? Maybe they aren't able to reason as I do,~ he thought to himself before helping the fallen chieftain up.
After giving them time to rest, and instructing the members of the F and C departments to begin planting the stakes in the ditch that he and Alpha had dug, they carried on to the final form.
"The final form is called change. We ourselves are unsure how this form works... and though there are multiple ways to do it, each of us has only one version," a chieftain explained, before closing its eyes.
As usual, a thin membrane of purple gas surrounded its body, but a moment later the purple gas began changing color until it was a light shade of red.
"And what effect does that have?" Lucius asked.
"Unlike normal poison, this has an extra effect. Upon touch it feels as if the prey has caught fire," the chieftain explained, before gesturing towards one of his other comrades.
One after the other, the chieftains closed their eyes, each of them creating a different colored poison, each with its own effect.
"Interesting... and can everyone do this?" he wondered. If that were the case, then the shroom clan was way more powerful than he thought.
"No... only those who have partaken of the shri'killian," one of the chieftains explained.
~Then perhaps investing in gathering a few more might be in order. I'll just have to think of a countermeasure for those creatures,~ he thought to himself, shivers running up his spine as he remembered his last encounter.
"Okay, so how do I do it?" he asked finally.
"Between accumulation and expulsion, you need to add... feeling to the storage area. The feeling is different for each one of us, hence why we have different versions," the chieftain said.
"Feelings, huh..."
