Void Cultivation

Grey nodded and continued to listen to Ange explain about the Dao of medicine. This continued for a few hours before customers began to come in for the day.

As Grey sat down quietly by the side, he fell into a brooding mood. His thoughts wandered back to the topic about artifacts and magic treasures.

He then remembered the figure in dark gold light that he had seen come out from a statue the night before.

'Could that have been a magic treasure? No, it was too life like and seemed to have sentience. It even went as far as to show disdain to the bizarre existence!'

Recalling the recollection about the dark gold figure, his subconsciousness drifted to the illusionary dark gold sword that hovered over its head as the figure slashed down.

Remembering that scene, Grey's blood boiled and a sharp glint appeared in his eyes. He tried to slash down with his hand the same way that figure did but felt his slash was ordinary and plain.

'It doesn't contain that feeling of destroying the heavens or that feeling of domineeringness. His indifferent face turned to a frown as he kept trying to imitate that heaven defying slash but his efforts proved futile.'

Grey slashed down one more time but it ended up in failure. With no sign of progress, Grey decided to practice another time.

But unknown to him, his shadow trembled slightly and his grey eyes shined a faint dark gold luster.

***

Two weeks slowly passed and Grey had finally begun to comprehend the Dao of medicine. His comprehensive abilities was so shocking that even Ange who could be considered a genius had to acknowledge him.

Although he couldn't not refine pills to the same level as when Ange refined. But he was not so far off. The Captain raised an eyebrow when he heard of Grey's quick progress and he nodded in satisfaction.

On this day, Grey was speeding towards the corroded zone at full speed. After the battle with the wolf king, he was now adept in controlling his strength. But sadly, his cultivation was stagnating.

He no longer progressed at the same speed as he did before and was still in the fifth level of Qi accumulation.

Grey seemed to have no problem with that, as his main attention was focused on comprehending the Dao of medicine and Poison. He could now perform the dark gold slash with perfection but its power was not as amazing as when the dark gold figure did it.

But it was powerful nevertheless. In fact, it was because of this single move that he was marching towards the corroded zone with confidence.

He found out after several trials that the dark gold aura seemed to be able to deter most bizarre existence and powerful creatures. It had an amazing effect of suppressing Mutated creatures and even go as far as to scare bizarre existences away. As such, he grew more confident in his abilities and could hold his own against certain creatures now.

He also found out that since that day he witnessed the heavenly strike, his body no longer accumulated corroded substances. The corroded substance that he absorbed into his body would flow into his shadow instead. That made his body completely pure and his attack power to rise significantly.

Although that also meant he could stay within the corroded zone for an indefinite amount of time, he wouldn't stay longer for more than three days. The reason for that was because the sinister gazes that locked unto him would begin to make their presence known to him. That gave him a fright and since that day, he would not extend his stay more than three days.

During these two weeks, he had also gotten more familiar with the Captain's team. They went for hunts a couple of times and their attack power grew with Grey added to the mix.

They no longer ran into unwanted dangers and with Grey sometimes releasing his aura that seemed to keep away powerful creatures, they always came back from their missions successful. This is part of a series from My Virtual Library Empire (M|V|L1EMPYR).

Of course everyone knew that this new progression was due to Grey, neither captain or Luo said a thing. After all, everyone that survived in this cruel world had their own secrets.

With this development, they completely accepted him as a member of their team.

During these two weeks, Luo and Trogan increased their cultivation to the seventh level of Qi accumulation. With their increased power, the overall strength of the team also increased. The Captain meanwhile, although he did not increase in cultivation, he seemed to become to more deadly and powerful as time passed. He developed his techniques that were even more powerful and domineering.

His icy powers were now on a shocking level and any creature caught in his path would freeze instantly. His existence seemed even more fearful but his expression was still calm and collected, but hidden deep within his eyes was a chill that could freeze life iteslf.

As Grey entered the periphery of the corroded zone, his gaze caught sight of the surrounding trees and the lush mature forest. The corroded substance had now increased but because of his new ability, he no longer needed to fear absorbing too much and risk mutating.

He ran for the time it takes a single candle to burn out and in his sights came the outline of a dilapidated shack.

His gaze did not softened but instead, his vigilance increased even more. When he scanned his surroundings and felt no spirit fluctuations in the area, he heaved a sigh of relief and he walked into the shack with his dagger in hand.

If Ange and Luo were here right now, they would be shocked. Because on the table were several poisonous herbs and materials. By the side was a small pill furnace and several things would you could see when one wanted to create medicine.

But Grey was not refining pills, instead he was refining poison. He found out long ago that he possessed immunity towards poison thanks to the purple crystal and decided to give poison refining a try.

It was because of this new found knowledge of poison refining that he was able to display such shocking results in medicine despite having no fore knowledge.

Today, he was very close to refining his first poison pill as be meticulously added few drops of poisonous snake venom and sprinkled small content of blue silver grass.

The corrosive substance in the area began to gather over to his location but Grey had an indifferent expression on his face like he seemed to have expected it.

He then crushed some small red flower petals and sprinly them into the mix. The influx of corrosive substance seemed to recede and Grey continued to refine.

An hour later, after putting the black and brown colored pill inside the furnace, he sat down silently and waited for thirty minutes before his eyes flew opened and he brought out the single pill.

He had a pensive look on his face as he looked at the black and brown colored pill.

'I have finally succeeded...'

He said internally and carefully carried the pill to a wire mesh cage that sat ten metres away. Inside the cage, was a black steel wolf at the third level of Qi accumulation.

The wolf bared it's teeth at him and struggled against the wire mesh cage, but hidden in its eyes were fear.

Grey calmly walked over and placed the pill in the cage. The wolf angrily kicked the pill away. Grey picked the pill and calmly slapped the black steel wolf. The wolf whimpered lowly after Grey withdrew his hand after placing the pill in the cage.

The wolf then hesitated before swallowing the black colored pill. In it's eyes were sadness but Grey ignored it and continued to watch the wolf with his indifferent expression.

After swallowing the pill, the wolf let out a cry as the corrosive substance gushed into its body from the surroundings. The wolf's body began to melt slowly as more corrosive substance entered it's body.

Seeing this, a strange glint appeared in his eyes. Then he brought out five medicinal pills and dropped them in front of the wolf.

The wolf wasted no time in eating the five pills. It's body stopped melting after several minutes and corrosive substance no longer gushed in from the surroundings.

The wolf layed down and panted tiredly with its tongue out of its mouth. Grey had been doing this to it for the past few days now and each time it's suffering increased as Grey grew more proficient in poison.

Grey threw a chunk of meat into the cage and walked back towards the table. A pondering expression was one his face as he recalled what happened to the wolf after it ate the black colored pill.

"The corrosive substance in the immediate area instantly gushed over and filled the the wolf's body. But it was not as fast as I wanted which would give my opponent enough time to swallow medicinal pills." He muttered this and continued to refine more poison. Although he had finally succeeded, it wasn't what he wanted.

After four hours, he placed the finished product into his storage bag and left some minutes later.