The Poison That Severs Magic
This was no ordinary poison. It was the Severing Magic Poison.
After the Floor 2 clear, I set about putting away the Wild Buffalo hide pouches of Green Water.
Toxic material, so... up on this shelf with you....
Along the shelving that filled one entire wall, I placed the Green Water pouches in the slot marked with a toxicity label. Paralytics, nerve agents, corrosives, elemental toxins and more, each with its own subdivided storage compartment — a sight the old lab could never have dreamed of. Only now did it truly sink in that I had a new research facility.
"Mandoki, go get some rest now. And just so you know, no dinner for you tonight."
...Kkureuk-.
I left Mandoki in its enclosure. On the workbench sat the green reward box, along with the green badge stamped 2-2.
Clearing the monster theme had earned me a measly 2 points. If I'd gone with the swamp theme, I could have picked up 3 without half the suffering. Oh well — this one attempt wasn't everything, so I let it go.
So, what are you giving me this time?
Creeeak! The instant the green box's lid swung open, a soft emerald radiance spilled out and seeped into my body.
A skill of the Deadly Poison Formulator (EX-Rank) has been unlocked.
There it is! One of the box's rewards — an unlock for a skill tied to my trait.
◆ Raise and nurture venom-bearing insects.
◆ Crossbreeding carries a low chance of producing higher-grade poison insects.
◆ Communication is possible, depending on the insect's intelligence.
Poisonous Insect Breeding....
For someone who formulated poisons for a living, raising venom insects was nothing short of a dream. And yet — even when people paid insect handlers fortunes to bring the creatures in, the things had a way of dying off in no time. Keeping mana-bearing poison insects alive had never been an easy business.
Finally, I can raise poison insects of my own.
Mandoki might feel a little cheated, but that was that. More friends could only be a good thing, right?
With no way to get my hands on any insects right away, I shelved the breeding skill for later. Next up was brewing the Severing Magic Poison to hand over to Min Jiyeong — except concentration was the one thing in short supply.
I'm beat.
Even with the dopamine from my rewards flooding through me, it was no match for the toll of the climb and all that backbreaking labor.
Oof... my aching body.
The next day, I was up bright and early for gallery time.
It had been a long stretch of not climbing the Tower. There were even moments I'd caught myself envying these people without meaning to.
"I'm a hunter now, too." I'd even filed my survival report.
I checked over the ingredients spread across the workbench. Core Extract, plenty of Green Water... and the Silver Bell Flower Sap. All set.
Every material for the Severing Magic Poison was finally gathered. I'd preset the lab's temperature so I wouldn't repeat the Blooming Fire Poison fiasco, and although brand-new equipment waited on the shelves, I decided to stick with the familiar tools I'd always used.
First, the Silver Bell Flower Sap went from the workbench into a beaker and onto the heat.
Glub glub glub.
I split it into two beakers, 10 grams each, and brought them to a simmer over low heat. While the sap warmed, I took one of the leather pouches, spread the sticky Green Water into a thin sheet, and stored it in the freezer. In about an hour, that stickiness would set into something thicker and more manageable.
Now, on to the next step....
The Silver Bell Flower Sap carried the silence attribute — a lethal property for mages who lived and died by their incantations. By now the boiled sap had reduced to roughly half its volume. I let it cool.
Then came the heart of the Severing Magic Poison: the Silver Golem Core Extract. I blended the shimmering silver liquid into the sap at a five-to-four ratio, using a specially made dropper to fold them together one drop at a time. Where the gleaming extract met the sap, the color paled — and the two liquids pushed at each other like oil and water, stubbornly refusing to combine.
Tricky. Even the finest details of the measurements had to be handled just right.... Now I took up a thin strip of metal and stirred, carefully. Please... come together.
This was the step the formulation notes had flagged as the hardest of them all:
— Stir the coagulated sap and the core extract: neither too fast, nor too slow. —
A hopelessly vague instruction. I supposed putting a speed into words was never going to be easy — this was a task left wholly to a formulator's feel. The stirring carried on for several minutes, until the fingers wrapped around the little metal skewer felt ready to spasm.
Had I misjudged the pace? The silver liquid and the Silver Bell Flower Sap were starting to split apart.
"Wait—!"
Too fast, then. I eased my stirring a touch, and the liquids immediately settled back into an even blend. This Severing Magic Poison was far more temperamental than I'd expected.
Fun, actually... let's see which of us wins...!
Several more minutes at a steady rhythm, and at last the extract and sap seemed to marry into one — a white film forming across the silvered liquid.
Phew....
Now I retrieved the frozen Green Water and cut off a piece just large enough to enrobe the finished extract.
Shff.
Magic-stone-coated gloves went on, and I sealed the mixture inside the solidified Green Water.
Ding!
Just then, a message appeared, announcing the completion of the Severing Magic Poison.
Severing Magic Poison has been successfully crafted.
...Done.
The difficulty had been unlike anything I'd made before — and at the end of it all came the sweet reward of success.
An ultra-lethal toxin that severs the target's mana.
The Silver Golem Core Extract and Silver Bell Flower Sap combine to amplify its toxicity, and solidified Green Water potentiates its effects.
◈ Mana Conductivity:20%
◈ Duration:10 minutes
◈ Additional Effect: Vaporizes on contact with air.
◈ Warning: Against targets with low resistance, may permanently destroy part of their mana circuits.
...Mages are going to be dropping dead over this one.
Judging by the effect alone, you could call it an outright mage-slaying poison. The duration was short, but imagine a mage unable to cast for ten full minutes. Anyone who'd never invested a single stat point into physical ability would be butchered on the spot.
I'd better handle this one carefully. The production costs alone were substantial, and the process was anything but easy. Meeting large orders through mass production would be no simple matter. For now, delivering this Severing Magic Poison to its commissioner came first.
Might as well use up the leftovers. Since I still had Silver Bell Flower Sap to burn through, I brewed one more Severing Magic Poison for stock.
A few days later. The Poison Lab.
Jingle.
The door swung open, and in walked the familiar crimson-haired woman.
"Ms. Jiyeong, good to see you."
"You have no idea how giddy I've been since I heard it was finished. If I hadn't been stuck in the Tower, I'd have come running the same day. Sorry I'm late."
"Not at all. Shall we sit down and talk?"
We headed for the small room on the first floor, set up for smooth conversations with clients.
"Here you are — the Severing Magic Poison."
I slid the wooden case holding it gently across the table.
"Ooh! So this is it!"
Click.
When Min Jiyeong flipped open the little wooden box, two green pills lay inside.
"...This is it?"
"That's right."
Perhaps she was a little let down by how unremarkable the poison looked from the outside — her expression cooled in an instant.
It's far too early to be disappointed.
"First, let me walk you through the effects."
She gave a brisk nod.
"It's a poison that blocks mana."
"That's the effect you mentioned before."
"Yes. And one more thing — the contents vaporize the moment they meet open air, so you'll need to mind how you use it."
"It vaporizes?"
"Yes. Feeding it to the target or smearing it on directly would be even more effective, of course — but if the poison vaporizes and spreads in the middle of a fight, it will still do its work."
"Ohh, hot damn... well, well. If I play this right, it might just work on that bastard, you know?"
I couldn't promise a hundred percent — but ninety percent, I was certain, would be enough. A golem's joints had to be hollow by design, after all. Which meant the vaporized Severing Magic Poison would seep into the Mithril Golem's interior, and since golems ran on mana, it would strike straight at the circuits that moved it. Perhaps not the full ten minutes of effect, but it would buy her a few minutes all the same.
"Ms. Jiyeong — just don't lean on the poison too heavily. Poison is only ever poison. It's a tool to support hunters, nothing more."
"I know, I know. Still, this is more than enough for me."
Min Jiyeong had been hunting for ways to clear Floor 69 when rumors of a resistance-boosting effect led her to my door — and instead she'd walked away with something she'd never imagined. This poison might very well turn out to be the key to the clear.
"Thank you, Mr. Dohyun. Someone referred me and I came on the off chance, but this has beaten every expectation! Hahaha!"
A referral?
"Referred by whom, exactly?"
"Ah! That's a secret! They said they'd stop by next time — you can meet them then!"
"...I see."
"So all that's left is settling the bill, right?"
"Yes."
"How much do I owe you?"
This was the part I'd agonized over right up until Min Jiyeong walked in. What was the right number to name? I had every confidence the poison would work. And if I'm this confident, I should charge like it.
"Here's the invoice."
Swish.
The moment I slid over the estimate I'd prepared in advance, Min Jiyeong's face crumpled.
"...What is this?"
"The formulation fee for your Severing Magic Poison commission."