143 The Poison's Composition
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Poison, a lethal substance that can be found in many places, sometimes inside of plants, certain types of chemicals, or by mixing animal compounds. Although there is also venom which is a poison produced by animals and monsters, often coming out of a snake’s fangs, for example, both are different in that poison is harder to cure and clean from the body. While venom can often be treated by using compounds made by the animal that wields it. Many venom cures have been created out of the same venom from these animals and monsters, sometimes their blood, or even from the liver or pancreas, where most of the white cells are located.
And this woman, Lady Treebark, the second concubine of Markus Copperhand, a Noble of low rank, was poisoned by somebody over a long time. Perhaps even before she began to show symptoms. I have seen this case before, nobles poisoning one another, even happening in the family itself, when a man has too many wives, they would try to take each down other. And quite possibly, the next victim could even be Carl. But why would they do this?
“M-My mother was poisoned… B-By whom?!” Carl lost his composure once more, growing more altered, now that he realized that someone has been trying to kill his mother this entire time, the boy couldn’t help but grow desperate. Knowing that there was someone wishing his mother’s death was not something that could be easily to digest, especially for an immature eleven-year-old kid.
“Calm down.” I said. “We can look for who did it later, after we gather clues, but our job here is actually healing her. We have to first find out what sort of poison it is.”
“A-Ah… R-Right…” He said, as he sat down and sighed, his breathing became altered and he seemed to be coping with everything going on as much as possible, but his weak heart was failing him, and he was growing too desperate.
“If it’s a poison, then the Antidote Spell might work.” Said Ellergest. He suddenly conjured another magic circle, combining many runes into the empty air, as the magic circle started to rotate around, then, the magic generated a sparkle of yellow light that fell over the woman’s mouth, as if it were an elixir.
“Ungh… Aaghhh!”
The woman began to struggle, she started to scream out of nowhere the moment she was given the Antidote spell. Presumably capable of healing low-rank poison. Ellergest’ face grew alarmed as he realized that the antidote somehow worsened her condition, as the poison that resembled soot inside of her body suddenly became more active, moving around like a stream of black and red energy. The antidote only made this “sleeping” substance wake up, and this was beginning to wear down her body even more.
“Aaaaggh! Uuaagghhh…!” The woman continued to scream in pain, as Carl grew restless.
“It didn’t work?! By the Holy Spirits, what have I done…?” Muttered Ellergest, as he suddenly began to panic. Wait, seriously? Aren’t you the head priest? It seems he’s inexperienced with dealing with poisons. However, he quickly composed himself although Carl roared angrily at him.
“W-What have you done to my mother?! Damn priest!” He cried. “Heal her! Heal her back!!!”
It seems that the priests tried what they could, it is my time to step in before they end up ruining things. The other day they spoke as if things always went smoothly, but it seems that sometimes even priests can fail to do their job well…
I walked near the woman and touched her forehead, her screams suddenly stopped abruptly, as she fell onto the bed motionlessly and in complete silence. What I had done was not something hard to make, it is part of the Qi Manipulation Techniques. I infused Qi into her head and put her into a comatose state, it will last some minutes, so it is nothing too big. It is called “Mind Shock” and it doesn’t work with very strong opponents capable of withstanding it, such as Imps or strong humans.
“S-She calmed down?” Asked Carl in surprise, the other priests all looked at me with surprise.
“H-How did you do that?” Asked Jack.
“It is a technique that uses mana to calm down the mind, I call it Mind Rest.” I said. Renaming the technique that never belonged to me was a good way to patent it. If I ever teach it to somebody else, they’ll have to say that I created it.
“S-She completely calmed down though…” Said Ellergest. “I see… So this is part of the incredible abilities of the Saint.” Ellergest caressed his beard as he looked at what I was about to do attentively.
I began to quickly analyze the woman’s body using my Demon Eye once more, and decided to use a few spells in combination with my eyes to see through her skin and flesh. These spells were mostly the Life Attribute spell “Analyze Life” and the Light Attribute Spell “X-Ray Vision” quite literally, the combination of these two spells allowed me to see through the interior of her body with my eyes and nothing else, they cost a lot of mana when combined though.
I quickly started to analyze her interior, finding that this black soot was something strange akin to a… demonic being. I could clearly sense demonic power from within, it had a very small amount of demon energy, but that somehow was keeping this substance alive, while slowly killing the woman from the inside. I began to analyze it further, as I quickly realized that if it were raw demon energy, it would have already killed her before. They feed her with a compound of it, the same thing I used to gain demon energy myself, blood.
The blood of demons can be ingested and it wont kill a person immediately, over time, the person might even be able to expel the blood and the demon energy by going to the bathroom and experiencing some indigestion. However, if it’s digested for such a prolonged amount of time… this “soot” which is like a materialization of the demon energy stuck into her body would emerge, and stick into her body, slowly making her sicker over time.
As for my job here, I have to take it out before she dies.
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