Story 10 - The Spy Who Rocked Too Hard (32🎸)
Going through large amounts of information was sothing I’d mastered even before I transmigrated to this fucked up universe.
Since I preferred to start at the beginning and go in chronological order, I picked up the jade slips that had the descriptions of what the bath used to be like. Apparently, it had felt like swimming in mint with a warm power flowing through the disciple’s ridians. Noxious had helpfully included a note describing the current bath as a mild ghost pepper soup. Considering his weakness to my cleaning technique, that might just be an exaggeration. Still, soone sowhere had fucked up.
Next, I read about the experints Fangstrike’s predecessors attempted once they realized that their once near-perfect bath had developed worsening side effects.
Since this was anecdotal and not docunted by the original observers, I couldn’t say for sure if they fucked up as badly as they thought they had. Frankly, if they were trying to save face, they might have fucked up even worse.
After going through that pile as quickly as I could, I’d developed a headache. Also, the urge to tie up every alchemist here to teach them about the scientific thod — specifically, how to docunt their fucking experints. Sadly, I had to work with what I was given.
It seed like most of Noxious Fangstrike’s predecessors had focused on solutions involving poisons rather than regular dicinal plants, and instead of removing possible problematic ingredients, the poison-obsessed lunatics had added in more just with opposing effects to counteract the sequelae. Obviously, their experints yielded little effect.
That said… the direction of so of their ideas was brilliant. If they’d actually worked.
Next, I went over Noxious Fangstrike’s docuntation. I could forgive the fact that he hadn’t organized it by date since he couldn’t rember exactly when he’d done each experint, but he could have listed them by ingredients tested.
Whatever. I’d gone over what I was expecting, and this wasn’t as bad as the previous batch. But I would still sit him down and go over so things. For example, what the fuck did he an when he said he added a goddamn 1000-year-old spiritual ginseng just because he felt like it would help nurture the body and prevent so side effects? This was on top of changing the Silver Ice Grass for the costly Platinum Ice Grass.
One simply did not add 1000-year-old ginseng to a bath when experinting.
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“There is definitely sothing off about it.”
He scowled. “There isn’t! I’ve been using these for hundreds of years. Unless you’re saying it causes side effects because it’s mixed with another ingredient.”
“A senior from one of those anecdotes you gathered ntioned that he used two chrysanthemums because the new flower was weak. What happened to the old version?”
”Oh… that.”
This fucker.
I stood up and clasped my hands behind my back. “Yes, that.”
”As far as I know, that plant was almost entirely wiped out a thousand years ago. They managed to grow more with seeds they had in storage, but…”
“They looked the sa, but had half the potency?”
“Exactly!”
“My seniors discovered that if they doubled the amount and added a Subli Mint Leaf, it worked the sa, with only very minor impurities added to the bath.”
That… was not sothing I’d have recomnded doing, but it had seed to work fine. “I’m guessing that it also added a few side effects.”
”They weren’t anything a Blood Cleansing Pill couldn’t take care of.”
”Until the issues with the Five Flas Pepper intensified the problem.”
”What are you talking about?”
“The people who tried to fix this bath did their best, but they went about it the wrong way.”
”Junior Linlin. Please, just get to the point.”
”Does our sect have a horticulture departnt or do we gather all of our ingredients from outside?”
He smirked arrogantly. “Of course, we have our own disciples dedicated to raising spiritual plants. The whole east side of this peak is saved for growing the best quality herbs.”
”Does that include a team committed to breeding plants to be more potent?”
He paused, then glared so intensely that he practically strangled my neck with his gaze. ”How did you know about that?”
“I figured it out myself. It wasn’t that hard.” Especially since I’d heard about sothing similar in my past-past life.
While I was in college, I talked with a fellow biology major who was a little too interested in plant breeding. Specifically, where it affected marijuana. Thanks to highly questionable politics, MJ beca illegal in my country. But the dealers still wanted to sell it and the buyers still wanted to purchase it. So, just like the alcohol distilleries during prohibition, the dealers had to find a way to distribute it and not get caught.
They thought to sell it in very small portions so it would be easy to smuggle. But the original plant didn’t have a very high THC count, the thing that caused the effect the buyers wanted. That led to the growers breeding the weed with the highest amount of THC to each other until they had extrely effective strains.
If this sect did sothing similar only with their poisonous plants, then…
”You idiots did this to yourselves.”
Noxious frowned.
“After hundreds of years of breeding highly toxic peppers, you acquired a beast blood contract bath that poisons your own disciples.”
”Impossible. We always cut back on the amount we use of that pepper.”
”Your breeders increased the poisonous properties. But what do you think happened to the beneficial properties?”
“It stayed the sa.”
“Or even decreased.”
He paled.
“Even if the volu of poison they get is the sa, the parts of the pepper that helped make the bath work were reduced. Do you see how this is a problem? Especially when the original amount of peppers used was ten?”
“I can see that. But… we don’t have any of the original peppers. And even if we did have them, we’d have to grow them on opposite sides of the sect.”
Did this guy not know any horticulture? “Are you saying that because, your pollinators might accidentally breed the two strains making the original peppers extra spicy.”
“Exactly! Wait. You ant extra poisonous, right?”
”That’s ridiculous. Just build an isolation formation if you don’t already have one. Your disciples are probably hand-pollinating them anyway.”
He frowned. “That’s for the horticulturists to figure out. I’m not responsible for them.”
Was he serious? ”You’re a master in the Nascent Soul realm! Even if you aren’t caring for the plants yourself, you should investigate how that departnt is growing the herbs you use every day. You’re irresponsible if you don’t.”
His cheeks turned bright red. “I do not need a lecture from my junior.”
I crossed my arms and glared at him. “Dread Lotus.”
He winced.
Now that he’d been properly embarrassed, I continued, “Locate a senior from the horticulturists who has the original seeds. And if you can’t do that, then send a disciple out to the farthest corner of this continent to search for it. Either way, we need the least toxic variant soon as possible.”
“Alright,” he said, then paused. “What if we can’t find the original Five Flas Pepper?”
”Then we’ll have to do things the hard and long way.”
He frowned and paused for a second as if talking with others through a secret sound transmission. Within a few monts, several Golden Core disciples entered Noxious Fangstrike’s alchemy room and bowed deeply. He threw a bag at the one with the highest cultivation. “Take this and hurry to the teleportation platform.”
“Yes, senior. We’ll take this secret to our graves.”
Then the group vanished.
“That was a little extre, but I approve.”
He scowled.
“With the demonic sect ssing with the sect’s poison body cultivators, there is no telling how badly they’d want to prevent us from getting the right ingredients.”
“This only takes care of one plant. You ntioned the Irrepressible Blood Chrysanthemum. Are you planning to fix the issue with that?”
”I can’t fix the plant in such a short period. But I have an idea on how to resolve its side effects. It will just take so trial and error.”
He nodded.
“But before I start on the chrysanthemum, we need to see how much the original pepper strain reduces the sequelae. We have to take this slowly or we’ll ss everything up.”
“I… understand.” He frowned. “Are you sure it is only these two ingredients that are creating these awful side effects?”
”One step at a ti, senior. Once we’ve solved these two. If there are more plants responsible for harming our sect’s disciples, then I’ll figure it out later.”
He stared off into space while looking a little lancholy. “I can’t understand how I didn’t see this before. It seems so obvious now.”
Fuck. I needed him on his ga and not wallowing in his and his sect’s mistakes. ”It’s not that you aren’t brilliant, senior. It’s just that I’m an actual once-in-a-billion-years genius.”
He coughed and looked at like he couldn’t believe I’d said that.
”Don’t feel too bad. I still have plenty of things I need to learn from you about poisons.”
”For so reason, I suddenly don’t feel like teaching you.”
”Well, you don’t have to. But I’m not confident about creating a perfect cure if you don’t teach . And Dread Lotus might yell at you.”
His brow furrowed and he rubbed his temples with one hand. “I can’t win against you.”
Of course not! Who did he think I was?
Then, as if realizing sothing wonderful, he smiled. “But I can put you through a hellish training regi.”
He chuckled sadistically.
This fucker… That was what I usually did to Little Spring! How dare soone use my own punishnts against ?
He pulled out several jade slips. “We’ll start with these. I expect you to have made every poison on here by the ti you go back to your band mbers.”
This sneaky motherfucker… How did he know I wanted to learn this shit quickly?! This wasn’t hell training. It was speed learning. Muahahaha!
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