Bellamy explained his decision to his ship's doctor and chef. "I want to use potent poisons to forcibly stimulate the body's potential."
In theory, the method was viable.
Once a toxin enters the body, it reacts with the system, damaging tissues and disrupting metabolic functions. The more virulent the toxin, the greater its raw destructive power. Introducing such a poison into his body would be like starting a war within himself. This war could fully awaken his body's dormant functions. If he could withstand it, Bellamy could use this opportunity to force out all of his latent potential at once.
But the price for doing so was burning through his own life force.
A single misstep, and he could very well be killed directly by an overdose. Even if the poison didn't kill him, the various horrific side effects could leave him in a state worse than death. The key to all of this was the doctor's control over the dosage.
With Bellamy's current physique, a small amount of weak toxin would be nothing more than a bit of foreign protein entering his system. Moreover, he had previously taken a potion that enhanced his poison resistance; ordinary poisons were ineffective against him. What he needed was a poison with overwhelming potency—the more potent, the better.
Bellamy had absolute trust in his ship's doctor. That was why he was prepared to entrust this incredibly important task to Muret.
Next, he and Heracles would venture into the forest to collect some poisonous plants. What kind of concoction these plants would be refined into, he didn't know. They lacked proper equipment on the island and could only use what was available. However, the Stomach Baron itself was a legendary plant; the poisonous species growing on it were unlikely to be ordinary. With these toxins, he figured they could create a few useful poisons.
Originally, Bellamy thought that collecting some poisonous materials wouldn't take long, and that was true. Before long, they had gathered a sample of every poisonous thing on the island. But when they reached the very center of the Boin Archipelago—the mouth of the Stomach Baron—the unexpected happened.
"This is the Stomach Baron's feeding organ!?"
Bellamy stared at the bottomless pit before him, at a loss for how to express the shock in his heart. It was a massive chasm that stretched beyond sight, its opening lined with jagged fangs, like the maw of a monster. Corrosive, sickly green gas periodically drifted out from the pit, staining the sky green. The chasm had a peculiar shape, narrow at the mouth and wide at the base. The opening was actually the smallest part of the entire pit.
Heracles told Bellamy that he had never seen anything that fell into this pit ever come back out.
Such a bizarre and mysterious place naturally piqued Bellamy's deep curiosity. He desperately wanted to explore the bottom of the pit to see what was inside. Although it was highly likely that the bottom was just a lake of acid—the place where the Stomach Baron digested its food—Bellamy had a feeling that this giant plant wasn't so simple.
There were too many traces of artificial creation on the Stomach Baron. How could a naturally evolved plant possibly grow cakes, roasted meat, and chocolate sauce?
"This place is too mysterious," Bellamy murmured, standing before the menacing feeding organ, his emotions in turmoil.
A thousand years ago in this world's history, there existed a Great Kingdom. Not the giant kingdom of Elbaf, but a Great Kingdom that had once truly ruled the world. Legend had it that the Great Kingdom were the true masters of the world, but something happened during that erased century of history. The entire Great Kingdom vanished into the mists of time overnight. As time passed, this nation was slowly and completely forgotten by the world.
Now, a thousand years later, only a very few people knew that such a kingdom had ever existed. Bellamy, naturally, was one of them. He had long suspected that the Stomach Baron might be a relic left behind by the Great Kingdom. As for the meaning of its existence, that was unknown.
"Lord Bellamy, we should stay far away from here," Heracles advised from a distance, not daring to get too close as the corrosive gas drifted about on the wind.
"Right, let's go," Bellamy said after a moment of contemplation, ultimately deciding against jumping into the massive pit. He still had many important things to accomplish and couldn't take such an unknown risk out of a moment's curiosity.
At the end of the day, Bellamy was not an adventurer. His desire to explore the unknown was far outweighed by his thirst for power. If someone told him that a peerless treasure capable of increasing his strength lay at the bottom, Bellamy would absolutely risk everything to go down there. But he estimated that probably no one in the world knew what lay at the bottom of this pit.
After collecting the poisons from the island, they handed all the strange and toxic plants over to Mia and Muret.
"It's all up to you now." Bellamy's medical skills were only at a beginner's level; he wasn't qualified to concoct medicines. Whether they could produce what he wanted would depend on the skills of his doctor and chef. In this, Bellamy was quite confident. Muret had been with him for so long and had studied under Crocus for a time; she was no longer the small-time clinic doctor from the North Blue. Mia had a natural talent for identifying herbs. Although she was far from fully developing this ability, she could be of great help in refining this kind of plant-based potion.
Just as they began to refine the poisons, Bellamy suddenly remembered another piece of information he had acquired while searching for the Boin Archipelago's Eternal Pose. The Celestial Dragons sent people to the Boin Archipelago at regular intervals to collect some kind of mysterious medicine.
Originally, Bellamy had planned to ask Heracles to show him around the island when he had some free time. But weren't they in the process of making medicine right now? Although it was poison, perhaps this other medicine could be useful.
"Heracles, have you seen other outsiders on the island?"
"Of course, I have." The island had existed for over a thousand years. Although it was extremely remote, many people still knew of the Boin Archipelago's existence. "Every so often, a group of people comes to the island."
Good, the intel matches up.
"Do you know what they come here for?"
"I don't know." Heracles had lived on this island since he was a child and truly couldn't understand what these people were doing. "But I followed them for a while and know where they went. I can take you there to have a look."
Upon hearing this, Bellamy immediately waved his hand. "Let's go."
Training could wait for today. First, he would explore this island.