Wei moved like a phantom down the mountain paths of the Verdant Serpent Sect. He wore the simple robes of an inner disciple, his vast spiritual pressure completely withdrawn, making him indistinguishable from the hundreds of others he passed. No one gave him a second glance. An elder walking among the outer disciples was a rare sight, but a disguised one was unheard of.
He found a position on a wooded hill overlooking the designated patrol route, a thousand meters from the path. His spiritual sense, a vast and invisible net, spread out, mapping the entire area. He didn't have to wait long.
Zhang Jie swaggered along the path, his chin held high. He wasn't patrolling so much as taking a stroll. At his side, a younger, terrified-looking disciple scurried to keep up, carrying Zhang Jie's waterskin.
"Faster, you useless trash!" Zhang Jie snapped, cuffing the boy on the back of the head. "If I die of thirst, my uncle, Deacon Feng, will have you cleaning the spirit beast stables for a year!"
The boy stumbled but said nothing, his eyes fixed on the ground.
Wei watched this exchange with detached indifference. This small act of cruelty solidified his decision. Zhang Jie was not just a target; he was a weed that needed pulling.
From his sleeve, Wei produced the small pouch of grey dust. He opened it, allowing the faint scent of damp earth to escape. He located a patch of Stone-Vein Moss growing on a rock face just ahead of Zhang Jie's position. Closing his eyes, Wei extended a minuscule, almost imperceptible thread of his Spirit King Qi. The energy crossed the thousand-meter gap in an instant, touching the moss.
A single, microscopic spore, invisible to the naked eye, puffed into the air.
As Zhang Jie and the disciple walked past, a slight breeze guided the spore directly into Zhang Jie's path. He inhaled, his expression unchanged. He noticed nothing. The thread of Wei's spiritual energy retracted, leaving no trace it had ever been there.
Wei turned and left, his task complete. The seed of death had been planted. Now, he only had to wait for it to sprout.
For the next three days, life on Silent Bloom Peak continued as normal. Wei tended to his poison garden, brewed several concoctions, and even played a game of Go with Elder Guan, the boisterous formation master.
"You're distracted today, old friend," Guan noted, placing a stone with a loud 'clack'. "Thinking about that 'Soul Fray' of yours again? Don't kill yourself with it."
"Just contemplating a few new theories," Wei replied calmly, placing his own stone and capturing a swath of Guan's territory. "Nothing more."
He was the image of patience, his mind a placid lake. On the morning of the fourth day, the news arrived, spreading through the sect like wildfire.
Outer disciple Zhang Jie had died in his room overnight.
The official cause, determined by the sect's physicians, was a severe cultivation deviation. His meridians were ruptured from the inside out, his dantian shattered. A classic case of a disciple pushing himself too hard, too fast. His uncle, Deacon Feng, made a great show of mourning his talented nephew's tragic end, but the investigation was closed within hours. No one suspected a thing.
Back in the quiet solitude of his pagoda, Wei stood perfectly still. The moment the news was confirmed by the sect's official channels, the voice in his mind returned.
[Target confirmed deceased. Cause of death attributed to Host's poison.]
[Mission: First Venom - Complete.]
[Calculating Rewards...]
[Host has received: 10 Sovereign Points.]
[Host has received: Poison Recipe - 'Tasteless Demise'.]
A stream of information flowed into his mind: a recipe for a simple but effective poison made from common herbs, completely tasteless and odorless, perfect for contaminating food or drink.
[First kill bonus unlocked. New System Function available: Venomous Conversion.]
[Venomous Conversion: Host can now absorb any poison and convert it into pure spiritual energy to advance cultivation. Conversion rate is dependent on the poison's potency and complexity.]
This was the true prize.
Wei's eyes gleamed with a cold light. He walked over to a sealed jade box on his shelf. Inside was a single, desiccated flower head—the Corpse Blossom. Its pollen was a potent neurotoxin that could paralyze a Core Formation expert. In the past, he had studied it with extreme caution. Now, he looked at it as if it were a spirit stone of the highest grade.
He picked up the flower and, without a moment of hesitation, brought it to his lips and consumed it.
The familiar, deadly poison flooded his system. But instead of paralysis and death, a warm current began to flow through his meridians. The Venomous Sovereign System activated, its invisible gears turning. The complex toxic compounds of the Corpse Blossom were broken down, analyzed, and refined into streams of pure, pristine spiritual energy that flowed directly into his spiritual sea.
He could feel the barrier of the peak Spirit King realm, a wall he had been unable to breach for decades, tremble ever so slightly. It was a minuscule change, one that would have taken him a year of normal cultivation to achieve, accomplished in a single breath.
A slow, cold smile spread across Wei's face. The world was not just a place to live in anymore. It was a banquet of poisons, and he was the only one invited to the feast. His path forward was no longer one of quiet research. It was a path of consumption. To grow stronger, he needed more potent, more exotic, more legendary poisons.
And to get them, he would need more Sovereign Points. He would need more targets.