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A Free City of Gurye with a population of 2 million.
The urban center was bustling enough that tall buildings had been erected here and there, and whether by population or scale of development, it was a city so much larger than Paju, where Taeju had lived, that there was no comparison.
But Gurye had to bear the burden of a Magical Beast wave that could erupt at any moment.
The Jirisan jungle had an unusually high density of Magical Beasts compared to other regions.
Unlike other areas, Magical Beast waves broke out whenever things got even a little dull.
Because public authority was weak, public safety was not very good either, and all kinds of human types overflowed through the place.
Debtors who ran away after taking on debt, creditors who came chasing those debtors, criminals who fled to avoid warrants, gamblers hoping to strike it big, merchants doing business with all of them....
Even so, it was still a place fit for people to live in.
The city autonomy committee had been organized to make up for the lacking security, and commercial activity was lively, so if someone worked hard, a foundation had been prepared for living abundantly.
Twenty percent of the Magical Beast byproducts produced in the Samhan Empire came from the Free City of Gurye alone.
That meant there were many kinds of Magical Beasts, and their numbers were enormous too.
Dozens of orc villages, along with blade-fanged martens, storm weasels, venom-clawed wildcats, red-furred wolves, giant moon bears, steel-feathered eagle owls.
Threat factors that were a burden to the Empire.
To block the Jirisan Magical Beast wave, Imperial Army Magical Beast defense corps were stationed in Sancheong City, Hamyang City, and Namwon City, each north of Jirisan.
But defense alone could never solve the problem.
They had to continuously reduce the number of Magical Beasts.
For that reason, the Imperial family designated Gurye, south of Jirisan, as a free city.
Taxes were reduced only for the sale of hunting byproducts, gambling and prostitution were allowed, and public authority was minimized as they drew people in.
A great many civilian Awakeners who did not belong to the military gathered there.
They raised their System rank through Magical Beast hunting and made money by gathering byproducts too.
What Taeju had to do in order to establish himself in the Free City of Gurye.
Hunt?
It was not the time yet.
At only 1-star mastery in the Primordial Boundless Poison Spirit Art, it was dangerous if he met a strong Magical Beast.
Also, could he deal with the Magical Beasts using only poison?
He needed hidden weapons too.
Poison and hidden weapons.
The synergy those two showed.
Only together did they finally become perfect.
But hidden weapons cost a great deal.
By their nature, custom production was unavoidable.
Then?
First, he had to make money.
At present, he was utterly penniless.
He could not even dream of buying or making hidden weapons.
He had to decide on lodging too, and eat, and activate a smartphone as well,
He had thrown away the one he originally had.
It was old, and he had been planning to change the number anyway.
Also, he meant to cast away what little lingering attachment he still had toward his father along with it.
As for sleeping, he could just sleep rough in a park or train station, but the problem was hunger.
Could a person live on poison alone?
So what he started doing was being a hunting supporter.
A supporter, in simple terms, was just a porter.
Usually porters were ordinary Mana-Adapter civilians.
Mana-Compatible people were supporters too, but they were not porters, they were combat support personnel.
For the time being, he decided to work as a porter.
Combat support personnel stood out too much.
Perhaps he was stronger than a beginner, no, even stronger than a regular.
While at it, he would also get a grasp of the atmosphere of Gurye and the Jirisan jungle.
If he waited at the labor market at the entrance to the Jirisan jungle in the dim light before dawn....
"Three porters for the blade-fanged marten zone!"
"Me, me!"
"Me! I, I .... "
"I've got 118 porter jobs under my belt, I'm a veteran."
People trying to find work shot their hands up high.
But workers had standards of their own too.
"Try lifting this."
"A backpack like this is nothing ... urgh! H-how is it so, so heavy?"
"Tsk tsk, you're not even a Rejector, and you can't lift this? Go build up some strength and come back."
Only someone with the stamina to carry a huge backpack and walk around for at least 8 hours could do porter work.
Naturally, Taeju passed.
So for a daily wage of 200,000 won, he joined a Jirisan jungle Magical Beast raid as a porter.
A pickup raid team usually made up of 15 people.
Of those, 3 were porters, 7 were combat support personnel made up of Mana-Compatible individuals, and 5 were Awakeners.
Those carrying swords, spears, bows, and firearms were Mana-Compatible individuals and Awakeners, while those with backpacks were Mana-Adapter civilians, the porters.
Among them, anyone who had a tattoo the size of half a palm on the face, especially on the side, was a System Awakener.
The shape and size of Awakener tattoos varied widely.
So there were also bastards who drew on fake tattoos and scammed people.
The main byproducts a raid team obtained through hunting were the energy core in a Magical Beast's head, along with organs such as hide, teeth, claws, liver, or gallbladder.
The first hunt he followed as a porter was stable.
Awakeners knew their own lives were precious too, so they never hunted recklessly.
The work was easy.
He just carried the backpack and followed along.
A body strengthened by poison arts.
Of course, the heavenly curse of the Mana-Rejector still continued.
"Good work. Here, take today's pay."
"Thank you."
"From tomorrow onward, don't come to the day labor market. Contact me directly at this number."
He must have made quite a good impression.
Well, of course! Even while carrying that huge backpack, he strode through the jungle and even helped other tired porters.
With the money he earned like that, he bought food, rented a monthly room at a shabby inn to secure temporary lodging, and got himself a smartphone too.
In his spare time, he trained the Primordial Boundless Poison Spirit Art.
Poisonous herbs were everywhere, after all.
He lived as a laborer for a full fifteen days.
And in the midst of that, he discovered a fact.
'This could make money.'
At last, he found it.
A way to earn a large sum of money.
And at the same time, a means to establish a foundation in Gurye.
***
There was a place in the Jirisan jungle that even Awakeners avoided.
Even Magical Beasts did not go near it.
That place was none other than Jirisan's "Hell Swamp."
Taeju went to Jirisan Hell Swamp at dawn, just as the sun was rising.
Eeeeng, eeeeng.
He had only just arrived near the swamp, and it was already chaos.
'This is insane. Are all of those mosquitoes?'
A swarm of mosquitoes.
The swamp visible in the distance was black all over with mosquitoes.
They were called the mutant three-striped mosquitoes.
They mated and laid eggs in Hell Swamp.
Their feeding grounds covered the entire Jirisan jungle.
As expected, they were a species mutated by mana.
However, their size was exactly the same as ordinary mosquitoes.
Instead, one special ability had been added, and that was the poison of the mutant three-striped mosquito. It tormented Mana-Compatible individuals and Awakeners tremendously.
If bitten by these mosquitoes, the body lost strength, and drowsiness slowly set in.
The more bites one received, the worse the symptoms became.
It was not such a strong poison, so after a day or two, one would recover completely.
But strangely enough, it caused no harm at all to Mana-Adapter people, ordinary humans.
If bitten, it merely itched.
It affected only Mana-Compatible individuals and Awakeners.
That made it quite dangerous when they were bitten by mosquitoes during battle with Magical Beasts.
Because of nothing more than mosquitoes, combat ability dropped, and in severe cases it even led to major injuries or death.
An even bigger problem was that there was no medicine for it.
And ordinary insecticides did not work either.
Control operations were carried out every year, but their numbers simply would not decrease, so by now people had almost given up.
Therefore, the only option was to avoid being bitten as much as possible.
That meant wearing protective anti-insect suits.
Covering the whole body so that mosquitoes could not bite.
That was why Awakeners and Mana-Compatible individuals in the Jirisan region went out to hunt Magical Beasts with their whole bodies tightly wrapped in anti-insect suits, even in the sticky subtropical heat.
Anyone who had worn one even once knew how maddening and unbearable that was.
How much hunting efficiency dropped because of those tiny mosquitoes.
You wanted to burn those tiresome bastards to ashes with fire, but their numbers were enormous too.
But what if someone found a way to exterminate these mosquitoes, or an antidote?
'You'd make a killing.'
That was why Taeju had gone alone to Jirisan Hell Swamp.
As he approached, the poisonous mosquitoes rushed at him as if this were an unexpected feast.
Eeeeng, eeeeeeeeng!
But he did not drive them away.
He let the mosquitoes bite him.
'Aha, so this is what it feels like.'
Now that he had been bitten, he thought he understood.
Why the body lost strength.
The poison essence formed through the Primordial Boundless Poison Spirit Art.
And also the experience held by Dang Gun-ak, the Supreme Poison Demon, whose soul was the same as his.
Based on those, if he inferred the type of poison...
'As I thought, it was dispersing poison.'
Dispersing poison.
A poisonous substance that scattered bodily energy, including mana.
It was not especially strong, so with time it would naturally fade, but if one was bitten a lot, it still caused a major hindrance in battle.
Naturally, Taeju was completely fine even when bitten by the mosquitoes.
Because his energy was poison itself.
Standing still, Taeju circulated the Primordial Boundless Poison Spirit Art.
When he made the toxic energy circulate through his entire body.
Thud, thud-thud-thud.
The mosquitoes fell weakly to the ground.
Weak poison yielded before strong poison.
'Should I eat them?'
He waved his hand through the air, caught several flying mosquitoes, brought them to his mouth, and chewed them.
If he tasted them, he could become even more certain.
He kept eating mosquitoes.
He even deliberately let them bite him.
The mysterious principle of the Primordial Boundless Poison Spirit Art.
He physically learned and grasped the properties of poison he experienced.
'I know what kind of poison it is now.'
Now he had to find a way to neutralize it.
Fight poison with poison.
Poison was controlled with poison.
'I need to find a poison that can detoxify it.....'
There was no need to go deep inside.
Judging by the experience of the Supreme Poison Demon, where there was poison, there was a good chance an antidote would also be nearby.
He pulled poisonous herbs from around Hell Swamp and tasted them.
They were not what he had been looking for, but if they seemed useful, he put them into his backpack.
'The Jirisan jungle really is....'
Heaven.
Poisonous herbs that could intoxicate someone by touch alone were scattered everywhere.
If the Supreme Poison Demon Dang Gun-ak knew this fact, how much would he salivate?
Taeju kept exploring while chewing poisonous herbs.
He could not eat too much.
It would burden the body.
Slowly, just a little, only enough to get a taste.
'Not this one.'
He had to find something with properties opposite to the poison of the mutant three-striped mosquito.
'Not this either.'
Poison and medicine were separated by only the finest margin.
Poison could become medicine, and medicine could become poison.
That was why the Sichuan Dang Family of the murim world was famous as a medical house as well.
'This one is promising.'
At last, he found it.
Blue-mottled mushroom.
A poisonous mushroom containing a poison with the property of coagulating mana and blocking mana pathways.
The mosquito poison scattered mana, while the blue-mottled mushroom coagulated mana, so their properties were different.
'That's one found.'
This alone was not enough.
Taeju continued searching around the swamp.
Because of the mosquitoes, this was a safe place.
There were almost no Magical Beasts, and almost no people either.
He gathered dozens of kinds of plants.
Among them were not only poisonous herbs but medicinal herbs as well.
They were essential plants for changing the properties of poison.
'I'll take them back and experiment.'
Just thinking of all the various poisonous herbs in his backpack made him feel full of satisfaction.
To change poison into something with medicinal properties, processing was essential. Unnecessary toxicity had to be removed, and the poisonous energy had to be reduced to minimize irritation.
But what would happen if he just ate them as they were?
What else would happen?
He would be poisoned by several toxic energies at once and die.
That was precisely why, even when the ingredients and components of medicine were the same, the effects could differ like heaven and earth, because of processing.
If processing was done wrong, medicine turned into poison.
That was why, no matter how advanced science and technology became, creating new medicines remained extremely difficult.
But who was he?
The Supreme Poison Demon who had mastered the Primordial Boundless Poison Spirit Art, which allowed him to grasp the properties of poison and transform those properties.
There was still an obstacle.
His level in poison arts was too low to make an antidote.
Only 1-star Primordial Boundless Poison Spirit Art.
'I need to reach 3-star as quickly as possible.'
It would not take long.
It was a road he had walked before.
And after time passed and passed.
At last!
'So this is 3-star.'
It took a full month to get here.
Porter by day, training by night.
Even considering that poisonous herbs, the very foundation of poison arts, were everywhere, his progress was tremendously fast.
It was not strange at all.
Taeju shared the same soul as Dang Gun-ak, the grandmaster of poison arts, the Supreme Poison Demon, and possessed his experience and knowledge intact.
3-star Primordial Boundless Poison Spirit Art.
The size of his poison essence had more than doubled and become denser.
The number of martial arts he could unleash had increased as well.
Above all, he could now make an antidote for the poison of the mutant three-striped mosquito.
He had already secured quite a lot of the poisonous herbs needed for the antidote.
Enough to fill the room of the lodging where he was staying.
He had tasted all of them and grasped their properties.
Now, after grinding some medicinal herbs into powder, wrapping some in cloth and extracting their juice, and simply cutting others up and placing them into separate containers, he divided the amounts and poured them into the large bathroom tub, then added water.
Taeju put his hand into the water in the tub and circulated the Primordial Boundless Poison Spirit Art.
Using poison essence, he absorbed toxic energy, softened its properties, expelled it, then absorbed it again and expelled it again.
It was an extremely delicate task.
That was why a 3-star level of the Primordial Boundless Poison Spirit Art was essential.
Inside Taeju's body was no different from the testing table of a pharmaceutical company laboratory.
First, he extracted the poison of the mutant three-striped mosquito into the poison essence in his dantian.
At the same time, he drew out the purified essences of several poisons, including the blue-mottled mushroom, mixed them together, and observed the reaction.
Discarding some, using others, determining the mixing ratios too.
More of this poison, only a little of that one.
The Supreme Poison Demon's knowledge of poison.
Of course, there were differences between the poison components of the murim world and Earth.
But since the mosquito poison had the properties of dispersing poison, he knew very well how it had to be detoxified.
The neutralization work continued for two full days without him going out to work, and without eating or drinking.
In the end, he made it.
An antidote for the poison of the mutant three-striped mosquito, one with the side effects removed.