Prologue to the Treatment Plan

"I am a Level 50 Herbalist. I gather plants and herbs to create antidotes and medicines. The effects are not as fast as Potions and are more suited to sickness like fevers and asthma."

She organized one of the jars on the shelf with her wrinkled hands. "As you know, Potions are expensive. Three Golds for a bottle of regular Potions and twenty for High Potions. These are prices no regular household can afford," the old Herbalist's eyes looked sad as she gazed at the collection of failure jars. "And that is why I tried my best to create something that can rival potions. Yet, look at these! Even my successes can't reach the effectiveness of Potions."

She sighed deeply, regret painted over her wrinkled face. "It was as if the Goddess decided that no matter how much you try, you cannot surpass your assigned Job."

Connie looked at the jars and asked. "Do you have samples for these so called Potions?"

Ethel Windlepoons grabbed three glass bottles from a nearby drawer and put them in line on the table. "This blue one is a Potion. The green one is Antidote. The red one is Mana Potion."

"Mana Potion?"

"It's a potion that replenishes Mana. This is used only by mages."

"And what is this antidote for?"

"Antidotes are cure-alls for most types of basic poisons and venoms encountered in the wild. Snake bites, spider bites, and scorpion stings. That kind of stuff."

"I see," Connie quickly decided to purchase a few to try and research the Antidote.

"And that leaves us with the Potions. Look," Ethel cut a bit of her fingertips with a small knife and showed Connie her bleeding finger. She then took a swig of the Potion and the wound closed. "That's how it works. It closes the wound and stop the bleeding. But if you have a broken bone for example, it won't mend them."

Connie briefly compared them to the pills she made in her past life and concluded that its effects were similar to the trial pills novices brewed as their first job. It won't be of any use in the treatment that she planned. She would have to go with her own way.

She made her decision. "Ethel. I'd like to offer you a proposition. I want everything inside the jars here. The raw ingredients and the results. In exchange I will give you -."

Ethel Windlepoons shook her head. "I don't know who or what you are, Miss Connie. No Alchemist can do what you did back there," she paused. "But like I have said, I have dealt with heroes before so I have a guess."

The old woman looked at her wrinkled hands and clenched them. "There is only one thing I want in exchange for these."

Ethel's old eyes stared deep into hers. "Teach me how to make what you used to treat her. Teach me how to make that pill."

Connie accepted the stare and thought deeply. "…It's not an easy thing to do. It's going to be different with what you have been doing until now."

"My time on this blasted earth won't be much longer. I want to do something with it."

Connie was surprised by the grit of the old woman before her. Though she was clearly not as strong, but the tenacity in her could rival the strongest of warriors. This was a woman worthy of respect.

"Very well," Connie extended her hand. "it's a deal."

Ethel grabbed hers and shook it twice before letting go. "Well, what do you wanna do now?"

The young girl rubbed her chin and said. "If I made them into a pill for me to eat, it will take a long time. Also I don't know what effect some of them have. Especially if they counteract each other, as it would be wasted effort. So," she loosened the collar of her dress. "I'm going to ingest them."

"What? Wait - ! That's madness! Some of these are not medicines, but toxic materials!"

"In my current stage, trying to take in the matured poison inside her body would be suicidal. So I need to first raise my resistance and take in all the ingredients I can get. Then I will use the one extracted from her body to breakthrough to the late stage of Shedding Mortality."

"Shedding Mortality? What the hell is that?"

"It's one of my skills," Connie used a white lie to make it easier on the old woman to accept. "Now. Let's start. Give me all the bottles while you say what the contents are is. I want to memorize everything as we go. We'll start with this jar of…something."

"Wa-!" Ethel did not manage to finish her words when Connie upended the content of a small jar into her mouth and swallowed.

"Hmm, there is a sensation of numbness as it goes down."

Ethel went wide-eyed. "You're…fine? You don't feel your cold or anything?"

"No."

"This is unheard of! That's Essence of Winter Blackroot! Just a small dosage of that can kill a hundred men! And you drank it as if it was water!"

"What's that in your hand? Give it to me."

"This is Yellow Peregrine Bulb. If eaten raw it'll cause instant suffocation."

Connie snatched the root and ate the whole thing in a few bites.

"This is not enough. I need more! Keep them coming."

By then, Ethel was thoroughly fascinated and simply handed over bottles upon bottles, raw leaves and roots while calling out the names of the mixture, forgetting her hesitation earlier and was even more sure that she made the right decision to make the deal. Connie gulped and chewed and swallowed everything as if her life depended on it.

At a certain point, her eyes flickered between serpentine and normal and her long tongue lolled. A feeling of dizziness caused her to wobble and fell to her knees. Parts of her body had turned unnatural colors. Limbs and digit swollen to thrice her size and her stomach distended.

All the poison resistance skills and danger avoidance skill Ethel had warned her that death was coming fast. Ethel was so distraught and afraid of the change that she let out a yelp.

"G-get out! Get out now!!" Connie barked.

The old woman sprinted out the door with speed that did not fit her age.

Connie slammed on the marble table and caused it to have a hairline crack. Then she slammed on it again, breaking it apart with a loud crash.

She screamed loudly and raised both her arms. She assumed a horse stance and spat out thick bluish gas which started to erode the ceiling.

That gas was the pure extract of all the ingredients that she had taken in. If it was let out in the open it could enter people's lung through inhalation and destroy their body from the inside out within minutes. It had the strength to kill a thousand people. However, even with such strength is does not qualify it to be one of the foundations of Thousand Poison Claw. It was too simple, too straightforward. At best it could only be used to strengthen one's body.

And that is what Connie is using it for.

The prerequisite of the Thousand Poison Claw is the ability to turn one's own body into an alchemic cauldron for refining ingredients. And this is done using the Poison Core. It took rigorous training to be able to do such a feat with success rate below 40 percent. But Wang Tian Gu had devised a way to raise this to 90 percent by adopting the Gu Body.

She then took the Lotus position, concentrated her Ying Energy into her Poison Core and inhaled all the gas again through her nose and stored it inside. With this process, the imperfections in her body slowly vanished and returned to her normal, reddish white skin.

She coughed a few times before commenting to herself. "Hoh. That was crazy. It's not something I want to do again."

Outside, Ethel was putting her ear on the door. Curious about what was happening inside.

Moments later she heard a click from the door and Connie went out, her presence clearly had a change as she felt more dangerous.

"Y-you are still alive? This is impossible!"

"Not for me, Ethel. And if you stick with me you are going to witness more incredible things," she said with a grin. "Are you willing to be my accomplice, to accomplish something truly…unique? It will be quite the experience." She said, slightly proud of the play on words.

"Is this going to be something dangerous or illegal?"

"Dangerous, very. Illegal? Well, that depends," Connie rubbed her chin as she gazed at the sleeping figure of Illumca. "That depends on whether I stirred enough trouble to make the other side unable to tolerate me.