Chapter 52: Cool heads but warm hearts (1)

The Poison of Destruction art. When one reached the fourth level, it allowed them to store poison within the body and use it when needed. The internal energy helped control the poison that was within the body, but if the energy was shattered, the poison spread out uncontrolled.

“Nnnrggghgh!”

Chun Yeowun was shocked when Chun Jongsum’s face turned purple and his mouth was full of bubbles. He wasn’t going to kill him because of the academy rule, but it looked like Jongsum was dying.

“God… his internal energy is gone,” Baek Jongmeng gasped. He realized why Jongsum had been poisoned.

‘I knew something was going to happen, but this…’

He didn’t think Yeowun would destroy Jongsum’s energy. He was not a martial artist, but he knew how important internal energy was for a martial artist. Looking at all those bones that had been destroyed, it made him frown.

‘You should’ve stopped after breaking his bones. Why did you go so far?’

Jongmeng had many questions he wanted to ask, but he had to treat his patients first. Jongmeng quickly placed needles over Jongsum’s blood points. He didn’t know what poison was in effect, so he had to get the poison out of the body first. The blood points began to spill black blood with the foul stench of poison coming from it.

“Ugh!”

It was a powerful poison that should have killed a normal person already. Fortunately, Jongsum was not dead yet.

‘Is he immune to poison?’

But even then, this level of poison was going to kill Chun Jongsum anyway.

“Oh! I have that!”

Jongmeng then quickly went through his desk drawers and found a red silk pouch that had small medicinal pills inside.

‘I’m so lucky that I have these.’

It was what his teacher Baek Jongwu told him to take. Jongmeng put on a glove so he would not come into contact with the poison and opened Jongsum’s mouth and place three pills inside.

“You might feel like dying, but swallow it if you want to live. Go on!”

Chun Jongsum was dying, but he barely swallowed it. As Jongmeng was doing his best to save Jongsum, Yeowun looked on with a serious expression.

‘I didn’t expect this.’

He didn’t know anything about poisons, so there was no way Yeowun would have known this. If Jongsum died, Yeowun was going to be expelled.

‘Dammit. I can’t let him die.’

He had gone too far, but there was nothing he could do now.

‘I have to let him live.’

The best way was to make Nano analyze the poison and detoxify it, but Nano said it was not possible to move into another person’s body.

‘Why can’t you?’

[It is against the system protocol. There is a lock on it that restricts you from doing it.]

‘Why is there a lock?’

[There is an embedded genetic code that protects the Nano Machine from being taken by other entities.]

Yeowun didn’t know, but there were a lot of restrictions in the Nano Machine program. It was done to protect the current time frame from having highly advanced technology so that it wouldn’t be revealed to the public.

‘Then what should I do?’

“OH!”

Chun Yeowun then found the blood that was on his clothes from carrying Jongsum.

‘Nano, can you just analyze the poison then?’

[Understood. Please place your hand over the substance.]

Yeowun placed his finger over the poison as Nano instructed him to do.

[Analyzing.]

Chun Yeowun then walked over to the cabinet that held herbs while Nano was analyzing. Jongmeng was busy tending to Jongsum so he didn’t know what Yeowun was doing.

[Analyzing complete. Total of seven poisons have been mixed, thus making a new poisonous effect.]

‘Analyze the way to the mix herbs I see right now to detoxify it. Hurry!’

[Understood.]

Nano then began searching through the medicinal herbs that Yeowunw was looking at. Soon, Yeowun was what herbs he had to use and how much through Augmented Reality. Yeowun quickly grabbed what he needed and began creating medicine soup. As smoke began to rise up from the boiler, Jongmeng turned toward him.

“What are you doing?”

He was drenched in sweat, barely relieved. It seemed like Jongsum was barely controlling the poison with the medicine pills.

“Uh… I’m just creating medicine soup.”

Chun Yeowun hesitated for a second but he ended up telling the truth. Baek Jongmeng, who was having a hard time due to what Yeowun had done, got up and tried to scold him.

“What are you talking about! How can you even try… huh?”

He was shocked to see the medicine on the table. All of the herbs that Yeowun had taken out were those that were used to nullify poisons, and some required to be mixed with others.

‘What? He wouldn’t know this if he didn’t study medicinal herbs…’

Jongmeng then tasted the soup a little with his finger. Medicinal herb mixture could be toxic if done incorrectly, but this didn’t seem to have any problems.

‘He studied medicines!’

He didn’t. Yeowun was only following Nano’s instructions. However, Baek Jongmeng did not know this and was astonished. Even then, making a medicine soup without knowing what it was for was still dangerous.

“It’s not bad, but we need to know what poison it is to…”

“It’s Sulfuric Poison, so it includes poison fish, poisonous mushrooms, plague insects, blue oak, and red extracts.”

“Oh…”

Yeowun quickly listed off the poisons inside Jongsum and Jongmeng was shocked. It was unbelievable when Yeowun didn’t even extract the poison to study it.

“Doctor Baek, can you trust me on this one?”

Yeowun had no time to waste so he begged Jongmeng. The doctor then turned to Jongsum who was still purple and told him to wait. Jongmeng then gathered a small drop of blood from Jongsum and placed it into a small bowl. He then began checking to see if the blood really contained the seven poisons that Yeowun had spoken of.

‘…It really is!’

What Yeowun said was correct. Yeowun probably knew what he was doing with the medicine soup, so Jongmeng then decided to use the soup that Yeowun had created. He brought the soup over and had Jongsum take it spoon by spoon. All that was left to do now was to wait.

“We’ve done everything we can now. I have to keep him on the needles so that the poison will not spread.”

“I’m sorry, Doctor Baek.”

Yeowun deeply regretted doing something out of control. Jongmeng shook his head.

“But why did you have to destroy his internal energy? Even if the basics of the academy supports the survival of the fittest, this… this seems like too much. Can you take the backlash?”

Jongmeng was really worried. Yeowun was still in the academy, but he would graduate in four years and after placing the candidate of the Poison Clan in such a state, it was likely that the Poison Clan would retaliate. Yeowun spoke with a bow.

“…Thank you for your concern. I will take anything that comes to me for what I have done.”

There was no going back even if he regretted it. And he had decided to fight six clans from the very beginning, so it didn’t matter anyway.

‘Ah… you are still young.’

Jongmeng then felt Chun Yeowun’s young recklessness and gave him some sincere advice.

“I hope you think deeply about every instance from now on. From what I have learned in the cult, it is more common for smartest ones to survive, than the strongest one. Be flexible with your thinking.”

Baek Jongmeng hoped that Yeowun would not be arrogant about his own power and become smart instead. Thinking that brute strength would topple everything in the cult was the wrong idea. Chun Yeowun thought deeply about the advice.

‘Maybe… I was too reckless this time.’

His fast growth in power made him arrogant. He couldn’t understand it now, but he did feel like he had done something wrong after hearing Jongmeng’s advice.

“Well, it’s too late. You should go back now.”

It was almost time for the dorms to close. Chun Yeowun bowed and tried to return when someone spoke up awkwardly.

“Uh… what about me?”

It was the 18th cadet, Bakgi.