Chapter 249: 249
With the slime done, Michelle turned her attention back to the Fadewrath Orchid.
After soaking in the water for a while, the petals had disconnected from the rest of the flower, and the pollen had stuck to them, painting them yellow. The rest of the flower shriveled up into small balls.
And that was exactly what Michelle needed.
Dipping her hands in the water, she took out the petals and stored them away. They could be used for something else.
Then she poured the water with the small shriveled-up balls into the cauldron, to the concoction she had made just a while ago.
The original concoction turned into a slime upon contact with the water.
Well, it wasn’t exactly water since it was already changed a bit by the small parts of the orchid that actually dissolved.
The concoction in the cauldron wouldn’t have reacted in ordinary water, but in the new mix, it could. And quite quickly.
Heating the water up until it boiled, Michelle watched how it acted. There was quite a lot of it, and she needed it to evaporate. It was to be expected that it would take a long time.
At first, Michelle didn’t need to pay it any attention. With that much water, nothing could go wrong. She would need to pay attention when there would be barely enough water to cover the shriveled-up balls.
Until then, it took about two hours, and Michelle just lay next to the cauldron, looking into it with her head propped up on her hand.
When the amount of water went down, Michelle once again picked up the hairpin and used it to mix the contents in the cauldron. She did it in a way that the slime within the water would wrap around the shriveled-up balls.
As more and more of the water evaporated, the slime settled around the balls. When the water was completely gone, the balls could no longer be seen.
But Michelle kept the fire going. She needed the slime to return to a hardened state—to shrink down. For that, she just needed the liquid within it to evaporate.
It was quite easy, but there was one thing she had to watch out for. While shrinking, there couldn’t appear any cracks in the slime.
Because between the slime and the corrosive balls was a thin layer of water keeping the corrosive balls dormant and ineffective. If it wasn’t there, the balls would react to the slime and start corroding it away.
And that could happen if a crack appeared in the slime. Either the water would drip out, or it would evaporate.
But if the slime dried up without any cracks, everything would be perfect. After the slime dried, even the water between it and the balls would evaporate over time, but it would be fine. The corrosive balls wouldn’t react to dry slime.
When the slime dried up, Michelle retracted her Soul Fire. The poison was done. But it couldn’t exactly be used like the poison from Mavreth.
The poison from Mavreth could be ground into dust and it wouldn’t change how it acted. But if Michelle’s poison got ground to dust, the corrosive inside would get exposed and start reacting to anything that touched it.
She had to think about how to solve that. But at the moment, she was quite satisfied that she was able to create the big pills.
"What do I do with this?" Michelle picked the few pills out of the cauldron and squeezed one of them between her fingers.
Maybe the pill was more fragile than she thought, or she just failed to control her strength, but when she was squeezing it for a while, it cracked between her fingers. And her skin got in contact with the corrosive inside.
It stung quite a bit as the corrosion bit into her fingers, drawing blood. The sweet scent Michelle had already smelled a few times filled the room, getting a bit sickening as it mixed in with the smell of the poison’s ingredients.
Michelle frowned a bit, but she didn’t let go of the pill. "Ouch..." Her voice was quite dry, more like a mumble than an exclamation of pain.
The Fadewrath Orchid proved to be quite strong. Within a few moments, it corroded away the flesh on Michelle’s index and thumb fingers, forcing her to let go of it.
When it fell on the ground, it shattered, and the corrosion left some marks on the floor.
But Michelle wasn’t concerned about that. All her attention was on her two bleeding fingers.
The pain had given her an idea.
She gave it some thought before a beautiful smile spread across her lips. Though she didn’t succeed in making the same poison as Mavreth’s, she created something new.
Quickly, she put the rest of the pills into a random bottle and put it on the table.
Next, she stood up and washed away the blood on her hands before haphazardly bandaging her fingers. Then, she bolted out of her room, heading to the apothecary.
"What do you want now?" the teacher asked when he saw Michelle again. Seeing the bandage on her hand, he guessed that she had an accident while trying to make something from the Fadewrath Orchid.
But Michelle’s answer was something he didn’t expect. He was expecting her to ask for something to soothe the effects of the Fadewrath Orchid.
Instead, she asked for some herbs from which harmless paste could be squeezed out without any special effects. Herbs like that were usually used if someone wanted to make a medical paste, and people didn’t really prefer using it since it dulled the effects of the medicine.
Still, the teacher picked up a few herbs and gave them to Michelle. She paid, thanked him, and returned to her room. She was excited to finalize her poison.
In her room, she squeezed paste out from quite a few herbs and observed its properties. Depending on what paste was used to mix with her poison, that strong it would be when used.
Michelle wasn’t really planning to create the poisonous paste just yet. She just wanted to generally understand how to do it with any paste, so she could do it anytime, with any paste, creating it as strong as she liked.
So she sank deep into checking the various pastes.
When she was done, she lifted her head to look for her bottle of poison. To make sure her hypothesis and observation were correct, she wanted to try making at least one poisonous paste and try it on herself.
But when she looked at the table, her purple eyes turned blood red. The bottle was gone. Someone had stolen her poison.
"Which bastard..." she huffed, standing up. Soul energy started gathering around her. In her rage, she was prepared to kill the person who stole from her.
Turning around, she headed towards the door.
But before she could put her hand on the knob, she felt a presence behind her.
Ducking down, she barely dodged a powerful attack. It hit the door and shattered it into pieces.
If she hadn’t dodged, it would have pierced through her back, killing her instantly.
Michelle didn’t have to turn around to know who the attacker was. She had already been in a fight with a person with a similar attacking style. "Master, did you take my poison?" she asked without even turning around.
"Yes!" Mavreth said with a smile. "I was curious about what you came up with."
Knowing it was Mavreth, Michelle’s rage cooled down a bit. But her eyes still remained red. Though not as bright as before, still clearly red, not a single hint of purple in the irises.
"So, can you give it back now?" She turned around.
Mavreth put the bottle back on the table where it originally was. "How long do you think it will take you to create the poison I gave you?"
Michelle shrugged. "Depending on whether I will be able to think about it. It could take as little as a day to figure it out, but also a whole month."
Mavreth was satisfied with that answer. "Since you are such a skillful disciple of mine, I’ll give you a gift!" he said with a gleeful smile, summoning his spirit energy in his hand.
Michelle wouldn’t even need to see the spirit energy to feel the dangerous aura coming from it. It was clear that even though Mavreth called it a gift, it would be more of a test, which would bring her benefits if she succeeded. But if she failed, it would harm her quite a bit. Maybe even kill her.
But Michelle didn’t have the chance to refuse. Before she could react, Mavreth formed a black spike on his hand and sent it flying at Michelle.
It flew much faster than the attack he had sent at her before. Michelle ended up with a black spike impaled in her chest.
Blood spilled and stained the floor. But Mavreth didn’t mind. "Don’t worry! Monsters and beasts can’t smell your blood here."
"How reassuring..." Michelle grimaced, breathing in slowly. It wasn’t the first time she had