Chapter 345 : The Black Room
Chapter 345: The Black Room
According to the intelligence provided by Duanmu Ruibo, the Divine Awakening Flower would bloom on the coldest day of winter, meaning it would only mature on some day near the end of December.
Therefore, the two agreed to depart for the Polar Ice Plain on December 15th.
After Duanmu Ruibo left, Zhou Ming pondered the information he had exchanged with the others.
Now, the foreign races had begun laying out their plans, while undercurrents were stirring within the Alliance itself.
Ordinarily, with his current strength, he would have nothing to worry about if his sole concern was self-preservation.
Unfortunately, he had offended Spider Queen Iliss, a Demigod.
“For now, I'll deal with Scorpion-Lion's problem first.”
After contemplating for a long time, Zhou Ming suppressed the distracting thoughts in his mind.
He planned to obtain the Divine Awakening Flower for Scorpion-Lion and then focus on breaking through to Mid-level Transcendent Rank as soon as possible.
As long as his strength was sufficient, all troubles would become insignificant.
Without wasting any more time, Zhou Ming immediately headed toward the laboratory on the fourth floor of the stone tower.
The Black Room.
A sealed chamber located in the corner of the laboratory.
Other than Zhou Ming himself, no one had ever entered it.
Experimental subjects excluded.
Although the Black Room was small, its entire structure was forged from alloy. Numerous runes had been engraved across its surface using Shadow Power.
The runes, resembling black scars, gave the room a sinister and eerie atmosphere.
Even Aina usually avoided approaching it.
After changing into a specially-made biochemical protective suit, Zhou Ming carefully opened the Black Room's door.
Entering the Black Room required passing through three separate doors.
Only after one door had been completely sealed could the next one be opened.
Its level of security was unparalleled within the stone tower.
As the third door opened, gray mist immediately rushed toward Zhou Ming.
A sizzling corrosion sound soon echoed from his specially-made biochemical protective suit.
One should know that Zhou Ming's biochemical protective suit not only possessed powerful resistance against various biochemical substances, but also offered protection against corrosive energy and even Spirit-type Creatures.
In the outside world, a single suit like this would cost dozens of Source Crystal Coins.
Yet Zhou Ming had long become accustomed to this situation.
Every visit to the Black Room resulted in the destruction of a highly valuable protective suit.
After entering, Zhou Ming turned around and resealed the door.
He then activated the purification system, extracting the gray mist trapped between the doors before beginning the disinfection process.
The gray mist filling the room was highly poisonous.
Zhou Ming had no intention of allowing any accidents to occur.
Only after eliminating all risks did he turn his attention toward the nutrient chamber placed within the Black Room.
Within the nutrient chamber, which resembled a coffin beneath the shroud of gray mist, lay a burly man whose condition was neither clearly alive nor dead.
His entire body had rotted away.
All of his internal organs were exposed to the air.
Only his gallbladder remained exceptionally eye-catching.
It resembled a work of art carved from jade.
From time to time, emerald-green light flickered through the gray mist.
It was the only intact organ remaining within the corpse.
The gray mist permeating the room leaked from the gallbladder whenever the emerald light flashed.
Ever since Zhou Ming successfully perfected the Blood Descendant and Gathering Sand Secret Techniques a year ago, he had shifted his focus toward the Venomous Gall.
In order to increase the Venomous Gall's power, he had specifically returned to the cavern once occupied by the Cave Spider Men and collected the toxins he had created there.
That entire area had now become a Forbidden Land.
It was filled with deadly toxins and terrifying soul resentment capable of making one's scalp tingle.
These toxins and resentful spirits had intertwined, eventually forming a strange and terrifying gray mist.
The mist possessed astonishing corrosive properties.
It could erode not only physical matter but also inflict irreversible damage upon the mind and soul.
No living creature could survive within that cavern.
It had become a domain of death, devoid of life, containing only endless silence and terror.
Even Zhou Ming did not dare venture too deeply into it.
Instead, he had merely brought back some of the gray mist for research.
As for the gallbladder within the corpse, it was naturally the medium once used to perform the Puppet Substitution Tribulation Technique.
The gallbladder of a deceased Molting Snake had been transplanted into the experimental subject, allowing him to study the fusion between the gray mist and the snake gallbladder.
“The fusion rate has already exceeded eighty percent?”
Judging from the frequency of the emerald glow and the density of the surrounding gray mist, Zhou Ming immediately reached a conclusion.
Behind the biochemical protective suit, his eyes flickered thoughtfully.
A test tube then appeared in his hand.
Inside swayed a milky-white viscous liquid.
It was a special substance refined from the Fusion Worm.
During the previous two years, Zhou Ming had relied upon his powerful Spiritual Power to forcibly become a Low-grade Potioner.
Although it could not yet provide substantial assistance to him, it had proven extremely useful during research.
At the very least, he could now refine simple potions himself.
Personally crafting potions had also given him many new insights regarding problems encountered during his research.
When the viscous liquid from the test tube dripped onto the gallbladder, an invisible vortex formed within it.
The surrounding gray mist immediately began flowing into the gallbladder.
The frequency of the emerald flashes increased.
The fusion speed between the gray mist and the gallbladder accelerated rapidly.
“It seems the plan to simulate the Venomous Gall's fusion with the gray mist should yield results within ten days.”
After confirming that no abnormalities had appeared, Zhou Ming finally relaxed.
Over the past six months, he had devoted nearly all of his energy to researching the simulated fusion between the Venomous Gall and the gray mist.
If this project failed, all of the time and effort he had invested would have been wasted.
Afterward, Zhou Ming began recording changes in the gallbladder as well as the various transformations occurring as the gray mist fused into it.
……
Ten days later, the gray mist filling the Black Room had completely vanished.
The corpse inside the nutrient chamber had dissolved into a puddle of liquid.
Only a gemstone resembling an emerald remained in Zhou Ming's palm.
Looking at the result of over half a year's worth of research, a trace of joy appeared on his face.
“Now is not the time to use this. If it is to be integrated into the Venomous Gall, it still requires further experimentation and verification.”
Although the research had succeeded, Zhou Ming had no intention of recklessly experimenting on himself.
At the very least, he would only proceed after ensuring complete safety.
After briefly examining it, Zhou Ming took out a specially prepared crystal box.
He placed the toxin crystal inside and sealed it with Shadow Power before carefully storing it within his Spatial Ring.
With his most urgent research project finally completed, Zhou Ming could now focus entirely on preparing for the journey to the Polar Ice Plain.
This time, his goal was not merely to retrieve the Divine Awakening Flower for Scorpion-Lion.
He also intended to obtain the Frost Giant Python for his future plans.
The next stage of the Molting Snake's bloodline modification had originally been one of the tasks he needed to complete before advancing to Legend.
Now that a Lord-level snake-type Ferocious Beast bloodline had appeared before him, there was no way he would let such a rare opportunity slip away.
And while Zhou Ming was preparing for the expedition to the Polar Ice Plain, news of Aina's advancement to Transcendent Rank attracted considerable attention throughout the Alliance.
After all, Aina was a member of a foreign race.
And she had now become a Transcendent-level existence.
Among those paying attention was even Lei Yuan, who was far away at Alliance Headquarters.