Legacy of Hatred

Liam had other options. Even without his Master’s inheritance, he knew recipes for other poisons handy enough to use as nutrients.

However, Liam didn’t restart concocting.

First of all, smoking was functional in ways that other ways of ingesting poison weren’t.

Each batch of Liam’s poisonous powder could last him a week. The nourishment wouldn’t be as immediate as more condensed substances. Yet, it could consistently keep his core from withering, other than working as a way to recover Qi.

Liam could smoke after battles, concoctions, or training sessions without suffering debilitating consequences, avoiding remaining vulnerable in tough predicaments.

Also, Liam knew the smoking powder’s recipe like the back of his hand. It was why four rounds had been enough to master its rank 2 version. It saved him time and resources he could use elsewhere.

The resources were the main issue. Alchemists’ training sessions were expensive, and Liam had no ingredients to waste, especially now that he lacked a way to refill his stashes.

Liam had to allocate his limited ingredients carefully, splitting them according to their purpose. Growing was paramount, but he also needed ways to heal, recover Qi, and offensive methods.

If Liam had the ingredients and safety, he wouldn’t hesitate to go wild to grow as quickly as possible. He simply couldn’t chase after immediate rewards now and be left with nothing, lowering his overall readiness and power, which in turn would diminish what he could obtain.

Besides, the smoking powder was already done, so Liam ate it to avoid it going to waste.

’Disgusting,’ Liam cursed, making a sound that embodied his revulsion as the powder went down his throat.

The rejuvenating sensation that followed was a silver lining, but Liam’s sense of taste had sharpened, threatening to make him puke whenever he licked the substance not meant to be eaten.

That disgusting practice wasn’t only to keep Liam’s cultivation fed. Since he was done with concoctions for now, he had moved to testing what his new Qi could do, shortening the inevitable breaks with the powder.

The first thing that stood out came from the Qi’s sheer texture. It was denser and thicker, enabling more tangible applications in its raw state.

Liam could generate proper breezes by releasing Qi. They weren’t quite as dense as what Simon had used to blow away the white mist, but Liam could shed off dirt, make his hair flutter, and even dry himself with it.

That wasn’t much, not in any meaningful way, but it was a start, a first step Liam could and had to work on expanding to make proper use of his new cultivation stage.

Then, there was what Anastasia had done, which turned out to be as easy as breathing for Liam.

Liam watched his open palm, feeling the Qi leaking from it, until a mere thought added an ominous dark-green color to that ethereal breeze. A dangerous scent also invaded the room, vouching for its properties.

’Unnatural compulsion, not mere affinity,’ Liam recalled what his Master had said, using all his new perception was capable of to study those dark wisps of energy.

The dark wisps’ poisonous properties didn’t feel strong. Liam’s Qi belonged to the rooting stage, but it seemed barely able to mimic what weak rank 1 poisons were capable of.

Actually, rather than a proper poison, Liam put those properties at the same level as a poisonous ingredient, no different than what he used in his concoctions.

’This isn’t even close to what Anastasia could do,’ Liam calculated, closing his hand to stop releasing energy. ’I guess I can’t expect to be as good as peak rooting experts right after the breakthrough.’

Liam guessed he needed more Qi and training with it, which raised another issue, the biggest one.

’Since it’s so easy to summon my core’s nature,’ Liam considered, ’I’ll have a harder time applying alchemy’s flexibility to battles, won’t I?’

Liam had encountered that problem with the alchemical flame. His Qi leaned too much toward poison, making expressing different effects harder.

Still, Liam not only had to try. He had to become great at that unthinkable third layer. Actually, that field stemmed from alchemy, so Liam had to be the literal best to honor the Master who had accepted him despite his bloodline.

Luckily, alchemy was also the best training method to achieve all that, albeit the one Liam had to delay for now.

That brought Liam to the last order of business.

The tome Liam had forced himself not to prioritize materialized in his hand, and reading it almost increased the amount of respect and gratitude he could feel, so that they could also go to his Master.

’Poisonous Breath,’ Liam read, ’Rank 2 offensive martial art specific to poison dantians. Releases a debilitating, potentially deadly gas. Qi consumption: High to Extreme. Training: Easy.’

Unknowingly to Liam, his Master had prepared a technique specific to his dantian and himself in more ways than one. The Poisonous Breath wasn’t even a mere martial art. It was a spell.

’Gas’ quantity depending on the amount of Qi used,’ Liam skimmed through the book. ’Gas’ deadliness depending on the amount of Qi and the core’s affinity.’

Liam could only describe the spell as perfect. Just like with the Seismic Palm, the Poisonous Breath could make use of his broader cultivation, adding his unparalleled affinity to the equation.

’Where did Master even find this?’ Liam wondered. The Disciplinary Elder had stressed the rarity and uselessness of martial arts specific to poison cores, but the great Horace Rauret thought otherwise, and nothing was impossible for him.

Since the Alchemy Elder had been ready to send Liam away, he could even see a deeper meaning behind the spell. His Master probably knew that he would have struggled to find ingredients, so he had given him a method to rely on poison without alchemy.

’Master, thank you,’ Liam thought, closing his eyes and bringing the tome to his forehead before sending it back into the space-ring.

Liam’s tests weren’t done. He had martial arts to adjust to his new stage and learn. His training for the Metal Hand also had to resume, but he felt the need to make the point of the situation first.

Much could happen, and Liam was only hidden, not safe, so it was wise to devise a plan now that he had dealt with the impending matters.

Also, the pipe’s melting gave Liam a deadline. He had almost reached the limit of what he could achieve in seclusion, meaning he had to reenter the cultivation world’s network soon.

A map appeared in Liam’s hand before he unfurled it on the floor. The item was of good quality, large enough to depict the entire Kingdom, which came at the cost of many minor details.

It seemed the Alchemy Elder had given Liam free rein on how to move, knowing that his journey would need a broad perspective rather than a specific, limited one.

On the surface, the Kingdom’s layout was simple. The Outer Circles covered far more land than the Inner Circles, immensely so, being wilder and more untamed than their counterparts.

The Outer Circles were also broadly split into four massive regions depending on their predominant climates and environments.

The eastern region, where Liam came from, tended to be quite rainy, featuring thick vegetation in the form of grasslands and forests.

On the opposite side, the western region was more barren, with widespread and tall mountain ranges. Meanwhile, the southern one was the hottest of the four, dominated by large deserts.

As for the northern region, it was the coldest, often afflicted by snowstorms.

Those lands, and even their climates, were harsher and poorer at their edges, becoming milder, more tamed, and civilized the closer they got to the Inner Circles.

Liam had learned as much in his studies and could see that reflected on the map, but broader knowledge didn’t necessarily make devising strategies easier. There were too many vague but good options to consider.

First of all, unlike in the past, Liam wasn’t lost, not completely. He didn’t know where the specific valley he had settled in was. It was too small for the map to mark it, but he could find its general area.

Liam was good with maps and had a great sense of direction, so that initial hurdle hardly posed any challenge.

The problems came later.

Theoretically, Liam had a destination. The butcher had said that two of his remaining three companions were in Dimmere, a city on the eastern border of the Inner Circles.

Since Liam was in the eastern region, the path was deceptively straightforward. He could advance in a straight line toward the Inner Circles, but a mere map wasn’t the real world.

Moreover, Liam was currently in the second outermost Outer Circle. The Inner Circles, even their closest border, were immensely distant. Liam was looking at an unknown number of months of travel, even if he ran at full speed uninterrupted.

Liam could probably do it, now more than ever. Ever since becoming a rooting expert, he barely felt the need to eat or even pee, highlighting how otherworldly he had become and hinting at how fast he could run.

However, there lay the issue. Liam was just a rooting expert, with barely enough resources to support himself for a few months, let alone grow stronger.

Since an exceptional branching expert like the Alchemy Elder had felt compelled to do what he did, Liam knew he had to grow beyond his heights to hope to survive what the Inner Circles held.

Liam had to complete his revenge, but the quest had expanded. On a personal level, it was still about the four butchers and their leader, but the lack of concrete proof couldn’t limit it to that anymore.

The Dragon King might or might not be behind the Bloodline Screening, but that was beside the point now. The issue was that Liam’s bloodline, something he had no control over, made him a natural enemy of that being and his army, meaning they both had to go.

If nothing else, Liam needed to eradicate that threat to avoid abandoning things he loved. Since the Dragons’ mere existence prevented him from living the life he wanted, he would make them go extinct.

Still, Liam wasn’t strong enough to do that, not even close. He didn’t even know whether the Dragons could smell the Ancestral Snake off of him, so he had to delay meeting them.

’The Sects must still be dealing with the mess the Divine Cult caused,’ Liam considered, ’But I’m still too close to their probable area of influence, and I don’t know if they are looking for me.’

Standing still also wasn’t an option since it would lead to a slow withering, so the next step became obvious.

’I need to get further away,’ Liam decided, ’But also find a place where to start amassing resources before mine run out.’

It was a fine line, but one Liam had to thread while accomplishing multiple things. He had to be someone capable of dealing with the Dragons by the time he reached the Inner Circles, and that had many conditions to be met.

’Changing region would be ideal,’ Liam pondered. ’I’d be far safer since no one would know me, but the journey is too long with my current resources, and I don’t know the environment, let alone if things work differently there.’

Finally, the available, vague options shrank down to one. Liam wouldn’t advance in a straight line toward the Inner Circles’ eastern border. He would proceed West, but in a way that prioritized putting distance from the six Sects.

The journey to the destination the butcher had pointed at would be longer and less straightforward, but that was a compromise Liam had to make. He didn’t even know what he would find along the way, but he was almost ready to face it.

Most importantly, Liam had the drive he had inherited from his Master, and that alone made him willing to take on the world.

And, after a week, Liam finally left the underground room to breathe the fresh air outside.