“Poison?” Jenny questioned with doubt in her voice.
“Yeah,” Elijah replied with a nod of his head. “I can see that they are afflicted by something called Cave Creeper Toxin.”
Creeper Crawler Toxin
Description: A persistent poison that can remain in the body for several years. It immediately causes paralysis upon injection. After an individual recovers from the paralysis, there will be periods when they experience weakness and are afflicted by various other debuffs. These debuffs include. Fevers, Nausea, Migraine, Diarrhea, …
Reading the information about the Creeper Crawler Toxin caused Elijah’s eyes to slightly widen in alarm. Normally in a game, poison was simply expressed through negative numbers on a screen. The last thing Elijah wanted to experience was having diarrhea in the middle of a fight. While trying to keep out certain disturbing images from entering his mind, Elijah shared the information about the poison with Jenny.
Unlike Elijah’s talent, Jenny’s talent didn’t give her an in depth understanding of the person she was observing. She was able to examine the general health of an individual and see the things that were preventing their bodies from performing in their best states. She wasn’t able to see the stats, skills, cultivation technique, and the knowledge about the various buffs or debuffs they had at the moment. Basically, she could only see that something was wrong. Her ability to know exactly what was wrong came from the experience she accumulated over the years.
“Oh, I didn’t know these types of poison existed,” Jenny remarked as she gazed at the space in front of her. “Most poison’s either kill the patient or they are destroyed by the patient’s vitality. This is the first time that I’m seeing a poison that can exist for so long. Although this poison is relatively harmless, it’s actually worse than the few other poisons I treated.”
“Yes,” the woman they met outside spoke up in agreement. “We’ve all experienced the terrible effects of this poison. If it wasn’t for those people, our children would have never had to experience it.”
Currently, Elijah and Jenny were kneeling on the ground next to a sick child lying on a pile of furs placed on the ground. The child was unconscious, pale, and sweating, and the remaining children were spread out on the floor in similar conditions. Standing above them were the two men and the woman they met outside.
Behind them were several adults that were looking on in concern. Initially, Elijah was worried that their presence would disrupt Jenny, but she quickly showed him that there was no need for him to worry. She calmly and efficiently examined all the children as she moved throughout the room.
“Can you tell me more about the people you mentioned? Elijah asked.
“Can you tell me more about this poison?” Jenny asked.
Simultaneously, Jenny and Elijah both questioned the three people. After a brief pause, one of the men began to explain what they experienced in the past. Elijah stood up to speak with them and Jenny began treating the sick children as she listened to the conversation.
The story began with their clan being forced to leave their homes and enter the forest which was the territory of astral beast. It wasn’t long before they found a territory occupied by the Human race and the Barbarian race. The two groups reluctantly agreed to let them remain in the territory, but they did force them to agree to some harsh demands.
From then on, the oppression began. The territory had an astral stone mine and as new members of the territory, their clan was forced to mine the astral stones without any help from the two original groups. In the astral stone mine they met the creeper crawlers and suffered the effect of their toxins.
“They forced us to do all the work and take on all the risk while they stayed safely in their homes and reaped the rewards.” One of the men said. “The majority of the astral stones we mined were taken by them and we were only left with the scraps.”
“Why didn’t you fight back?” Elijah asked.
“They had a combined force of six Qi Condensation cultivators. We definitely would have lost and many of us would have died. Also, things weren’t all that bad. At the very least, it was better than wandering through the forest.”
“So why did you leave?”
“They didn’t tell us that sometimes, some of the creeper crawlers leave the mine. We were caught off guard and many of our children were poisoned. After we rescued our children and drove the insects away, we asked for help with healing them. They were willing to give us the cure for the toxin but…” the man clenched his fist in anger. “They forced us to give them all the astral stones we obtained from the mine to pay for the antidote and the quantity we obtained wasn’t enough to heal all of the children. At this point it was clear that they planned to work us to death, so we decided to leave while we still had the strength to do so.”
Elijah said some comforting words and rebuked the behavior of the humans and the barbarians. However, in his mind he was also rebuking the actions of the clan leader. Elijah felt like he would have handled the situation a lot better if he was in the clan leader’s shoes. As Elijah mentally went over the things the clan leader could have done, Jenny asked the trio for more details about the antidote for the toxin.
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An hour passed since Jenny began healing the children. During that time, Elijah spoke to most of the adults in the surroundings. He asked them about how they were adjusting, their clan and what their lives were like before they had been forced to flee. Elijah didn’t plan to stay in the forest forever and he set his sights on the territory the clan fled from.
“Chief, the medicine is working, and you should be able to begin healing now,” Jenny said.
Elijah nodded and began walking toward one of the children. After she finished questioning the two men and the woman, Jenny concluded that the toxin would be destroyed under a consistent potent stream of vital energy. Elijah would first heal the cuts and other wounds on the children’s body and Jenny would provide them with vital energy until the poison was gone from their bodies. Of course, this could only be done if she was able to learn Elijah’s healing skill.
“So how do you plan to teach me your healing skill?” Jenny’s eyes gleamed with excitement as she questioned Elijah.
“First is the quest,” Elijah said. With a bit of concentration, he created a quest for Jenny to learn his Heal Minor Wounds skill.
“A quest?” Jenny remarked with a frown and. “It should help me learn your skill but-”
“Don’t worry there’s more,” Elijah responded in a confident tone. Kneeling next to a wounded child with Jenny beside him, Elijah activated his Supreme Speech skill. “From now on you should focus on every word I say. Ignore everything else and focus on my skill.”
Jenny’s expression became extremely serious, and her eyes became locked on to his hands which were hovering over a wound on the child’s leg. Elijah hoped to use his Supreme Speech skill to command her into learning his skill. He figured that with his skill and her natural talent there was a high chance of success.
For good measure, Elijah decided to activate his Supreme Will talent as well. Although his Supreme Will could be used to pressure his enemies, it could also be used to strengthen himself and his allies. Next, Elijah began to activate his Heal Minor Wounds skill as he continued to speak.
“Follow my commands. Place your hands over the one of the wounds. Use your perception to sense the current state of the wound you selected. Picture how you want it to heal. Picture the wound pulling in astral energy from the surroundings to make that happen. Then-” Elijah took a second to focus on using his skill. “Then you focus on sending your mental energy into the wound until the image becomes real. You keep going and you don’t stop!”
As Elijah spoke, he saw and felt the wound beneath his hands rapidly closing. All of his attention was placed on the wound in front of him. He was caught up in the words he spoke to Jenny and didn’t realize that normally, he would have to activate his skill several times to close the deep cut on the child’s leg.
When the wound finally closed, Elijah let out a deep breath that he didn’t know he was holding. As Elijah took in a breath of air, he began to feel a bit giddy. Immediately he realized he had used a lot more mental energy than he should have for his healing skill. However, before he could investigate, Elijah heard an excited shout from his left.
“I did it!” Jenny jumped to her feet as she shouted. “I got the skill.”
“Congratulations,” Elijah told her with a smile on his face. He reached out a hand to hold her shoulder as he saw she was a bit dizzy from the sudden movement.
Once Jenny got her bearings, she blushed, stepped back and gave Elijah a bow. “Thank you, Chief. I wouldn’t have been able to learn this skill without your help.”
Elijah chuckled before responding. “There’s no need to thank me. All I did was say a few words and use my skill.”
“No,” Jenny shook her head with a serious expression on her face. “If it was anyone else teaching me, I wouldn’t have been able to learn the Minor Healing Stream skill so quickly.
Elijah froze. “The what?”
“The way I see it, both of you are quite skilled and worthy of praise.”
Surprised Elijah quickly turned his head in the direction of the speaker. Approaching him was the middle-aged man Elijah spoke to outside the village when he first met the group. The man’s name was Kento, and he was the son of the clan leader and the father of Bart.
“I would like to thank you for providing healing to our children,” Kento bowed as he spoke. Truly, you have our deepest and most sincere gratitude.”
As Kento bowed, Elijah took a peek at his own status and saw that his mental energy was over sixty percent. “Like I told your people there’s no need to thank me. This is something I should do. Although you all are only temporarily residing in my territory, I would be a poor chief if I didn’t give you any support.”
Kento was stunned. He was extremely moved by the kindness Elijah showed them. Part of this was because of the recent experience in the territory they left. Another reason was because Elijah was using his Supreme Speech skill when he spoke.
“We will definitely repay the kindness you’ve shown us,” Kento replied in a solemn tone.
Elijah simply smiled and didn’t comment on what he said. “I remember your father was severely wounded. If you want, I could take a look and give him some healing.”
“This…that won’t be necessary,” Kento said with a shake of his head.
“Don’t worry,” Elijah insisted. “This definitely won’t require me to use up too much time or energy.”
“There truly isn’t any need. My father is already on the mend. Without any incident he should be recovered in a week.”
“Yeah, okay liar,” Elijah thought as he rebuked Kento in his mind.
Part of the reason Elijah came to help Jenny was to practice his healing skills and help her learn his healing skill. However, the main reason he came was to take a peek at the clan leader’s status while he was in a weakened state. Sadly, Kento was an iron wall without any gaps for Elijah to slip through.
After a few seconds of silence Elijah continued to speak. “While were willing to support you we aren’t able to give you all the support that you need. Resources are limited so there is a limit to the amount of food we can share.”
Elijah paused and watched as the gears began to turn in Kento’s head. Most likely he was thinking that Elijah’s action could be the beginning of several bad scenarios. Elijah decided to share the news ahead of time to take some of the burden from his people.
“We can still give you one meal per day though. And naturally, the children will not see a decrease in the food they receive.”
“That’s fair!” Kento’s shoulder slightly relaxed as he spoke.
“Don’t worry things aren’t all bad. Later on, I will share with you some good news as well.”
“Then I will patiently wait to hear this good news.”
At that moment three people, no, three players burst into the building with excited smiles on their faces.
“Eli, we heard you got some cultivation techniques!”
“Let us see!”
“Don’t hold out on us man!”