“Open flames are forbidden inside, so we can’t use torches. Instead, we’ve set night-luminescent pearls, so your view shouldn’t be too uncomfortable.”
“It is fine.”
Cho Yoon dismissed the concern with a light wave of his hand and stepped inside.
True to Tang Yeom-cho’s word, luminous pearls embedded sparsely across the rugged walls and ceiling cast a pale, bluish glow through the pitch-black cavern. The virulent miasma suspended in the air was so aggressively dense that Cho Yoon felt profoundly grateful he had left Cheon-oh behind.
Approaching the nearest preparation platform, he spotted a fine white powder sealed within a glass vial. Between the luminous pearls and the glass vials—items notoriously difficult to procure in this era—he mused that this massive clan was truly dripping with wealth.
Tang Yeom-cho, still politely covering his mouth and nose with his sleeve, stood beside him and began explaining the poison.
“This is the Noble Man’s Powder. While not inherently lethal, its synthesis method is a closely guarded secret, earning it a place in this vault. It is a type of Qi-Dispersing Poison. It earned its name because, much like a benevolent noble man, it does not inflict physical harm upon the victim, merely scattering their internal energy.”
“Do you have a measuring spoon?”
“Excuse me?”
“A measuring spoon. Did you bring a spoon used to measure weight?”
“Ah, yes. I have one.”
Tang Yeom-cho hastily fumbled inside his sleeve, withdrawing a bundle of small spoons that looked remarkably like modern measuring tools. Likely crafted to measure weights down to the pun, their compact, delicate design perfectly suited Cho Yoon’s needs.
Snapping off the absolute smallest one, Cho Yoon returned the rest to the Clan Head.
“Rather than wasting your wealth on frivolous luminous pearls, you should prioritize forging measuring spoons from glass or porcelain. Your estate is overflowing with toxins capable of melting solid iron. You surely know that a powder explicitly categorized as an acid will rapidly corrode metal, yet you still insist on using iron spoons?”
“Yes, esteemed Immortal Healer. I was incredibly short-sighted.”
What had merely been an internal observation—Using glass measuring spoons instead of iron ones would prevent them from getting deformed—had somehow warped into a scathing rebuke. And this was despite Cho Yoon fully recognizing the immense professionalism required to constantly carry such tools around in the first place.
Stifling a heavy sigh, Cho Yoon fiddled with the tiny, concave iron spoon before speaking again. To Tang Yeom-cho, his next words were akin to a bolt of lightning from a clear blue sky.
“I shall take a single pun of every plant-based poison housed within this vault. I intend to taste them right here and now, so you need not worry about any toxins being smuggled outside.”
“Yes, esteemed Medicine Immor—…Excuse me?”
Tang Yeom-cho tilted his head with a deeply bewildered expression, looking as though he had just heard an utterly incomprehensible language.
Without bothering to confirm or deny, Cho Yoon lifted the vial containing the Noble Man’s Powder and popped the cork. Sliding the tiny spoon through the narrow bottleneck, he scooped up a generous heap of the white powder and unceremoniously dumped it directly into his mouth.
A soundless gasp of sheer terror erupted from Tang Yeom-cho beside him.
“Huk… E-Esteemed Immortal Healer…!”
“…”
As Tang Yeom-cho choked and gasped, looking even more panicked than when Baek Ho-cheol was writhing at death’s door, Cho Yoon simply raised a single hand to indicate he was fine. He couldn’t exactly speak while actively rolling the powder over his tongue and dissolving it with his saliva. As the poison slowly seeped into his system, the thick, fragrant scent of medicinal herbs radiating from Cho Yoon’s body steadily deepened. Finally swallowing the dissolved mixture, Cho Yoon spoke.
“I wondered what made this unique; you utilized a spiritual elixir. Rather than claiming it does not inflict harm, it would be more accurate to say it simultaneously inflicts harm while providing a profound benefit that entirely offsets it. The dispersion of internal energy is merely a byproduct.”
“E-Esteemed Immortal Healer! Are you truly alright?! To just casually swallow it like that! Once the Noble Man’s Powder disperses your internal energy, you cannot recover it for half a month!”
“There is no need to make such a fuss.”
Tang Yeom-cho hesitated, his hands hovering awkwardly in the air, too terrified to even touch Cho Yoon.
Pulling out a clean linen cloth, Cho Yoon wiped the spoon and strode toward the next platform.
With almost supernatural precision, he flawlessly identified and bypassed any poison synthesized from demonic beast inner cores or toxic minerals.
Cho Yoon’s interest lay exclusively in plant-based poisons. The vast majority of plant-based poisons were derived from toxic herbs, and if meticulously regulated, almost all toxic herbs could be repurposed into miraculous medicines.
Whether it was the original ‘Cho Yoon’s’ body violently craving them, or simply deeply ingrained muscle memory, the moment Cho Yoon had stepped foot inside this vault, he had been overcome with an intense, burning urge to rapidly consume these lethal toxins.
You absolute, accursed herb otaku!
Even as he cursed his avatar’s bizarre obsession, he was powerless to stop it.
Some toxins sent a temporary, electrifying jolt through his muscles before subsiding; others were so aggressively sour they contorted his face into a deep grimace. He even swallowed a mouthful of the castor bean poison that continuously leaked a nutty aroma. Certain acidic powders looked ready to melt the iron spoon on contact, prompting him to pour them directly into his mouth instead.
As the sheer variety of lethal poisons Cho Yoon ingested continued to climb, the complexion of the trailing Tang Yeom-cho rapidly drained, shifting from pale white to a sickly, horrified blue.
Eventually, in stark contrast to Tang Yeom-cho’s blackened, terrified face, Cho Yoon remained perfectly, bafflingly fine. Despite having consumed over a dozen qi-dispersing poisons—a lethal cocktail that should have crippled him—his formerly dormant internal energy now surged vibrantly through every meridian in his body.
A potent fragrance, akin to freshly crushed medicinal herbs, began steadily wafting from his pores.
Finally holding the prototype of Extreme Poison—the very poison destined to infect Tang Woon-geum years in the future—in his mouth, Cho Yoon let out a hollow, exasperated chuckle.
The ‘Immortal Healer Cho Yoon’ had initially fallen into his obsessive love for herbs after accidentally discovering and consuming a spiritual elixir while wandering the mountains as a child. Thanks to the foundational internal energy granted by that elixir, he possessed the unprecedented ability to ‘transmute the potent energy of plants into his own internal energy.’
In simple terms, this meant that ‘any poison utilizing highly energetic plants could be seamlessly absorbed as his own qi.’
Therefore, any plant-based poison, regardless of its lethality, was ultimately reduced to nothing more than a handful of raw internal energy for Cho Yoon.
Furthermore, even if confronted with an animal-based venom, he could synthesize a flawless antidote in a matter of moments.
Much like a poison dragon’s breath from a cheap fantasy novel, he could even manufacture an array of lethal toxins directly within his own body and blow them out of his mouth to annihilate his enemies.
As a supreme martial master, his swordsmanship was peerless, and his comprehension of mystical formations was unparalleled.
And he possessed even more terrifying traits he was too afraid to even acknowledge.
What kind of absurdly overpowered character is this? I know the standard tropes for reclusive martial arts masters are generally excessive, but isn’t this crossing a line? If a character who barely appeared in the original novel possesses these ridiculous specs, just how many unwritten, horrifying abilities do the prominently featured Demonic Cult characters possess?
Or… is he simply this overpowered precisely because the author hadn’t bothered to define his limits in the novel?
Smacking his lips, Cho Yoon meticulously wiped the iron spoon one final time before handing it back to Tang Yeom-cho. While he had momentarily spaced out, utterly dumbfounded by his own ridiculous specs, his surging internal energy had entirely settled. Not only did the prototype of Extreme Poison fail to inflict even a fraction of harm upon Cho Yoon’s body, but it had been utterly deconstructed, reverse-engineered, and essentially packaged with a comprehensive user manual.
Listening to the man flawlessly rattle off the correct synthesis methods, refinement techniques, and complete antidotes for a poison the Sichuan Tang Clan hadn’t even dared to handle, Tang Yeom-cho swallowed dry saliva.
Impervious to All Poisons… no, this is infinitely worse than that.
Individuals impervious to poison did exist.
In exceptionally rare cases, a martial artist who tempered their physical body through external arts to an absurd degree, or—even rarer—a master who had achieved a monumental realm of cultivation, could guzzle lethal venom like water and remain perfectly unscathed.
This was the fundamental, inescapable weakness of the Sichuan Tang Clan.
They could massacre countless individuals in the blink of an eye, and utilizing poison was incredibly convenient as it required minimal martial training. However, against a martial artist whose cultivation surpassed a certain threshold, their poisons were fundamentally useless from the very beginning.
Furthermore, the Demonic Cult possessed toxins far more virulent than those found in the Central Plains, meaning a significant number of their cultists already harbored substantial resistances.
Although encountering such individuals was a once-in-a-century improbability, whenever these situations did arise, the Sichuan Tang Clan was rendered utterly impotent. They would be mocked as weak, cowardly bumpkins, forced to retreat while only managing to eliminate the lowest-ranking lackeys.
Consequently, the Sichuan Tang Clan ruthlessly carved out their territory by exploiting an entirely different avenue. Willingly embracing the derogatory labels of cunning opportunists and vulgar merchants, they began peddling their poisons. Covertly supplying perfectly tailored toxins to desperate buyers at the most opportune moments, they amassed exorbitant sums of gold. The world was brimming with necessary murders for countless reasons, and poison was invariably an excellent tool.
As a result, the Central Plains gradually grew deeply dependent on the Sichuan Tang Clan’s poison.
Not only the martial underworld, but every faction requiring lethal toxins began funneling their requests to the Tang Clan.
During the past twenty years while they had sealed their gates, the martial world had been plunged into severe, chaotic turmoil beneath the surface.
True to his role as the leader of these cunning merchants, Tang Yeom-cho had ruthlessly strung along his buyers, burning their patience to the absolute limit before covertly releasing his poisons as if bestowing a grand, merciful favor.
Consequently, the value of the already rare Tang Clan poisons skyrocketed into the stratosphere.
In this intricate process, the absolute most critical element was ‘secrecy’.
While the efficacy of the poison was crucial, the Tang Clan poured everything into ensuring their synthesis methods never leaked. They proudly boasted that their security rivaled the Palace of Heavenly Purity, where the Emperor himself resided. Because they prioritized absolute secrecy above all else, they deliberately fostered a cutthroat, competitive environment where disciples couldn’t even trust their own peers.
It was a vicious cycle, but the Sichuan Tang Clan had no other viable options.
Yet, this ultimate secret—guarded so fiercely they had willingly sacrificed the clan’s honor and trust to protect it…
It’s useless. Utterly useless.
The culmination of the Tang Clan’s hundreds of years of exhaustive effort—fortified so that no tool or method could ever decipher it—had been completely, flawlessly unraveled in a single bite.
How exactly had this man lived, and what on earth had he learned, for such a miracle to be possible within a human body?
Tang Yeom-cho felt something far transcending mere admiration; he felt sheer, absolute reverence.
The Immortal Healer is the absolute antithesis of the Sichuan Tang Clan. Since our weapons are fundamentally useless against him, we must never, ever act rashly toward him unless word reaches us that he has ascended to immortalhood.
Having witnessed this miraculous display firsthand, the vow naturally etched itself into his soul.
Just as Tang Yeom-cho was nodding to himself, firmly deciding to pass this down as his dying injunction to the clan, Cho Yoon—having concluded his explanation of Extreme Poison’s antidote—suddenly spoke up.
He had evidently noticed that Tang Yeom-cho was deeply lost in his own thoughts.