A Chaotic World

Chapter 308: Information from Blazing Dragon

"My apologies for not meeting you personally, White Griffin. This is a sensitive period, so I hope you will understand," Blazing Dragon said.

"Don't worry about it," Lu Tianzi replied. "Considering the nature of our organisation, it is good to see that you are being careful. I prefer doing things this way too."

"I am glad that White Griffin agrees. Well for starters, let me ask you this question. What do you think of what the Blazing Wings has achieved so far?"

Hmm

Lu Tianzi pondered for a moment before answering. "Do you want my truthful opinion?"

"Please."

"I will be honest then. On the surface, riling up the townsmen seems to be rather effective as it cripples the noble families' control over the town. But without any further actions, I don't think that alone will be enough to take over Bog Town," Lu Tianzi commented.

"Oh? And what does White Griffin suggest?"

Lu Tianzi was about to speak, but stopped himself halfway.

If he really did suggest something, wouldn't that be considered helping out the uprising in Bog Town?

The noble families, the town lord, the townsmen before figuring out the goals that each of the various parties had in mind, getting involved in this complicated situation was not a wise idea.

"I am sure Blazing Dragon already has plans in mind. Why don't you tell me what you have planned instead?" Lu Tianzi decided to just give a vague reply.

"Heh, White Griffin understands us well. We have indeed prepared concrete plans for the coming few days. The next step will be stopping the traders who will be leaving Bog Town in three days' time. That will set the Dongxian Family back in terms of their economy and hopefully, anger them into acting against the townsmen."

"And in turn, that will give you a reason to act as well," Lu Tianzi deduced.

"That's right. What does White Griffin think of this?"

"Since Blazing Dragon already has everything planed, let's just wait and see how it works out," Lu Tianzi answered.

"Heh, it seems like White Griffin isn't too confident in us. But that's fine as well. White Griffin can just sit back and watch for now then. I assure you that you will not be disappointed."

"Hopefully that will be the case."

Lu Tianzi put down his communication ring.

Targeting the traders who will be leaving in three days' time, eh?

Let's see how things work out indeed.

On the other side of the communication channel, Blazing Dragon rubbed his chin in contemplation.

"What do you think? Is he the person we have been waiting for?" his female companion asked him from the side.

"From his tone, he does not seem to have any fear whatsoever even after I identified myself as the leader. The elder also mentioned that the emissary from the Radiant Raven Sect arrived in Bog Town today, so the timing matched perfectly," Blazing Dragon replied. "Judging from these two points alone, it would seem that chances are high that White Griffin is none other than the emissary!"

"Are you certain? What if he is not who we think he is?"

"Heh, don't worry," Blazing Dragon laughed. "Even if he is not the emissary, things would not change much. Before meeting this White Griffin and confirming his identity in person, I naturally won't reveal our masterplan to him!"

***

Lu Tianzi spent the rest of the night processing the poison materials that he had obtained.

While he had not managed to get everything he needed, what he had was at least sufficient for him to start practising the very fundamentals of the Palm of Thousand Venoms.

With Lu Tianzi's comprehensions into the Law of Poison, as well as his extensive knowledge in herbalism, processing the poison materials was not difficult by any measure.

However, because each poison material required its own specific method of processing, the time and effort required was still nothing to be scoffed at.

Under Lu Tianzi's nimble hands, these materials were mixed together in a perfectly systematic order. One by one, they were slowly added to a huge tub that he had asked from the servants in advance.

As more and more items were added to the tub, the mixture in the tub gradually turned from bright green to dark brown, until it finally ended up as a viscous black mixture.

All done!

Lu Tianzi could not help but let out a breath of relief as he looked at this black mixture.

The preparations were complete, and it was now time for the painful part.

Lu Tianzi took off his clothes before climbing into the tub, submerging his entire body into the black mixture.

This black mixture felt cool to the touch initially, but that was quickly replaced by a burning sensation on his skin. It felt as though there were thousands of tiny creatures biting him all over his body, or as though his entire body was on fire.

Lu Tianzi gritted his teeth as he forced himself to endure the pain.

This torturous process was in no way inferior to the pain of refining his eyes for the Limitless Mirror Eye. But thankfully, the earlier experience with the refining of his eyes had also improved Lu Tianzi's pain threshold.

This time, he no longer found it to be as unbearable as before.

That, or perhaps his mental state was simply no longer the same as what it used to be.

As he remained submerged within, traces of the black mixture began to seep in through the millions of pores on his body, threatening to enter his bloodstream from every angle possible.

But before that could happen, Lu Tianzi drove his true origin core and filtered these poisonous traces further, allowing in only the very essence of the black mixture, which also turned out to be the most poisonous aspects.

This essence of the black mixture flooded into his bloodstream, bringing about a whole new world of pain. Now he no longer had to endure the pain that was on the surface of his skin, but also the pain that was coming from within him.

His heart started beating much faster, strained from the sudden influx of a foreign entity.

Guided by his bloodstream, this poisonous essence was sent all over his body, exposing every last inch to the sheer toxicity.

Bit by bit, his cells were baptised by pure poison.

And bit by bit, his cells absorbed this poisonous essence.

Lu Tianzi did not know how long he remained submerged in the tub. But by the time he opened his eyes once more, the morning sun had already risen.

He stepped out from the tub and took a look within. Even though the amount of black mixture in the tub was significantly less than before, it now appeared to be slightly diluted and no longer as viscous.

The first thing Lu Tianzi did was not to clean off the black remnants from his body.

Instead, he drove his true origin core once more, concentrating his Essence energy on his palm.

As he did, black mist started to gather, forming a thin layer around his hand.

When he saw this, Lu Tianzi could not help but let out a slight grin.

It worked!

This thin layer of black mist was surely not enough to be useful in actual combat, but that did not matter for now.

What mattered was that he had at least taken his first step towards inheriting Lord Er's signature combat technique.

As for strengthening his control over the Palm of Thousand Venoms, he had plenty of time ahead of him to do so!

The only problem now was that the black mixture he prepared before already had its essence drained clean by Lu Tianzi, and was now nothing more than useless dregs.

If Lu Tianzi wanted to continue practising the technique, he would have to prepare a fresh tub.

And this was a process that Lu Tianzi would have to repeat again and again, until the sheer toxicity of the poisons had been imprinted upon his body.

Not just that, but at a certain point, even that would no longer be enough. If he wanted to truly master the Palm of Thousand Venoms, he would have to transit to a different mixture sooner or later, and that would require him to gather the other poison materials on the list.

It was a process that was both troublesome and expensive. But having seen what the Palm of Thousand Venoms was capable of at its peak, Lu Tianzi did not see it as a waste of effort.

Thankfully, the Scarlet Moon Overlord had gifted him with quite a generous amount of beast cores, so money was not exactly a problem for him right now.

All that was left was the task of finding the materials that he needed!

After taking a quick bath and getting rid of the remaining black substance in the tub, Lu Tianzi finally left the house and stepped out into the morning sun.

Nanlan Qianxue was already waiting for him in the garden, and smiled at him as Lu Tianzi walked over.

"Did you have a good rest?" Nanlan Qianxue asked.

"Not too bad," Lu Tianzi smiled in response. "How's your cultivation coming along?"

Now that Nanlan Qianxue was wearing the jade pendant given by Xihuang Yuanfeng, even Lu Tianzi could no longer see through her cultivation level.

"Not too bad either," Nanlan Qianxue's smile grew slightly wider. It would appear that she was progressing quite well on her cultivation. "Will you be taking a walk around town today as well?"

"That's right," Lu Tianzi nodded. "There are some items that I am looking to get."

"Since nobody looked for trouble with you yesterday, it should be fine if I go with you today, right?" Nanlan Qianxue asked.

"That shouldn't be a problem," Lu Tianzi nodded.

Indeed, they might have been too paranoid the day before. After all, the townsmen's anger was largely still directed towards the noble families.

Forcing Nanlan Qianxue to remain in the Dongran Residence just because of such baseless worries might be a little excessive.

"Are you guys leaving the Dongran Residence?" Jue asked as he walked over with the rest of the Iron Claw Brigade.

"Yes, it doesn't seem like the townsmen are too aggressive after all," Lu Tianzi answered.

Jue revealed a look of worry before letting out a sigh. "Unfortunately, we will be busy today so we can't accompany you guys. But if you encounter any danger, or if the situation looks slightly off, try to get away and return as soon as possible."

"Understood, thank you for your concern," Lu Tianzi nodded. "Where are you guys headed anyway?"

"We have a mission two days later, so we will be stocking up on our consumables and giving our equipment one last check," Jue answered.

"Two days later?" Lu Tianzi had a bad feeling.

"That's right," Jue nodded. "We have been commissioned to escort a group of traders on a short journey. It won't take too long though, so we should be back in a week or so."

Lu Tianzi frowned.

There was no doubt about it, the timing and background matched too perfectly. This should be the same group of traders that Blazing Dragon was talking about.

"Given the current situation in Bog Town, isn't it safer to lay low and not to take up missions for the time being?" Lu Tianzi asked. "Why don't you turn it down this time?"

The Iron Claw Brigade had treated him surprisingly well in the short time that they had been together. Because of that, Lu Tianzi was reluctant to see them face such unnecessary danger.

Though Blazing Dragon had mentioned that they were only going to stop the traders from leaving, it was more than likely that he meant stopping them by force.

As the group in charge of escorting the traders, the Iron Claw Brigade would be facing the brunt of this conflict!

"How cute, are you worried about us?" Xing teased.

"Haha, don't worry about it, Young Brother Tianzi," Jue laughed. "On this journey, there will only be chances of encountering some weak beasts, nothing that we cannot handle. In fact, it is especially because we want to get away from this oppressive atmosphere in Bog Town that we took up this mission. Otherwise, there is no way that we would have accepted such a low level mission!"

"I still don't think that you guys should go," Lu Tianzi insisted.

At this point, Jue's eyes narrowed as he scrutinised Lu Tianzi closely.

"Did Young Brother Tianzi hear something while you were out yesterday?" Jue asked.

Hearing Jue's words, the other members of the Iron Claw Brigade turned serious as well. They focused their attention upon Lu Tianzi, waiting patiently for his answer.

"Not really, I'm just listing down the possibilities," Lu Tianzi shrugged nonchalantly.

He was slightly tempted to just tell them about the Blazing Wings' plans. But at the same time, Lu Tianzi was also worried that it would complicate matters.

Lu Tianzi had heard this piece of information right from the leader, someone whom he had never met in person.

Who knew if the other party was actually testing him by letting out this information?

If it really turned out to be false information, and the other party somehow managed to track the source down to him, he could be seen as having sneaked into Blazing Wings just to leak information to external parties.

That way, Lu Tianzi could end up drawing the animosity of the entire Blazing Wings!