At the entrance to the Thousand Poisons Forest sat an old man with a full head of white hair. At a glance, his presence was anything but ordinary, and several poison pouches hung at his waist. Those pouches were the very symbol of the poison practitioners of the Thousand Poisons Forest.
Counting the pouches on the old man, there were nine in all.
When one first learned poison arts, one wore a single pouch, and the Poison King’s pouches numbered twelve. So one could guess from that number alone just how formidable an expert this old man was here.
“I am Geom Mugeuk. I have come to see the Poison King.”
When I greeted him politely, the old man introduced himself.
“This old man is called Sangseon.”
He was the Poison King’s right-hand man and one of the Four Great Poison Practitioners of the Thousand Poisons Forest.
“A distinguished person has come out to receive me.”
“A distinguished guest has come, so this old man ought to welcome him personally.”
I had sent word in advance that I was coming, but I had not expected Sangseon himself to come out like this.
“Follow me carefully.”
I followed Sangseon into the forest. The forest truly was dense.
“Of all the territories of the Eight Demon Supremes, this Thousand Poisons Forest is the largest.”
It really was vast enough for him to boast about.
Sssssss.
The shape of a snake I saw along the path was unusual.
“That is a White-Blood Snake. Oddly enough, its blood is white. If you are bitten by that creature and fail to take the antidote, you will die before a single quarter-hour passes.”
They said a thousand kinds of poisonous things existed here. Filled with all manner of poisonous herbs, venomous insects, and poisonous snakes, the Thousand Poisons Forest was a place where, if you set one foot wrong, even your corpse would never be found.
On the way, we also encountered poison practitioners gathering poisonous herbs. The poison practitioners here were called Poison Fangs, and the number of pouches hanging from their waists varied.
After passing through that dense forest, we arrived at the Poison King’s residence. It was a circular building, low but extremely broad in scale.
“I will wait here. Go in and speak with him.”
“Thank you.”
I entered the building.
The interior was not divided, but consisted of one vast space.
Everything was there. Dozens of bookshelves and desks, all kinds of devices whose purposes I could not guess, a bed, tables, wardrobes, display cabinets, even a wooden tub for bathing. Truly, everything a person needed to live was contained in that space. This was the Poison King’s room.
In the middle of that room, the Poison King had all manner of items spread out and was squatting as he read something.
This was my first meeting with the Poison King.
Before my regression, in my youth, I had only seen him once or twice from afar, and when I returned later in life to obtain materials for the Great Art, he had already died. So today was the first time I was seeing him this directly and up close.
To describe his first impression briefly, he looked youthful and scholarly.
When people commonly spoke of the Poison King, they imagined either a hunched old man, or someone whose skin was covered in boils, inflamed, and peeling from the side effects of poison—someone whose face and body were truly in no proper state. But the Poison King of this generation was extremely neat.
Though he was middle-aged, he looked truly young. If our cult held a contest to choose who looked youngest, I was certain the Poison King would take first place.
With his youthful appearance, enough that people might call us friends if we walked around together, he also gave off an extremely intellectual air. Judging by looks alone, he seemed even smarter than Chief Strategist Sima Ming.
If not for his deep green robes and the twelve pouches worn at his waist, anyone would have taken him for a scholar. No, with his pretty-boy looks, one could even have called him a student learning letters from a scholar.
‘Ah, so the Poison King was this baby-faced.’
I even wondered if, perhaps because of poison, his growth had stopped at some point.
‘With such an innocent face, he committed those deeds? He dreamed of becoming the greatest Poison Sovereign under heaven and ruling the murim?’
He truly had lived a life that did not suit his appearance.
When I approached him, the Poison King spoke while keeping his eyes on the book.
“Bring me the blue bottle on that desk over there.”
The Poison King’s voice was as young as his appearance.
I picked up the blue bottle he had mentioned and walked over to him.
“Careful. If even a single drop of Blue Poison splashes on you, you die.”
I won’t die! Even if you poured every poison in this room over me, I wouldn’t die!
The Poison King mixed the poison I handed him with another poison placed in front of him.
The very moment he mixed them—
With a bang, poisonous smoke rose up. I stepped back and swiftly waved both hands. What a noisy welcome.
Whoooong.
I released my internal energy and gathered the rising poisonous smoke between my hands, confining it there.
I was about to drive it outside and send it flying out the window.
“No! Wait!”
The Poison King ran over and brought back a large sack.
“Drive it in here.”
I drove the poisonous smoke I had gathered before me into the sack.
The Poison King tightly tied the mouth of the sack with a cord, then tossed the sack containing the poisonous smoke beside the table.
Then he began rummaging through books again.
“What in the world went wrong?”
He sank into deep thought. He still did not give me so much as a glance. It was not that he was deliberately pretending not to see me. Right now, he was wholly immersed in his own world.
I slowly looked around the interior. On the display cabinets lining the walls on every side stood countless bottles, and I could tell that all of them were either poisons or antidotes. It looked like a study where, instead of books, poison had been shelved.
“Ah! Was this the problem? Hey, bring me the Evil Poison Grass over there.”
From among the poisonous herbs strewn all over the desk, I brought him the Evil Poison Grass. Even after seeing that I had correctly brought it from among the countless herbs, he showed no reaction at all.
“Put that here, then go over there and bring me a gourd of water.”
He kept sending me on errands. Bring this, bring that. Truly, I was moving busily. Meanwhile, he pounded and ground herbs.
When he combined the Blue Poison with the newly blended poison again, this time it did not explode.
“That’s it! That’s it! The Evil Poison Grass was the problem!”
This time, the mixture seemed to have been made properly, and the Poison King was greatly delighted.
Then he discovered me beside him.
“By the way, who are you?”
Our Poison King really does ask early.
“You made me run all those errands knowing who I was?”
“I thought you were one of our kids. Who are you?”
“I am Geom Mugeuk.”
“Ah, right. You said you were coming today. So it’s you. The talk of the cult, Geom Mugeuk. What brings you here?”
Even after learning my identity, his tone and attitude did not change at all.
He acted like a distracted eccentric, but the faint green radiance flowing from his eyes had remained constant from the moment I entered this room until now. It meant his emotions were being controlled consistently. From this alone, one must never forget that a Demon Supreme was, in the end, a Demon Supreme.
“I have a favor to ask.”
“What favor?”
“Please persuade my father.”
The Poison King suddenly thrust his face close to mine. His skin was pale and fine, too. How could someone who handled poison have such good skin?
“No.”
The Poison King refused flatly without even listening to the details.
“It’s all right for me to refuse, yes? This isn’t pressure from the cult leader’s son, is it?”
“It is not.”
“Good. A young fellow must not learn such wicked habits first. Your business is done, so why are you still here?”
The Poison King was disorienting, but he was not easy to deal with.
“No, I’m leaving. Then I will see you again.”
After greeting him politely, I walked out. At the entrance, Sangseon, who had guided me earlier, was waiting for me. He did not ask a single thing about what had happened inside.
“Please send word that I will visit again tomorrow.”
“I will.”
As I followed him out of the Thousand Poisons Forest, I memorized the path.
* * *
The next day, I went to the Thousand Poisons Forest again.
Today as well, Sangseon guided me to the Poison King’s residence, but it was a different path from yesterday. I could understand his intention. He was trying to prevent me from learning the way to the Poison King’s residence.
But that was an unnecessary attempt made because he did not know how good my memory and sense of direction were. Today, I learned one more path to the Poison King’s residence.
When we arrived at the Poison King’s residence, he was digging in the ground near the house.
“I’m sure it was here.”
The ground had been dug up here and there. It seemed he had buried something but could not find it.
With dirt smeared on his face and body like a child, he looked adorable. The more adorable he looked, the stranger it felt because of the dissonance with what he would do in the future.
In later years, the number of martial artists who died from his poison would reach the thousands. Truly, he would cause a massacre.
The Poison King ignored my greeting and remained absorbed only in digging.
I borrowed a shovel from Sangseon as well and began digging.
A strange light flowed through Sangseon’s eyes as he watched me.
By contrast, the Poison King was concerned only with whether the thing he was looking for would come out of the ground he was digging. It was not an act; he was truly absorbed in that alone. Then he would suddenly laugh to himself. At a glance, he was no different from a madman.
Now I could clearly understand why the Divine Physician had said that the key was getting the Poison King out of his laboratory. I could also understand why everyone had said the Poison King would be difficult to persuade. This man lived thoroughly within his own world.
I dug in several places beside him as well. Whenever something came out, I gathered it all to the side. All sorts of things emerged. Boxes came out, insects and larvae came out. Snakes came out, trash came out, and strange tools came out.
As I was digging in a few places like that—
“Ah! Why is that there?”
The Poison King shouted and came over to the place where I had been digging. It seemed something he had been looking for was among the things I had gathered.
The box he picked up contained a sticky liquid that gave off a terrible smell.
“Ha! It’s aged well!”
“Was this what you were looking for?”
The Poison King looked at me and started in surprise.
“When did you get here?”
This was both an act and not an act. He had recognized me, and he had also forgotten me.
“I came earlier. It looked like you were searching for something, so I dug too.”
“Well done, well done.”
He smiled in good spirits, then soon grew stern.
“I distinctly refused yesterday.”
“Today I came purely to help you, Poison King. Seeing you yesterday, I thought you needed someone to assist you.”
“Are you scheming to steal and learn my poison arts?”
“Can the Poison King’s poison arts be stolen and learned so easily?”
“Not a chance.”
“Then it should be fine.”
The Poison King stared at me. The green radiance in his eyes seemed to pierce into mine. Of course, that light had no effect on me, who had mastered the Divine Eye Art.
Rather, I sensed something about him. At that moment, an image rose in my mind.
The image of the Poison King walking step by step out of his own world and standing at the boundary with the outside world.
In that moment, he was not an eccentric.
I could tell. The person before my eyes right now was someone who sought to become the sole Poison Sovereign of the murim. He had crossed that boundary exactly once, and when he did, thousands died.
“Let’s see how good you are at working.”
Emotion showed on his face. I’ll make it so hard after just one day that you’ll never come again!
The Poison King set me to work. With the intention of driving me away, he properly put me to work.
“Take those poisonous herbs over there, spread them out here, and sort them.”
As he ordered, I brought over the poisonous herbs piled in sacks and sorted them.
I abandoned the intention of persuading the Poison King. I also abandoned the desire to make a good impression on him. I simply thought that, by staying with him, I had to find out what kind of world his world was. If I could not understand his world, I would never be able to persuade him.
“Now, organize the newly arrived poisonous herbs over there too.”
Once a day, the poisonous things the Poison Fangs obtained from the Central Plains were brought in here. It would have been fortunate if there were only poisonous herbs, but there were also all kinds of repulsive poisonous creatures.
I handled the poisonous herbs and poisonous creatures skillfully. After becoming immune to all poisons, my aversion to poison vanished completely. Before, when I heard the word “poison,” my face would wrinkle first and I would dislike getting close to it for no reason, but now I had no such feeling.
He seemed surprised to see that I did the work he gave me rather well.
“I thought you’d show signs of being raised in luxury, but you can work, can’t you?”
I had always been well versed in poisonous herbs. That was why, back at the trials of Socheon Cave, I had easily passed the stages related to poisonous herbs.
Of course, the poisonous herbs handled here were vast enough to far exceed my knowledge. Whenever an herb I did not know came in, I asked the Poison King. What is this? What is that? Until he told me to stop asking so much.
When the day’s work was done, the Poison King asked me about the poisonous herbs he had taught me. Since he could not find fault with my work, he attacked my memory.
“What did I say this poisonous herb was called?”
“It is Wild Orchid Grass. It is a poison mainly ground up and put into spicy food. Then it leaves no trace at all.”
I even repeated the explanation he had given me precisely.
“Then this poisonous herb?”
“It is Black Mountain Hundred-Day Grass. If it poisons someone, its effect lasts for a hundred days, making them waste away before finally dying.”
I explained exactly as he had said.
“You little brat! Why are you so smart?”
His eyes burned with the look of someone determined to find fault tomorrow no matter what. At moments like this, he looked exactly like an immature youngster my age.
“I will see you tomorrow!”
* * *
The next day, I went to see him again.
The Poison King was greatly mistaken if he thought I would come for a few days and then stop. He did not know what kind of effort I was willing to make once I set a goal.
Today as well, I spent the day doing the work the Poison King assigned me.
I made no effort whatsoever to deliberately become close to him. I did not strike up conversation, nor did I try to look good. I did not unleash my Divine Art of Flattery either. I only silently did the work he gave me.
Perhaps that was why the Poison King was the first to bring this up.
“Doing this won’t change my mind. Once I say something, I never take it back. If I do take it back, then in the middle of the Grand Training Ground, with everyone watching, I’ll shout, ‘I am a dog,’ and bark five times.”
It was the moment he steeled his resolve never to be won over. So it was something he said to mean I should stop coming, but I also steeled my resolve.
“Since you’ve put up such a condition, Poison King, I should put one up too. If I fail, I will also gather everyone at the Grand Training Ground and shout it. I will shout, ‘A tiger father has a dog son,’ and bark five times.”
As if he had never expected those words, the Poison King burst into loud laughter.
“I look forward to seeing what expression the cult leader will have then.”
Perhaps excited because I had made a wager, the Poison King brought paper and brush.
“Now then, since you’ll be coming here often, let’s write our pledges first! A pledge that you came to the Thousand Poisons Forest of your own will, and that even if an accident happens while you work and you are poisoned, you will not hold me responsible. How about it? Do you have the confidence to write it?”
Looking into his excited eyes, I provoked him as well.
“If you write one too, Poison King.”