After messing around with my new teacher, I could finally study with a light heart. It'd been ages since my soul rested like that with her. All sorts of worries, duties, necessities. I hadn't realized how tired I really was. Well, emotional burnout always sneaks up unnoticed.
And no, that doesn't mean I've developed any romantic feelings for Gu Daiyu, nor has she for me. We just had good synergy. Apparently, some barbarians are right—a good fight brings people closer. True, in this case I also saved her life and gave her a royal gift in the form of a talent to improve control, but those are just details.
After our short improvised sparring, where my new teacher pleasantly surprised me with very tricky attacks, like poison in poison—when I set up a defense against one toxin, only to find a second layer hidden underneath specifically against my defense—I was finally convinced, from personal experience, that the poison element is incredibly multifaceted. Seriously, only the plant element can probably match it in complexity, and even plants lack the imitation of the summoning element. Though I won't deny that some shadowy genius in history might have bred a human-controllable monster-plant and reworked the "Pocket Greenhouse" spell into something Mid-to-High level. But I haven't heard of anything like that at least. So, as some people say—"I haven't seen it, so it doesn't exist."
After resting from the sparring where Gu Daiyu and I held nothing back but didn't use anything too lethal (since most injuries could heal themselves), the teacher decided to close one overdue matter tied to her recovery. Namely, she killed nearly a third of her students, the ones she deemed irredeemable in her eyes, and called in a special government squad for the rest, who should pick them up soon.
As she had told me earlier, she had taught those scum solely to pass on her legacy through them. But since she's healed and can continue it herself, she's done wasting time on what she considers useless pursuits.
The only ones she kept were a quintet of the smartest kids not involved in outright dark deeds, as her assistants to handle the tedious routine work. Their payment would be whatever they could learn working with her. She's stopped the policy of handing out free knowledge. Let the special services have the specialists they'll evacuate from the island in a couple days when they arrive.
Once the government took away the survivors under her iron fist, the teacher got serious with me. Theory, theory, and more theory. Lots of theory. Until I memorized a bunch of tomes on chemical formulas, reagents, catalysts, and all that chemical stuff, Gu Daiyu flat-out refused to let me even utter poison element spells, let alone modify them.
Praise be to all the Totems: my high spiritual boundaries, this body's brain predisposition to absorbing knowledge, the spirit element, my own smarts—which you couldn't call underdeveloped—plus a ton of enthusiasm and the teacher's heavy hand did the trick. And I mastered the introductory course in the poison element in just three days. Yeah, the intro course from over twenty massive, multi-page tomes in tiny handwriting. What, did only local Mendelievs study here? How did it all fit in their heads?
After my emotional question, the teacher laughed and, holding back further bursts, explained that she had taught each past student just one thing—a specific specialized topic. And each was supposed to develop only their own direction in the future.
Gu Daiyu knew the caliber she was dealing with and didn't make poison element mastodons out of them. For passing on her legacy, she just needed specialists who knew their topic well and were at least somewhat interested in advancing it. Then, with further knowledge transmission and cataloging, at least a skeleton of her teachings would remain. And that was all she required. It was plenty to establish the poison element on par with the others.
But she's teaching me thoroughly, with full commitment. Passing on everything she knows and even more. In short, turning me into a "true venom mage." So her demands on me are much higher too. After that revelation, any urge to whine vanished on its own, and I dove into the intermediate course on the poison element—over fifty tomes. But praise the Totems, this time theory was mixed with practice. And there was plenty of it—time split almost 50/50.
Gu Daiyu showed me how to infuse poisonous substances into my element so it memorized their composition and could recreate them. She helped me make my first compounds targeted at specific monster weaknesses and ran master classes. In general, she took me on intensively.
All my subsequent days with her were packed tight with events. Thanks to my talent for quick energy recovery, I didn't even need to return to my world to refill my reserves, so I could devote myself entirely to training.
But all things in the world come to an end. Our training marathon with the teacher, lasting over a month and a half, ended too. In that time, I memorized almost all the theory Gu Daiyu knew and derived on the poison element, and even practiced parts of it. Heck, I even mastered the gender-change poison!
But finally, it was time to pick up the finished Mind Stones from Master Pin and drop off a new batch of ore for future production—this time not so urgent. And the ore still isn't mined! But no worries—the couple days left until the girls' training ends should cover it with time to spare. I'll even bring the teacher one stone to boost her mental abilities further.
"Well, don't get bored without me. I'll drop by again in a couple days with one useful gift. So, not saying goodbye." I stood smiling, bidding farewell to the teacher in front of her new little house—coincidentally built right over the passage to Wan Yao's prison.
"Drop by often. We've only worked through a fraction of the combos from my arsenal. Considering your future rare visits, I think I can bring you up to my current level in a year. True, that doesn't account for you needing to recultivate the poison element basically from scratch." Leaning on the doorframe, Gu Daiyu chatted with me in farewell.
"Heh, don't worry. I've got a couple ideas to speed that up. By the way, need peak Warlord venom by any chance? I'll have a close encounter with one soon. True, it'll be weakened to Commander-in-Chief level—not sure how that affects venom quality." I hesitated a bit, lost in thought.
"Of course I need it—what a question! Well, depends on the weakening. If it's a monster just molting or something and thus weaker, the chemical composition shouldn't change—it just lacks energy saturation, which can easily be restored. If it's from severe injuries or regression, the substances needed for the venom might stop producing, altering the composition. But bring it anyway—rare ingredients like that aren't tossed."
She showed once again there's still plenty for me to learn from her.
"Alright, as I said, not gone for long. Take care and don't stay up too late." I waved and canceled the world-walking spell, vanishing from where I stood. Sure, after that, she'll layer even more mystery on my assumed identity.
Back in the forest, I summoned Pikachu and Bul, telling the first to finally enter me. I'd waited too long to boost my body to Commander-in-Chief level—and the moment arrived! By now, Pikachu had mastered fine control of his power and wouldn't harm me. Bul would stand guard meanwhile.