Once out of the building, Daniel walked towards the inhabited area of Ton Bes’ only city, along with Aeron.

  Despite the fact that the city was mostly home to poison masters, it was oddly clean, and strangely advanced. Thanks to his comprehension of the elements, Daniel could feel that the buildings were made of an unusual mixture of lime, sand, gravel, and water, which had mixed into massive blocks of hard material. Inside these large blocks, he could also feel a skeleton made of bars of pure steel, which made the building even more resistant.

  To a person used to simple cities with cobblestone ground, and buildings made out of blocks carved from larger stones, bricks, and wood, a city like this seemed to have come straight from the future. Shops, restaurants, company building, all covered in glass, and showing their elegant interiors to the people that walked the streets.

  The people on the streets wore similar, if not identical clothes. They were all dressed with clean white clothes, which either showed a distinctive patch, or a patch and a colored stripe on the left shoulder.

  Thanks to Aeron’s abilities, the two had learned the reason for these two details.

  The patches were a symbol that would communicate to which family one person belonged to, while the color, was a sign of stature. Those which had a color on their clothes were part of the families to which one of the thorns belonged.

  For example, when the Navi family owned the area which Daniel was now allowed to occupy, their members would walk around while wearing white lab coats with a patch which represented the Bavi family, and a dark blue stripe on their shoulder. It was only after the inventor of their poison had died, that they had been demoted to a simple family.

  Daniel and Aeron were the only ones that were walking around with normal clothes, so, people couldn’t help but turn around towards them, as they were the new oddity in town.

  While other people looked at them with curiosity, Aeron was closing his eyes and trying to focus on positive and calming thoughts. His breathing was accelerated, and he was trying to get it to a lower level, while his hands were squeezed so hard, that his fingers had drained of blood, and had become pale white.

  Daniel had noticed Aeron’s state, but said nothing. There was nothing he could say that would help him.

  What Aeron was feeling, was the feelings of the people that surrounded them, as well as the feelings of the people which he could see in the memories of these individuals. Thousands, tens of thousands…… millions of people used as experiments to test new and more sophisticated poisons.

  He was trying to control the fear, the resentment, and the anger he was feeling. That, was the burden of his faction.

  After the two found a relatively empty restaurant, they went in to eat something, and gather a few more information.

  "Soup of the three hundred poisons…… Steamed buns of death…… She loves me, She loves me not, She is dead…… What the hell is this place? These names are so stupid……" muttered Daniel while reading the poison based menu. He then stopped a waiter that was walking around with a bowl filled with purplish soup, and asked "Excuse me, are these dishes actually poisonous?"

  The waiter initially laughed at Daniel’s question, but after noticing that he was actually serious, he composed himself, and said "They are, but they are treated in a way that inhibits the poison. They are completely safe."

  After a few more questions, Daniel had found out that, one day, when a poison master had been stuck in his studies for more than twenty years, he had gone to a restaurant in order to take a pause from his seemingly pointless research.

  When he had entered the restaurant, he had distractly ordered a few dishes. One of these dishes was a salad, which due to a mistake caused by one of the people which had refurbished the restaurant with food, contained a poisonous plant with looked exactly like harmless lettuce.

  Being poisoned and escaping death had inspired the man in new ways of research, and in the end, he had managed to create a poison that was valuable enough to grant him the title of one of the thorns.

  Since then, the man had died of old age, and his family had fallen into disgrace and disappeared. While the legacy he had left to Ton Bes was not a potent poison, it still was something that inspired many other poison masters in the future.

  In order to understand poison, one had to feel it on themselves.

  After their odd lunch, Daniel and Aeron went directly towards their researching territory, which people usually referred to as ’petals’.

  Daniel’s petal was in the southern side of Ton Bes. It was relatively big, and was comprised of numerous buildings, a large amount of researching materials, and living areas.

  In the streets, numerous individuals were packing their belongings and leaving their homes. All of them wore a patch identical to that of the woman which Aeron had inconspicuously killed during their meeting with the chairman. They were her workers, and part of her group, but now that Daniel had come into possession of this area, these people had to leave with no exception.

  Daniel did not care at all for these people. No one would serve an individual which such a bad karma if they didn’t possess a greedy, or evil mind. That was proven by the many red numbers which floated above the heads of these people. Only the youngest amongst these individuals possessed a neutral karma, but once they reached over the twenty years of age, there was a spike in their negative karma, which meant that they would have to undergo a passage that would turn them into evil individuals…… That passage, was likely to be the beginning of their experiments, and the killing of thousands of people.

  When these people noticed the figure of Daniel, and the masked Aeron, they looked at them with hateful eyes. They had received the notice that their leader had died, and that they were required to leave. While they were not involved with how the poisonous rose operated, they could still guess what had happened.

  In the middle of Daniel’s petal, the two found a few massive buildings. The area on which these buildings were built was at least one acre, and the buildings were at least one hundred square meters each, and connected with each other by a few passages placed in mid air.

  "We should hire some people……" muttered Daniel after noticing how massive the structure was. There was no way that he and Aeron could maintain this massive structure working by themselves.

  After a few moment spent looking at the elegant architecture, and dark glasses from which seeing through was impossible, the two entered——

  The next day.

  Since the two had entered the building, Aeron had closed himself in cultivation. He had been tormented by the screams of agony of the test subjects of these people ever since they had arrived. Unable to stand it any longer, he decided to go into cultivation, as cultivation was the only thing that helped him distract himself from this torture.

  Unfortunately, Daniel was not able to do the same. Each and every perfect crystal in his possession had been used by Sewah, which would use it like extra soft toilet paper the very moment he had one, leaving Daniel completely broke.

  With nothing better to do, Daniel had spent the past day studying the instruments left within the building. Many of them operated through ingenious tricks of light, reflection, and gravity, and while Daniel did not exactly know what they were used for at first, it didn’t took long for him to understand after making a few wild guesses while using ’Time is Precious’.

  ____________________________

  *Primary Quest started (Chain): No Time for Poisons 2*-

  Description: Create a mid level poison immunity pill.

  First objective set: Obtain the venom glands of eighty five-thousand-years old White-Eyed spiders.

  Reward: 500,000,000,000 Karma Points / Unnamed Partial Poison Immunity / The Poisonous Rose Reputation +100% / (Optional) Universal Government Reputation +30% / Garden of Death +100%

  Time limit: 1 year

  ____________________________

  Daniel looked at the new mission he had started for the sole purpose of creating a mid-level poison immunity pill, with curiosity. He had already guessed that his reputation in the poisonous rose would skyrocket, as well as that in the universal government in case he decided to make his discovery known…… But he didn’t know who, or what the Garden of Death was.

  ____________________________

  Economic approach

  Difficulty: Easy-

  Purchase the ingredients from the many marketplaces, and neighbouring territories. (25,00 perfect crystals each)

  Time limit: 4 days, 1 hour, 19 minutes, 59 seconds.

  (Requirements: 200,000 Perfect Crystals)

  Reward: 5,000 karma.

  ____________________________

  Direct approach

  Difficulty: Extreme-

  Reach the white-eyed spiders nest (745,333,205 meters north from Karmic system wielder’s current position-

  Obtain eighty White-Eyed spiders venom glans-

  (Optional: Avoid being followed)

  Countdown: 9 days and 21 hours.

  (Requirements: Peak eight stage of immortal cultivation.)

  Reward: Poisonous Rose reputation +5% / (Optional Poisonous Rose reputation +10%)

  ____________________________

  Political approach

  Difficulty: Easy-

  Use your connection to the poisonous to request for the ingredients.

  Reward: Poisonous Rose reputation -25% / Karma -300,000,000

  ____________________________

  "The easiest approach is never the most convenient……" muttered Daniel nervously while looking at the three windows that appeared in his mind.

  From behind him, Aeron appeared out of nowhere, and said "It’s reasonable…… They will be bothered by having to fetch items for you…… And they will likely have to do awful things to get their hands on so many high quality poisonous ingredients…… We are better off getting them ourselves."

  Aeron had been attracted by what had suddenly appeared in Daniel’s mind. This was the first time he had seen a window appear inside someone’s mind, and he couldn’t help but be curious about it. So much so, that he had interrupted his cultivation.

  "You want to come too?" asked Daniel with curiosity. He couldn’t understand why Aeron would suddenly decide to follow him. His only guess so far had been that he was sick of the solitary life of an outcast, and that since he didn’t mind Daniel’s character, he would rather wander around with him that end up in a prison, mining for perfect crystals.

  "We are both out of crystals…… The more time I stay in this city, the more I want to rip the throat of anyone that walks in front of me……" muttered Aeron in a sort of defeated tone. He was extremely talented even amongst his peers, but there was a limit to the fear, anger, and desperation that a mental warrior could ignore.

  Deep down, Daniel felt pity for Aeron. He had felt those kind of feelings for himself before, and those were already enough to drive a person crazy. He couldn’t even begin to comprehend how much harder it would be to feel that amplified by thousands, if not millions of times.

  "Okay then, I’ll ask for them to find us some workers…… We have to look busy……" Said Daniel before teleporting out of his building.

  The city of Ton Bes was, just like the ship on which Daniel and Aeron had traveled, covered by a formation which wouldn’t allow people to peek through walls, windows, floor, or any other types of barrier. Each family conducted secret experiments in their own petals, and therefore, the poisonous rose had created this formation to prevent others from stealing the projects of one another.

  What was odd about this formation was that, despite Daniel and Aeron being eight stage cultivators, and being used to seeing ninth rank cultivators, they couldn’t understand the power of this formation. Theoretically speaking, they should have been able to feel a defence just slightly more powerful than they were, but instead, they felt a defense immensely more powerful than their own senses or essences.

  "So powerful…… This formation must be hundreds of years old……" muttered Aeron while trying to push his senses through the walls of Daniel’s building.

  "Maybe the group called Garden of Death has something to do with it……" responded Daniel without thinking too much about it.

  The moment these words came out of Daniel’s mouth, Aeron turned towards him, and asked with doubt "What did you just say?"