Chapter 58: Expediency

1:00 PM on the same day.

Xarzo returned to the Poison Alchemy Zone and approached the shelving unit where the poisons were kept once again.

He retrieved a bottle of refined White-Jaw Poison, sat down in a chair, cast his Perception spell, and carefully evaluated the potency of the poison.

(Data within parentheses reflects calculations accounting for willpower and resistances. This phrase will be omitted hereafter.)

Drinking this bottle of refined White-Jaw Poison will inflict 2 stacks of the Asphyxiation effect, draining 30 (28) health points per minute, lasting for 1 (0.97) minutes, for a total health drain of 30 (28) points.

Unrefined White-Jaw Poison inflicts 1 stack of the Asphyxiation effect, draining 20 health points per minute, lasting for 3 minutes, for a total health drain of 60 points.

Adding the refined powder increases the toxicity but shortens the duration, halving the total health drained.

By brewing another bottle of refined White-Jaw Poison and combining the usage of two bottles, the total health drained can match that of the unrefined version. At the same time, the time required for the poison's effect to run its course decreases from 3 minutes to 2 minutes.

Draining 60 health points in 3 minutes versus 60 health points in 2 minutes is only a difference of 1 minute, but it represents a qualitative improvement—the speed at which the poison takes full effect increases by 33%.

Xarzo glanced at his own health stats.

[Health] 50/50 (Healthy)
[Base Health Regeneration Rate] 0.12 points/minute (7 points/hour)

Drinking a bottle of refined White-Jaw Poison will drain 28 health points, lowering his health to 22 points, slightly below 50%, which is still relatively safe.

Disregarding the additional health regeneration bonus provided by [Critical Moment], he could drink another bottle of refined poison in about 4 hours.

What if the special effect of [Critical Moment] was taken into consideration?

Xarzo felt as though he was about to invent a rather clever trick.

[Critical Moment]
When health falls below 50% of the maximum, the health regeneration bonus provided by vitality increases by 50%. When health falls below 25% of the maximum, the effect of [Critical Moment] doubles!

Assuming the maximum health is 60 points, and the base health regeneration rate remains constant at 7 points/hour.

Drink one bottle of refined White-Jaw Poison first, draining 28 points, leaving 32 points.
Then drink another bottle, draining 28 points, leaving 4 points.

Since 4 health points are below 25% of the maximum, the doubled effect of [Critical Moment] is triggered, increasing the [Base Health Regeneration Rate] by 100% to reach 14 points/hour.

When health rises above 15 points, the additional regeneration bonus provided by [Critical Moment] drops back to 50%, and the [Base Health Regeneration Rate] decreases to 10.5 points/hour.

Recovering from 4 health points back to 32 health points takes only about 2.5 hours.

Using this method, the interval between drinking doses of White-Jaw Poison can be compressed from 4 hours down to 2.5 hours, a reduction of 37.5%.

Hmm… quite interesting.
The art of controlling health thresholds.

Managing someone else's health threshold is difficult, but managing one's own is effortless.

Perhaps in the future, when the maximum health pool increases to several hundred points, he could rely on [Critical Moment] to ingest poisons and grind levels 24 hours a day without interruption.

Xarzo clutched the poison vial and nodded.

However, there was no need to do that right now.

On one hand, taking the risk of maintaining extremely low health to test White-Jaw Poison showed a reckless disregard for one's life. On the other hand, he simply didn't have such a large stockpile of lethal poisons.

This leveling strategy relying on [Critical Moment] would be kept as a backup plan for now.

"Gulp."

He tilted his head back, swallowed the refined White-Jaw Poison, and expertly kicked his legs out to lean back against the chair.

Asphyxiation was unpleasant.

Yet he felt not a shred of panic, appearing far calmer than when he had first tasted the White-Jaw Poison. He couldn't die from it anyway. He could just treat it as taking a short nap and power through.

1 minute later.

The sound of ragged breathing echoed through the basic alchemy laboratory.

Xarzo slumped in his chair, panting heavily, and patiently waited for his health to recover.

A few more minutes passed. The dizziness in his head faded away on its own as his health line rose, and his mind returned to a clear and alert state.

"Successfully consumed 1 bottle of White-Jaw Poison (homemade, 1st refinement), gained a 40% experience bonus, acquired 10.5 experience points, increased Willpower attribute by 0.0105 points, and increased Water, Wind, and Earth elemental resistances by 0.0105%."

Huh? Why was it 10.5 experience points? That was seven or eight points more than the refined Black-Eye Poison.

Xarzo tilted his head back against the back of the chair, staring blankly at the alchemy lighting fixtures on the ceiling, reviewing past notifications in his mind.

Oh, right, right. In the past, he only drank one-third of a bottle each time, but this time he drank a whole bottle.

One-third of 10.5 experience points was 3.5 points, which was about 1 point more than usual.

So could he just drink one-third of a bottle?

One-third of a bottle drained about 9 health points.

If he kept his health line below 50%, his health regeneration rate would be 10.5 points/hour, which perfectly matched the health drain rate. This would allow him to test the poison at a rate of one-third of a bottle per hour, or one full bottle every 3 hours.

Xarzo walked over to the shelving unit and prepared another bottle of refined White-Jaw Poison.

He fetched a measuring cup, poured out one-third of it, and then raised the cup and gulped it down in one go.

Perhaps due to the increase in his Willpower attribute and resistances, aside from a slight itch in his throat and nose and some minor twitching in his body, no other toxic effects manifested.

The dosage was insufficient, preventing the asphyxiating toxicity from taking effect.

This trial was judged a failure by the golden finger, yielding no rewards at all.

Xarzo curled his lip and poured the remaining two-thirds into his mouth.

"Cough, cough..."

The itching in his throat intensified, and his limbs trembled uncontrollably. Straining to inhale and exhale, manipulating his chest cavity like a push-pull bellows, he found he could still manage to breathe after a fashion.

These discomforts subsided as time passed.

His mind remained a blank slate, devoid of any notification from the golden finger.

It seemed that trying to take shortcuts was unfeasible. He had to meet the exact conditions set by the golden finger to gain experience. Otherwise, he couldn't expect to scrape together even a fraction of a reward.

Xarzo put the empty bottle away with a look of resignation.

He calculated the time for his next poison test using the clock on the wall, then walked into the advanced alchemy laboratory to brew refined powder.

...

In the evening, before dinner.

The shelving unit now held 3 more jars of refined Black-Eye Poison powder and 1 jar of refined White-Jaw Poison powder.

This was the fruit of today's labor.

Aiming to maximize the efficiency of experience acquisition, running at full throttle from morning till night for an entire day could yield 9 jars of refined Black-Eye Poison powder and 2 jars of refined White-Jaw Poison powder.

Drinking 1 bottle of refined White-Jaw Poison in the morning and another in the afternoon, while filling the rest of the time with refined Black-Eye Poison.

Calculated fully, he could get about 50 experience points a day, which meant 1,500 points a month. The leveling speed would approach 1 level per month.

Judging by his experiences over the past two years and more, leveling up once a month was definitely an extremely fast progression speed.

Xarzo calculated these figures while cleaning the glass bottles he had emptied today.

Once everything was tidied up, he left the Poison Alchemy Zone.

...

At dinner time, the lake view was breathtakingly picturesque—it was the most leisurely and comfortable moment of the day.

Whether it was his imagination or not, Xarzo always felt that Anr's demeanor seemed to have grown even more affectionate.

In the past, they would sit facing each other, but tonight she changed her spot, coming over to sit right beside him. She took the initiative to ladle up a bowl of the culinary delicacy from the pot for him, and even brought over a cup of his favorite beverage.

Tsk, tsk, tsk~

Did the small gift he gave her yesterday have such a powerful effect?

Xarzo enjoyed the seafood delicacy with a face full of smiles, happily taking sips of the carbonated drink from time to time.

He didn't forget to pick up the soup ladle, scoop a bowl of Anr's favorite squid tentacles for her, and refill her empty cup with juice.

Originally, a dinner that could have been wrapped up in ten minutes was dragged out past 6:00 PM amid an atmosphere of sweet affection before it finally concluded.

Xarzo escorted Anr to the dormitory hallway, then hurried back into the Poison Alchemy Zone, cutting it close right before his usual evening class to arrive before his mentor.

"Professor, I'm here."

As soon as he stepped into the basic alchemy laboratory, he saw a dozen wooden crates placed on the floor, leaving only a narrow aisle for people to walk through.

Kuroff sat behind the desk, pointed to the wooden chair opposite him, and said, "You just need to grade the two crates of test papers beside the chair; leave the rest to me. The correct answers are in the manual by the desk."

"Yes."

Xarzo slowly shuffled over, sat down beside the desk, and bent down to lift the exam-specific wooden box from the wooden crate.

A fountain pen filled with red ink floated over to his side under his mentor's telekinetic control.

He grasped the fountain pen, uncapped it, found the latch on the wooden box, and opened the lid.

Xarzo glanced at the name on the exam paper's cover and instantly found the corresponding character template within his [Knowledge Reserve].

This was a very unfamiliar classmate from the Functional Potions Department; the two of them had never spoken over the past several months.

The handwriting on the exam paper was reasonably neat, and the multiple-choice questions had a high accuracy rate, with only 15 points deducted. The student had clearly put a lot of effort into memorizing the test points.

Unfortunately, a significant number of points were dropped in the application question section, totaling over 200 lost points—all caused by a lack of practical operational experience.

Xarzo scratched his cheek with a skeptical expression.

Could it be that the preparatory materials containing practical insights on poison alchemy operations hadn't leaked out yet?

Before the final exams of the last semester, he had prepared a set of preparatory materials each for Anr, Celli, and Small Moben.

Not to mention Anr; that girl was utterly obedient and undoubtedly guarded her prep materials and text-marked textbooks with her life.

Small Moben was uncommunicative and rather dull, naturally belonging to the type of person who would never proactively leak secrets.

Celli was rarely seen, and her prep materials were even delivered through Anr.

If anyone was most likely to disclose the prep materials to others...

Xarzo subconsciously thought of Celli Muller, whom he had the least contact with.

This was an unfounded guess, and he wouldn't mention it to anyone—especially since no leakage had actually occurred.

However, come to think of it, why must the application questions include items that required practical operational experience to answer?

Xarzo raised his head to look at his mentor, hesitated for a few seconds, and still asked the question.

Kuroff sat with his arms crossed, manipulating three fountain pens to grade the papers. Hearing his student's question, he pondered for a brief moment and said:

"Meditation method, just like its name implies, is a method of meditation. The difficulty of entering a meditative state is no less than imagining alchemy operations out of thin air. You'll understand once you obtain an introductory meditation method."

Mm... The mentor's implication was that the application questions were used to screen out students unsuitable for practicing meditation methods.

Xarzo nodded in understanding, placed the test paper in his hand aside, and bent down to pick up the next wooden box.

About 1 hour later.

A stack of graded exam papers rested on his left side, and there were still a few wooden boxes left in the wooden crate at his feet.

Xarzo put down his fountain pen, wrung his wrists for a moment to rest them, and then opened the wooden box before him.

A familiar name appeared on the exam cover:
Celli Muller, Functional Potions Department.

Xarzo blinked as he stared at the test cover.

He really ran into her.

Having just graded over a dozen exam papers from students of the same department consecutively, he had a hunch he would stumble upon an acquaintance's work.

Celli's handwriting was as delicate as Anr's, but with shorter brush strokes, making it look a bit more efficient.

She did brilliantly on the multiple-choice questions, getting only 1 wrong, losing 2 points.

As for the application questions...

Xarzo felt a bit troubled.

This exam tested the book *Toxin Isolation*, which heavily involved isolation methods for basic toxins as well as the sources of basic toxins.

Most basic toxins did not have unique sources. The same basic toxin would generally appear in several similar substances.

For example, brown-wither pigment.

It was one of the two main ingredients of Black-Eye Toxin. It originated from dried, withered old vines. There were seven types of vines that could be chosen.

All seven types of vines had to be written into the answer to receive full points.

They each had their own scientific names and common names.

During the exam, scientific names should have been used.

But Celli had probably been dizzy from answering questions and used a common name to refer to one of the vines.

Normally, her paper should have had 1 point deducted.

The awkward part was that she was missing precisely this 1 point to pass.

During make-up exams, the number of subjects each student had to take varied. Therefore, whether someone passed was determined by their score in each individual exam rather than the total score across all make-up subjects.

If Xarzo ruled to deduct that 1 point, Celli would have to retake *Toxin Isolation*.

"Professor, when answering application questions, using common names to refer to raw materials—should points be deducted?"

Xarzo raised his head and asked, immediately adding:
"Celli Muller is exactly 1 point short of reaching the passing line."

"Hmm..." Kuroff mused for a moment. "Give her the points. But only in cases like hers."

"Yes." Xarzo nodded in response, feeling a weight lift from his chest.

He wrote the score on Celli's paper and placed it on his right side.

The next few exam papers also belonged to students of the Functional Potions Department. Out of twenty papers in total, only Celli managed to pass.

It wasn't that Xarzo didn't want to show leniency; it was simply that there was genuinely no place on the others' papers where points could be awarded.

9:00 PM.

The mentor and student at the desk put down their fountain pens at the exact same time.

Kuroff flipped through the stack of test papers Xarzo had graded and placed them at the corner of the desk:

"Very good, no errors. Go back and rest. Tomorrow night we'll grade the papers for the next subject."

"See you tomorrow morning, Professor."

Xarzo walked toward the door, and a notification from the golden finger flashed in his mind:

"Successfully graded 20 test papers, accuracy rate 100%, gained 20 experience points.
[Level] Lv.12
[Experience] 1132 + 20 → 1152/1600 points"

The number of papers to grade tomorrow and the day after should also be 20 per day, totaling 60 points over three days—equivalent to test-drinking five or six bottles of refined White-Jaw Poison.

The temporary teaching assistant role yielded relatively fewer experience points, but the upside was receiving a monthly salary of 20 silver coins. Perhaps it was better to accept the experience reward as a complimentary bonus to a generous salary.

Over the next two days, Xarzo spent his days brewing poison refinement powder, squeezing in time to test poisons for rewards, and spent his nights in the basic alchemy laboratory grading exam papers alongside his mentor.

On the night when the three examinations for Poison Alchemy concluded, the mentor and student breathed sighs of relief in unison.

One looked forward to returning to the soft sofa earlier to meditate, while the other hoped to immerse himself in the advanced alchemy laboratory and brew poisons continuously day and night...