Chapter 281 - Windfrost Pollen

Beiwei Jinguo held down the Tank Hare with one hand, and carefully guided a green mixture into its mouth with the other hand.

By nature, Tank Hares were mild and relatively oblivious to danger. Even when Beiwei Jinguo force fed it poison, the Tank Hare in his hand did little to resist.

With such poor sense of danger, it would be difficult for most people to imagine why Tank Hares had yet to go extinct.

There was only one reason.

Despite their feeble looks, Tank Hares had an amazing level of vitality.

Even after consuming the deadly poison concocted by Beiwei Jinguo, the Tank Hare did not show any signs of suffering. Instead, it only became more restless than before, and started moving around its cage a bit more.

"Time's up!" Elder Beilan announced. "Move over to your opponent's cage and start resolving the poison that has been administered!"

After hearing the announcement, Beiwei Jinguo walked over to his opponent's table, while the young lady walked over to his.

Tank Hares were not immune to poison altogether.

They might not be easily affected by poison, but this was not because their bodies neutralised the poison within them. It merely suppressed the poison, temporarily preventing it from acting out.

As long as the poison in their bodies was not neutralised, it would only be a matter of time before the poison acted out. At that time, the Tank Hare would truly suffer.

Still, this ability to suppress the poison without neutralising it was exactly what poison masters were looking for, making Tank Hares were the perfect specimen for Poison Showdowns.

"You have half an hour to do so, starting from now!" Elder Beilan instructed.

Beiwei Jinguo picked up the Tank Hare in front of him, closely examining its eyes and mouth, as well as carefully feeling its heartbeat.

Then he could not help but break out in a smile, as did Lu Tianzi who was watching from afar.

Having seen everything from start till end, Lu Tianzi was able to easily identify the poison that Beiwei Jinguo's opponent had chosen. Coincidentally, it was from the Viper Sprout plant, the same poison that Beiwei Jinguo had resolved back in the mountain inn.

Of course, as an experienced poison master, Beiwei Jinguo's opponent did not simply use the raw Viper Sprout poison. She had mixed in various types of other materials to act as catalysts, boosting the potency of the Viper Sprout poison.

However, no matter what she added, the poison remained fundamentally the same.

Lu Tianzi had no doubt that Beiwei Jinguo would be able to accurately diagnose and neutralise the poison, and thus decided to concentrate on the other participants instead.

All eight participants were extremely serious at the moment.

It was easy to administer poison, but neutralising an unknown poison was something completely different.

Beiwei Jinguo's opponent, in particular, had a deep frown on her face.

No matter how she examind the Tank Hare, she simply could not put her finger on the source of the poison.

"Ten minutes left!"

Hearing Elder Beilan's reminder, the young girl started to sweat.

She had been so confident of beating Beiwei Jinguo earlier, thinking that a mere Essence Building realm opponent could not possibly come up with a poison too complex for her.

Who knew that things would turn out exactly that way?

"Five minutes left!"

The young girl gritted her teeth in frustration.

Was she really going to lose just like that?

No, even if she had to grasp at straws, she would never go down without a fight!

The young lady finally stopped her attempts to diagnose the poison plaguing the Tank Hare.

She began to draw out material after material from her spatial ring, frenziedly mixing them together with her mortar and pestle.

Unable to identify the poison administered, she could only try to concoct the most potent antidote that she knew of, hoping that it would be enough.

Alas, it was not meant to be.

Even after she administered her completed concoction to the Tank Hare, it did absolutely nothing to alleviate the condition of the creature.

"Damn it!" the young girl cursed before hurriedly looking across at Beiwei Jinguo.

She might have failed to neutralise the poison, but as long as Beiwei Jinguo failed as well, they would be forced to go for another round, giving her another shot at victory!

But what she saw at that moment caused all her hopes to be dashed.

Beiwei Jinguo was looking straight back at her, his hands leisurely stroking the Tank Hare that was sleeping contentedly in his arms.

The moment she saw this, the young girl knew that she had lost.

"Time's up, everyone please step away from the tables," Elder Beilan announced before turning to those standing on the wooden platform beside him. "Fellow Elders, please give your assessments."

"First pair, Beiwei Jinguo is the only one who managed to neutralise the poison. So he is naturally the winner," Elder Guo was the first one to speak up.

A commotion immediately broke out among the crowds.

"Beiwei Jinguo won?"

"Isn't he only at the Essence Building realm while his opponent is at the Peak Essence Condensation realm?"

"He must have lucked out then. There's no way that a decent poison master at the Essence Condensation realm would ever lose to someone at the Essence Building realm!"

Even though Beiwei Jinguo had been the first to clear the assessment earlier, it did little to sway everyone's opinions. The people present were all experienced poison masters in their own right, and already had their own perceptions of how Poison Showdowns should turn out.

It was well known that cultivation levels greatly influenced the results when it came to Poison Showdowns.

In this situation where Beiwei Jinguo's opponent should have had the absolute advantage, they were quicker to criticise his opponent than to lay praises upon him.

The young lady clenched her fists in frustration, but she had no words to justify her loss.

Just like the rest of them, she believed that she must have underperformed this Poison Showdown.

How else could she have lost?

While the commotion was going on, the elders were already done announcing the winners of the next two pairs, leaving only the last pair.

"Similarly, Xiquan Chong is the only one who managed to neutralise the poison in the fourth pair, so he goes on to the next round as well," Elder Xiquan stated with a satisfied smile.

A commotion broke out among the crowds once again.

But unlike in the case of Beiwei Jinguo where the focus was on the loser's performance, this time the crowds immediately started to heap praises onto the winner.

To most of the people present, there was no surprise that Xiquan Chong had managed to advance.

He had been the favourite for the Healers' Meet after all, so everyone had expected him to do well. It was just bad luck of his opponent to have met him in the very first round.

Even so, they could not help but talk about just how impressively he had executed his techniques during the Poison Showdown.

Xiquan Chong could sense the looks of envy that everyone was directing at him right now.

He stood there proudly with his chest pushed out, his hands clasped confidently behind his back.

This Healers' Meet was his stage, and this was his moment!

Wait a minute. No, that's not it.

This might be his stage, but his moment had yet to come.

This much was nothing. Xiquan Chong would only be satisfied after he was ranked at the top of the Healers' Meet!

Only that would qualify as a true moment of glory for him!

The next round started shortly after the Tank Hares were replaced, and Beiwei Jinguo faced off against a student of Elder Nanjue.

Unsurprisingly, this opponent was a Peak Essence Condensation realm poison master as well.

This time, Beiwei Jinguo concocted a different poison from before.

In this situation where they were competing openly, unless one was absolutely confident that his poison was impossible to neutralise, it would always be better to change up on the poison that was used each time.

Otherwise, his next opponent would have had ample time to think up possible solutions after seeing what he did before.

Similarly, his opponent did something different, but it was still not enough to bring down Beiwei Jinguo.

Beiwei Jinguo's knowledge on the poison arts had already far exceeded his level. There was no longer any poison concocted by poison masters under the Origin Core realm that he could not diagnose.

And the moment he identified the source of the poison, the rest came naturally as well.

On the other hand, his current opponent did far better than the young lady from before. He actually managed to correctly identify the main components of the poison concocted by Beiwei Jinguo.

However, he took far too long to do so, and time ran out while he preparing a suitable antidote.

"The winner of the first pair is Beiwei Jinguo!" Elder Beilan announced, much to the surprise of the crowds.

When he won the first round, many assumed that he had gotten lucky with his opponent.

After all, how would an Essence Building realm poison master be able to stand up against a truly capable Essence Condensation realm poison master?

But this time around, a lot more attention was being directed towards Beiwei Jinguo.

The opponent whom he just defeated was a student of Elder Guo, a famous poison master of the younger generation who had a stellar record under his belt. There was no way that he would underperform, especially at such an important event.

By winning against such an opponent, Beiwei Jinguo had essentially proven his ability to everyone.

With pure skill, Beiwei Jinguo was showing everyone that he, the student of the late Elder Beichang, would not be stopped even with a disadvantage in cultivation level!

From this day on, no one would be able to doubt his ability anymore!

Zirui, Qingshan, and Boren watched on with their mouths wide open.

They had long been eliminated, not even able to get through to the second round. On the contrary, this young man whom they had repeatedly provoked a week ago actually charged all the way forward to secure himself at least second place.

Right now, they could only stand by the side, watching in awe as Beiwei Jinguo made known his ability to the world.

Seeing this, the three of them could not help but think back to when Beiwei Jinguo challenged them to a Poison Showdown during their first meeting in Elder Ximo's residence.

At that time, they had turned down the challenge, thinking that competing against Beiwei Jinguo was a waste of their time.

But now that they thought about it, just how humiliating would it have been for them if they had actually chosen to accept the challenge back then?

There was no doubt Beiwei Jinguo would have wiped the floor with them!

The only thing was, how would he fare against Xiquan Chong?

Xiquan Chong turned towards Beiwei Jinguo, his gaze carrying a tinge of disdain.

Beiwei Jinguo did not cower, glaring right back at Xiquan Chong.

Just like that, the two of them stared down each other, sparks almost flying between them.

"This is the final round," Elder Beilan reminded. "Xiquan Chong against Beiwei Jinguo. If there are no issues, you have half an hour to prepare your poisons. Begin."

Beiwei Jinguo was about to start mixing a new type of poison when Xiquan Chong's voice came from the table opposite.

"Do you remember what you told me about the Windfrost Pollen?" Xiquan Chong smirked. "You mentioned the other night that poison masters at the Essence Building realm are also capable of neutralising the poison. Shall we see if that is true?"

Beiwei Jinguo frowned.

One key aspect of Poison Showdowns was making sure that the opponent was unable to identify the poison administered.

But right now, was Xiquan Chong actually telling him the exact poison administered?

"What are you trying to do?" Beiwei Jinguo questioned.

"Exactly what I said," Xiquan Chong scoffed. "Why? Are you finally worried? The method you mentioned is so difficult that even an experienced poison master might not be able to pull it off successfully, and yet you expect Essence Building realm martial artists to be able to do so? If you want everyone to believe that, why don't you show us exactly how it's done?"

With that, Xiquan Chong pulled out a stalk of Windfrost Flower from his spatial ring.

Slaughter Essence materialised over his hands as he started to dissect the flower, extracting the Windfrost Pollen within.

It was a simple extraction process, and Xiquan Chong skilfully completed it within a minute. After which, he mixed it in water and, to the shock of everyone present, fed it straight to the Tank Hare in his cage.

"I'm done," Xiquan Chong said with his arms crossed. "Why don't you hurry up so we can get this over and done with?"

Beiwei Jinguo's expression was extremely dark right now.

Xiquan Chong really did not mix things up at all, giving him a Tank Hare that was afflicted with only the Windfrost Pollen.

With that, Beiwei Jinguo need not even do any diagnosis, and could go straight into neutralising the poison.

This was a direct challenge from Xiquan Chong, betting on the fact that Beiwei Jinguo would not be able to neutralise the Windfrost Pollen poison even if he already knew.

In other words, it was a decision born of Xiquan Chong's despise towards Beiwei Jinguo.

Beiwei Jinguo sneered in response. "Just you wait, because you will soon be regretting this stupid choice of yours!"

"Oh don't you worry, I am certainly not going anywhere," Xiquan Chong grinned.