After arriving at his room, Lothur immediately removed each garment from his body and went into the bathroom.
There, he closed the shower tub drain and poured a bunch of the poisons he had prepared with the materials Rebecca had given him previously.
After learning the basics of training his body's resistance, Lothur intended to use these resources to raise his resistance to poisons and the quality of his body.
Poisons in excessive amounts or not-so-well-thought-out mixtures could be dangerous to the body, causing problems of various kinds. But when well used, these substances could generate therapeutic effects that were hard to find in other resources.
And with his new knowledge, Lothur knew what was necessary to make those poisons clean impurities from his body without causing him problems or risking his physiological condition.
So, after finishing pouring the poisons into that tub and adding a few liters of water, he lay there and closed his eyes.
'Uh?'
However, before he could relax, as he had done at the residence of the local poison master where he met Rebecca, Lothur began to feel pain through every pore between his feet and head.
Not even 10 seconds had passed since most of his body had been submerged in that purple fluid when he felt as if endless micro-needles had started to pierce his body.
'That... Is that the feeling poison masters sense when tempering their bodies with maximum level poisons for their conditions?' He opened his eyes and wondered, already using some of his willpower to suppress the pain in his body.
And indeed, that was the situation there. Previously, Rebecca had used a poison mixture capable of stimulating only beginners to body tempering with poisons.
Such a thing was enough to put the lives of mortals at risk, but it was no big deal for a young man who had already been poisoned twice in the recent past.
Hence Lothur had not suffered in that earlier test, and now as he began to temper his body with a substance more suited to his level, he soon began to feel the pain of this kind of training.
But he was not discouraged by what was happening. On the contrary, as he noticed the pain in his body increasing, Lothur smiled in satisfaction.
Not because he was a strange masochist, he was not. But because these signs meant that he would soon be able to reap the good fruits!
He had already been poisoned twice, once without even realizing it. So, going through training capable of making him shiver in pain was just what he needed to prepare himself for the future!
'Perfect!'
'From what I'm feeling, I think I can increase the intensity of the poison by 20% to 40% the next time I go to temper my body...'
'Depends on how much I can evolve this time.'
'Anyway,' He looked at a small, finger-sized vial with a red liquid inside. 'If I'm still conscious after this bath, I'll take such a potion!'
Besides tempering the body through 'baths' like the one he was experiencing, poison masters could also directly ingest poisons. That was not something usual for people at the 1st stage as there were many risks of such a thing doing more damage than good. But it could be done, and luckily Lothur had the ingredients for such a potion!
Previously he had acquired some medicines from dead enemies, which had poisonous substances in their constitutions.
From these medicines, he produced a small poisonous potion to be ingested.
With this, he was willing to go through the risks of ingesting such poison, confident that his resilience would bring him good results even if it were dangerous.
After all, if he could even survive doses of poisons made for killing, why not achieve the same with resources made for training?
He had no reason to doubt his advantages, and with the many dangers surrounding him, he soon took that potion after almost 3 hours of suffering in that tub.
"Hah... Hah... Hah..." He came out of the bathroom breathing hurriedly, feeling significant fatigue throughout his body.
As he did so, he dried himself off and then sat in a lotus position in the small area between his bed and the door to his room, preparing himself to deal with the effects of that potion.
He did not know how to cultivate, but meditating was something anyone with the will could do.
And then, he soon began to roar in pain in that position, with his muscles shaking uncontrollably from time to time, sweat dripping all over his body.
...
Another three hours passed, and at this instant, Lothur was pale in that position from before, with a terrible expression on his face.
But as he struggled to endure the nauseating feeling in his body, coupled with his current weakness, several parts of his half-naked body had black drops of sweat dripping off them. Not only that, at the height of his navel, a small black crystal had oozed out of that area, where it felt as if a needle that had previously been lodged in his body had finally been removed.
As he felt that thing finish leaving his body, Lothur opened his eyes and ran to the bathroom, barely able to hold back the urge to throw up halfway there.
"Ah, disgusting!" He muttered amid this moment when he had spit out the internal impurities from his body, finally ending this torturous night.
As he finished removing the last remnants of impurities from his body, the system warnings appeared before him.
[Iron-grade Poison Resistance.]
[Progress: 39%]
...
[Name: Lothur Ritter]
[Physique: what doesn't kill you makes you stronger]
[Bloodline: ****]
[Cultivation: level 4]
[STR: 8.1] [CON: 10.1] [DEX: 7.4] [AGI: 8.9]
[INT: 30] [PER: 15] [WIL: 47]
Upon seeing that, Lothur's face coloration improved a bit, as he felt satisfied that he had improved his features so much with this procedure.
He had not increased in level, as he had barely reached level 4 before this night, and the further one went in the cultivation ranks, the higher the steps were in his path. But even so, he had expelled hundreds of grams of impurities, something not caused by spiritual cleansing but poisonous cleansing of his skin and marrow.
In any case, apart from his talent, every one of his attributes had evolved, smoothing enough to put a smile on his face.
'The quality of my muscles and bones have improved, so even my strength, dexterity, and agility, which at first glance doesn't seem much associated with poison cleansing, have improved.'
'Great!'
'On the other hand, my resistance to poisons has more than doubled!'
'Perfect. Common Iron-grade poisons should no longer be a danger to me!" He muttered as he looked at himself in his bathroom mirror, noting that he had improved his appearance somewhat.
But with his goals for the night accomplished, he did not take long to clean that room and take a shower before lying down on his bed to at least sleep for about three hours before daybreak.
The next day he did not have to go to the academy as it was Saturday in this empire. But he had arranged with Annaliese to go to the local Cultivation House, where they could finally return to their training after the days that Mabel had stood in his way.
...
The next day, Lothur woke up full of energy, quickly having made his first meal of the day, and headed off to meet Annaliese.
With that, when it was only 10 a.m., he found his beautiful sister-in-law standing beside the entrance plaza of the Frost estate.
"Good morning, Anna. How did you spend the night?" He asked with a mysterious smile on his face.
Seeing her brother-in-law, who looked slightly different from the night before, Annaliese bit her lips and commented casually. "Very well. I almost couldn't sleep due to the anxiety caused by my breakthrough, but yesterday was one of the best days of my life."
"Hehe, I can imagine."
"And you? What did you do? I feel like there's something different about you this morning."
"Oh? Did you notice? Well, last night, I started tempering my body with poisons. So, I made some progress in those hours." He commented in a low voice as they walked towards the Cultivation House.
Hearing that, Annaliese unconsciously took his left arm and began to feel it, sensing the differences in his body.
"That..."
"Looks like you experienced quite an improvement, huh?" She opened her eyes wide, thinking that he had gained a lot for just one night of training.
Lothur laughed upon seeing her reaction and said. "Hmm, if you want, I will help you with poison treatments in the future."
"Rest assured. Just one kiss will be enough to pay for my services..."
"You bastard..." She said this in a humorous tone, with the two of them chuckling soon after before finally entering the Cultivation House building.
...