Chapter 257: The Poisonous Holy Grail
Behind the stone gate is an underground palace also made of bricks and stones.
But the area is very large, unlike the maze above which is full of narrow passages. There is a huge palace here with very high floors, at least as high as ten floors. Everywhere you can see huge stone pillars with exquisite carvings and huge stone sculptures of various people and dog-headed men.
The visibility in the underground palace was still very low. The magic cold light source illuminated a corner, and the visibility was no more than a hundred meters.
Looking up, I saw a dark mass above my head. I could vaguely see the top, but I had no idea what was on it.
Ryan did not dare to be careless and took out the [Divine Wood Sculptures], medicinal powders and other things that he had prepared to prevent curses and insects.
Because he heard a lot of subtle noises in his perception.
Those were bugs... the noise made by the movement of a large number of bugs.
The rustling sounds were so eerie in the endless darkness.
His ears moved slightly, and he distinguished several types of them: four-legged, six-legged, eight-legged, sixteen-legged, and countless-legged...
Some are big, some are small...
Ryan also heard that there were not only the strange insects that looked like "scorpions" that he had encountered outside before, but also some small creatures like spiders and centipedes...
Of course, before seeing what they looked like, Ryan could only guess that they were something like this.
…
There are still written records in this second level underground palace, but this time they are much simpler.
On a black obelisk, he saw the layout of this level of the underground palace.
Ryan used a cold light source to illuminate the entire stone wall, and the system automatically recorded it.
Without an accurate scale, we don't know how big the underground palace is, but we have drawn the approximate locations of several landmark buildings.
"There's a third floor?"
Ryan looked at the map carefully and was slightly surprised.
He looked at the "exit" marks on the map and saw two of them. One was the stone door he had entered through, and the other was on the diagonal line.
It seems that the third level requires crossing the entire underground palace and going down from another door.
Ryan didn't think much about it. He found the right direction and walked carefully into the depths of the dark underground palace.
He walked very slowly, and it took him half an hour to cover a distance of about one or two kilometers, passing through several palaces whose purpose was unknown.
Nothing was found because the bugs were driven away by the potion.
There is only a thick layer of biological feces, which looks like it has accumulated for tens of thousands of years. There are hard "fossils" that feel hard to step on, and there are also soft "fresh goods".
Ryan collected some samples and continued on his way.
The closer you get to the center of the underground palace, the more toxic the air becomes.
Gradually, even someone as resistant to poison as Ryan felt a burning sensation in his breath.
The system also roughly analyzed the composition of the toxins leaking in the air. It was not a single toxin, but a mixture of multiple biological toxins.
However, the [Voodoo Master] gave him a super strong ability to adapt to poisons, and every breath he took was an adaptation to the poisonous gas here.
This hall is a "deadly poisonous fog zone" for ordinary high-level transcendents, but for him, it is not a big problem.
The more this happened, the more Ryan became curious about what secrets were hidden in the poisonous fog.
…
The noises around his ears became more and more frequent . Ryan walked into the darkness and finally saw what these insects hiding in the darkness were.
Yimuyu, the "Insect Master Elder" of the Coleman tribe, is probably the extraordinary person in the world who knows the most about insects.
The gift he prepared for Ryan included a powder that could deal with almost any insect.
But Ryan did not continue to use the repellent powder because the smell of that thing was very irritating, and he was not sure whether there were some special insects in the dark hall that would be attracted by the irritation.
Instead, I plan to apply a scent-assimilation ointment that will make the insects feel like they are of the same species. Although it feels a bit scary, it is actually safer.
After all, he thought that there were many kinds of insects here, and he was not the only "kind" of them.
Clean up the smell, change clothes, apply ointment...
After remembering everything that happened last night, Ryan re-entered the hall and walked towards the area where there was a lot of activity.
Sure enough, the result was different when I changed the method.
After walking a few steps, he encountered a large number of insects.
That was a very enthusiastic group of centipedes.
"Three-tailed centipede?"
Ryan looked at the frost-white nematodes running very fast and recognized that these one-foot-long worms were the highly poisonous [Multi-tailed Frost Poison Centipedes].
This adult creature commonly has two tails and its body is snow-white and crystal clear. With a bite, its freezing toxin can instantly freeze part of a superhuman's limbs into popsicles.
It poses a considerable threat to low-level transcendents.
But the corpse of this insect can be used as medicine and is a valuable potion material.
It is quite rare in other places. There are thirty to fifty of them in a nest, and catching one can be exchanged for several silver coins.
And the white patch of the underground palace before our eyes numbered in the hundreds of thousands.
These insects were like a stack of human figures, rolling and crawling like a tide, which made people's scalps tingle.
Moreover, there were not only two or three of them. Ryan also saw several four-tailed, five-tailed, and even a six-tailed crimson centipede in the swarm. It was a large insect that was more than one meter long, with a crimson shell like armor, and it was shiny in the light!
Just by taking a look at the swarm of insects from a distance, Ryan felt his anus tighten.
This thing not only bites people, but also likes to dig holes.
The toxins are still secondary. Once they get into the human body, it will really cause death.
…
“Shit… If bitten by this thing, even a high-level transcendent would die on the spot.”
The giant red worm disappeared in a flash, and Ryan's eyelids twitched as he watched.
This was the first time he had seen a living Multi-Tailed Frost Poison Centipede with more than three tails.
Even according to the Encyclopedia of Magical Potions Materials, the five highest tails are already poisonous insects at the "Insect King" level, and their toxins can easily kill a fourth-level magical beast, and it may take a hundred years to find one.
But in this pile of insects, after just a rough glance, the "Five-tailed Insect King" only saw at least three.
Also, what the hell is this six-tailed red centipede?
Mutant species?
Ryan frowned, puzzled.
He also discovered that the adult centipedes in this hall had one more tail than what was generally recorded in the encyclopedia...
Influenced by his teacher Irubek, he is now considered a half-baked biologist.
Seeing the "abnormality" of these multi-tailed centipedes in front of him, he immediately analyzed that the cause of this situation was either the bloodline of the insects in this nest or environmental factors...
However, because of the assimilation ointment, the bugs did not notice Ryan, an outlier. They just crawled along his feet. Occasionally, a few strayed and climbed up his trouser legs, but he shook them off.
When Ryan saw this, he felt very uncomfortable due to intensive phobia.
He originally planned to turn around and leave, but he always felt that there was a faint light flickering in the darkness.
At first I thought I was seeing things, but when I looked closely, there was indeed light.
Colorful lights.
The place where these insects are most concentrated is the direction where the light source is flashing.
After thinking about it, Ryan decided to bite the bullet and go in to take a look.
This hall would gather so many poisonous insects and allow the [Multi-tailed Frost Poison Centipede] to evolve into six tails. He felt that environmental factors would have a great impact.
There must be something strange in this hall.
…
Passing through the insect swarm, Ryan had a close contact with these insects.
At first, Ryan could still find a gap to step on, but after a few steps, the ground was so densely packed with bugs that it was impossible to step on it.
He could only wade on the ground, for fear that he would step on a bunch of centipedes and kill them, which would cause an insect riot.
Originally, he thought it was "difficult to move" among the centipede group, but after walking a short distance, Ryan compared them with other groups of poisonous creatures and suddenly felt that the centipedes were quite "friendly".
At least it's cool, doesn't have a bad odor, and isn't very aggressive.
It's not as disgusting as the spiders, toads, scorpions, venomous snakes, and slimy green poisonous slugs in the next area...
Moreover, those things eat their own kind...
Looking around, the hall was simply a big gathering of poisonous creatures.
Almost every type of poisonous insect has its own area, which is clearly divided.
And Ryan happened to be in the centipede's area.
Ryan walked another hundred meters, got closer, and finally saw the source of the colorful light.
In the center of the hall, there is a silver holy grail more than half a meter tall, emitting a dreamy rainbow-colored halo...
The light was very dim, but in the endless darkness, it looked extremely strange.
And on the rock wall above the Holy Grail , there is something like a stalactite.
A drop of colorful "water" was dripping from the tip of the stalactite.
Tick, tick, tick…
Perhaps it was because the water had been dripping for countless tens of thousands of years, and then it condensed into a ball of colorful crystals on the Holy Grail, like a large "colorful ice cream".
What's even more strange is that there was a circle around the Holy Grail, with various poisonous insect "leaders" that looked difficult to mess with.
Looking at them, they seem to be breathing out poisonous mist.
It was like a group of smokers gathered together, puffing away, looking like they were enjoying it.
Take a breath of colored mist, then exhale some poisonous gas, which evaporates on the ceiling, merges into the water, and drips down the holy grail along the stalactites; take another breath...
The cycle repeats itself.
"It turns out that poisonous insects evolved for this reason!"
After seeing this scene, Ryan finally understood.
He recognized the origins of many poisons, but generally, the ones here were a little more strange than those recorded in the Encyclopedia.
Toads with horns on their heads, spiders with glowing eyes, poisonous snakes with legs growing out of their bellies...
They all seem to be “big guys”, the kind that you can’t mess with.
…
Ryan also understood that the reason why so many poisonous insects gathered in this hall was all because of the silver holy grail carved with ancient patterns.
The poisonous gases in the air are a mixture of the poisonous gases exhaled by those poisonous insects.
"What on earth is this Holy Grail?"
Although Ryan didn't understand it clearly, he knew it must be a treasure.
The colorful crystal in the cup, which had been condensed for countless years, was also extremely poisonous. But for the extraordinary who needed toxins, it was definitely a top treasure.
For example, Ryan himself, although he has advanced to the [Voodoo Master] and has a good resistance to poison, to achieve the level of being immune to all poisons, he still needs to constantly use various toxins to stimulate the body's immune system and increase toxin resistance.
This "colorful crystal" that is a fusion of various biological toxins is a good choice!
"I didn't expect it to be a 'Poison Crystal', and it comes in so many colors!"
When Ryan saw this thing, the intelligent brain automatically pushed out several material names that matched the crystal in front of him.
The material that matches the conditions most closely is the [Highly Toxic Crystal], which is recorded in the secret book of the Coleman tribe's inherited witch ritual.
In certain highly toxic environments, toxins can condense into crystals over time.
Highly toxic and volatile.
He had seen something similar in the material warehouse of "Elder Insect Master" Yimuyu.
But those [Poisonous Crystals] are all of a single color, and the largest is no bigger than a fingernail.
And in front of us, this "colorful crystal" is as big as two footballs!
Although the creatures in the mist are no higher than level five, including poisonous insects, there was no such restriction in ancient times. It is conceivable that the poison in the crystal in the cup will give him a big surprise!
If he could really adapt to this mixture of toxins, the common biological poisons in the world would probably be unable to do anything to him!
…
“Baby…”
Ryan's eyes were filled with passion. When he saw the treasure emitting colorful light in front of him, he immediately decided that he must hold it in his hands.
However, the limit for him to be able to walk here and see the Holy Grail clearly is already the limit.
Now, with every breath he took, he felt an intense burning sensation in his respiratory tract, and his clothes began to be gradually corroded.
This was just the poisonous gas volatilizing in the air, which was enough to keep him away. So you can imagine how fierce the toxin that had condensed into crystals would be?
If it were really injected into the body, it would probably cause a high-level extraordinary person to die instantly.
However, the more this happened, the more Ryan felt that the colorful crystal and the Holy Grail were both treasures.
If you really master this kind of poison, you will have an extra killer weapon to deal with your enemies in the future!
When Ryan thought of this, he didn't leave in a hurry.
Anyway, he is the only one in the underground palace now.
This highly toxic environment is also the best place to improve his resistance to toxins.
He was still more than a hundred meters away from the Holy Grail, but once his body developed resistance to the mixed toxins in the air, he would be able to get closer.
"But... those insect kings and the like are a bit of a hassle."
Ryan frowned as he looked at the various strange poisonous insects around him.
He thought that if he took the Holy Grail away, the insects would go crazy.
However, when his poison resistance is strong enough to get close to the Holy Grail, the toxins of these insects will not pose much of a threat to him.
I thought, if I could just rob the place and run away, it shouldn't be a big problem.
…
Ryan stayed in the pile of bugs like this.
After he found that the centipedes did not bite him, he ignored them. He put on a hood, plugged up all the holes on his body, and began to meditate in the pile of insects.
The swarm of insects overwhelmed him, but he didn't care and remained calm.
Then, after the body had adapted to the toxin concentration, it moved closer, meditated again, and moved closer again...
The progress is very slow, often taking only about one meter an hour.
The closer you get to the Holy Grail, the more toxins there are in the air.
His breathing became increasingly difficult.
At first it was like breathing air, then water, then mud, then…
Eventually I got more and more used to it.
Ryan followed those drug addicts, puffing out smoke with a look of enjoyment...
In addition to septic toxins, neurotoxins, frost, burning, corrosion... among those toxins, there are also some strange toxins that can make people have strange hallucinations.
Let Ryan inhale it, and there is also a feeling of "being able to transcend the world".
I have to admit, it was an amazing experience.
However, because of the "intelligent brain", he can monitor his physical condition at any time. Although he is immersed in poisonous gas, nothing will go wrong.
And so, two days and two nights passed.
Ryan's body had almost completely adapted to the toxins here, and then, just as he was thinking about how to avoid the "bosses" of the innermost poisonous insects and snatch the Holy Grail.
By chance, a group of uninvited guests broke in.
…
"Eh...someone is finally here?"
When Ryan heard the noise, he was not surprised but happy.
The maze above is no longer dangerous now. It won't be difficult to get out if you spend some time.
Individual hunters may be trapped for ten days or half a month, but for those large and powerful noble hunting groups, it will definitely not be a problem for them.
As soon as people came in, the insect swarm began to stir...
