95: Configure a rare poison

"Black Widow." Tang Ping's eyes lit up; he had heard of this venomous spider's infamous name.

Receiving Zhang Xile's various venomous insects, Tang Ping quickly inspected them.

Zhang Xile used various beverage bottles to hold the venomous insects, and some of the fiercer-looking ones were in beer bottles sealed with corks.

Zhang Xile had also affixed labels to them, detailing information about each venomous insect.

Golden Ringed Hornet: A bite can cause anaphylactic shock and kidney failure. After the apocalypse, unknown changes may lead to necrosis of the internal organs.

Black Widow: Poisoning can cause severe muscle pain and spasms. In severe cases, it may lead to difficulty breathing, convulsions, and shock. After the apocalypse, the venom is suspected to carry mental attack capabilities, causing severe mental pain.

Stinging Nettle Caterpillar: Touching it causes intense burning pain. After the apocalypse, it mutates, and contact poisoning will cause skin symptoms similar to burns.

Poisonous Fly: Carries various viruses, spreads diseases... In addition to insects, there were also some poisonous plants, whose toxicity was even more potent than that of the venomous insects.

There was Gelsemium elegans, Aconitum, Cicuta, Strychnos nux-vomica, Nerium oleander, Phytolacca acinosa, and Urtica.

There were also psychedelic plants, such as Datura, Hyoscyamus niger, Argemone mexicana, and Rubroflamula.

Tang Ping didn't recognize many of the plants, but looking at the descriptions, he instantly felt an uncontrollable urge.

He immediately opened the mini-game, Five Poisons Nest, and first put all the poisons and venomous insects into the warehouse. Once inside the game warehouse, these poisons and venomous insects would remain in their initial state, so there was no need to worry about the venomous insects dying.

"Let's try to concoct a wondrous poison first!"

Tang Ping's eyes burned with excitement as he first selected several poisonous plants.

Lacquer tree sap: Contact causes skin redness and blistering.

Nettle: Stem and leaf trichomes secrete formic acid, causing burning pain and rash upon contact.

Dioscorea bulbifera: Ingestion causes oral burns.

Wolfbane: Contact can cause dermatitis.

He would start with these four to test the waters!

Tang Ping added them to the medicinal cauldron and clicked 'Concoct'.

The medicinal cauldron in the game interface began to bubble with various sickly green hues, and a pestle slowly stirred.

Below it was a progress bar. Tang Ping waited quietly. After becoming a mini-game, concocting wondrous poisons was easy; he just needed to put in the materials, and he only had to wait.

Soon, ten minutes passed, and a small bottle popped directly out of the medicinal cauldron, radiating a faint glow.

Clearly, it was a successful concoction.

"[level one Wondrous Poison: Use can cause pustules to grow on the skin of flesh-and-blood creatures, leading to severe ulceration.]"

"I actually succeeded on the first try." Tang Ping was pleasantly surprised as he checked the information on his first wondrous poison.

A level one Wondrous Poison has a great effect on level one transcendent creatures, but its effect will be greatly reduced on second level transcendent creatures.

As the level of transcendent creatures increases, low-level wondrous poisons will essentially become ineffective.

However, Tang Ping only used ordinary plants, slightly mutated ones, so being able to concoct a level one Wondrous Poison was already very good.

With the first success, Tang Ping was full of confidence and began to concoct various wondrous poisons again.

Success, failure, failure, success, success, failure, success, success, failure, failure!

Bottles filled with various wondrous poisons appeared on the medicine rack.

Many wondrous poisons, even if concocted with the same medicinal materials, would have some differences in their effects when they finally emerged.

For instance, with the first type of poison concoction, some focused on causing pustules, some on skin ulceration, and others on burning pain.

Of course, Tang Ping could choose a formula generated during a previous concoction process. By clicking on a formula to concoct, he would obtain the exact same wondrous poison.

Most of the randomly generated wondrous poisons, while not identical in effect,

had one thing in common: they were all basically level one.

"A fifty percent success rate is quite high." Tang Ping didn't know if this success rate was boosted by his Vow Badge.

However, with such a high success rate, he felt it probably was.

Finally, Tang Ping brought out the prepared, climactic materials!

They were all poisons of the psychedelic type!

Datura, Hyoscyamus niger, Argemone mexicana, Rubroflamula, plus the Great Emperor Moth's phosphorescent powder!

"I wonder what level of wondrous poison I can concoct this time!" Tang Ping had prepared five sets of materials in total.

"Concoct!"

Failure!

Success!

"[Level Three Wondrous Poison: Possesses a strong psychedelic effect, causing the target to fall into a hallucination of being surrounded by countless insects and ants.]"

The third time, success!

"[Level Three Wondrous Poison: Possesses a strong psychedelic effect, causing the target to be unable to distinguish friend from foe and to become mentally deranged.]"

The fourth time, success!

"[level four Wondrous Poison: Possesses mental attack capabilities, causing the target's mind to fall into chaos, becoming dazed on the spot, and unable to perceive external conditions.]"

The fifth time, failure!

"Three successes, not bad." Tang Ping looked happily at the three poisons. Indeed, with higher-grade materials, the level of the concocted wondrous poisons would greatly increase!

Two Level Three Wondrous Poisons, and even one level four Wondrous Poison.

Next up was cultivating Gu worms.

The originally empty medicine rack was now filled with various colorful medicine bottles.

These medicine bottles were automatically generated by the mini-game, a small perk after Five Poisons Nest was gamified.

Moreover, these small medicine bottles had excellent sealing effects; no matter how powerful the poison, it could be perfectly sealed.

Clicking the button in the upper left corner, he switched to the Gu worm cultivation interface.

Tang Ping took out one or two hundred red imported fire ants from the venomous insect warehouse.

Besides ants, he temporarily didn't take out any other venomous insects.

Because the more uniform the type of venomous insect, the higher the probability of cultivating Gu worms. The downside was that the more uniform the venomous insect, the lower the probability of producing high-quality Gu worms.

Tang Ping wasn't thinking of cultivating incredibly powerful Gu worms all at once right now. He simply decided to use red imported fire ants, combined with the wondrous poison he first concocted.

He would try to see if he could refine Gu worms.

In fact, besides adding wondrous poisons, there was also a special additive.

This additive had no restrictions; he could add whatever he wanted.

However, adding special items would cause a huge fluctuation in the success rate of Gu worm cultivation; the probability might increase or greatly decrease.

Below this special item, there was also a note stating that when clicking on a Gu worm formula, selecting an appropriate special item to add could greatly reduce the failure rate.

Since he didn't have any Gu worms yet, Tang Ping didn't consider it.

As for special items, Tang Ping hadn't thought of what he could add.

"Red imported fire ants, combined with the wondrous poison that causes pustules and skin ulceration, should have a much higher success rate." Tang Ping thought to himself as he added all the materials.

There were five Gu worm cultivation slots, all filled with red imported fire ants.

All the red imported fire ants Zhang Xile had caught for him were also used up.

"It needs forty-eight hours? It seems I'll have to wait two days to see if any Gu worms have been successfully cultivated."