Not many realized the importance of the sense of touch. For humans, sight was the most important. Without vision it not only made it hard to accomplish everyday tasks, it also removed the ability to read in a standard fashion. The next most important sense for humans was hearing. Combined with sight, they were the only ways for a person to perceive things at a distance with precision. A human’s sense of smell usually wasn’t very developed and while enriching, the loss of this sense was likely the least debilitating. Taste is very similar to smell, and its loss would cause life to lose a lot of luster, but to an outside observer someone without a sense of taste would not seem unusual.

The sense of touch seems secondary like taste or smell, but in actuality it is extremely important. It gives feedback for every action that a person performs. Without it, performing precise motions are many times more difficult. Those barely perceptible sensations are constantly being received and processed for even the most simple of actions. Without the sense of touch, there would be no feedback for your motions. It would be like trying to drive a remotely controlled car that was in another room. You’d have to use another sense to make up for the loss. A person who has lost sensation in one foot could stare down and carefully manipulate their toes, but it would take a lot of time and effort to re-learn the process of carefully shifting their weight to walk without a limp.

At this point, Sage had basically lost feeling in the vast majority of his body. Only a few of his internal organs were still free of the effect as the Blood of Fire cultivation technique already sprang to life, restarting from scratch to reform his Poison Cultivation. It was definitely not pleasant. He couldn’t even muster the strength to speak. He couldn’t properly control his vocal cords or his lungs properly. All that came from him were disjointed wheezing and even a few screeches.

“Ahhh!”

“Well, that’s not very constructive. Since you’ve remembered to mentally communicate, start describing the effects in detail.”

After venting his terror in the mental link, Guan Zhenyan didn’t even acknowledge his pain and instead put him directly to work again. Remembering the debt he had to pay off in order to escape this terrible life, Sage complied. The only way he could get away from this man was to play his games and ‘earn’ enough to pay the guy off.

A week later, Sage had recovered from the Sweet Snow Slumber poison and was already filling a large Storage Gourd with it. After seeing the amount of poison his body could produce, he finally realized just why Guan Zhenyan would go out of his way to take him away from the Shou Empire. By suffering a bit of pain, he could assimilate a new poison and start producing it in large quantities. A normal Fire Bellied Cobra was not very highly ranked, it was very difficult for it to produce poisons at a higher rank than it was. Producing poison was also a very energy intensive operation, so why would a captive beast wish to do it? It would only produce a small amount of poison per day, and even if cruel methods were used to inspire it to create more, if it was pushed too far the beast might just kill itself to spite its captors. On top of that, how could you convince such a beast to completely ruin its poison cultivation for the sake of your profit? That was its main weapon. That would be like convincing a martial artist to completely erase their memory of all their fighting techniques.

Sage, on the other hand, had many other methods to rely upon. He wasn’t a stupid beast, and at a much higher rank than a Fire Bellied Cobra. With the proper motivation, he could suffer the pain of destroying his poison cultivation in exchange for other things. Currently, Guan Zhenyan had still given him a route to freedom. Humans are resilient creatures and despite his knowledge of the bad situation he was in, there was still hope. It wasn’t optimal, but it also wasn’t soul crushing. In exchange for suffering pain on a weekly basis, he was otherwise free to do as he wished.

Each week he’d suffer a new sort of agony. The poisons that Guan Zhenyan tested upon him varied in effect, but nearly all of them were a form of torture. Only a small minority of them had very focused and hard to detect effects. They usually took some time to incubate and then Sage would suddenly be struck by a killing blow out of nowhere. In those cases he’d be pushed to the brink of death by the sudden strike, only to be saved by the Blood of Fire. Only one in twenty of the poisons were ever actually neutralized by the Blood of Fire before they took effect. If Guan Zhenyan’s level as a Poison Master wasn’t so far beyond Sage’s current level, then most of the poisons would be dealt with in this way. Blood of Fire was a very formidable innate ability, and only poisons at or above his rank had a chance of taking effect.

When Guan Zhenyan had mentioned taking Sage as a disciple, he was somewhat interested in learning more about poisons. He was naturally curious about the many supernatural professions of this world and in the past he’d spent little time studying poisons. In the Holy Flame Sect’s Million Skill Library, the Poison Master section was restricted, but in the lower rank area for Doctors there was mention of quite a few. Later, he’d picked up the ‘Thousand Poison Pamphlet’ from a treacherous woman of the Earthdawn Sect. There was also a complete set of techniques and supporting reference books in the Timeless Master’s library. Even so, he’d always had other things to spend his time on and messing around with such dangerous materials had somewhat deterred him. That same squeamishness had also been his impetus for wanting to merge with the Fire Bellied Cobra.

Now, he finally had time and also an able instructor in Guan Zhenyan. When he asked to be trained as a Poison Master, Guan Zhenyan laughed in his face.

“Like I told you before, my disciples merely need to pay the proper fees and they will receive my tutoring. You, Lang Sheng, are still tens of millions in debt to me. Do you think your reputation is so great that you can presume to rack up an even higher line of credit with me? Hah. Just focus on working hard.”

After being in this place for a few months, Sage also got to experience a new form of torture. A normal Fire Bellied Cobra would seek out poisons below their own rank in order to slowly strengthen their own poison cultivation little by little. Guan Zhenyan did not give him that luxury. Now that he’d experienced over a dozen powerful poisons, Guan Zhenyan no longer asked him to dispel his poison cultivation on a weekly basis. Instead, he was used as a mixing bowl. He was inflicted with another poison, experiencing the terrible pain, burning, chill, debilitation, or other horrible sensation. Then, the Blood of Fire would kick in and the new poison would clash with the one inside his Poison Dantian. The new and old poison would battle for superiority, using his body as a battleground.

Thankfully, the Blood of Fire prioritized the protection of his internal organs and he was saved from any fatal effects, but the rest of his body was not so lucky. The battles between poisons would see him suffering the painful sensations of both poisons at the same time and he usually lost consciousness quite quickly. Unfortunately, the quicker he lost consciousness, the more damage the poisons would end up doing to his body. The more damage the poisons did to him, the longer he would be bedridden recovering from his injuries and in some cases he’d even have to waste money on healing pills to recover. He was in a race to earn money so it pushed him to struggle through the pain. He was poisoned over and over again, each time pushing him to improve his tolerance and struggle to stay conscious to reduce his recovery time.

On the plus side, at least I’m learning the names and effects of so many high ranking poisons, first hand. That miser, Guan Zhenyan. I bet if I mentioned it, he’d even charge me to know the name of these poisons.