Chapter 137: Challenged

I went closer to the magmatic current, the heat was still not hot enough to harm me even if it was hot enough to literally melt stone. But I needed to cause a reaction here otherwise I won't have a chance to leave.

I pulled a few of my pills and threw them into the lava current. Now, usually, anything you'd throw in lava would end up melted and fused with the lava. Yet Qi is different, since everything is harmonized with Qi, it can actually affect it, and poison can work.

If I were to consider the Fire Vein as a living thing, then it too can be poisoned, and I did just so. Using a metal type poison also, for reasons that would be clear later as I'm about a hundred percent sure what the result of this situation will be.

Soon, the pills melted and began to disharmonize with the lava current, making the lava change color from bright red to a slight tinge of purple.

I immediately pulled my flying sword and rose up into the elevator hole. My goal was simple, to agitate the fire vein with poison and have it erupt. 

Toxic fumes began surging up from the volcano and they rose to extreme speeds surging all the way up.

The result should be obvious as the whole place began trembling as I ran up, the small hole that was making the elevator entrance began shaking as rocks began falling. I arrived back at the fourth floor only to find the people there already dead. The toxic fumes had assaulted them, and since they couldn't use Qi to save themselves the result was obvious.

I didn't mean to kill them, but this was the only way for me to leave this place.

I sat inside the room and pulled a few healing pills I had on my bag, I threw them near me and rested against the wall of my room.

It took a few more minutes than I anticipated but the Qi restriction on the prison was soon eliminated. 

A few cultivators immediately flew down to the bottom of the cave while I felt several waves of divine sense washing over the whole building, me included. 

One cultivator came to my floor, looked around, and sighed as he saw the dead bodies of the cultivators, but when he approached me, the first thing he noticed was the few pills scattered on the ground near me.

He picked one up, inspected it then pulled my pouch, while I feigned being unconscious.

He, without regard to personal property looked through the pouch, which was something I already expected him to do, besides some minor items I had on me that weren't worth taking and a few pills, the cultivator didn't find anything of value, so he placed the pouch back where it was and shook me a bit.

"Wake up!" he said.

I slowly opened my bloodshot eyes, which was easy to do, since I could control poison, I could easily fake being poisoned.

"Damn, you really have a strong life force, let's go," he said.

"Who are you? and  What happened?" I asked.

"I'm a sect elder, and the prison's fire vein acted up, it's erupting, and it released poisonous fumes, you're lucky to have smuggled these pills, the others weren't as resourceful as you, though." He said.

Looking around, I took a deep breath as if shocked, then immediately began coughing.

"Don't breath in!" he shouted, "Regulate your Qi, and take another healing pill," he said as he gave me one of my own pills, without mentioning the fact that he pocketed the rest.

I took the pill and placed it in my mouth, usually, a healing pill would do more damage to me than anything else, I'm poison and a healing pill contradicts my own nature.

But I just had it on my mouth and faked that I was absorbing the pill. The Elder flew me up and out of the prison and went back in.

Surprisingly, there were a few other survivors, those who were on the higher floors mainly, they weren't affected a lot by the fumes, but they were all disoriented and at a loss.

A few more cultivators came in, and instead of letting the ones that were trapped go, we were actually forced to sit together and were held, guarded by an elder. After all we're all criminals.

Soon, two elders came back out, with ugly expressions on their faces.

"What happened?" asked the elder who 'saved me' from the prison.

"I thought this was an act of sabotage, but it seems I was wrong, there were residues of Metal-Based poison in the magma currents. Seems that there was a hidden poison pocket that finally broke, it mixed with the Fire Vine and caused it to erupt. It's a death zone there.

'Good, with this, they'll never suspect that it's an unnatural cause.'

"What about the ones at the ninth floor?" the elder asked.

"Not even their remains are left, the eruption caused the lava level to rise, it consumed everything, It's hell down there, even we couldn't dive deeper to inspect more." The elder said.

"Well, that's that. What do we do with these children then?" the elder asked.

"They suffered a fate worse than prison, I say they should be pardoned, also we don't even have a place to keep them in, just let them back." the elder shrugged and left.

'Damn, sometimes I surprise myself with how smart I am,' I grinned stroking my own ego.

"You heard the elder, heal up and go back to your dorms, you're pardoned, but if you commit more crimes, the sect won't forgive you!" the elder guarding us said.

I remained among the kids and didn't leave until a few of them moved first, I didn't need to heal up since I wasn't injured with the fumes but I had to keep up appearance.

Going back home, I sat down and continued working on my alchemy as if nothing had happened.

I would still occasionally feel a divine sense casually scanning the surrounding, but this was only natural, the sect wasn't fully convinced that the cause of the eruption was natural, but they couldn't refute it, still, they kept watch on everyone who survived.

I remained under surveillance but didn't do anything outside of the norms. I even attended a couple of cultivation classes that talked about the Core Creation Realm, and how one could solidify their foundation using natural Qi. Something I didn't need but had to listen to just to keep up the appearances.

A few days later, as I was still thinking of ways to get into the inner sect while faking the fact that I was vehemently studying, an event happened.

I was walking from the study area and back to my lodging when an Inner Disciple entered the Outer Sect.

He was a tall man with rippling muscles and a long flamboyant mane of hair, he looked like a barbarian especially with the massive sword strapped to his back, and with the dark blue sect robs he wore that fully revealed his chest, it clearly stated him to be an inner disciple.

This was rare, for an inner disciple to go back to the outer sect, it only meant that they needed something from the outer sect, to either recruit henchmen, or to kill someone, and based on the look on that man's face, it was clearly the latter.

It all became perfectly clear when a few kids immediately dipped out of his way as one of them mentioned the name, Yu Bai.

'Oh, so that' him.'

He was the one who sent those three guys at me in prison wasn't satisfied with how things happened. The fact that I survived came to his ears soon, and his henchmen's disappearance was odd to him.

He immediately roared as his presence was known through the entirety of the outer sect.

"XIAO MENG! SHOW YOURSELF!" he roared and with enough of a powerful blast of a voice that everyone heard him.

Immediate, the few people that were next to me dipped away leaving me all alone and against the gaze of the inner disciple, "So it's you!" he said and charged at me with enough speed that his initial dash broke the ground under him.

The man's fist was clenched and readied to deliver a killing blow at me.

I could deal with this man in many ways, but any of them will reveal my identity, using X or Y is not optional, and using poison will still bring a lot of attention especially since the incident at the lava hadn't cleared yet. But thanks to my greed of seeking many things to learn at once… I could easily deal with this rash person.

I stomped my foot on the ground, remembering the feeling of that one step I took facing my heavenly tribulation.

A boulder rose from underground as I pulled my brush and wrote, "INDOMITABLE!" in the most aggressive calligraphy that was imbued with restriction.

The man's fist struck the boulder, and the boulder withstood the blow. Not only that, the sound of broken bones was clear to everyone's ears as the man's fist cracked against the boulder.

The boulder's restriction soon dissipated as it fell down, revealing a shocked, and clearly stunned Yu Bai.

"What the hell? Did a Core Cultivator just stop a Nascent Soul cultivator's attack?" one of the people watching spoke.

'Shit, so much for keeping a low profile, but I can use this. A ticket to the inner sect, I guess that Yu Bai, you'll be paying for it, with your body that is…hold up, why does that sound kind of wrong?'