Chapter 678: Different Colors - 678
Skymender narrowed his eyes in confusion. "Purple? Are you colorblind or something?"
The Imperial Scholar narrowed his eyes in confusion. "What are you talking about? I have perfect vision. Perhaps you are colorblind."
Skymender knew for a fact that he wasn't colorblind, as he had been tested at young.
He thought for a moment, before walking away. In another area, a servant hurriedly walked through the halls.
Skymender opened a door and saw him.
"Hey." He said.
The servant stopped for a moment. "Yes?"
"What color is this?" Skymender asked as he held up the vial.
"Red." The servant said as he turned and walked away even faster than before.
Skymender turned around, where the Imperial Scholar stood with furrowed brows. "What exactly is going on?"
Neither of them had the slightest answer. It seemed magical.
"Could it be that every person sees this poison differently?" Skymender asked, though he was not expecting an answer.
"In that case, what if what is different for every person is not only the color, but the effects?" The Imperial Scholar said.
Skymender held the vial with his bare hands, and he felt a cold feeling coming off of it.
He handed it to the Imperial Scholar, who saw it in a purple color.
The Imperial Scholar grabbed it and examined it. Suddenly, he felt a headache. It was very light, not enough to really impair him, but it was obvious.
"I feel a slight headache coming on." The Imperial Scholar said.
"Is it cold at all?" Skymender asked.
"Not even slightly. It is completely room temperature." The Imperial Scholar said.
After a moment, he spoke again.
"The Emperor needs to hear of this. Forgive me, but I will be borrowing this for a moment."
Skymender nodded. "As long as you can figure out what it is, you can even keep it."
At this point, Skymender was entirely confused.
They moved through the Imperial Palace swiftly, soon reaching the throne room. The Imperial Scholar signaled to the guards, who opened the door, and Skymender followed him inside.
The Emperor looked up from some papers, and seeing the Imperial Scholar walking so quickly, perked up.
"What do you need, Fei Luzi?" The Emperor asked.
As always, Sword Master Shang was standing to his side.
The Imperial Scholar held up the vial. "What color is this, your Imperial Majesty?"
The Emperor looked somewhat confused. "Black, a very very deep black."
Sword Master Shang turned his head in confusion. The Imperial Scholar noticed it.
"What color do you see, Sword Master Shang?" The Imperial Scholar asked.
He answered. "I see the color red, like the color of blood."
The Imperial Scholar turned and had the door opened. Pointing to Skymender, he spoke to a servant. "Find the one he talked to earlier."
The servant nodded. It was a vague request, but it was enough.
As the servant left, the Emperor realized just how important this was. The Imperial Scholar, though he had a calm front, was clearly not calm at all.
"Inform me."
"Skymender created this poison. It is one which nearly killed him a while back. He succeeded this time, but for some reason, every single person sees a different color. In addition, it also seems to have different effects on those that hold it." The Imperial Scholar said.
The Emperor beckoned with his hand. "Let me see."
The Imperial Scholar walked forward and handed it to him.
As soon as the Emperor held it, he frowned. "Unpleasant."
"What do you feel?" The Imperial Scholar asked.
"It is as if it is draining something from me, though so uselessly that whatever it is draining is instantly returning. Still, I don't like it at all."
He turned and handed it to Sword Master Shang.
He held it and spoke. "I feel something like loss, as if you saw someone slain on a battlefield. It is incredibly faint though, as if it is just something you read about in a short story."
Sword Master Shang's was surprisingly well described, and Skymender realized that he was actually quite good with words. As expected of someone so legendary.
It had to be noted that Skymender was currently in a room with the three greatest beings in the Empire. Though he was clearly not on the same level, nobody was treating him like a lower individual.
He naturally did not feel like he was lower than them, but for them to somewhat act like that to a 12 year old child was quite surprising.
As they discussed for a while, the Emperor and Sword Master Shang gaining interest in it, the servant Skymender had spoken to earlier came in. He was clearly terrified. He hadn't realized that Skymender was important enough to casually be in this room, and was scared that he had disrespected or offended him.
The Imperial Scholar spoke. "Hold this."
The servant did so without hesitation.
"What does it feel like?" The Imperial Scholar asked.
"It is a bit warm, sir." The servant said.
"Describe the color better." The Imperial Scholar said.
"It is red like fire." The servant said.
"Alright, you may leave."
The servant breathed a sigh of relief and left in a hurry.
At this point, it didn't seem that there was any further way to understand this poison than testing it.
After thinking, the Imperial Scholar thought of a way. Of course, he decided to see if Skymender agreed. Regardless of everything, it was his poison.
"If you let me test this, I will compensate you in every way possible, from materials used, including the antidote plant, to labor and danger pay."
Skymender nodded. "Of course."
This was all the Imperial Scholar needed.
He called a servant in.
After speaking, it was decided that a prisoner would be used to test this.
Skymender and the Imperial Scholar left.
Though the Emperor was too busy to personally attend, he requested that the results be brought to him immediately.
Skymender and the Imperial Scholar sent the prisoner to an observation room, poison vial in hand. In order to reduce his sentence by half, all he had to do was open the vial for a few seconds and close it. Considering he was in prison for the rest of his life, this was a one time deal that he would never see again.
Skymender and the Imperial Scholar stood above, behind a one way glass wall.
They could see everything happening inside the room.
Chapter 679: Fear Poison? - 679
The man sat down in the center of the room and looked down at the vial. He naturally knew that what he was doing was dangerous, but it was his only chance of freedom. What he desired most was to finally experience freedom, and all of that was based on this very moment.
He took a deep breath, and opened up the vial. After five seconds, he closed it once again.
Nothing seemed to happen. He looked around. Excitedly, he stood up. He had done everything he was told to do, and he could now leave.
Suddenly, he paused, and his body fell stiffly to the ground.
Skymender and the Imperial Scholar looked up from above. Although it was hard to tell exactly what happened, it seemed that the effects were different for the man and Skymender.
They waited an hour, hopefully enough time for the poison to disperse, before the Imperial Scholar sent a servant down to retrieve the body.
He went in, and without issue, brought the body out.
"Imperial Scholar, he is alive." The servant said in surprise.
The Imperial Scholar examined the man, and after a moment, spoke. "He is not dead, indeed, but he has fallen into a coma. There does not seem to have been any sort of effect on the heart."
Both the Imperial Scholar and Skymender knew what this meant. Not only was the color of the poison different for different people, but effects were as well.
Based on the questions they had asked the man before, he had seen the vial as the color of grey. It was still hard to put any pieces together, but based on what they had seen, it seemed to be connected to the mind.
Skymender knew that whatever poison he had accidentally created may end up being greater than any other. Because whatever this was, it could not be created purposefully.
Neither the Imperial Scholar, nor Skymender, felt as though they could rest until they had an explanation for what was happening.
Therefore, they continued the testing. Since they had guessed that its changes in color and effect were based on the mind, they began to ask questions to prisoners before testing it on them.
The next person to enter was someone who saw the color blue.
It was not the same icy blue that Skymender saw, but the color of the sky.
The prisoner sat down and opened the vial. After five seconds he closed it.
He stood up, when suddenly, he got dizzy. He held his head, before beginning to scream.
His body began to writhe around on the floor, though he seemed unconscious. After around ten minutes, the man stopped moving. A puddle of blood had formed under him.
He stayed completely still. They waited an hour before sending a servant inside to retrieve the body.
"This one is dead, Imperial Scholar."
They had expected as such. The Imperial Scholar sent the servant away, and with Skymender present, began to dissect the man.
After around an hour, the Imperial Scholar spoke. "It looks as if his insides were squished. Though nothing abnormal happened on the outside, on the inside, it seems as though he had been crushed by a heavy force, or had fallen to the ground."
This made Skymender think. The man had said that his vial was blue like the sky, and the Imperial Scholar said that it looked as though he had fallen or been crushed.
"Perhaps the color one sees relates to the effect." Skymender said.
Since he saw sky blue, and his insides seemed as if he had fallen, it made sense. In fact, they had previously guessed such a thing, but this made it seem obvious.
"But what makes someone see a certain color, and in turn the effect. Or perhaps the effect decides the color." The Imperial Scholar said.
They began to go through the man's data. He had answered hundreds of questions. Skymender eventually stumbled upon a question and answer that made his eyes widen.
"Look!"
The Imperial Scholar looked at where Skymender was pointing.
"Biggest fear, heights."
They looked at each other.
"Could it be?"
It seemed to indicate that the poison's color and effect were based on fears.
This was an incredible conclusion to come to. It meant that the mind could affect the body through this poison.
They immediately set up another round of tests.
"Red like fire, as the servant had seen before, grey like metal, and green like a plant."
They had three prisoners test it all out.
The first one began to scream in agony and scratch at his skin, rolling around.
When he died and was examined, they found that his insides were hot, but not burnt.
The second one began to scream and run around. It wasn't constant, but around every five seconds, he would scream in pain and begin to bleed from the holes in his body.
He eventually died, and when they examined him, they saw that his insides had occasional holes in them.
The third one curled up on the ground and slowly suffered until death.
Upon examination, it seemed as though all of the nutrients and fats in his body had been used up.
"Biggest fears - Fire, being stabbed, and starvation."
Everything seemed to line up. This seemed to be a complete conclusion of the poison's abilities.
However, Skymender was confused. If this was the whole truth, then why did his heart turn icy?
He simply did not fear such a thing.
He shared this confusion with the Imperial Scholar, who agreed.
"I don't fear anything, yet it seems from holding it that I can be affected. If simply not having fear could counter it, then it would be a reasonable conclusion. However, that is not the truth. Or perhaps, it is only a part of the truth." The Imperial Scholar said.
The Imperial Scholar's mind was spinning as he spoke, and he finally seemed to think of the answer.
"Skymender. Do you value your emotions?"
Skymender didn't know how to answer the question. "I suppose."
"More specifically, your family, right?" The Imperial Scholar asked.
Skymender nodded his head. "Yes."
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