Reading the book had taken Tian Mingyun several days. He had done very little else other than eating, sleeping, and reading. Over the course of his reading, although he was a child, he had grown wary of the methods that the book advised. Painful toxins were being injected into his body again and again as the harm was directed at the parts needed to make him stronger in the long run... Such a thing did not sound very possible to him.

Yet, even a wise man can be lured with gold let alone a fool, as such, all of his wariness faded when he read out a certain recipe. The recipe was not even notable, scribbled to the side of a page as if it was put there for completion's sake.

"Injuries accumulated in the body prior to the cultivation's beginning can slow down the progress of cultivation greatly. As such, if one is injured or crippled in any manner, there exists a minor venom art even mortals can use to aid in healing crippled parts."

The recipe was not complex, and even if the rest of the book was full of herbs and animal parts Tian Mingyun did not recognize, he recognized the main ingredient in this one. The book called it "False Yuan Fungus", a degenerated and far less effective version of a low grade herb. The small drawing of it on the page was identical to the fever causing edible mushrooms that nobody ate.

Though of course, even if it was the simplest recipe in the book, it was still a monumental task for a 10 year old orphan. The recipe required a cast iron cauldron, charcoal fire, half a cauldron of False Yuan Fungus, and a quarter cauldron of pine resin diluted by a bowl of horse blood.

Tian Mingyun was getting a headache just with the materials, while the method to prepare and inject this concoction into his bloodstream was a whole other matter. Before even deciding to prepare this recipe, he looked at the drawings of the human blood vessels behind the book and tried to find each spot on his own body. A boy in the middle of the woods was just naked and trying to find where his blood was flowing the strongest.

Another few days went by, Tian Mingyun was now resorting to eating roots and berries just so he could spend more time practicing. At this point, he could at least find his blood vessels without looking at the drawing and was confident that he could go into the city to scavenge the materials he needed.

Tian Mingyun first went searching for a cast iron cauldron, according to the book it was just any old cauldron that was thick, heavy, and completely black. He first went to the ruined buildings but had no luck even after hours of searching. But, instead of being disappointed this scavenging had made Tian Mingyun even more energetic, he was used to looking for stuff in heaps of trash or ruins.

By the time the sun had just set and the sky had gotten dark, Tian Mingyun had a clever idea. He climbed over to a roof and looked around, since the city was in ruins and most buildings had collapsed, the only light around was when people were cooking. He figured that this was the best way to find a cauldron, by following the lights and smoke of fires people had set up.

To his luck, he saw a couple of smoke trails rising nearby, he noted their place in his head and then rushed to the closest one which was only a couple of Li away.
(One Li is about 500 meters)

He hid his small figure in the shadows and looked over at who was around the fire. It turned out to be one of the kids who were throwing stones at him a few days earlier, as well as his mother and sister. His sister was even smaller than the little bully and looked very thin. Tian Mingyun listened to their conversation while looking at their cauldron.

"We should be thankful... Even if your father is gone and the house burned down, at least the heavens saw fit to leave you two alive while the house burned down. We will surely be alright if we endure." the mother was talking to cheer up her kids, but her eyes looked listless and hopeless.

"I am going to rebuild our home mom! Don't worry, look I already started earning some iron coins by turning in the soldier's tokens to those army guys at the tent outside the city." the boy proudly handed over a few bent and dull iron circles over to his mother with a smile on his face.

"You have grown so much, little Zheng... Your mother is ashamed that she has to rely on you to buy food from now on..." The mother was nearly about to cry from shame, but the little boy consoled her.

However it seemed that the little girl was the only one being ignored, she reached her bowl into the cauldron to get some porridge, but her hand was quickly slapped away by her mother.

"No! What did I tell you, Yan!? You are not allowed to eat anything but half a bowl until we mourn the 50th day of your father's passing! Who would want to marry an unfilial daughter? Not to mention, you should stay slim and pretty if you want to be taken in by a rich family's concubine at the very least! How do you think I managed to marry an army soldier while I was nothing but a chamber pot cleaner's daughter!"

Tian Mingyun was already getting a headache from her yelling, but it seemed that being a girl was hard in its own difficulties too. Tian Mingyun was a bit happy to not have a mother who told her not to eat, and he made his way to the other fire to avoid the headache.

The other fire was surrounded by 3 men, and they had a cast iron cauldron atop the fire too. The 3 men were oddly dressed, they had farmer hats while bearing swords around their waists. Tian Mingyun started listening in on them out of curiosity.

"We can not delay much longer, we have already seen enough. We need to go and deliver a report."

"We could just write a report if one of us knew how to read and write..."

"What would a learned man do as a slaver? We can't read or write, so our feet have to work harder. We need to walk out tomorrow and tell them that there are plenty of children here."

"None of the women are pretty though, so it is not going to be a good harvest this time."

"Well following the Azure Whale County's army around like this and getting slaves from ruined cities beats raiding villages with men in them. Not to mention, good harvest or not we need to get all the kids if we are to meet our quota."

"What quota?"

"Ai... This fool did not listen to the boss again. You can't read or write, but at least you can listen when we gather at camp. One of those demonic sects wants to buy a huge batch of boys again. The boss said all the boys in 4 cities would barely suffice. We need to get it done before the season ends. So we can only hope the Azure Whale County's army keeps winning. We need more cities to raid!"

Tian Mingyun understood the gist of it. He knew what slaves and slavers were. He also knew that he did not want to become one. He decided that it was best to go away and nap in some cellar or basement and come back when these guys were asleep to steal their cauldron. He did not feel bad stealing from people like them, and it was not his first time stealing something anyway.

That night, right before Tian Mingyun woke up, his mind had a breakthrough. As if to help him cope with the cruelty of these men that he just overheard, his body allowed him to understand what death was through a dream. The mudfish he had eaten were not asleep on the fire, but dead. If he were eaten he would die. The children in the streets that he took clothes from were all dead. The war had killed so many in the city. The men who were talking about taking people as slaves were better off dead.

When Tian Mingyun woke up, he woke up with fierce eyes facing the full moon. He had not harmed another human so far, even if they were hitting him, but he suddenly felt the urge to inflict harm onto those slavers. He did not have the words for it, but his mind was already brimming with plans.

Tian Mingyun decided that crushing down the False Yuan Fungus he found around the city and mixing it into their food was the best choice. This was considered Poison Arts, he guessed. He knew that eating it would give one fever and it was unlikely for someone to die from it, but he was confident that it would at least slow these men down. Since fever only went away after rest, it would take their life if they ran around. Tian Mingyun knew this because he nearly died after running around one winter with a fever.

Tian Mingyun did not have a mortar to pound the fungus down into fine mush, nor would he know how to use one. He simply crushed a bunch of those mushroom caps with a rock and then made that mush into pills using his spit. When his mouth ran dry, he used piss. All around, he had 40 disgusting and ugly looking fever inducing poison pills. He put them all into a satchel made of torn cloth and crawled up to the men's cauldron as quietly as possible. He mixed the pill into the still hot porridge of the men, only after putting aside a clean and untainted bowl of porridge for himself.

Then, he put the porridge into the men's bowls, placed the heavy iron cauldron onto his back, and ran away right as they were waking up. The men took a while to realize what went on. They checked their purses, and their coins were fine. They checked their waists, and their swords were fine. After half an hour of confusion and yelling they noticed their cheap iron cauldron and a worthless wooden bowl was all that was stolen.

These men were dressed as farmers, but they were not poor. A sword was an expensive thing for the common folk to buy, to begin with, and all three of them had one. One good steel sword like the ones these men had could buy 3 months of rice for one family of 4. They were each low ranking slavers in a gang, but they still made more in a year than a farmer would in a decade.

"What madmen are there in this city that steal cauldrons and bowls?"

"They even left us porridge in our bowls for us to drink before they left."

"Aiya... This thief is kinder than my stealing bastard of a father. Hahahaha!"

They laughed and ate, they did not even bother to stand night patrol since no peasant would be mad enough to steal from someone with a sword. These people were all like pigs to the slavers, they always laughed at how a peasant farmer would pay taxes to a noble even if it made them starve. They would not fight back even as they outnumbered a noble 200 to 1. They feared punishment so much, that they would rather die. For these slavers, anyone living under a noble was already a slave.

They talked about such things as they ate the poisoned porridge, complaining of its bad taste after their bowls were each empty. The fever set in only after they had already left the collapsed city walls to rush back and report their boss at camp.

Tian Mingyun felt proud and even collected all the False Yang Fungus into the cauldron on his way back, along with pine resin. He just had to find charcoal and fill his bowl with horse blood now. Things were going faster than he expected. But the realization of what life and death meant settling into his mind when he woke up was still dizzying
for him. He would need horse blood and charcoal now... And a sharp needle.