Chapter 0547: Detoxify

"You mean it's telling you to help it detoxify?" Lu Ming repeated in surprise. She looked carefully at the silver tree core turned into a pincushion by the insidious black thorns sticking out of it. Even from a distance, the black mist emitted by it was dangerous to them.

"Look, Li Luo, I'm not trying to belittle you, but don't you think this level of poison is far too dangerous for us?!" she burst out.

The Thunderpeal Tree was many orders of magnitude stronger than them, and even it had been brought low by these poisonous thorns. How was a mere Resonant Master like Li Luo supposed to deal with it? He would be snuffed out in an instant.

𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

Li Luo inched closer, walking up and down to examine the spikes properly. "It's really quite a crazy poison. I'd be a fool to think I could neutralize it. Besides, they're arranged in a special poison formation that completely seals away the tree core and attacks it with rot and corruption. An ingenious setup.

"But I think the Thunderpeal Tree is not expecting me to do all the work. All it wants... is perhaps an opening out of this formation," he mused to himself. As he spoke this aloud, the tree glowed once briefly as if in agreement.

Lu Ming stared on in wonder.

Li Luo scratched his chin. His poison healing skills were quite average, although he had one advantage—he had three resonances that dealt with poison.

Water resonance, light resonance, wood resonance.

These three together combined produced an antidote effect with rare power, something that he had benefited from many times in the past.

It was the most powerful cocktail that blew away poisons. Although Li Luo was not strong enough to get rid of the poison completely, he should be able to weaken it a little at least.

Perhaps the Thunderpeal Tree had only sent the call out to him after contact, when it realized that he had this unique ability to help. It could sense power much more acutely than humans.

"But still..." Li Luo shook his head. "Brother tree, this poison is a work of genius, and I'm a fool. I wouldn't know where to even begin."

The poison formation was of a complexity far beyond his ken. Even looking at it, he was seeing poison being designed and used in ways that he had never even imagined before. It was an eye-opening experience.

He had a feeling that the poison formation was not so easily unraveled. First, he had to identify the logic used, then he could unravel it. Otherwise, he risked making a gigantic mess of things.

As if hearing Li Luo's words, a little spark of electricity popped up on the surface of a root, running down towards where one poison thorn was deeply buried.

It bounced around, throwing itself madly against the poison mist, eating away a bit of the darkness.

"This thorn's the key, eh, brother tree? If the poison's purged from it, you can be a little freer?" Li Luo asked aloud.

The tree creaked and groaned in response.

Li Luo had met many old people in his life before, and that sort of creaking and groaning sounded vaguely like a yes to him. He was convinced now, and he turned to Lu Ming. "I'm going to give it a shot. Help me watch the surroundings... and remember to stay alert."

Her most important role here was to keep her hand close to the spirit mirror so she could save both their lives in case of an emergency.

"Yeah. Be careful." She nodded seriously.

Li Luo took a deep breath and walked up to the poison thorn. Putting his hands together, he dug deep into his reserves of resonant power. Although he was much weaker than the tree itself, perhaps his addition of water and light resonant powers would help the tree's own wood and lightning powers.

A few minutes later, a drop of concentrated liquid was condensed on his fingertip, and Li Luo carefully let it fall on the spike.

The thorn hissed and bubbled instantly, the surface warping and bulging from underneath with a person's face. It screamed at Li Luo in defiance.

Clearly, his one drop of antidote had been useful.

"Did it work?" Lu Ming gasped.

Even without drawing near, she could see how deadly the poison was. Probably not even Heavenly Dipper Generals would dare to approach it fearlessly. And yet this puny, little Resonant Master was neutralizing it?

Although he was not doing too much at the moment, that was because his resonant power was still too weak. If he were a General Stage expert, would that mean that he could easily deal with it?

"Is water and wood really such a powerful anti-poison combination?" Lu Ming wondered to herself. She was a dual resonance user as well, so she understood the resultant power of resonance interactions well. And even so, she was amazed by the effectiveness of his.

What she did not know was that inside the potent mix of water and wood resonant powers was a faint but highly effective catalyst: light resonant energy.

It was the antithesis to poison and darkness, a direct elemental counteract, whereas water and wood worked in more indirect manners.

Regardless, Lu Ming was relieved to see that Li Luo was able to do something here. As long as he could gradually reduce the poison, it was only a matter of time before the formation here was broken and the Thunderpeal Tree would regain volition. At that time, the tide would swing to their side.

"All's good." Lu Ming was just starting to relax when a sudden, loud boom shook the entire chamber.

Boom!

One of the walls had shattered with a shocking explosion, showering them with wood splinters.

"You Academic Federation rats are really everywhere," a voice rasped. A black knight stepped out from the breach, gathering his resonant power to him as he walked towards them.

"Earth Fiend stage?!" Lu Ming sensed his power, her eyes contracting in fear.

An Earth Fiend here in the dark depths of Thunderpeal Mountain where they were far from help?!

Weng!

Just as the black knight appeared, he did not give them much time to respond. Lifting his hand, his black lance exploded with power, and he hurled it towards Li Luo.

Boom!

Faster than the eye could see, it skewered Li Luo clean through his body.