"Sigh, another failure." Felix smiled bitterly while walking back to his place.

He didn't know if he messed up something or the new method wasn't correct in the 1st place.

​​

But he wasn't planning on giving up on it without attempting every possible solution. However, he needed to check with the Jörmungandr first if he was treading on the right path or not.

"Elder, what are your thoughts about my method?" Felix inquired politely, "Is this the way to increase the poison potency?"

"You are doing great." The Jörmungandr complemented but said nothing else after.

This was how he was teaching Felix about poison manipulation.

Jörmungandr let him explore it on his own and when he was utterly blocked, the Jörmungandr provides him with a small tip or advice to smoothen his path just slightly.

When Felix ends up finding a method, he always checks if it was correct or not lest he ends up giving up on the correct method and waste his time on the wrong ones.

Hence, Felix was more than glad to receive positive confirmation.

Now, he could continue exploring this method until he finally lands on the correct way to condense the mist and increase its potency!

He knew that this was a big leap in his poison manipulation since if he kept condensing the mist, he could turn it into liquid!!

But now, he didn't think about it and just focused on finding other ideas.

He spent more than 5 hours on this matter until his brain was squeezed from every last drop of juice it had.

Yet, all of his ideas turned to be a failure, leaving him scratching his hair in irritation and confusion.

"I tried to merge hundreds of tiny bombs until they reached a normal-sized bomb forcefully and their color was almost black. Yet, why did it also fail?" Exhausted, Felix laid on his back and started gazing at the white ceiling of the room.

He knew that he could tap out and ask the Jörmungandr for the answer. He would give it to him since Felix had given up.

But, Felix wasn't known for being a quitter and he still had a couple of hours to find a solution before the game.

Minutes went by then hours and Felix merely kept his eyes closed while thinking slowly and rationally about everything he did in the past hours.

Every small detail had been probed multiple times before Felix switched to another.

He kept doing so until he realized a common theme that was connecting all of his merging attempts!

The Outside!

He was merging the poison bombs externally!!

"Holy shit, I am actually a retard!" Felix's eyes snapped wide open as he jumped back on his feet.

"I am still in the inner manipulation stage, so why the f*ck am I trying to increase the potency of the poison outside of my body?!"

Ashamed, he looked at his hands and used one to slap his cheek as hard as possible to awaken some common sense into him.

'Idiot.'

'Hahaha. It only took you a couple of hours to figure it out.'

Upon hearing Jörmungandr's usual laugh, Felix didn't know if he was being sarcastic or truly praised.

Whatever it was, Felix didn't let it affect him as he was glad that he got an indirect confirmation by the Jörmungandr.

He got quite excited to try it out. Alas, it wasn't as easy as he assumed.

Usually, he needed to make an image of a tiny poison bomb in his mind and his energy would surge from his pores and shape it up on the outside.

However, now he needed to order the energy to shape up the tiny poison bomb inside his body and keep it there while he continues creating others to merge them!!

All of this needed to be done inside his body!

So it wasn't an easy process since the moment Felix lost concentration about those 1st created bombs, the energy would break apart and continue swimming in his body.

However, Felix had soon found out the trick to pull it off. That was by merging a bomb to another the moment he created them.

This would always leave one bomb which would make it easier not to lose focus on it.

Just like this, Felix kept merging one bomb after another until he felt that the bomb had reached the size of a regular one.

Immediately after stopping, Felix opened his eyes while extending his palm forward.

He had already given the order for the bomb to emerge from his palm and now he was gazing at the dark red mist that was coming out from his pores.

He couldn't help but smile widely after seeing that the mist had gathered together to shape up a dark red bomb.

It appeared exactly like the versions that he created hours ago but Felix could sense that the mist was emitting chilling air unlike earlier!

Felix grinned widely while walking towards the dummy AI. After reaching its side, Felix floated the bomb next to its face made it explode.

Poof!!

Both Asna and the Jörmungandr lifted their heads to gaze at the small black screen with Felix.

They didn't need to count as Felix was doing so in his mind.

'1...2...4...5!...6...Hahah!...9!...It's working!..15...'

Felix laughed in pure delight while continuing to count in his mind. He already reached 20 seconds yet the black screen still didn't display the poison details.

"Good job." Asna praised with a smile before cursing Felix, "You are still an idiot though."

'Little Asna, you are not doing much better with your 597 loses to 5 victories.' The Jörmungandr playfully addressed Asna in her mind.

'Old snake! If you dared tell him about it, I would not play another game with you!' Asna threatened with her cheeks flushed red.

No one knew if she was angry or embarrassed by having such an abysmal loss ratio.

Felix didn't hear any of their banter and if he did he most likely wouldn't bother mocking Asna for it.

Currently, he enjoyed the euphoric feeling of actually solving an issue on his own instead of relying on others for answers.

Nothing could beat that sense of satisfaction in one's own achievements.

Ti-ring!

>Lost consciousness for 30 seconds!<

>Possible permanent brain damage<

>5 seconds more of the effect and the brain would have been dead.<

"Good, good, good!" Felix got even more excited after reading the negative effects of the poison on the brain.

He always knew that each second someone was exposed to his poison inducement they would be at the risk of receiving a permanent result.

However, he could do so only if he kept refreshing the 5 seconds duration of his inducements by making the dummy AIs stay in a poisonous aura or continue to throw bombs at it.

In another sense, Felix's previous poison wasn't potent enough to take care of someone permanently by a single whiff unless he merged multiple inducements at once...Like the Corruption Inducement.

But with this new potency, all he needed was a single whiff and a single inducement to make one regret approaching him!!

A potent Paralyze inducement dose could result in permanent body paralysis!

A potent Sleepiness Inducement dose could make anyone sleep unlike before where it could be overpowered easily.

A potent dose of aphrodisiac could turn one like a horny dog for a minute or two, losing all reason and sense of one's self!

The list goes on and on for each of Felix's inducements!

This was the reason Felix was super excited as he had crossed a milestone that no human had ever reached.

He could feel that he was getting closer and closer to mastering the inner manipulation and move into the next stage!

"Let's try it again with another inducement and another shape." Felix reigned in some of his elation and straightaway repeated the same process as before by merging thin needles inside his body.

After a couple of seconds, he finished it and a dark blue thick needle had emerged from his palm.

However, instead of feeling elated, Felix was frowning his eyebrows while looking at it.

He realized that it wasn't so good that he needed a couple of seconds to increase a single needle's potency.

How could he fight like that? Request his enemy to chill for a couple of seconds until he creates it?

"Elder, is the process supposed to be this cumbersome for every ability?" Felix asked again, "How am I supposed to increase the potency of larger-scale abilities? I believe that would take ages."

"It's only cumbersome because u are creating one ability at each time before merging them." The Jörmungandr advised casually, "Try to master combining hundreds of tiny bombs in a millisecond and your problem would cease to exist."

Felix frowned his eyebrows after hearing so. He understood that the process wasn't going to be as easy as the Jörmungandr had made it sound.

Heck, he knew that it was going to be a hundred times more difficult than his previous training to remove the delay.

"Elder, it's not like I don't want to train or anything but is there another method to facilitate the process?" Felix requested politely.

In his eyes, if there was a better method of training then it's a bonus, if not? He could only suck it up and start the grind.

"If you reach the 2nd stage of poison manipulation, you can do the process of condensing the mist internally and also externally at the same time." The Jörmungandr said.

"I see." Felix nodded his head in understanding. Then, he asked, "How am I supposed to know that I have entered the 2nd stage though?"

"It's when you realize that you can't learn anything new from using internal energy." The Jörmungandr informed, "At your current state, there are many things that you haven't touched yet."

"Sigh, I guess I better start grinding then." Felix gave a tight-lipped smile while walking towards the dummy AI.

Without further ado, he penetrated the needle inside the dummy's head and withdrew back a step. After waiting for half a minute, the results showed up on the screen.

Felix's motivation to grind couldn't help but regain after seeing them.

>Senses disorientation lasted for 29 seconds<

>The nervous system connecting the senses had been permanently damaged!<