At this moment, Dong Tianyu watched his opponent with great interest and taunted, "Drink up, why aren’t you drinking now."

Upon hearing Dong Tianyu’s mockery, the opponent hesitated for a moment with the medicine bottle in hand, then poured it directly into their mouth, "Not only did I drink it, but I drank it all."

Seeing such behavior from the opponent, Dong Tianyu was unconcerned and became interested in chatting, "Didn’t you just say that one of the bottles in your hand was an antidote and the other a poison? Now that you’ve drunk both, is it the antidote that has cured all the toxin in your body or has the poison made the antidote you just took ineffective?"

Unexpectedly, the opponent completely ignored Dong Tianyu’s question and started talking to themselves, "Do you still think I was deceiving you? Are you feeling weak all over by now?"

"Not at all, I feel like I’m in top condition now," said Dong Tianyu and even jumped a bit to show how energetic he was feeling.

Seeing how lively Dong Tianyu was, the opponent furrowed their brows, "It shouldn’t be this way, I’ve already become like this, which means the toxin from the Red Dove must be taking effect – why is his body still so robust?

No, that’s not right, are you just pretending to be strong?"

Exactly, you can’t fool me. You’re clearly strained, yet you still claim that nothing is wrong with you."

Stop deceiving yourself. Since you’ve been poisoned, there’s no need to keep up this front. You can rest assured, once you’ve inhaled the toxin, it will voraciously consume the nutrients in your body."

Your entire being is like a warm nest for the toxin – the longer it stays within you, the more potent it becomes."

The Red Dove toxin is quite peculiar – the stronger a person is, the larger the dose required for them to succumb to it. But once poisoned, the toxin will spread faster in their body, and clearing it becomes incredibly difficult."

Hearing the opponent’s long-winded explanation, Dong Tianyu suddenly interjected, "So you really released this potent Red Dove toxin into the air, and once I stepped into the room and breathed, I would have been poisoned without fail, right?"

Pleased with themselves, the opponent said, "Of course, the moment you enter the room and speak with me, you would inevitably become poisoned."

"Is there really no antidote for this poison?"

"Certainly not. Although this toxin starts off weak and it’s difficult for the strong to become poisoned, you and I have talked in this room for so long – you must be poisoned by now.

And I’m not afraid to tell you, those two bottles of medicine I made you choose from just now, one was a concentrated liquid form of Red Dove, and the other indeed was the antidote. If you had made a choice earlier, had you been lucky enough to select it, then you might have had a chance to live.

But you not only gave up the opportunity I gave you, you even taunted me. Since you did that, you can’t blame me. Try to be a good person in your next life."

Watching the opponent bask in their pride, Dong Tianyu suddenly said, "You mentioned that the Red Dove is transmitted through the air – do you think there’s any chance that I haven’t breathed in a single breath of air since I entered the room?

Even though I’m talking to you, I haven’t taken a single breath."

Not to mention that Dong Tianyu was currently at the Golden Core Stage, even if he were only at the Foundation Building Stage, he could survive without eating, drinking, or breathing for about ten days.

In the Cultivation World, Foundation Establishment is the transition from the acquired back to the innate. The description of the innate is actually mentioned quite a bit in both martial arts novels and cultivation novels.

And a vast majority of these books share a common theory – that unborn babies contain Innate Energy within them.

However, as soon as a baby is born and starts breathing the air from the outside world, the Innate Energy within them gradually gets diluted and assimilated by the acquired energy from the external environment. Slowly, the Innate Energy will fade away with age. 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

Therefore, many martial arts and cultivation practices start from childhood – the goal is to somehow retain the Innate Energy within the body.

Much of what people call ’geniuses’ are actually those whose Innate Energy domesticates slower than others.

To put it more simply, when a baby is born, it’s like a gourd full of water with a hole at the waist for leaking.

In the case of genius gourds, the leaking hole is at the waist and very small.

As a result, not only does the water leak slowly from their gourd, but when it’s all said and done, there’s still plenty of water left.

Conversely, the gourd representing less gifted individuals has its leaking hole at the very bottom and, compared to geniuses or even average people, the hole is significantly larger.

Ordinary people, even at the end of their lives, still retain a trace of Innate Energy, whereas the less gifted lose it almost as quickly as it would flow into a funnel immediately after birth.

Foundation Establishment is about refining one’s body to a pure or ’leak-free’ state.

At this stage, although one cannot completely survive on the dew and air alone, it’s possible to maintain their best physical state without food or drink for ten days to half a month.