Fu Juemin plunged his hands, elbows and all, into the large cauldron before him, appearing to stand perfectly still.

However, anyone who drew near for a closer look would discover the layer of black sand on the cauldron’s surface was trembling and leaping rapidly, as if being scorched by an invisible flame, heating the entire pot of poison sand to a steaming boil.

After an unknown amount of time, the continuous hissing from the cauldron ceased abruptly. Fu Juemin’s half-closed eyes snapped open, and he slowly withdrew his hands from the poison sand.

As was his routine, he soaked his hands in a medicinal broth and warm water. Once they were detoxified and clean, Fu Juemin raised his palms to carefully examine his fingernails.

His ten fingernails were full and shapely, their pearly white surface revealing a healthy pink luster.

"The Black Moon is completely gone..."

Fu Juemin let out a breath, nodding in satisfaction. "I’ve finally reached the Entry Level."

The Black Moon on his nails had reached its peak a few days ago. After another two days of diligent practice, he had finally reached the Entry Level.

He pulled up his attribute panel, and sure enough, a new line had appeared in the Cultivation Technique section—[Five Aggregates Profound Slaughter Technique (Entry Level: Attack +3)].

Compared to the Pharmacist Master Purifying Light Saber, the Attack bonus wasn’t much, and it didn’t appear on his base attribute panel either.

But the special attack effects of an evil technique like this could never be measured by mere numbers.

These past few days, Fu Juemin had been training relentlessly. He had already gone through countless cauldrons of Body Tempering Poison Sand, and the toxins required to prepare it had cleaned out the entire stock of several apothecaries.

It got to the point where the apothecaries’ clerks who delivered the components gave him strange looks. They probably whispered behind his back, speculating that the Fu Family’s Young Master, Fu Juemin, had been driven to the point of Falling into a Demon by the Donation Decree and was planning to refine poisons to assassinate Special Commissioner Song Lin.

He had to admit, the Pharmacist Buddha’s Glazed Body was truly the perfect prerequisite for practicing the Five Aggregates Profound Slaughter Technique. His Small Success Pharmacist Skill allowed him to completely ignore the residual poisons from the body tempering process.

Others might need at least three days to recover after a single session before they could train again. In that same three-day period, however, he lost count of how many times he could practice.

For this very reason, Fu Juemin’s cultivation progress far surpassed that of an ordinary practitioner. This was the key to how he had reached the Entry Level of the Five Aggregates Profound Slaughter Technique so quickly.

After reaching the Entry Level of the Five Aggregates Profound Slaughter Technique, Fu Juemin distinctly felt a thread of qi as fine as a human hair materialize inside each of his forearms.

These two threads of qi flowed slowly within his arms at his command. Fu Juemin pulled back his sleeve and could clearly see a faint black line emerge beneath the pale, smooth skin of his inner forearm. It reminded him of how protagonists looked after being poisoned in the martial arts movies and TV shows from his past life.

This black line represented the very Five Aggregates Poisonous Killing Qi Fu Juemin had cultivated, and it could travel through his hands at his will.

It could not pass his elbows, but it could reach his palms.

As the black line flowed into the meridians of his palms, the vanished Black Moon immediately reappeared on his ten fingernails. Fu Juemin felt a faint heat emanate from his palms.

He sniffed the air and seemed to catch a faint, cloyingly sweet and foul odor.

It was hard to imagine what consequences this Poison Force would unleash if it broke through someone’s skin and seeped into their flesh.

It was winter, and there wasn’t a blade of green grass to be seen. The area he had designated for practicing the Poison Technique was already barren, with nothing growing in a wide circle around it. After a moment of thought, he was about to call a servant to grab a chicken from the kitchen to test it on.

Just then, Fu Juemin suddenly felt a sharp pain in his chest, accompanied by a dry, thirsty throat. Even his vision started to blur.

These were clearly the signs of his body being poisoned.

’The black line seems to be traveling along the Three Hand Yin Meridians, which correspond to the heart and lungs...’

Since he began practicing Martial Arts and receiving daily care from the physicians at Xing’an Hall, Fu Juemin had picked up some medical knowledge himself.

After a quick self-diagnosis, he couldn’t help but grumble inwardly, ’I haven’t even gotten anywhere with this yet, and the backlash from the technique is already starting. It really lives up to its name as a Qimen Evil Technique...’

Li Tong had already told Fu Juemin about the potential for poisonous backlash after successfully cultivating the Five Aggregates Profound Slaughter Technique.

Normally, a practitioner would have to stop their training to recuperate at this point, doing their utmost to suppress the poisonous backlash and prevent a catastrophe.

But according to Li Tong, with his Small Success Pharmacist Skill, this level of toxicity only required plenty of rest and water. Within a few days, the Pharmacist Skill would naturally suppress the backlash on its own.

Fu Juemin, however, was unwilling to wait even a few days.

With a flicker of intent, a formless and intangible mass of qi within his body immediately traveled to his heart and lungs. It silently dispersed, enveloping his vital organs.

In an instant, all his symptoms—the chest pain, dry mouth, and blurred vision—disappeared completely. It was more effective than any miraculous antidote.

Though he had anticipated this outcome, Fu Juemin’s eyes couldn’t help but brighten when his body returned to normal.

’I have a greater advantage than the average Martial Artist who has reached Small Success in the Pharmacist Skill...’

This was because Fu Juemin had been consistently putting extra points into his Life Attribute.

When his Life Attribute reached 10 points, it underwent a qualitative change, naturally generating a wisp of this "Innate Primordial Qi" inside him.

Fu Juemin had already run experiments and found that this Innate Primordial Qi could not only neutralize poisons and dispel evil, but also had the miraculous ability to relieve fatigue, rapidly restore stamina, and accelerate the healing of his wounds.

Of course, this wisp of qi was still very small and weak, so its effects were not very pronounced. However, it was more than enough to suppress the minor backlash from the Poisonous Killing Qi.

’With this wisp of Primordial Qi,’ Fu Juemin thought, ’my future progress in the Five Aggregates Profound Slaughter Technique should be much faster...’

Just as Fu Juemin was thinking this, Little Locust Flower hurried over, carrying a tray.

"Young Master."

Fu Juemin withdrew the Poisonous Killing Qi in his palms and saw that Little Locust Flower’s tray held seven or eight small bowls.

There were sweet rice dumplings, yellow wine, ginseng jelly, and eggs boiled in brown sugar, among other things.

"Nanny Wu said that since winter is setting in, everyone should eat something to warm up..." 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

Little Locust Flower reported in a small voice.

According to the customs here in the Luan River region, true winter didn’t begin until three days after the solstice. On that night, it was tradition to eat eggs and drink yellow wine to warm the body, a practice known as "winter nourishment."

Fu Juemin sampled each of the items on the tray and asked casually, "Is Father back?"

"The Master is at home."

Little Locust Flower replied, "He also instructed that the Young Master should join him for dinner in the front hall tonight."

After he began his training, Fu Juemin had taken his meals completely separate from his family. But today was different. It was considered the Fu Family’s first banquet of the winter, and he was expected to attend.

The evening’s family banquet felt rather cheerless.

In previous years at this time, besides performing ancestral rites, the Fu Family would usually hire opera and lion dance troupes to liven up the household. This year, however, all these elaborate formalities had been abandoned, and even most of the servants had been dismissed.

Many had taken leave and returned home. Those who remained were, almost without exception, servants like Little Locust Flower—people with no other family who had sold themselves to the Fu Family in their youth.

The atmosphere at the dinner table was heavy.

Fu Juemin and Fu Guosheng ate without saying much. His stepmother, Lin Wanrong, seemed distracted and absent-minded, even fumbling and breaking several bowls and plates.

After dinner, Fu Shuxin and Fu Shuyao couldn’t wait to run outside and play with the paper lanterns they had bought in the street that day.

Fu Juemin played with his two sisters for a while, then went upstairs alone. In his room, he took out a medicine jar and carefully spread the black, foul-smelling ointment inside all over his hands.

The jar contained Wood-Refined Snake Venom Ointment, which was the method for advancing his cultivation of the Five Aggregates Profound Slaughter Technique beyond the Entry Level.

In Martial Arts, the Five Aggregates and Five Poisonous Creatures were said to belong to the Yin Five Elements, corresponding to the Yang Five Elements of the Five Beasts.

And the poison of the Snake Form, among the Yin Five Elements, belonged to the wood attribute.