Mixed Blessing System

Upon entering Elisabeth's house, Lothur did not wait for her to disarm the traps on the way. Instead, he just used his skills and moved to avoid drawing attention to any of them.

Elisabeth saw this fellow entering the first room of that house and did not worry much about her traps but about the poisonous mist that was much more concentrated inside this place.

"Lothur, are you okay? Are you not feeling sick? This mist coming out of Rebecca's body is hurting even me." She commented, with a pale expression on her face.

[Bronze-grade poison resistance.]

[Progress: 69%]

...

[Progress: 70%]

Lothur saw the progress bar of his poison resistance rapidly increasing as he approached Rebecca's room.

He then said. "Don't worry, my ability to withstand poisons is not low, and my current body can handle plenty of that here."

She saw that he did not look that bad and was also relieved because of how magnificent Lothur's poison resistance ability was.

"Sigh..."

"What are we going to do? I can't control Rebecca's poisonous 'explosion,' and I can't stop the people outside from doing something against her either." This woman said when Lothur was finally already in the office where that woman had collapsed minutes ago.

He saw his colleague's body lying on the floor, stomach upturned and skin purple due to the process going on in her body at the present moment.

Lothur then crouched down beside Rebecca and moved to touch her.

Seeing that, Elisabeth widened her eyes and jumped against Lothur, quickly throwing him in the opposite direction.

"Are you crazy?"

Lothur felt no pain as his head hit the opposite wall, just feeling the soft body of his mistress on top of him.

"No, I have to touch her to try to find a way to solve this problem."

"But that's impossible! Even I could be mortally poisoned if I carelessly touch her body now!" Elisabeth lectured her student.

"I think it will be different if I do that, mistress," Lothur said. "I'm feeling my resistance to poisons increasing while I'm around Becca."

[Progress: 72%]

"But that's not enough for me to get significant improvement all at once. So I believe that by touching her body, I'll be able to improve faster and, who knows, find a way to avoid a catastrophe."

"That..." She once again remembered how quick Lothur was to get used to poisons during some training he did under her tutelage.

But she was still unsure if he could handle that and proposed. "It is hazardous for you to touch her body without at least being sure you can survive. So I won't allow you to go near her unless you can handle it here." She picked up from her spatial ring a poisonous stone.

Upon seeing that, Lothur immediately identified the poison normally used to test a poison master trying to advance to the 2-star rank.

Lothur then readily agreed with Elisabeth.

He knew he could not be considered a 2-star proper profession in any profession. After all, to achieve that, one would have to have the ability to manipulate spiritual energy outside their body.

He could not do that, so he could not do the same as Elisabeth, for example.

However, Lothur did not need to be able to make poisonous portions or items to pass the test for 2-star poison masters!

All he needed to do was to withstand the poison used in that test, something he knew he could achieve!

"All right, I'll try..."

She didn't immediately give Lothur that poison and questioned. "Are you sure about that? That poison will not only affect your body. It will also erode your soul."

"I am willing to risk it." He said, confident in his ability to resist.

Elisabeth hesitated a bit but eventually gave that item to Lothur when it had been more than a minute since he had walked in there.

She knew that the local leaders would not give much time even to Lothur, so she did what she could to avoid killing Rebecca without trying another alternative.

When he picked up that poison stone, Lothur immediately scratched one of his wrists, where there was already the 1-star poison master symbol.

As he did so, he felt a burning sensation in that area. He immediately sat in a meditative position in front of Rebecca's body, trying to deal with the 'attack' of that substance.

His body was resistant, so it took a while before Lothur noticed the progress bar of his resistance moving faster. But it eventually happened!

[Bronze-grade poison resistance.]

[Progress: 75%]

...

[Progress: 78%]

He closed his eyes and began to feel nauseous as he seemed to have lost his footing and began to float.

Meanwhile, the system was issuing warnings.

[Noted the presence of poisonous substance eating away at the host's soul...]

[Bonuses accumulated due to the inability of the host's soul to absorb them will be burned to protect the host's essence...]

Five minutes later...

[Due to the degradation of the invading substance, the host soul increased its affinity for poisons by 65%.]

...

[Bronze-grade poison resistance.]

[Progress: 84%]

...

[Progress: 89%]

[All poisonous substance in the host's organism has been neutralized. As a result, the host's resistance to poisons has increased significantly.]

With that last warning from the system, Lothur finally opened his eyes and felt the difference in having his affinity increased.

The progress bar of his resistance did not influence his worldview much. It only helped him quantify how close he was to a qualitative advance. But affinity changed everything for him.

When he opened his eyes and saw the accumulated messages from the system, Lothur immediately noticed something different in the fog in the surroundings.

'Hmm? What is that?' He noticed it as if he felt an attraction toward it.

With that feeling, as Elisabeth watched in awe as the 2-star poison master's tattoo settled on one of Lothur's wrists, he inhaled the air from the surroundings as if it were a drain sucking in water.

The poisonous mist in the surroundings made its way toward Lothur's lungs at an impressive speed, slowly decreasing in density within that house.

"What?" Elisabeth wondered aloud.

But amidst her astonishment, Lothur felt exceptional, absorbing all that poison as if he were drinking water after days of drought.

Meanwhile, his resistance to poisons was improving!

[Bronze-grade poison resistance.]

[Progress: 93%]

...

[Progress: 95%]

...

[Progress: 97%]

By the time the progress bar reached 98%, Lothur had absorbed all the fog from inside Elisabeth's house and even some of that which had escaped through the windows in the surrounding area.

In that instant, he lost 'contact' with the poisonous mist since his range was not so great.

He opened his eyes and saw Elisabeth with a wide mouth and eyes staring at him, impressed with Lothur's ability to absorb so much poison without even looking bad!

"Unbelievable!"

...