This time, it was the perfect material to do what he wanted. "The Silver Starry Dew… It's the best thing to do this… When did I get it?"
He held a large bottle that was the size of his height. He opened its lid and sniffed the sweet aroma of the silver liquid inside.
The liquid was sparkling with silver lights, so dense and bright to fall over his face and lighten it up. He knew how precious this material was in alchemy, and that made him doubt he bought it from the market.
"I must have obtained it from the rings of dark masters…" William closed the lid again, and placed the bottle carefully on the ground, before taking something out.
It was a big and deep plate. He placed it on the ground, before filling it with the Silver Starry Dew. As he filled it, he stored the bottle away, held the sponge, and slowly infused his spirit power inside.
To activate it, he had to pour out his spirit power to fully fill it. This sponge got seventeen-star diagrams, which meant it took around seventeen hundred years to get formed. Its age was appropriate, but not the best actually.
The best would be for it to have thirty or more star diagrams. But William didn't need to absorb too much of the toxin from the air. And if the amount absorbed wasn't that much, he'd simply repeat the process.
The moment the sponge absorbed enough of his spirit power, it started to shine and change. First, it grew slowly in size, became a bit lighter in weight, and the dots that filled its surface released wisps of pale gold power.
These were the things this sponge would use to absorb the toxin from the air and condense it inside. William kept holding it while watching the wisps swirl and move around as if the sponge was trying to fly!
"It didn't absorb that much…" After half an hour, the sponge started to recede back to its initial shape, but its colour didn't change that much. William knew if the sponge succeeded in absorbing enough, its colour would change to black.
There was a tinge of blackness over the sponge's surface, just forming thin lines over there. He looked around and decided to venture deeper.
His team and friends objected to letting him go solo, and Berry complained about this annoying habit of his. But he persisted to do it. After all, the concentration of the toxin in the outer areas was scarce and not enough to make him concentrate the toxin.
He didn't forget to take the plate away, storing it inside one of his rings after emptying its content of dew back into the bottle.
William started to walk deeper. He expected to see monsters or dark masters, but he found none. After two hours of walking, he stopped and formed a dense net of detecting arrays around just to make sure not a single fly would come closer without spotting it.
As he made sure everything was safe, he took out his sponge and used it to absorb toxin from the air.
"It's like what I guessed, the toxin is much denser the deeper I go…" he looked at the many black lines appearing over the surface of the sponge, knowing that it absorbed too much of the toxin from the air.
He remained there for an hour, but still, the sponge didn't get filled up. He didn't move deeper anymore, fearing he'd clash with the outer layers of the enemy forces, attracting undesired attention toward him.
Instead, he walked around, in a giant circular path. He walked for two hours, then stood for an hour to absorb the toxin from the air. He kept doing this for an entire day. During this, Sloth kept sending him distressing messages.
"The enemies are much stronger than I thought! I can't believe how come, such weak enemies, are this hard!"
"Where are you? Didn't you promise to bring reinforcements with you?"
"Come on! Toxin?! That's the silliest excuse I heard in my entire life!!!"
William tried to reason with him and explain things that made such enemies look much stronger than they initially were. But no matter how hard he tried, it seemed as if he was talking to a dead rock or something.
"That toxin must have illusional effects as well… Tempering with one's mind and train of thoughts…" William decided to store away Sloth's scroll, not respond to his repeated and annoying messages.
The sponge was ready, and now it was time to purify the toxin. He didn't do it here and took a few hours to return back to the same spot he left from.
"Let's start," William took out the deep, huge plate again, and filled it with the dew water, before placing the sponge in the middle of it. The sponge was now pitch black in colour, much heavier than before.
As he placed it in the dew water, the water started to change from sparkling and shining bright silver to black. This was the initial step, and with it, the sponge returned slowly back to its normal shape and appearance.
William knew this was just the initial step, as the dew absorbed the toxin from the sponge. Then the process took a few hours for the dew to cleanse itself from the toxin, forming tiny and purified dark green crystals at the base of the deep plate.
William waited for seven hours before all the toxins got purified. He then collected the crystals, ending up having ten big ones, thirty-two medium-sized crystals, and many tiny ones.
"Time to see what this toxin is formed of…" William just extracted the toxin, and with this, he crossed half of the distance needed to find a cure for this toxin. The next thing he'd do was to discover the nature of this toxin. And to do so, he had to use different methods, and form many potions using this toxin.
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