"And what are these two ways you can give me? Since you're speaking so confidently, they must be better than seclusion with a low survival chance." Gu Daiyu quickly calmed down and made a perfect poker face. She clearly understood that serious negotiations were about to begin.
"The first way is quite simple. I'll just supply you with all the necessary resources for future breakthroughs when you go into seclusion. Including a suitable Land Fruit for you. In return, you don't abandon poison element research and share all your developments with me. Also, after breaking through to the Curse Level, you'll work for me for fifteen years. Naturally, even after that term, all research data must still come to me." I smiled slightly, looking at her impassive face.
"Let's skip for now the part about you actually being able to provide a suitable Land Fruit. What's the second option?" She asked dryly, trying not to show her emotions, which she did perfectly.
"The second option is a bit more interesting. If we use it, you won't even need to go into seclusion; you can stay in human society." After my words, Gu Daiyu's eyes flashed with anticipation for a moment, but it was so fleeting that if my spiritual senses weren't at the sixth level, I definitely wouldn't have noticed. Well, nothing surprising—even the sturdiest people don't want to completely leave society if there's an option. After all, man is a social animal.
"There's one... mm, let's say, ritual. It can extract talent or even Cultivation from one person's body and transfer it to another. And yes, preempting your question, I used it myself recently to raise my poison element Cultivation level. You understand, there's only time to learn now, and without practice, bare theory is useless, so I cheated a little." I smiled slyly, looking her straight in the eyes.
"And there won't be any side effects on me?" She raised an eyebrow condescendingly.
"As fantastic as it sounds, yes, there won't be. If we were raising your Cultivation, that would be different. But since we're just extracting your talent, there really won't be any side effects." I nodded under her suspicious gaze.
"And who do you want to transfer my Magical Calamity talent to? Taking it yourself, perhaps?" She inquired.
"The totems forbid it—obviously not. I'm a complete amateur in poison element control right now, and as you see, I haven't reached the Curse Level. And yes, you may not believe me, but I don't claim your specific talent and promise to return it to you. We'll just transfer it to one of your most incorrigible criminal pupils and seal him deep under the island. He won't cultivate faster than you anyway, and I'll additionally drop his development to the Initial level. Then, when you calmly break through to the Curse Level yourself, I'll help transfer the Magical Calamity talent back into your hands." I outlined the circumstances of the second option to her.
"Suppose you can really pull off everything you said. What payment do you want for that? After all, such skills—I won't fear the word—are unique. The payment will obviously match, probably no less than in the previous option?" Gu Daiyu said half-questioningly, half-affirmatively.
"I won't hide it, yes. The payment is the same: fifteen years of service after breaking through to the Curse Level, all research data, and of course, my personal apprenticeship under you." I nodded.
"I take it that of these two options, you prefer I choose the second." Gu Daiyu wasn't asking but stating.
"Naturally. I doubt you'll research much in the wild. Yes, you can find new poisonous plants and plenty of test subjects in monsters, but you'll be alone. Here in society, you can hire assistants, have access to modern equipment. And I'm not even mentioning that without your Magical Calamity talent, you won't need to spend part of your control suppressing internal poison anymore, which will clearly boost your efficiency. For gathering research materials, you can rely on me. As I said, I'm a very good researcher." I confirmed her guess.
"I sense not everything with this choice is so simple. But... I don't care. Honestly, I've long accepted my death in a year, and here you brought a way to avoid it. If you'd just asked, I'd have given you this talent myself. So no reason not to trust you. You've earned enough of my trust by not killing me unconscious. So, I choose the second option." The girl dropped her mask and showed me her sincere smile, which made me freeze for a second. Damn, the rumors about her beauty aren't understated at all. Ugh, Mu Bai! Ugh! You already have two girls who love you—don't dive into murky poisonous waters!
"Perfect. Then let's prepare everything first before the ritual. You find the most incorrigible criminal among your charges, and I'll dig a tunnel deep into the island to seal him there." I gave my teacher her task, and we both got to our duties.
Running quickly to the dead part of the island from constant poisonous attacks, I used telekinesis to dig a tunnel downward in a secluded spot, periodically trying to compact the earth around me so it wouldn't collapse. Eh, if only I had an earth element right now...
Freezing after that thought, I rolled it around in my mind, then vanished from here to reappear a couple minutes later, and began reinforcing the surrounding earth layers with element energy, holding my light element Cultivation in hand. Man, my talent turns out to be much more versatile than I thought. Or I was just dumb before. But I'll need to extract the earth element Cultivation from myself after work and replace it with my native light again.
Having dug the tunnel to the needed depth and reinforced it with the earth element, I extracted it from myself and dispersed it into the surrounding space. I took it from one of the numerous criminals on whom Bully and Pikachu had long trained their combat skills, so no need to return the element to its owner.
After exiting the tunnel, I spread my spiritual senses and went to find Gu Daiyu. I found her walking toward me, dragging a huge hairy gorilla dressed in a woman's dress with lipstick smeared all over its face by a rope... Man, ask or spare my psyche?
"She's one of my charges, Wan Yayu. She came to me for killing a guy while trying to create the perfect aphrodisiac and testing it on him. Judging by her psychic profile and my observations, she hasn't abandoned her ambitions and planned, upon regaining her appearance, to subjugate many men to her will, turning them into slaves. Also, I found out here that she secretly killed her family for insurance money. She needed pocket change for researching the right aphrodisiac composition." Noticing my strange expression and understanding immediately, the teacher explained.
"Man, well, at least my hand won't tremble." I nodded to her and led the way to the tunnel I'd dug.
Though what tunnel? Having briefly gained the earth element, I went all out and made a gradually descending spiral staircase with a couple of rooms at the bottom. What if Gu Daiyu wants to experiment on the test subject with her Talent?
Throwing Wan Yayu to the ground, Gu Daiyu applied partial poison transformation to herself, strengthened her arm, threw chains with spikes into the walls and secured them with telekinesis—which she pulled from her spatial pocket—then shackled our test subject in them.
Well, time to get started, apparently.