The Spider Queen

(Zrudread University Main Campus)

(St. John's Science Center- Lab Room 302)

"Careful… careful..." Sophie whispered to herself as she placed a dropper inside the vial of colourless liquid.

This vial of colourless liquid was the poison that she had made according to the original formula with no modifications.

Sophie wanted to get an idea of the toxicity level before starting the process to convert the liquid poison into a lethal gas cloud.

She gently squeezed the rubber cap and liquid slowly entered the vial.

Sophie extracted around fifty millilitres before stopping.

Okay… so far everything was going alright.

Sophie pressed a small button on the bottom of the poison analysis device and the screen powered on.

There was an opening in the middle of the device so Sophie gently placed the tip of the dropper inside the hole and squeezed out the liquid inside.

A line of text flashed across the device's screen.

[Three minutes to analyse sample…]

Sophie did not waste any time and while the device was analysing the poison, she flipped open her notebook and jotted down some more ideas.

There were a couple chemicals that she wanted to try binding to the leaf of the Feren plant that was required to make the poison.

Hydrosulfuric acid, nitrous dioxide and even carbon monoxide were all options to try and experiment with.

Sophie glanced at the clock and saw that she had more than an hour and a half left. There was plenty of time remaining.

Ding! Ding!

The device suddenly bleeped twice before presenting the results of its analysis.

[Poison Lethality- 0.04]

Huh? That didn't make any sense…

Sophie furrowed her brows in confusion when she saw the results and could not help but wonder if she had done something wrong.

This device would analyse toxins on a relative scale of one to ten with ten being the highest and one being the lowest.

A lethality level that did not even reach one was impossible.

'The River's Sorrow' was a toxin that had almost decimated an entire alien civilisation so it should at least be a three or four.

Sophie closed her eyes and recalled her memories of making the poison.

She had followed every step exactly and did not make any adjustments to the formula.

The final product was indeed colourless and odourless just like in the description.

Sophie opened her eyes, and a sudden thought crossed her mind. She ran over to a nearby sink and filled a beaker with some distilled water using a measuring cylinder.

The hybrid girl measured around five hundred millimeters of water using the measuring cylinder and then mixed the poison in the beaker.

There was no visible change.

Sophie grabbed a fresh dropper and took another sample but this time she took it from the mixture of water and the poison.

She placed the dropper inside the device's opening and then repeated the process for a second time.

Time seemed to slow down as Sophie stared intensely at the poison analysis device.

Ding! Ding!

[Poison Lethality- 3.1]

It was a drastic change.

Sophie opened up her notebook and wrote down the value.

Evidentially there was some kind of reaction when the poison contacted the water which caused its lethality level to increase.

This was not good news for her original plan to turn it into a gas.

Sophie would have to run some test to see if the poison reacted to the hydrogen dioxide molecules or just the hydrogen.

If it was just the hydrogen, then she could proceed with her original plan.

If not, then she needed to figure something out and fast.

With a lethality level of three point one then that meant that the modified poison would need to reach six point two.

"Hmm… take a deep breath… you got this…" Sophie muttered to herself as she clenched her fist tightly under the table.

She was clearly not the only one currently worried about her task as several other students were looking around the room with dazed expressions on their faces.

Professor Macabre maintained the stern look on her face but was secretly pleased to see their reactions.

This final exam would separate those who truly wished to devote themselves to the Art of Poison and those who were better off choosing another major.

She looked forward to seeing who would rise above her challenge and succeed.

Sophie turned on the heating pad beneath the crucible and poured in the mixture inside.

She wanted to separate the components of the poison and run some additional tests.

While the mixture was heating up, Sophie searched on the Virtual Net to try and look for any more information.

Things were looking pretty difficult at the moment and Sophie was briefly tempted to use her racial traits to enhance the poison.

All she had to do was swallow the mixture and allow her venom glands to heighten its lethality.

But that was the easy way.

Sophie wanted to prove her own strength by not relying on her racial advantage.

Besides if she continued down that road then what use was there to even be the poison cultivation class.

The mixture inside the crucible boiled so Sophie hurried over with several empty test tubes to collect the components.

She adjusted the goggles over her eyes and collected three different liquids from the mixture.

One of the liquids was an angry red colour and Sophie recognised it as the only metalloid alloy used in the creation of the poison.

The clock continued to tick ominously as the time went by faster and faster. Sophie moved towards the fume cupboard and prepared her first experiment.

She got a cylindrical flask full of hydrogen gas and then added the colourless liquid to the flask.

There was no reaction as the liquid simply fell to the bottom of the container. Sophie swirled the liquid inside the flask for several minutes before running it through the analysis device.

Ding! Ding!

[Poison Lethality- 0.04]

"Damn it!" Sophie cursed as she realised that water was an integral part to the activation of the poison.

She needed to change her plan now.

Sophie disposed of the waste in the collection bin and then ran over to the table.

She flipped open her notebook and jotted down some ideas.

Side effects like causing pus-filled blisters to form on the skin of the victim would not directly enhance the lethality but would definitely weaken their immune systems.

Sophie headed for the reagent cupboard and grabbed two solutions from the back of a shelf.

One was the blood of a creature known as the Plore'an found on a lunar colony in the Hydra Star System.

The other was made from a pale yellowish white flower that was native to Planet Gaia.

It was known as the 'false love' because its beauty concealed a deadly hidden blade.

Sophie spent the rest of the time frantically adding chemicals, substances and trace metals to the formula while recording the lethality levels of the resulting mixtures.

She used the information available on the Virtual Net to eliminate different reagents and only chose the ones with the highest likelihood of success.

Eventually with only five minutes left on the clock, Sophie dripped her newest mixture inside the poison analysis device.

She bottled up the rest of the mixture inside an empty beaker and then waited with bated breath for the results.

"Come on… come on…" Sophie whispered seriously as she stared at the screen without even blinking.

[Ding! Ding!]

[Poison Lethality- 6.15]

Sophie let out a disappointed sigh as she glanced at the clock and realised that there was no more time left.

She had been so close to the six point two needed to get full marks in the practical exam.

Sophie walked up to the front of the classroom and handed the beaker over to Professor Macabre who smiled encouragingly.

The hybrid girl nodded politely and then returned to her seat with a heavy heart.

Sometimes it was more frustrating to narrowly fail than to never have a chance in the first place.