Return Of The Demon - 124 The event during lunch

Bai Yun walked out of the carriage and stood outside watching the busy morning. Ye Chen waved to him, and he waved back. After the preparations for breakfast was done, Bai Yun watched from the side as he ate breakfast. Once they were done with breakfast, the caravan quickly started to pack up.

Bai Yun was on the way back to the carriage when he found his road blocked. He realized that the middle aged lady from yesterday was standing in front of him.

“I saw that you were standing in a corner once again today.” She said.

“Yep.” Bai Yun replied.

“You shouldn’t do that. Only if you interact with others can you grow up to be a productive member of society.” She said.

Bai Yun’s face twitched as he heard her. Bai Yun nodded and said. “I will take it under advisement.”

The lady was happy to hear this. She smiled and then turned away. “Oh, by the way, my name is Huang Yao. Don’t forget it.” She said as she left.

Bai Yun shook his head and went back to the carriages. A short while later, the caravan started to move. Bai Yun sat back once again and started to cultivate. The situation was similar to yesterday. Soon the entire caravan settled into a simple rhythm.

They ran into another small bandit group a short while after the set off, but it was also solved without any problem. The caravan then went on smoothly until they stopped for lunch.

When they stopped for lunch, Bai Yun once again settled into a corner as usual. He then took out the food that they gave and took a bite.

And he promptly spit it out.

For a moment Bai Yun licked his lips. There was something in the food. Something that his body instinctively rejected. It wasn’t something he would have noticed before he had gotten the Alchemy legacy. But now, it stood out like a sore thumb.

Bai Yun licked his lips, trying to identify the thing that irritated him, but he couldn’t isolate it. Seeing that no one was watching him, Bai Yun ripped a tiny piece of the food into his palm. Then a small gray flame appeared in his hands and started to slowly start to burn the piece of food.

Slowly the piece of food disappeared. Bai Yun would smell the vapours coming off the pice of food as it burned. When it was finally gone, Bai Yun also rubbed his hands to check the residue on his palm. When he was done with this, a smile finally crept into his hands.

Bai Yun was able to roughly identify what had caused the rejection. He was able to identify a chemical that was added to the food.

Adding this to the strangeness of the caravan, Bai Yun suddenly realized that mostly this wasn’t aimed at him, but at the entire caravan. Bai Yun figured that the compound will take effect in an hour and would last for another hour after that. Thus the attack on the caravan should happen at that time.

Bai Yun looked up at stared at the caravan. Since he was sitting in a corner everything here was reflected in his eyes. A beautiful glint came alive in his eyes as he stared at everyone in the caravan. But Bai Yun couldn’t see anyone acting suspiciously. Everyone seemed to be acting normal. But after all, the person who poisoned them would no longer have any need to act differently.

There were many people who were involved in the making of lunch. The staff of the caravan, some of the mercenaries, and even some of the travelers had helped in making or at least came close to lunch. So it was difficult to see who was responsible for this.

But now Bai Yun was stuck with another problem. He knew that an attack was imminent on the caravan, and if he did nothing, most likely everyone here would die. But what could he do?

Given the hour before the effects of the compound would take hold, Bai Yun was completely sure that he could definitely make an antidote. But would anyone believe him and take the antidote. And he would be tipping off the culprit too. The more Bai Yun thought about it, the more annoyed he became. In fact, if he tried to save them, they might even attack him thinking that he was the one who poisoned them.

So the only method left was to help them from behind the scenes. But this was too difficult. For one thing, he only had until the end of lunch. If he was to do anything in the carriage, he would be noticed, and the people would think that he was the culprit. And Bai Yun was not at a level where he could find an antidote to the compound by the end of lunch.

Bai Yun was starting to get a headache. He only had a short while to solve this problem. In an hour the caravan would be attacked. He only had an hour to work. He had an hour to figure out how to make the compound ineffective.

The moment his thoughts came to that point, Bai Yun froze. Then an immersible smile appeared on his lips.

It was impossible for Bai Yun to delay the compound or even find an antidote by the end of lunch. But the other way was easy. If he wanted to speed up and amplify the effects of the compounds it was child’s play to Bai Yun.

Bai Yun scratched his chest, and all of a sudden a ring appeared in his fingers. It was Bai Yun’s storage ring. He had hidden it in his robes, and had taken it out using sleight of hand. As an aspiring Assassin God, sleight of hand was an indispensable part of the curriculum. Bai Yun had practiced it quite a lot and was quite proficient in it by now.

Bai Yun pretended to eat his lunch, but in truth, he was actually transplanting his food into his storage ring and not eating it. At the same time, Bai Yun was staring intently at the caravan to check if anyone would notice him. Seeing that no one was looking at him, he started to move,

And then a few herbs appeared in his hand. A moment later a gray flame covered them. Usually, Bai Yun would use a cauldron to refine them, but ever since he got the hundred beast flame, his dependence on cauldrons had fallen. It didn’t mean that there was no need for a cauldron anymore. A cauldron would make this process easier. But there was no way Bai Yun could pull out a cauldron right now without drawing attention to himself.

And as the herbs burned, a black smoke started to appear. Bai Yun used his soul tendrils to trap the smoke and also spread it around. With Bai Yun’s control, the smoke spread evenly and everyone here started to breathe it in.

Suddenly both the lady who spoke to him, as well as the leader of the caravan security sat up and looked around. They were both at the core formation stage and they felt that something was wrong. But no matter how much they searched, they could not tell what was wrong. They looked at each other and then sat back down. But their vigilance had been raised and they were quietly looking around.

Bai Yun only smiled when he saw this. By now he had finished sending the smoke to the mouth of everyone. From now on it was a race to see who would get sick first.

After a while, the caravan finished lunch, and then they started to move. About five minutes later, Bai Yun noticed a frown appear on the forehead of some of the people on the carriage who were cultivating. A few moments later, Bai Yun could feel that some of the security also seemed to be a little disoriented.

The caravan progressed for another minute before the security leader shouted for them to halt. “What’s going on?” The leader of the caravan asked.

“Something is wrong.” The security leader said. “My qi isn’t circulating properly.”

When the security leader said this, others in the caravans, also started to check on their own qi circulation. Everyone found that their qi circulation had slowed to a crawl.

“Someone must have poisoned us.” Huang Yao said.

Everyone but Bai Yun was surprised and scared. If someone were to attack them right now things would not end well. But Bai Yun, while putting on an appearance of fear, was looking for anomalies. People who were behaving as they shouldn’t. After all the compound had started to take effect far earlier than it should.

People started to question each other. They all realised only one of them could have poisoned them. Soon the entire group was looking at each together warily.

But before they could come to blows, the two core formations cultivators intervened to calm everyone down. The important thing was to make sure that nothing happened right now. The caravan security leader asked the caravan to stop and come into a defensive formation. The carriages were arranged in a circle. Then the people of the caravan were placed in the center of the circle. The security forces and the mercenaries were surrounding the carriages protecting them and defending them from any attacks.

Time passed by quickly. Less than a minute later everyone was feeling the effects of the compound. At that time Bai Yun finally saw an anomaly. In an instant, Bai Yun’s eyes focussed on a person in the group. A smile crept up on Bai Yun’s face. From that moment on Bai Yun’s attention was placed on that person.

Time passed by quickly. As the effects of the compound were sped up and amplified, soon many people found themselves unable to use qi at all. This included everyone, from the staff to the security. They all were watching fearfully for an attack. At one point only the strongest two were able to use qi at all.

But the time passed by without anything happening. In an instant, another five minutes passed. By now the effects of the compound were pretty much gone. Most of them had completely regained their qi. Only a few were still under the effects of the compound, and even for them the effects were all but gone.

Seeing that there was no attack, everyone was confused. Nothing about what happened made any sense. The security and the mercenaries discussed the course of action and decided to wait for a few more minutes before making any move.

But nothing seemed to be happening. Everyone was confused. And the person who Bai Yun noticed earlier was the most confused.

And then just as the security team decided that what happened was maybe just an accident, a loud roar came from over a nearby hill.

“It’s been a while you guys. I hope you have been well since the last time we met.”