Chapter 123: Ikusa

"I… read about them back when I was a member of the Mist Origin sect. They had a book with special bugs, and Yang Festering Bugs was one of them," Ning lied for the moment. 

"Oh, Mist Origin sect huh. Does that mean that these bugs can be tamed?" Kaezir asked. 

"Umm," Ning understood what this meant. If he told them that it was possible, then it would imply that Mist Origin Sect was probably behind this all. 

However, he didn't have any good feelings about the Mist Origin sect so he would happily tell the truth right now.

"Yes, they can be tamed. The process is a little hard, and cannot be done by anyone in the Qi Condensation realm. You have to tame a lot of these minuscule bugs at once, so you need to have at least the divine sense to do that." 

"So, only a Foundation Establishment realm or higher cultivator could possibly tame this," Ning said.

"Oh, and does the cultivator need to control the bugs to transfer them between humans?" Kaezir asked. 

"No, they transfer through any medium. Food, water, air, touch. Once they are let loose they will go into any person, eat their yang, reproduce and spread again."

"These bugs, however, are not harmful at all. They just eat your yang and cause no other problems. They can't reproduce continuously either without being able to not reproduce again after a while. They need some time in between to grow, which they don't get at all because they love eating Yang so much."

"So, in the end, they start to die in a month after eating too much and reproducing too fast. So, we don't have to worry about them at all," Ning said. 

The volunteers and physicians nodded when they heard Ning's answer. If what he said was true, then aside from the complications that some people might suffer from lack of yang in their body, there were no other problems to worry about.

"What about the black spots? Do they go away?" someone asked from the crowds. 

"The black spots are just clumps of dead bugs. Your body will both decompose them and push it out on its own within a month," Ning said. 

"I see, then we truly have nothing to care about," Kaezir said. "However, is there any other way these… uh… Yang Festering bugs could've gotten into the city?" 

Ning thought for a bit and looked into both the Medical and Beast knowledge he had and said, " Yang Festering bugs cannot survive in the open environment as they would always latch onto a living being to eat the yang energy. So they always die off."

"The only way for them to live is if someone caught them in a ceramic or glass jar where no light could pass through, that way they don't get to eat yang a lot and don't constantly reproduce enough to simply die off. Only then can they truly survive for long," Ning said. 

"I see. So, what you are saying is… there is a culprit behind this," Kaezir asked. 

Ning did not hesitate at all as he said, "It would seem so."

"I see,' Kaezir thought to himself. " Is there anything else you want to say, or are you done with the explanation."

"Hmm… ah yes, Stay in the sun and don't stay indoors if possible. The more yang they get to eat, the faster they will die off," Ning said. 

"Yes. That is a good idea. Everyone, you heard him. Go and tell the people in the city exactly this and that they have nothing to worry about. Still, tell them to come to see the physician just in case they have some problem. You are all dismissed," Kaezir said. 

Once the people left, Kaezir called Ning and said, "You said that one needs to be a remarkable tamer for this to work right? Let us go and see Ikusa, He might know something." 

'Ikusa… that's the sect leader of Mist Origin sect, right? Does he suspect the sect leader to be behind this?' Ning wondered. 

"Yes," Ning said and walked out with Kaezir. 

The evening had already turned to night. Kaezir and Ning walked amongst the crowded road as there were still people screaming all around them, but it was nowhere near what would have happened if the physician's guild didn't immediately send out people to explain the situation to the masses. 

Kaezir and Ning reached the gate and the guards did nothing whatsoever to ask for his identity. 'He must be really well known. I wonder what his status is in the guild,' Ning wondered. 

The First Elder was the head of the guild, so it couldn't be Kaezir, and the sect leader of the Pure Cleansing sect had some different name, so he wasn't that either. 

Soon, they reached the Mist Origin sect where they were let into the sect and taken directly to the sect leader. Kaezir and Ning walked in to see the sect leader sitting on a chair behind the desk. 

The sect leader, Ikusa was a buffed man who was clean-shaven and has a head full of white hair. There was a multicolored bird on his shoulder, whose eyes gleamed with hints of intelligence in them.

'Woah, a Rainbow Phoenix,' Ning said in shock. A rainbow phoenix was a beast that had hints of blood in them from an actual phoenix. They were quite rare, even in the large forests in the central continent.

"What brings a man like Kaezir Brouch to my doorstep?" the sect leader asked while sitting cross-armed with his feet on top of the desk. He looked quite arrogant from his act. 

"I wonder if you know what is going on in the city," Kaezir asked. 

"If you mean this, then yes, I am aware," the sect leader said as he opened up his arms and showed the black spots all over his arm. "I started getting them about an hour ago. It's slowly going up my body and I do not know if they will ever stop."