CHAPTER 176 - HAY, WE'RE HOMEWARD BOUND AFTER A FLARE-VELOUS FIREWORKS SPECTACLE

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“Where did they go?” I asked the others.

“They flew off right away when the heavens opened up. Teacher, you didn’t see it because you were watching the skies,” said Lari.

“The clan members must have gone to check it out.” I should’ve realized they would need to see it close up. “I’m sure they’ll send word to us soon.”

Kharli and Mo, who had been trembling while hugging each other earlier, exchanged a look whose meaning I couldn’t decipher and then disentangled themselves.

“You're not worried about the prince?” asked Kharli.

“It’s just an egg. What can it even do?” I shook my head at their hysterics. “Please pull yourself together. Look at Deming and Fengying.”

“Is he cooking?” Mo looked shocked that the Demon Chef was treating this as a normal day.

“Baking bread for tomorrow, I think,” I said.

That did it. The color returned to their faces and they looked greatly relieved.

“It’s not that bad…” Mo glanced at the demon egg and then looked away quickly.

“At least it doesn’t have fangs,” said Kharli.

“How do you know? Maybe we just can’t see the fangs from here,” said Lari, but we could all tell his heart wasn’t in it. He cheered up even more when Yinuo came by with a tray of snacks.

We were munching on sesame balls when Scholar Wu returned with one royal guard.

“Lady Violet, I would like to speak to you in private,” she said, without even bothering with a greeting, which was strange since she was normally a stickler for proper etiquette.

“Let’s go to my suite downstairs,” I said.

The guard and my apprentices followed us to my small drawing room where Scholar Wu waited until we all sat down before saying, “Please tell me everything you know about this ‘event’ as you call it. I know you didn’t want to talk about it before, but the Lady needs more information.”

“Where are they? What’s going on? Should we wait for them before leaving?” The rice plants would be fine, but the tea plants should be watered every day, so I didn’t want to delay our trip back.

“We all instinctively flew towards the… disturbance in the sky.” Scholar Wu paused and gave me a searching look. “You must have expected that?”

“Er, I thought you all would just watch from the ship, but now that you mention it, I do feel that was a natural reaction.”

Yinuo arrived with the tea, but Scholar Wu waved her off a bit impatiently when my maid tried to serve her first.

“Nothing for me. I will be leaving as soon as we finish since the Lady is expecting my report,” said Scholar Wu.

“You’re leaving again?” I asked.

“Yes. One of the guards will stay with the ship to make sure everyone is alright. You may leave as soon as the dawn breaks,” she said.

I had tried to explain earlier that the ship had a safe automatic navigation function, but the clan members were adamant that we not fly in the darkness. Nodding my head, I assented to her plan and said, “Okay, now about what I know about the event, please make sure that you include in your report that I don’t actually ‘know’ anything. This is all information from my bloodline inheritance which I trust, but I can’t promise it will be one hundred percent accurate.”

“My lady, whatever happens, you won't be blamed for it, and we'll try to verify your information before acting on it.”

Taking out my notes, I explained the event to her as best as I could.

“The egg will be absorbing ambient energy until it's time for it to hatch, which should be sometime in summer next year. The demon will be quite large, obviously, but not particularly dangerous. The only thing we need to watch out for are its special attacks,” I said.

Scholar Wu frowned. “What do you mean by ‘we’? Lady Violet, you’re not planning to join the demon extermination, are you?”

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I held a hand up.

“Hear me out first. My bloodline inheritance should allow me to see the demon’s life force, which is important for knowing when it will use its deadly skill.” The concept of hit points or HP was way too hard for me to explain, but “life force” was a good enough alternative. “The monster will cast special magical attacks when it’s at 75, 50, and 25 percent of its life force. You need me to be there to know when it's imminent.”

Scholar Wu softly expelled air through her mouth in a not-quite sigh while the others, especially Mo, looked alarmed.

To be precise, the boss would also heal itself completely after casting Area-of-Effect spells, though only three times.

The first time, when it was at 75 percent HP, it would use its [Dark Nova] to attack and heal to 100 percent HP.

The second time, when it was at 50 percent HP, it would use [Fury Vortex] and heal to 75 percent HP.

The third time, when it was at 25 percent HP, it would use its strongest spell, [Meteor Storm], and heal to 50 percent HP.

After that, it should be easy-peasy for everyone since it would be out of spells.

Continuing my explanation as best as I could, I said, “The special attacks will cover a wide area and have to be dodged since they could be deadly.”

“You know what the attacks will be like?”

“Possibly a shadowy explosion, a tornado of energy, and a rain of meteors.”

My explanation finished, I took a glass of chamomile tea from Yinuo and sipped it as Scholar Wu peppered me with questions, most of which I couldn’t answer since they were about the cause of the event, and I had no idea why it happened.

There was probably a lore explanation in Adventure Incarnate, but I couldn’t remember it, and I didn’t have access to the game wiki anymore.

“One last thing,” I said when Scholar Wu said she was leaving to make her report. “I think you should emphasize that I don’t think the demon is intelligent. I mean, it might have a certain animal cunning, but I doubt it's much smarter than, say, a squirrel or a pigeon.”

“Squirrels are not dumb, as a matter of fact, not compared to similar animals,” said Scholar Wu.

“Okay, but what I mean is, the demon will probably just be on the same level as a giant hamster, not like a giant super-powered human or clan member.”

“I hope you’re right.” She got up and bowed to us. “I’ll see you back at the farm soon. Have a safe trip back.”

“See you soon.” I got up, too, and returned her bow.

After she left, I told the kids to go to sleep since we were leaving at dawn and reassured them once again that everything was going to be alright.

“If the System says it won’t hatch until next year, then I can sleep soundly tonight!” Lari looked quite relieved.

Kharli and Mo nodded.

“Teacher, we’ll share a room,” said Kharli.

“Brush your teeth before you go to bed,” I said to them as I walked them to the door.

Yinuo bustled about laying out my nightgown on my bed and checking to make sure I had everything I needed for the night before leaving.

I fell asleep moments after my head hit my pillow and woke up a few hours later feeling refreshed. The trip back was uneventful. The kids and staff kept on nervously glancing over their shoulders at the southern sky where the demon egg loomed but otherwise acted normal.

“Yes! Thank all the gods we’re back!” Lari ran off to the tea field.

“Hey, don’t get ahead of Teacher!” Despite her words, Mo ran off, too.

Kharli and I laughed and followed them at a sedate walking pace.

“Slow down, the crops aren’t going anywhere,” I called out to them.

“Teacher, Teacher, look!” Mo yelled. She was jumping up and down and waving to us, urging us to walk faster.

“What the heck?!” I said in shock when I was close enough to see what she was excited about. “What happened while we were away?”

The tea plants, which had been drooping and had brown-edged leaves because of the heat, were visibly rejuvenated, standing tall and proud, with vibrant green leaves. Even their scent was richer and more intense.

“Maybe we should go away more often if this is the result,” said Lari.

“Gosh.” I shook my head, bewildered but happy. “Let’s water them and hope we get a good harvest this summer.”

After watering and tending the tea plants, we inspected the rice paddies where we found that both the crops and fish were growing well. We were walking to the main house when we stumbled upon a sight that piqued our curiosity.

Deming and his three assistants were repeatedly pacing back and forth a few paces, with Fengying watching them. They all had expressions of extreme concentration on their faces, as though they were doing something momentous. Occasionally, they looked south and frowned.

“I can tell they’re up to something!” I said to the others.

“I’ll go ask them,” said Lari, who suited his actions to his words.

He returned with Fengying.

“My lady, they’re testing the farm’s boundary shield,” she said.

“Shield?” We had a shield? This was the first I had heard of it.

“Not being a cultivator, I can’t sense it myself, but Deming says the whole farm is covered by very strong qi.”

“Oh.” I thought they were talking about a force field-style shield, but it was just the same old thing about qi being very intense inside the farm.

Suddenly, I remembered that when we left, I had turned on all of the farm’s security and privacy settings. Now that we were back, that wasn’t necessary, therefore I turned most of them back off. I explained what I had done to Fengying who went over to the Demon Chef to inform him about it.

The kids were uninterested.

“We’ve always had a shield, haven’t we?” said Kharli.

“Yeah, a lot of the clan members I spoke to said they had a lot of trouble finding the farm,” said Lari.

Mo just yawned.

Unlike them, I knew something was up, and so we waited for Fengying to return with more information.

“They said that the demon egg in the south is giving off an extremely powerful demonic qi, but they can’t feel it inside the farm,” said Fengying.

“Wow, so our farm’s qi is shielding us from the demonic qi? That’s a good thing, right?” I asked.

“It’s a very good thing,” she said. “Also, Deming says the farm’s qi has increased by at least fivefold since we left.”

“What? Why?”

Fengying glanced southward. “To balance out the qi from outside.”

“Wait a minute, is that why the tea plants are revived? If so, this is wonderful!” I clasped my hands together in delight and beamed at everyone.

I knew the event was a good thing!

Fengying simply nodded.

I turned to my apprentices and said, “You see, guys? There’s nothing to worry about, our farm even got stronger.”

“Maybe we’ll get a better harvest,” said Kharli.

“I think we will,” I said.

And I was right.