chapter 2: the challenge

as the sun rises up the young man called tian yan who was sleeping suddenly woke up by a strange dream where a big mountain was burning and he was standing inside the mountain and being sealed inside the mountain except him everthing was burning but to his horror he was the cause of all those fires that burn on the mountain and suddenly he saw himself as a monster whose body was totally disordered his legs attached to magma his hand forming claws of unknown sharpness, which when he slightly passed his hand nothing remained intact and everything was melting and his face being devoid of any emotions that can be described with the shape of a skull and headless eyes he turned around and looked in shock as he was trying to grab a person, but on a closer look he was trying to brag hhimself, as the monstrous tian yan was trying to grab tian yan he yelled "give me back, I want it, I want it, my body , I will die but I can't please give my body so I can die, return it to me, haaaaaaahaaaaahaa" as tian yan heard this his fear made his heart beat grow uncontrollable until he finally woke up yelling "get away from me, I am not you, don't kill me, stay away" this was the first time tian yan felt that he was nearer to death than when he killed a blade winged tiger for its fur to be given to the city lords daughter, as tian yan never felt fear he whispered to himself "what was that, even a blade winged tiger was unable to scare me to this extent, but now I am begging for my life because of that dream,was that even a dream, if so I don't want to die or experience being held by chains of unknown strength" this was not just tian yan speaking but his entire being vibrating with great horror towards that scenic nightmare, since young tian yan barely had a dream except the time of his mother dying which he as been desperately trying to change by studying medicine, he had no such dream what so ever, but today was the third dream where he experienced such desperation and the first being about his mother, tian yan thinking about his dreams again said "if I can save my mother and get rid of her stubborn illness,than all of this , all of my dreams will be a lie" as he said he got up and headed to his apothecarpercy and searched for a few herbs to make new medicine, but to his surprise he was missing sage leaf, magma sunflower dew water and ancient rock mushroom which he could not find so he went outside to search for them, as he went outside he was met by a slightly arrogant man that man was mo jun of the mo clan, as the man saw yan tian he sneakily followed yan tian,yan tian who saw this thought("who would have thought that trouble loves me, but no one knowns that I don't take difficulties like this as of no importance so let's take this mo trash out of the picture ")as tian yan thought he drew the 'mo' sect members to a near by forest and took the carcass of iron horn rhino whose horn was entact has the Mo's family members saw this, there eyes grew with greed and suddenly ,they tried to kill tian yan for the horn of the iron rhino, tian yan knew that they would definitely attack him so he deliberately drew them here and pretended to be attacked and posed as if he was offended and did not take kindly to this action. yan tian in response drew out a 4.5 inch dagger and swung it towards the nearest thick tree as he swung his blade it detached itself into a blade whip cutting the tree horizontally and causing it to fall on the mo family members as they were trapped under the tree they said "tian yan you are ruthless how dare you attack us out of no where"tian yan ignorned the banter of the mo family trash trios and continued to walk towards them, as he pulled out his blade, he moved it towards the disabled mo jun, tian yan did not care and swiftly swing his blade to grab his bag of holdings, after grabbing the bag he left, mo jun who saw this action became extremely embarrased and started screaming curses "tian yan come back here with my bag of holding and get rid of this tree or else I will personally kill your mother and have her ravaged before she dies, if you don't want anything to happen to your precious family then return my bag of holding and give up the iron rhino carcass" hearing this tian yan stopped turned with emotionless eyes and walked forward while picking up a glass bottle from his own bag of holding and threw it towards the trios and left a message before he went out of the trios eye site "mo trash don't think that my family can be bullied by a pair of pigs from your family, 'i tian yan wants you dead so you can die by having your body eaten by the insects and animals of 'spiritual mountain' and for your information I killed that iron rhino, so what makes you think that you can kill me" as tian yan said this he did not yell but said it like 'garbage that should be disposed of cleanly' as he said these words he left thinking mo clan you offended me and I shall have no pleasure except extenguisheing the flames of hatred that you fostered towards me and my family , and that can only be done by completely destroying your clan and having the other four clans han, xiao, Bu and jin clan work for me tian yan. as he was walking away in his thoughts , insects and beasts started gathering towards the mo trios and soon the beasts attacked them as mo jun was dying he yelled " yan tian please forgive me I won't try to kill you ever again so please help me,please help meeeeee" as tian yan walked he was lost in thought and reminising his memories of the past, '3years ago' (a peasent woman started yelling for help in front of the mo's apotheicarpercy "master please help my child is sick and my husband is foaming from his mouth,please help us,I have given you all of our belongings so please treat them." the mo guards said while snickering "woman this is the mo's apothicarpercy who do think you are to get treatment by our pharmacist's, get lost" tian yan who was passing by saw the injustice and said " I will treat your son and husband so bring them to the flaming pharamecy around the corner" hearing this the woman said while afraid "I don't have any money, if you want I will work it off as a slave for all my life young master so please save them" tian yan who had noticed how everyone was getting sick in the country also suddenly thought that it had something to do with the mo's so he stood first and observed how they were treating there patients and why they were only rejecting the patients that had similar symptoms like that woman's husband and son, now tian yan only needs solid evidence to prove that illness was being spread on purpose,so tian yan decided to treat the illness to gauge the situation and replied kindly to the woman"there is no need for payment please come to the apothecarpercy and I will provide medicine for treatment because these people are not going to return your money or provide any medicine so don't expect them to help at all because they were ordered to not treat anyone who got ill due to drinking water from the wells." the woman shocked, reluctantly agreed and followed along while carrying here child , since her husband was very weak tian yan ordered him to be carried to his desk by his servant for treatment, as tian yan was leaving mo's guards stopped him and said "bold, she has already paid and waiting to get treatment, who do you think you are to take away our patient" tian yan after hearing this' directly ordered wu bei his personal butler and guard to have the mo's guards hands to be broken and have them tied to the post lamp while he procedds towards his place taking the sick father and son with him. as he tarts to pick out medicine and puts them into a stone grinder to grind them into powder and takes out a set of silver needles and heats them up with the powder from the grind stone and starts to poke the father with it, as he pulls out the needle he immediately hides the needle and starts to look at the 'son' who was unconscious, he notices the foam forming near the mouth and picks out another set of herbs, these herbs were specially raised outside of the city and very hard to find they were called new moon blue petal, amesthous leaf and single branching root. the new moon blue petal was entirely white and give who ever eat or drank it with honey a boost of energy or make them look young but it mainly earned it's name due to it's nature that is, it would turn blue on contact of blood and detoxify blood of impurities, nobles or aristocrats of the seven kingdoms would use them to either show that they are better or different than the normal populace and hence use this fact to dominate the locals, amesthous leaf on the other hand is an extremely toxic leaf that is found under a toad which eats poisonous insects, as the toad eats these insects it secretes the poison out of the body which is directly absorbed by the amesthous leaf, it is normally purple in colour and highly toxic if exposed to raw wounds it will break the bones by corrosion and block all blood vessels making it a quick meeting with death and the last herb the single branching root has only one use that is, it will allow the user to control the blood flow inside a person's body making the blood go into the main chi points. at first glance no one will known that these medicines are rare but tian yan took these herbs out and started to boil the new moon blue leaf with honey water after boiling he gave the amesthous leaf mixed with single branching roots first to be eaten and then gave the detoxification medicine which was deep red with a hint of blue to the father and son. both of them drank it and after a while they both started to groin after a few hours had passed both of them regained their consciousness, the woman started to kotowed but was stopped by tain yan and given some extra detoxification medicine for convince use if they had pain in there stomach and sent them away, as the family went away the butler said" young master you spent those herbs so casually, why treat them in the first place those herbs cost us atleast a million" tian yan upon hearing this said without emotions "you are a butler who is loyal to me, if anyone and i mean anyone except my mother and father asked me this useless question then they would be dead or counting there last breaths has for why I treated them it is very easy they carry the signs of where the 'plague' would happen and spread to others, if they were left unchecked it would cause half the city to go under strict imprisonement leading to killing half the citizens at that point even if we spent a trivial 50 million we would not escape that fate at all" the butler still tried to say his meanings in a polite and stubborn manner"but young master you could have used the regular herbs to treat them and they are just peasen-" tian yan " looked at him and said " I see you are very capable take a look at this needle and tell me what is wrong" the butler picked up the needle and immediately let it go saying "young sir great master it is poisoned" yan tian yelled" you are very capable that you can tell that the father was poisoned by some underhanded means but he is also a victim of the plague" the butler in shock said " how can the plague and the poison be found in a single body young master" tian yan said to arrange for atleast another ten shipment of the same herbs to be brought back before he answered the butler" the father of that boy was already sick but held onto his duties, which are mining in the mo's mines, he and atleast one fifth of the country of iron well do mining for a lively hood- hence proving that even if being sick caused a little bit of the 'plague' symptoms to manifist it was not strong. so hwas deliberately additionally poisoned so that when he died the plague would spread faster by the air because of the poison and only if you have taken the antidote can you be not infected. and if it can spread by the people around the dead body who came to make a visit at his funeral then it would simply make it a deadly appocalypse in the entire country of iron well " the butler after hearing this said in shock "but young master it is the city lords duty to look after this mess, so why bother with this trouble and arrange for another 10 batches of these exotic herbs" tian yan quiet upset said " it is not my duty as yan tian but my duty as a physicist to treat the patients in front of me and the city Lord is already aware of this spreading of plague and is looking up for a solution to the problem but because this is not the same place with a similar incident the city Lord simply can't find the solution and as for the 10 batches of herbs it is not enough to cure nearly 1/20th of the iron well population" the butler quiet confused asks" so why arrange for the herbs to be brought in so soon in such a quantity if the plague is such a danger, shouldn't' you order more" tian yan who was on the brink of anger said "because if the plague occured we the pharmacy of yan and mo would be responsible for the people's treatment and all the treatment cost would be coming out of our pockets, and because we can't bring in a large amount of these herbs we need to cure the source of the plague quietly rather than show that we can cure the plague symptoms, in this way we can avoid suspicion of the enemys and not show our strength's to our allies. now stop asking me these questions and start making the medicine as I instruct you and later put them in the outer skirts and inner city wells" tian yan after telling these reasons left on his own and headed home, on his way home he thought of only one thing "the only ones who can cure the plague are me and the mo's but I think the mo's are the ones who would benefit the most if they could cure the plague after it had spread rapidly, the most likely reason would be to make them lead the entire country with there new earned prestiege and have the other large families follow their desires at a whim")as tian yan was walking lost in thought he realised he was Remebering the past incidents and rushed to collect the herbs and left to get home soon, after reaching home he quietly prepared the soup and gave it to his mother and went to talk to his father, their his father was sitting on a table with two glasses of tea, as he sat there he said " so you killed some one again, was it from the mo clan" tian yan unable to hide Or refute the truth, directly said it "the mo clan desiciples tried to kill me, so I trapped them beneath a tree and left them there so can i kill them" yan gouzhi after hearing these words said in surprise" well don't bother with scum like them and listen carefully there is a nation wide contest in sudden wind country where atleast a total of 1000 participants are present and it just so happens that one of the herbs needed to cure your mother is being given as a prize, so prepare to leave for the contest in 3 days and do what ever you want but you have to make sure that you get the herb that could be any prize at that contest " tian yan who was a little less hesitant due to the lack of information said " what if I am unable to get the herb in the first, second or third place or was unable to win any position at all" yan gouzhi said his bearing his wits without hesitation" then say your final words to your mother because she may not survive without that herb and leave the yan clan because your unable to fulfill a single request as win the competition and get the prized herb for her treatment" tian yan who was always at odds with his father said" she, my mother is your wife how can you say those words in front of me your own son" yan gouzhi said" if you can't get the prized herb being rewarded at the competition then you can't save her, then do you think I would allow you to stay and spend millions of gold on herbs and still hope she can be cured because we have done that since the start , you have never been good at reading the situation of the yan clan so you should leave the clan and carry your burden" tian yan unable to withstand his anger yelled at his father " damn you, if you want me to leave I won't just leave the clan I will also leave the entire country, as for the competition you can 'stop counting your eggs before they are hatched' because I am the only one who is going to win the entire thing and no one else, I will also cure my mother and leave this clan of my own accord not because of you "tian yan as he said these words started to leave but before leaving he turned around and said " old man you are not my father from now onwards I tian yan, am my own person and I accept your challenge to becoming the number one in this competition , hump" tian yan directly left leaving yan gouzhi behind as he was sitting there whispering"little brat you better get that prize herb or else even if you don't get that prize herb there won't be a yan clan left for you to return to " . deep within the mountains a group of people looked at the corpses beneath the tree, the person in front of the group yelled" tian yan you bastard how dare you kill my son, I will no matter what kill you and have your entire clan eradicated after that prince from heaven falls country arrives hahahahaha"

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