The troubles that brew

Bai Yun left the weed valley after his meeting with Bai Qing. His entire body was in a state of severe damage due to the river. The worst of it was his qi spiral, which was quite impure. It would take him a lot of trouble to fix it. Thankfully he had the supreme weed fruit, and thus could fix as much as possible.

He had stayed in the garden for nearly two weeks. The clan gathering was only six months away. He had to increase his strength as much as possible by then.

Bai Yun left the beast garden and took a bus directly to his house. Due to his status, he was able to quickly catch a clan bus and reach his home in a manner of hours, whereas walking the entire way would have taken him days.

The moment Bai Yun stepped inside his house, he felt a wave of energy roll over him. He was immediately immobilized by the aura and stood there rooted, sweating. He was forced to one knee to withstand the pressure.

A second later the huge pressure was lifted. "There you are Yun." His father said with a smile.

Bai Yun realized that the wave of energy he felt earlier was not intentionally directed at him. It was simply the energy that spilled over from his father unintentionally. But even the unintentional pressure given off by a third step cultivator was not something that he was capable of withstanding right now.

Bai Yun slowly stood up. His father was standing over a table in the middle of the room. On the table, he could see a large map of the continent spread out, with some special spots marked on it.

"What is going on?" Bai Yun asked. For his father to be so concentrated that he did not even notice him approach, the situation must have been quite serious.

"It's nothing. Since I haven't done anything for so long, those old bastards at the council are asking me to do some troublesome work. It s nothing to worry about." Bai Mu said.

Bai Yun walked up to the table. On the map, there were some places marked in multiple colors. There were also some numbers and dates marked on the map. The funny thing was that the oldest of the dates went back as far as over a hundred years ago.

Bai Yun looked at his father and raised his eyebrows. Based on the fact that the entire thing was laid out on the front doorstep, he was sure that the affair wasn't classified.

"Don't tell anyone what I am to tell you. Those old bastards will be after my ass if I caused a panic in the clan. Well, it's not as if it could be kept as a secret for long anyway." His father said with a sigh.

"The places that are marked are places a particular incident took place. The places marked red are where the caravans of our clans were attacked, while the different colors represent different major forces of the continent. The white ones are where small villages or forces were attacked." He said.

Bai Yun looked at the map. Even though there were many dots on the map, they were spread over a large area. It was also over a long time, and attacking many different forces.

"Due to the nature of the attacks and the fact that no one wants to let others know that they were attacked, most of the information was kept secret by each force. We did not know of the scope of these until very recently." Bai Mu explained

As Bai Yun looked at the map once again, he realized that the attacks were initially separated by a few years, but they were getting more frequent in the later years. There were over a dozen attacks in the last year alone.

"It was only when the frequency of the attacks increased that we noticed the pattern a few years ago. Even then we only started to exchange information on the attacks in the last month or so. As a result of all this, not a lot of people outside the dao step cultivators of the top forces know of this." Bai Mu said.

"What happened?" Bai Yun asked with a frown.

"It is truly horrific." Bai Mu said with a sigh. "Small groups, a hundred or so in size were attacked and all of them were killed. Then their blood was drained. When the corpses were found, all of their blood was gone without exception. Even the blood of mortals was taken in some cases."

"Was it the work of blood cultivators?" Bai Yun asked with a frown.

Blood cultivators were a special type of cultivators. They followed a different system from the three main systems. At the same cultivation, a blood cultivator was superior to a person in any single system of the three main systems. But the blood cultivators fought using blood, and also used the blood of their enemies to cultivate, thus they were looked down on and even hunted down in some cases. There were many cases of blood cultivators going wild and killing people to increase cultivation.

Bai Mu shook his head. "No. The traces found does not support blood cultivators. Not only that even other races like vampires or ghouls could not have anything to do with them. We couldn't find out anything about who could have done this."

Bai Yun frowned as he thought about this. Suddenly his body shook as a memory emerged in his mind. 'It can't be' he thought.

"Since we had no idea what it was, we ignored it for a while. But then someone from the city of scholars send the details of the incident to the Immortal Plane. And then they responded. Apparently, it is something that came from the previous epoch, the fourth epoch." Bai Mu said.

'No, don't say it.'

"Apparently it is something called a..."

'No. Please no.'

"Devil Ritual."

Bai Yun felt like a lightning storm went off inside his head. He heard a name that he had not been expecting. A word that should have been erased. A word that brought back his worst memories.

Devil rituals were rituals used by the devil army to give power to the humans that followed them. Using devil rituals it was possible to forcefully increase one's cultivation without suffering any backlash. Even people who reached the limits due to their talents could breakthrough using devil rituals. But the cost was the lives or sufferings of far too many humans.

He had seen many kinds of devil rituals during the war. There were many that killed people and used their blood, or souls, or body parts to complete the rituals. There were even rituals where people were tortured and their resentment was used to cultivate. The devil rituals that he had seen were some of the worst things that he had seen in his life.

Bai Yun did not hate the devil emperor or the devil army too much. They mostly fought very bravely and fiercely. And even when they killed their enemies, they did nothing disrespectfully.

The ones he hated the most were traitors who betrayed the army for the devil rituals. He knew many people who did so. And without question, anyone who used devil rituals would go very far in their cruelty. Even the devils who gave them the rituals treated people better than they did.

For a moment Bai Yun had no idea what had happened. There was no mention of the grand war in his memories. And after the devil emperor self destructed, he thought that even the memory of the devils was wiped out.

But he soon realized his mistake. The destruction of the Devil Emperor only removed all memories of him alone. And the devil army and other things related to them would not be forgotten. The reason no one here knew of them was simply due to the passage of time. At least the devil rituals remained. Also, there seemed to be people in the Immortal world who knew the truth. It seemed as if someone had found some devil ritual and was using it to cultivate.

"What exactly is going on?" He asked his father.

"We don't know much. Apparently, the devil rituals were developed in the fourth epoch. Devil cultivators are extremely cruel, and considered an enemy of the world. It was said that we should kill all of them. And if we find the devil ritual, we are to destroy it. The Immortal Plane even offered us rewards for their capture. So all the forces are actively participating in the search." Bai Mu explained.

Bai Yun looked over the map even more closely. After making sure that the spots picked for devil rituals did not make any dao patterns, he was satisfied. A truly powerful devil ritual could even require one to make sacrifices in specific locations so as to maximize the ritual. But this seemed to be only a low level ritual. He smiled. His father should be able to handle such people.

"I initially thought that the whole thing was just a headache when those asses dumped all that work on my head, but after seeing some images of the attacks, I want to murder the bastard that did it. I wanted to show you the images, but your mother thinks it's unnecessary. Maybe when you are stronger I will show them to you." Bai Mu said.

'Yes. It is unnecessary. More than you will ever know.' The only time Long Tian had ever vomited, was when he saw the aftermath of one of the devil rituals for the first time.

"Your mother and I are going to the City of Scholars to meet up with the various forces and device a plan to find the culprit. I was waiting to inform you before we left. Do you want to come with us? You can apply to one of the academies there." Bai Mu asked.

"I will go there after the clan competition is over. There is something I want from the clan treasury." Bai Yun said.

Bai Mu raised his eyebrow for a moment, then nodded and turned to leave.

"Be careful during the next few months. Since we won't be here, you can simply ask anything you need from old Hai. I have already told you about the basics of cultivation. As long as you practice without destroying your foundation, it will be fine." Bai Mu said as he left.

Bai Yun stood there and thought about what he had heard just now and its implications. If some devil cultivators was roaming here, he would definitely slaughter them all.

But he was too weak right now. A simple swipe from them was enough to turn him into a puddle.

Bai Yun smiled. In the end, what he had to do was simple. Become strong enough to slaughter the trash.

With a smile, he went to his courtyard to consume the supreme weed fruit.