When the student was sent to the academy hospital and put in what basically was an emergency room, Jason ran into Caroline, who was accompanying a few other staffers of the school in escorting two students to the hospital.
"Geez, what happened?" Jason asked Caroline.
"Hunting accident - something happened to some of the wild game in the hunting ground, they seemed to be under the effect of a mushroom called 'Kekugora'. They started rampaging and hurt these two students - and it looks like they were able to inflict poison on the victims of their bites and bristles." Caroline sighed: "Kekugora - it's one of those forbidden ingredients in the firework isn't it?"
"Yes." Jason thought for a minute while scratching his jaw: "I just helped bring someone here, who seemed to be suffering from some kind of toxin, you think that's related?"
"It's definitely related." Carl stepped out of the hospital and said: "I just talked to the doctor, they think it's exposure to very small amounts of swamp serpent teeth. And the students from the hunting accident? They have some Kekugora poison in their blood, they believed that it was because of being bitten by the wild game that ingested Kekugora. Kekugora has been banned from common use in the academy for years, there's no reason they just appeared in the hunting ground out of nowhere. Something must have brought it into the hunting ground and in term poisoned the food source or drinking water of those wild game. And get this, there are already some students and even faculties being treated for exposure to the forbidden material, all from the last few days - too much of a coincidence if you asked me."
"Holy shit. The pollution has already spread this wide?" Caroline scratched her head and then rubbed her temples: "But how though? If the pollutants are mixed in the material of fireworks, they'd have no ways to reach the hunting ground right?"
"There's no logical reason there. No one would actually play fireworks in the hunting ground." Carl nodded and said: "Let me go report this to the academy. Thanks for your help Jason, maybe we have to cancel tonight."
"No problem." Jason waved Carl goodbye then turned to Caroline: "And this just reminded me: I think we need to learn some healing spells for cases like this. The super basic first aid and negative energy cleansing tricks using Boss's wine aren't just gonna cut it for this kind of thing - toxins and poison."
"Yeah I agree." Caroline nodded: "I don't like this - I have a really bad feeling about this. I am sensing some kind of ..."
"Conspiracy?" Jason let out a long exhale and said: "I've got the same feeling about this as well - what's with magical schools and secret dark conspiracies? Why can't the magical criminal minds keep it on the street like real world gangs?"
"I think we need to warn Thomas and Aimee - and maybe they would have some clues. They're detectives after all." Caroline said: "I'll call Thomas now."
"Sure. And l'll call Boss and see if he could send us some instructions on those healing spells - if those things can even be taught wirelessly." Jason said: "Ordinary delivery just seems way too slow."
"Yeah, almost three weeks for an invitation card?" Caroline scoffed and shook her head.
"Hi, Boss." this moment, Jason reached Jianmen through a phone call: "We're doing fine, thank you… Yes, we are helping Aimee and Thomas … Yes the duel was quite an awesome experience, but that's not what I'm calling about. We just encountered some cases of poisoning - a few of the students here seemed to be affected by some kind of poison. And there will likely be some kind of small scale outbreak of this kind of poison. So we're thinking if you can teach us some healing spells? Because they sound like they require some complex Xuanli control and the lectures here might not be too much help… okay, and it's kind of an emergency, so delivery is not an option… oh wow really? Umm okay, we'll be there."
"What did he say? " Caroline asked.
"He said uh… he would deliver a scroll to each of us in an hour or less - he would text us the location when it's done." Jason shrugged and said: "And he said we need to get it as soon as possible when the instruction drops."
"He's not gonna break into the academy and deliver them himself in person right?" Caroline frowned: "I thought he wanted us to keep not too high a profile and avoid revealing our connections to him. If he comes breaking into a magical academy, that's … that's like the exact opposite of what he told us to do."
"I guess he has his ways." Jason shook his head and laughed: "What did Thomas say?"
"They want to meet up in the library in about half an hour. They don't know about this yet. But they sounded interested." Caroline said: "Let's meet up with them first?"
"No objections."
"Make way! Make way!" just this moment, another group of students were carrying a professor and rushing towards the hospital: "Professor Norin was poisoned!"
People made way for this group of students, and staffers from the hospital rushed out to take the professor in. With a quick glimpse, Jason and Caroline could tell that the young professor was not only having similar symptoms of the students they helped: shortness of breath, choking, but she was also experiencing some kind of very visible cue of acute reactions to high concentration poison: the skin on her face, neck and hands turned dark and swollen, various students tried casting detoxifying spells on her but to very little effect.
"She's the professor of Chemistry and Potions right?" Caroline asked Jason in a low voice: "What are the odds..."
"Call me crazy, but this looks like a murder attempt." Jason replied, also in a low voice.