Cao Guang's confusion was why would any poison mage go about randomly infecting normal people, even if they were testing the poison an effective way was to test them on other mages.
Wait the poison is too weak as well, so it could be that the mage is a beginner in magic and lacks the strength and therefore wants to try on normal people. But still Ancient Capital military would get involved, wouldn't they?
No, the villages don't have much ties to the military, Sunny Goat Village might be the exception. Other villages may been infected as well, but they didn't report either because they didn't think it was serious or they don't trust outsiders.
They should have figured it out, that's why they have arranged for a different squad to escort Fang Gu back. They have already reported this and the military ordered them to check other villages for similar symptoms.
Cao Guang felt he had a theory figured out about the poisoning but only the Healer could explain the rest to him. Fenrir had run twenty minutes straight when Cao Guang stopped him and sent him back.
Fenrir needed to rest and he lacked energy in his Summoning Nebula.
"We'll make the rest of the journey on foot".
It took the group three more hours to reach Sunny Goat Village, they barely made it there before the sunset and they had accelerated their travel through magic.
"Where are the Healer and the army" asked Cao Guang.
" They built a temporary stone house using magic over there" said Fang Gu leading them to the largest building in the village, it's shape looked uneven and had a rough exterior unlike the normal houses of the village that were made from cut stones.
Cao Guang greeted Lieutenant Liao Wencheng who was in command here and briefed about everything while his team went to rest especially Gao Xuan who was used up his Star Nebula to reach here faster.
The Lieutenant was a peak Intermediate and had a squad of ten people before they split up into two. Now he had only four people here and one of them was a Healer.
"Lieutenant, if I may have a word with the Healer" Cao Guang excused himself after briefing Lieutenant Liao and introduced himself to the healer Qian Liqiu to inquire about the poisoning.
" No your deductions are slightly off, but you didn't know about the poison itself. The poison is growing every moment they spent inside the humans, it's not as if they are being controlled while being inside another person, but they are growing on it's own.
I am sure about the cultivation of the poison mage but the poison will grow a lot if the increments are added up that's why it's a problem.
If the mage has collected the poison back from other villages after the infected died then the potion must have grown far stronger now.
According to our deductions the mage must have poisoned quite a few villages a week ago at the same time in order to avoid detection. I can save the lives of the patients in this village and neutralize the poison with the medicines. But the patients will suffer sequalae, the poison is in it's advances stage now.
The bigger problem is the other villages, if they don't have modern treatment methods they will die, and the poison will grow stronger as well." explained the woman.
Liao Wencheng picked up from where she left off " The army cannot travel at night so we can neutralize the poison in the villages closer to Ancient Capital the farther ones will still have people dying to the poison.
The mage probably didn't even intend to retrieve poison from the villages near the City. It's only to delay the army."
"The farthest village from the city is Hua village, what are the odds of them being infected" asked Cao Guang once again.
" Almost a hundred percent, but I have told you the army can't get there within time to stop the mage from the City ".
The lives of these villagers weren't all that important to the army. Army had repeatedly requested that these villages relocate to Ancient Capital or atleast converge to form a single large village that they can protect, but their advise fell on dear ears.
Liao Wencheng couldn't leave before as he didn't have the antidote to the poison and now as the Healer was making them he couldn't travel anyway as the sun had set.