Sccchuuu!* The sound of screeching sucking wind knocked Leroy out of his fascination. The plant was pulling in air, which caused its stem to inflate and turn even more vibrant. A purple mist shot out that caught the closes person getting dragged in.
"Ahhhh! Help me!" The dragged person screamed as the plant wrapped around him. The others however kept fleeing for their lives. "You blasted cowards!!!"
"Oh dear, that poor man." Hamlet Leader Votley sighed and offered his condolences with a slight prayer, he did not, however, go to help. "Is this your first time seeing one in person?"
"..yes... It is very terrifying to see. If the plant can be driven off he can be saved." Leroy did not move to help either. Growing instincts and understanding let him know that creature was stronger than him. "If only I had some type of Weedkiller to spray it down."
"Oh, how would you treat him? The eggs are such a difficult thing to remove."
"The vines are putting some type of paralytic into him with those small barbs most likely, removing them would help increase his survivability rate. Overall surgery would definitely help and I did just recently get some low-grade scalpels and tweezers to use. Of course, he would be in deep pain during the removal process but that is better than dying." He had not developed a decent enough analgesic or sedation method yet. "Unless he has a way to numb himself that is."
Leroy had no idea how long the paralytic from the Demon Plant was last. Neither did the Leader Votley know of proper method to use it himself. In fact, only a few methods on it not affect either of them when freeing the vines around him later.
"Hmm not at his level, but if we find someone who knows Acupuncture it should help. Now, this is only if he survived the process." Votley stroked his beard like an old philosopher while thinking it over. With what Leroy displayed and talked with him so far, he was happy the other did not know Acupuncture too! That would be just too much for his old heart to take from the wild man! "The Sucking Plant will take his seed and chew some of his organs from the inside, not many of the few Hamlet members survived the process before dying."
"What a horrific Demon Plant it is." Leroy frowned at the chew-some-organs part mentioned. There was not enough info in what he read in regards to the various creatures to understand better yet how they did things. "Tell me more later, let's prepare to save him after it is done with him."
From the detaching vines from the plant, it looked to almost be done.
The Old Tiger laid down unbothered since the Demon Plant was not strong enough to put eggs inside him. But the Demon Beast tiger also didn't have the strength to spare in an attempt to take it out.
Leroy and Votley discussed what would be needed in a quick collaboration. Even encouraging the man to not give up in the meantime a few times. They would need an assortment of tools or blind luck while trying though.
Such as something sharp for cutting the flesh but not damaging the body. A way to replenish blood loss and stop him from spilling out everywhere. It was easy to obtain the sewing needle and basically a suture kit.
'This young man is quite interesting. I don't understand most of what he said at first but we do have some salves and tonics to do what he needs.' Thinking about how this could be used to increase the standing of the Hamlet, Vokley made a note to try to get instruments that match his specifications. 'It's a good thing he came to this Hamlet and didn't go straight to a town.'
"Oh help me!" The captive of the Demon Plant was not having a good time as he screamed at them. At least they didn't abandon him as his peers did. "If you save my life I swear to pay it back!"
"We are waiting till the coast is clear.. don't want the same thing happening to us.." Votley swallowed dryly as he didn't like the idea of going through the same process himself. "I can't believe it was this.. disgusting the entire time..."
The man had a look of pain on his face. What he wouldn't discuss with Leroy is that he lost a few friends to such a method a few years back. The nightmare of their screams while those he traveled with fled was not a good one.
Even moving to a new region didn't help to forget that type of pain.
The Demon Plant actually was really nice when dropping the teacher and extracting itself. The sharing that he worked at an Akademy was the only thing they could think of to get the man to calm down from his fruitless struggles. It was... a troubling thing to see. Definitely gave some real Hentai-based vibes or plant porn....
As Hamlet Leader Votley retrieved the man, Leroy had coated his hands and arms in balm. It was the closes thing to sterilization he could do out here. It was bad enough that this man was getting cut open in the open air but the hut was too small to do this.
"Okay, let's get the major ones out and go from there. You said you knew pressure point combat well enough right?"
"Yes!" Votley nodded assuring the young man he did. "Not strong enough to use in combat but enough to subdue the drunks in the area. What do you need me to do first?"
Leroy instructed him with a signal for when he needed to stop the flow completely and when to slow it down. He instructed they couldn't be too rough since it could cause the artery to tear and they did not have any medicine to help restore that.
Plus the tools were not available to treat torn arteries. Not unless you had the money to head into the city and find anyone willing to use the "primitive" means as they saw it. The information Leroy came across so far suggested that if you couldn't get the pills or elixirs to treat "naturally" as they put it.
Anything that required cutting open was really beyond the people. Well, some methods such as bleeding and amputation were used a lot.
Which gave Leroy a future plan to reattach limbs by mixing modern surgery and the healing uses of Qi. But that was for the future that looked to be a few months away if he could continue to improve his cultivation.
"Well let's remove those eggs already." Votley smiled as they went to work. 'If we save him, there is a chance for a reward. Not to mention the favor of an expert at that!'
The two went about cutting open the polyps that contained a few eggs on the surface of the skin. Thin needles were used in practice swipes against the tissue to sever without causing too much damage. Lifting the tough skin with one hand and pulling the eggs out with the other was difficult in some instances.
A few veins had appeared on the surface of the egg that branched out attaching to nerves. They even started to intertwine and pull on the vitality. Luckily they had no real defense besides latching on.
"Gross.." Hamlet Leader Votley swallowed his bile watching Leroy pulled a particularly nasty one out. If not for the balm applied to them, the eggs could have entered into them. "I should put a little more on."
A few minutes after they took out some eggs, both would reapply some balm for safety's sake. The heat produced on the surface of their skin was enough to keep the remaining vines from penetrating their flesh. Specifically, Leroy who was weaker than the Hamlet's Leader.
Midway through, a lot of tissue damage became apparent to Leroy. He even mentioned the possible muscle strength and overall weakness one would fill. Explaining about transplants and how they could help in the situation, Hamlet Leader Votley was stunned.
Reluctantly he shot off to get other members of the Hamlet to help. Leroy's little Hut was a few feet away from anyone else who was currently home at this time.
While he was alone with the patient, Leroy took it upon himself to clean the man up a little. Taking extra care to conduct a thorough exam for any other injuries as well as keeping note of how some of the cuts and bruising that the man gained when fighting off the Demon Plant earlier had healed already.
'Regeneration of a new cell-based area or it just rapid healing?' Puzzled and wanting more information he really wished there were computers and other such components to look for information in this place.
"What.. are my chances?"
"Hmm, high if everything goes well." Not surprised the man was awake and speaking since he felt a few times the body jerking when he lifted certain sections of the clothing. "Just needed better instruments. Live tissue would be better than dead tissue though."
"As long as you can give me more time, I Tang Suo would not forget to return the favor." He just received a nod as he observed the young man who worked on him. 'He is not that old and definitely not that strong. But the skill of his hands with inferior tools suggests a long time of work on such a level. I wonder who taught him?'
They didn't make chitchat as Leroy was during what he could to remove anything he may have missed. Especially when a few of the vines had small strands that wiggled in the body in some place.
With a little observation on one he passed by earlier revealed it action separated after growing to about two inches. This process was quite disgusting the more he worked away on it.
The Hamlet members came back with a butt load of fresh corpses by the looks of it. Luckily a few of them was still alive in the sense their hearts were beating but they were brain dead.
So many people that were beaten to near death and tossed out like trash turned into a blessing. Tang Suo regained enough of his consciousness to have the procedure explained to him. The fact he was almost crippled and regressed to the Qi Refining Realm was enough to make the young teacher want to commit suicide.
*Rip!* An extraction of some of the vines near the back sounded like the ripping of paper. The invading vines had stuck to the surface of the skin with a waxing type of material.
"I don't think we will have enough live tissue for this.. what in the hell!?" Leroy's face scowled behind the makeshift mask. "How do people leave with stuff like this in the forest?"
"Maybe it just looks bad and won't require the dead tissue to be used..." Hamlet Leader Votley really did not like the sound of that. 'I doubt a Teacher of the Akademy practices Undead Qi. That would just be the worse having saved him.'
"You are going to .. transplant tissue from a corpse into me to help heal my wounds before its to late... are you insane?!"
"No, we are going to transplant tissue from those brain-dead people into you to help heal your wounds and save your Cultivation before it's too late. It would almost be a perfectly easy operation if I had the right tools and a way to test blood compatibility." He then thought of something that may help. "If you know any Body type technique that might be able to help the situation if you can refine the tissue yourself and let us know if it feels ok."
"...." Tang Suo gritted his teeth as he thought about it quickly. Inside his Storage Ring, he pulled out some Pills.
"Body Tempering Pills..." A Hamlet member who brought the bodies over muttered in awe.
"No, those are ones of a higher Tier." Votley eyes shined briefly before he settled back down.
"I was saving these for when I tackle the Nascent Soul Realm.. now I have to use it to keep from dropping back to Body Tempering... This is a sad day for me." Tang Suo was happy to keep his life but the loss of painstaking years of cultivation was not the best thing to try and get over. "Body Reconstruction Pills cost a fortune to make and a long time to get decent ones."