Xiao Xuefeng flew all the way to the physician pavilion. This pavilion was rather close to the martial art pavilion for obvious reasons. There were also smaller clinics near the training grounds in case of emergency. And array formations were set up there to contact the main pavilion.
Chief Elder Qinghe was reading some old manual about the Soul Embryo. This was the difference between a Mortal Warrior and a Spirit Warrior. While Mortal Warriors could manifest their Qi and control it outside of their body, Spirit Warriors could deploy spiritual senses all around them, able to see through flesh and bone. These spiritual senses came from the Soul Embryo they had birthed within them during the last stages of the Mortal Warrior realm. This was this very process that Cao Guang had achieved the night of the attack on the Cao family.
Chief Elder Qinghe was a very old man, approaching his 2,100th birthday. Spirit Warriors had extremely long lifespan and among them physicians and alchemists boasted the longest of all. He was a 7th-grade Spirit Warrior and had been stuck there for more than a thousand year. No human cultivator had been able to exceed the Spirit Warrior realm since the end of the Seven Treaties Era. And even the last levels of Spirit Warriors were harder to reach.
He had the appearance of a great scholar with a pure white beard. The top of his head was shaved but he still had very long white hair behind. Considering his old age, Chief Elder Qinghe would not be alive for more than a few decades and it showed on his face. Even Chief Elder Baishen who was old only looked like a sixty or seventy-year-old mortal woman. But if Chief Elder Qinghe was compared to a mere mortal, he would look older than a hundred-year-old man. Without his Qi, he would not even be able to move around.
His spiritual senses were not as developed as Xiao Xuefeng's but he sensed her from very far. In fact, she attracted many other chief elders and elders. But seeing her direction, they quickly understood that something had happened to a disciple. However, they had to admit that since the beginning of this year, many Spirit Warriors were flying at full speed all over the Wubei Sect. This was unusual!
Chief Elder Qinghe woke up some elders and asked them to welcome the woman as he prepared an examination room.
Guest Elder Xiao Xuefeng was also feeling everything that was going on in the physician pavilion. She went straight to those elders. They were two men and one woman.
"This one pays respect to Guest Elder Xiao Xuefeng." They all quickly bowed and almost immediately stood straight. As physicians, they were used to emergencies and politeness was reduced to its minimum.
All three of them sent their spiritual senses over Huang Cixi. Xiao Xuefeng let go of her and the physicians kept her floating in the air.
After some quick examination, they walked toward the room prepared by their chief elder.
"Follow us, please."
Cao Yun was unable to follow them because of their speed but Xiao Xuefeng kept him under her control and took him with her. They arrived to the room set up by Chief Elder Qinghe.
"Miss Xiao, what happened?" As soon as he spoke, he was already examining the girl's body while waiting for an answer.
"Chen Guo found his servant bleeding on the floor tonight. I believe that she suffered from Qi Deviation during her cultivation. Her Lower Dantian seems to have suffered terrible injuries."
Chief Elder Qinghe was sending his spiritual senses all over the poor girl. The more he examined her, the deeper the frown on his face became.
"Miss Xiao, it's way worse than that, I fear." Cao Yun's heart skipped a beat. "She completely destroyed her Lower Dantian."
Cao Yun's mind went blank. This meant that even if she survived, she could never cultivate again. The Lower Dantian was the foundation of all of human cultivation. If it was too damaged or worse, accumulating Qi would become impossible as it was the main reservoir and producer of Qi in the human body.
He was devastated. Huang Cixi was a servant, but Cao Yun valued her greatly, as he did everyone close to him. Xiao Xuefeng's complexion was not so good either. She had examined her in haste so she had not seen the severity of her condition. However, Chief Elder Qinghe was a 5-star Heaven physician. His word was absolute.
"Physician Qinghe, is there nothing we can do?" Cao Yun panicked and asked what was on his mind.
"For now, I'll stabilize her condition or she could simply die before sunrise. That won't be difficult but I need calm. Leave me!" As soon as he spoke, the doors opened. Xiao Xuefeng looked at Cao Yun and they both walked out.
The boy's eyes were almost devoid of life. He knew close to nothing in terms of medicine. However, he had read many books on both alchemy and cultivation. Desperately, he tried to browse through his memories but nothing was able to help. He even tried to look through the memories he had obtained from Cleansed Asura. However, everything was still too complicated for him to understand.
Finally, Xiao Xuefeng talked.
"Chen Guo, I have a way..."
"Really?! Please, do tell!" Cao Yun talked first, but then he saw that the woman's face was rather gloomy.
"There is a legendary pill known as the Life Boiling Cradle pill. The texts claim that it's able to create a Pure Golden Dantian. There is a possibility, a very tiny possibility, that this pill could restore someone's Lower Dantian." She insisted on the fact that the possibility was slim.
Cao Yun thought about it. He looked through all the texts he knew, from the 'Four Seasons Cycle Classic' and the 'Ten Thousands Earthly Mysteries' to the most obscure texts he had read. This pill appeared nowhere, not even a single mention of it.
"Guest Elder Xiao, I never heard about this pill..."
"Of course, you haven't. This pill is legendary. Some ancient texts claim that Emperor Nuwa found one and started her cultivation this way. A Pure Golden Dantian allows one's cultivation to soar much faster than a regular mortal. The legends are not clear on the details, but for a Mortal or a Mortal Warrior, the benefits should be plentiful. However, the chances of success of such a pill are so slim that most cultivators who ever tried it during the Founding Era died. As such, it was never consumed by anyone afterward.
"But the bigger problem is different... This pill is a 1-star Spirit pill." With these words, she poured cold water on Cao Yun's hopes.
Pills were ranked according to both their difficulty to refine and their effects. Earth rank pills could theoretically be refined even by mere mortals. Human rank pills required the ability to control the flames with one's Qi, so only a Mortal Warrior could succeed. Heaven rank pills required spiritual senses to sense the process within both the flames and the cauldron. After those ranks were two special ranks: the Spirit rank and the God rank.
They did not require new abilities. In theory a Spirit Warrior could refine them. By in truth, this was almost impossible. A Spirit rank pill was known as an 'aware pill'. Legendary texts claimed that such pills were similar to plants. The medicinal essence in them had started to develop a wisp of consciousness. It wasn't really conscious but it could react to its environment. The moment it was created, it would try to flee from the cauldron to absorb the purest Qi of nature, the Heaven Qi.
A Spirit rank pill could not really develop a spirit, but for people around, it looked as though it had one. Only a God rank pill had a true spirit. Being able to forge either of them was akin to creating life from medicinal essence. Not only was it extremely hard, it was also difficult just to keep the pill from leaving afterward. Cao Yun had read one document about them, 'Annotations of Grand Alchemist Zhang Pao'. He was the last one to attempt to forge a Spirit rank pill during the Forsaken Dao Era.
He had reached the pinnacle of 9th-grade Spirit Warrior and was confident in his strength. Despite being a 5-star Heaven alchemist, he failed more than a thousand times. And when he was finally successful, the pill just flew in the sky never to be seen again. He tried to chase after it with all his strength but lost it after a few months.
In this personal notebook, he had detailed all the process. For his experiments, he had used almost all the resources he had accumulated during his entire life and had wasted numerous ingredients. However, he was able to give very comprehensive explanations. According to him, an array formation had to be set up to ensure the retrieval of the pill. In the ancient times, people were able to exceed the Spirit Warrior realm so they could tame these pills without external assistance, but not anymore.
Forging such a pill was almost impossible and even if you could do it, you may not be able to use it.
-
As Cao Yun was trying to rack his brain over this problem, Chief Elder Qinghe came out of the room.
"Her condition is stabilized, but her Lower Dantian is completely destroy. She'll never be able to gather any Qi in it. Worse, if she tries, the Qi will overflow in her organs and she may die."
Fortunately, Cao Yun's mind cultivation was excessively strong. As such, he resisted the shock of the news and the Drop of Wrath stayed calm. Before, it could have tried to use this dark occasion to assault his sanity.
"Physician Qinghe, did you find the cause of such a Qi deviation. I've rarely seen one so intense." Most of the times, a Qi deviation could cause injuries but in a level as low as 3rd-grade Mortal, the wounds should be minimum.
"I fear that she developed an inner demon. I don't know what happened for such a young girl to form one, but it probably woke up during her last cultivation. All the Qi she was gathering in her Lower Dantian erupted in the ten directions. No wall was safe. Miss Xiao, I'll have to trouble you for some pills tomorrow. Luckily, I can salvage her body. She won't suffer much, but her cultivation days are over. I'm sorry..."
"Thank you, Physician Qinghe. I know you did your best. Just send my servants the list of what you need."
Chief Elder Qinghe looked over at Cao Yun. Seeing his lifeless face, he heaved a deep sigh. "Young boy, there was nothing you could have done. If you want to stay the night with her, go ahead."
He then left as Cao Yun and Xiao Xuefeng walked into the room.
In Cao Yun's mind, many possibilities emerged. Could she have formed this inner demon because of the attack of Luduo Bu? Then, everything was his fault. And worse, he had failed to realize that she was in anguish. Inner demons weren't just born out of the blue like that. It could take months, sometimes even years, before they manifested themselves. In demonic cultivators, it could cause insanity, but in orthodox cultivators it mostly caused wounds and death by Qi deviation.
Walking closer to Huang Cixi's frail body, Cao Yun began to feel an intense guilt. As he stroked her hair, his hands were shaking. This girl had helped him a lot, and she was very nice and obedient. She had been a great servant for this half a year. He couldn't shake out the idea that he was at fault somehow.
In fact, he was. Her inner demon had festered on her own guilt and sadness. The sadness and rage of losing her second brother and then her father. But also the guilt of finding the same qualities of her brother in his murderer.
Cao Yun could only see one alternative to her fate. He fell on his knees before Xiao Xuefeng.
"Grand Master Xiao, please. I'm sure that the great Golden Flowery Fragrance Institute has enough geniuses to attempt such a refinement. I know how hard this pill is to forge. But if the Institute attempts it, I'll be forever grateful. I know that I'm still just a child, but I swear that I'll repay this kindness thoroughly. Please!"
Xiao Xuefeng was quite surprised. She knew that Cao Yun was happy with his servant, but she did not suspect that he would be so emotionally attached. It was probably related to his family's death. A deep sense of guilt was now present in him. He had failed to save even a single child from his family, while he alone had survived. She understood where he was coming from. She too had thought about the assault of Luduo Bu as a potential cause for this inner demon.
"Chen Guo. You should not put all the sufferings of this world on your shoulder. Qi deviation can happen to everyone. You're not responsible." She paused for a bit, pondering her next words. "Just as you're not responsible for what happened in the past."
Obviously, he knew what she was talking about. Outside of her Universe Engulfing Sparrow array formation, she would never directly address anything susceptible to give away his real identity. After all, the demonic cultivator who had killed Lu Meihan was a powerful Spirit Warrior, so he could potentially overhear them, and he seemed to have many agents within the Wubei Sect as well.
"I understand all that. I really do. But... please Grand Master Xiao. If I don't at least try to do all I can to save her, I won't be able to go on. I know both the refinement process and the actual effects only give a slim chance to Mei Yuzhi. However..."
"And are you sure that she'll be able to risk her life in order to regain her cultivation?"
Very faintly, the voice of Huang Cixi interrupted their conversion.
"If there's a chance, I'm ready to try..." It was only a glimpse of consciousness and she quickly fell back asleep.
Both Cao Yun and Xiao Xuefeng were surprised. And the boy went back to caring for her as he sat on a small chair beside the bed.
Xiao Xuefeng was full of doubt, but finally she took a deep breath.
"Chen Guo. I'll think over it. But I wont promise anything. If I am to attempt this refinement, I'll need to go back to the Golden Flowery Fragrance Institute. Alone, there is no hope of success at all."
She then left them both in the room.