Chapter 928: Little Heavenly Doctor Li Fan
Chapter 928: Little Heavenly Doctor Li Fan
A torrent of potent spiritual energy surged endlessly into his clone, Li Qing.
Yet, the body that should have been healing rapidly was instead breaking apart, becoming more fragmented with each attempt to regenerate.
The pain was excruciating, like having one's bones scraped clean and soul torn from its vessel.
Feeling the agony transmitted from his clone, even Li Fan found his brow furrowing in concern.
A bizarre and sinister power seemed to be entrenched around the wounds, actively preventing them from closing.
This force wouldn't dissipate with the destruction of the flesh; instead, it clung like a maggot to bone, seeping insidiously toward the cultivator's Dao foundation.
Li Fan had a sinking feeling that if left unchecked, this power might even begin to corrode his clone's Heaven's Wonder Grotto-Heaven.
"The Sky Patrolling Arrows didn't seem this potent before," Li Fan mused. "It's as if they've been specifically designed to target cultivators of the New Method."
As he thought of the ever-increasing number of Sky Patrolling Arrows filling the skies above the Ten Thousand Immortals Alliance, a rare wave of unease washed over Li Fan.
In his eyes, though the Sky Patrolling Arrows were individual units, they could very well be components of a colossal formation, one that could envelop the entire territory of the Ten Thousand Immortals Alliance.
A network of points forming a vast, inescapable net that blanketed the sky.
It was much like the Mysterious Net he had encountered in the past.
Lost in thought, Li Fan activated the Final Dissociation Disc and began to run a deduction.
A few breaths later, the Disc's calculations confirmed the feasibility of his theory.
Li Fan's thoughts then turned to the brand-new defensive formation his clone had encountered on its return.
He was almost certain the Ten Thousand Immortals Alliance was brewing something major. It was only a matter of time before they unveiled it and gave the Five Elders Council a nasty surprise.
"Perhaps," he mused, "this has something to do with Mo Rubin, the one who took the Dharma Transmitter's place."
Li Fan's eyes narrowed as countless thoughts raced through his mind.
After a moment of contemplation, he decided to set the matter aside for now.
The most pressing task was to heal his clone.
A Dao foundation built upon a Heaven's Wonder was a rare and hard-won achievement. It would be a terrible shame to lose it so easily.
While his clone was away in the territory of the Five Elders Council, Li Fan had been in a secluded chamber within the Spirit Wood Realm, diligently studying the [Heaven Mending Record].
He combined its teachings with the [Heavenly Doctor's Immortal Sutra] and a wealth of information gathered over numerous cycles.
By now, Li Fan could be said to have taken his first steps onto the path of [Medicine].
And yet, this "first step" was only in comparison to the legendary Heavenly Doctor himself.
Compared to the common healers of the Xuanhuang Realm, Li Fan's skill was on an entirely different level; he could utterly overwhelm them.
After all, with the Heavenly Doctor's lifetime of insights as his theoretical foundation, it would have been harder to become a mediocre healer than a master.
"To defeat a spiritual affliction, one must first pacify the soul, then attend to the wound..."
Li Fan recalled the contents of the Heaven Mending Record, his expression growing solemn.
He drew out a thread of his own soul power, enveloped it in pure spiritual energy, and forged it into several silvery needles.
With a gentle wave of his hand, the needles pierced Li Qing's ravaged body and vanished from sight.
The clone, which had been writhing in agony, instantly fell into a deep, heavy slumber.
It was insensate to any further pain, as still as if it were already dead.
After waiting for a moment with bated breath, Li Fan's will flared. "Out!"
In an instant, the silver needles flew back out.
They hovered in a neat line before Li Fan.
In that brief span, their once-silvery bodies had turned a dull, tarnished gray.
It was as if some vile toxin had been drawn up through their tips.
Li Fan focused his senses on the threads of his own soul power within the needles.
He found that upon contact with this gray toxin, his soul power was not merely corrupted but seemingly transformed, swiftly growing inert and lifeless.
"Impressive potency," Li Fan noted.
"Still, compared to the [sickness] I witnessed in Han Zhong, this is a far lesser threat."
"After all, this gray energy only annihilates soul power. With my Limitless Fullness and Emptiness technique, I can replenish any amount that's consumed."
"That sickness from beyond this world, however, directly attacked the very capacity of one's soul."
Even as these thoughts passed through his mind, Li Fan's hands never stopped moving.
Needle after needle flew into Li Qing's body, each one drawing out more of the encroaching gray energy.
As the source of the affliction was drawn out, the color slowly returned to Li Qing's face.
As for the gray energy itself, Li Fan used his seven-colored divine light to seal it away for later study.
It might hold some surprising secrets.
The treatment took nearly half an hour.
When he was certain the last trace of the gray energy had been purged, Li Fan finally let out a long sigh of relief.
"The Heaven Mending Record is truly extraordinary," he thought. "With just a minor application of its principles, I've neutralized a superweapon that the Ten Thousand Immortals Alliance is still testing."
The principle behind the treatment was, in truth, quite simple.
He had suppressed the activity of Li Qing's soul, then injected his own soul power via the needles to act as a lure.
This bait would draw out the toxic energy.
Of course, completing such a treatment without causing any damage to the patient's soul required the healer to have an extremely profound mastery of soul manipulation.
If the patient hadn't been his own clone—a being he knew intimately—and if he hadn't possessed the Limitless Fullness and Emptiness technique to endlessly replenish his soul power, the procedure would have been far from easy.
Sometime later, Li Qing slowly stirred and awoke.
Her first words were, "The Sky Patrolling Arrow's lock-on wasn't just bad luck. I must have been marked with some kind of trace when I broke through their defensive formation."
"That's why it was able to target me."
Li Fan nodded slightly. "I suspected as much."
"That new formation is certainly clever," he said. "While it didn't seem especially difficult to bypass, in hindsight, it's clear the flaw was deliberately exposed."
"It was a trap. An array master follows the obvious flaw and thinks they've broken the formation, but in reality, they've secretly triggered a marking mechanism."
"Then, using that mark in conjunction with the now-ubiquitous Sky Patrolling Arrows, they can execute a kill long after the fact."
"It seems Lu Xichan's return has proven useful to them," Li Fan remarked slowly. "A formation that appears to be a defense but is actually a trap... one couldn't devise something like that without considerable skill."
Li Qing sighed. "It's fortunate my Dao foundation is a Heaven's Wonder, with my very flesh and blood fused with the laws of the sword. Even if I left a trace of blood, they can't track me. A normal cultivator, even if they survived the arrow's strike, could be hunted across vast distances using the blood left on the projectile."
"Regardless, it's best we lay low for a while," Li Fan advised. "The Ten Thousand Immortals Alliance has prepared too many hidden cards. They're clearly planning a major move. All we need to do is watch and wait."
Li Qing nodded in agreement.
She then touched the spot between her eyebrows, and a silver sliver of light, containing all the techniques of the Xuantian Sect, flew out from her mind.
Li Fan, ever cautious, did not have his true self examine it directly.
Instead, as the clone read through the information, he used cognitive synchronization to transfer the contents of the techniques, piece by piece, into his own mind.
Each of the Xuantian Sect's techniques was vast and profound, far surpassing any cultivation method currently known in the Xuanhuang Realm.
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