(Book 1&2 Complete!) Dao of Healing [Transmigration Healer Xianxia]

The night was my favourite time of each day. Even after almost three years in this world, I still wasn't quite used to the night sky that greeted me.

It was a strange sensation. The thick, glittering blanket of stars that lit the night was familiar, yet utterly foreign. None of the constellations I remembered shone down on me, but the ones that did were equally, if not more, beautiful.

Then there was the Jadewind Star. It moved, for crying out loud! And the colour. Bright green, like a shining jade crystal in the dark void of the universe.

It was how people navigated in this world. Which again, made little sense to me as a moving star wasn't exactly what I'd call a great point of reference, but somehow it worked. Cultivation bullshit, most likely. Though even mortals could follow its guidance.

Tonight there wasn't a single cloud in the sky. It was a perfect evening for what I was about to accomplish.

The completion of the first layer of my Fivefold Medicine Forge Physique.

Well, I hoped so. I had two epiphanies earlier today, while watching the martial competition. I felt I was on the right track—all that remained was putting them to the test.

The connection between the spiritual body and the physical body was the key. It made sense. My discoveries in the ancient healing tome given to me by the Spring and Autumn Sage had led me here. I don't know why, but I felt there was fate in such a gift. This had to be one of the reasons that ancient figure gave me this manual.

There was only one problem. The epiphanies were one thing. Putting them into practice was another.

The basic connection between the physical and spiritual existed in the dantiant—it was the anchor between the two forms of a cultivator. However, what did it mean to connect the physical and spiritual when it came to my refined organs and my physique?

No. That was the wrong way to think of it. I should begin by trying to complete the full cycle of the five organs. The spiritual connection would likely follow after.

Rather than forcing it, it should come naturally. That was often the way of things when it came to cultivation. Bottlenecks would loosen at seemingly random times, rather than when one overly focused on them.

This was no ordinary cultivation bottleneck, but the process should be similar. Thus, I sat down to meditate under the stars, turning my focus inwards to my body.

Where to begin?

With no particular inspiration, I decided to simply follow the order that my physique had given me. The first organ I'd refined had been my lungs, so that was where I would start.

My refined lungs possessed the ability to refine foreign energies into medicinal energy. This was a sort of spiritual energy with medicinal properties—the natural equivalent of the medicinal qi produced and stored in my dantian.

This was the first true shift in my healing skills and my path. Gaining access to the medicinal energy had turned my self-created technique from a useful band-aid to an almost all-powerful ambrosia.

I still wasn't sure if this physique was something given to me by the heavens, a latent gift that Zhao Dan had always possessed without being aware of it, or simply a result of my transmigration to this world. Whatever the case, I knew little about how to progress it.

The visions I'd seen—of the worm—and the message from that being from another plane who'd helped me survive my breakthroughs had given me hints, but not the full picture. I would need to figure out the path on my own.

For a man like me, there was no other way than by experimentation. Repeat and fail until I discovered the secrets of my physique.

If I was lucky, I might succeed on the first try.

That led me to the second organ I'd refined. My stomach. It was a crucible with many functions—alchemical cauldron and energy refinery to name just two. They were the two most useful I'd discovered.

It could take the techniques of my enemies and turn them into weapons of my own. It could produce pills from natural ingredients and my own medicinal energy. It had allowed me to break down dangerous attacks in the past.

In a way, my refined stomach already linked the spiritual and the physical. It wasn't quite part of a grander cycle at a glance, but when you focused deeper, it utilised all the other refined organs and benefited them in turn.

The third organ was the heart. It refined all energies into the purest spiritual energy, which could be used for any purposes. This was different to the ambient spiritual energy that filled the world.

Even that energy had a taint of the world's will, or impurities I supposed. That was likely why humans developed with so many impurities in their bodies. It was inevitable.

The energy from my heart was on a different scale. However, it was reduced in quantity as it was purified. This was only natural.

The heart was much more closely linked to the other organs than my stomach was. It could provide energy to the lungs to be refined into medicinal energy, or vice versa. It could give energy to the stomach for use in refining pills, or combining with absorbed techniques to create new energies.

It was the lynchpin of my physique, so to speak.

The fourth organ I'd refined was my liver. It had quite a simple function, though I was sure there were more functions I had yet to discover regarding it. The mortal liver had almost five hundred functions, after all—why would a refined liver only have one?

Anyway, it stored energy.

As of now, I had continually been sending a small portion of all the energy I absorbed and refined towards my liver. It was storing almost five times the energy that my dantian could.

Considering I was now a two-star Foundation Building expert, that was quite the amount. I was saving it for a moment when it was truly needed, but I wondered if that would ever come to pass.

I remember a celebrity back on Earth said something along these lines: use the proper silverware everyday, what's the point of having it otherwise? Comparing my body to silverware was a little hilarious, but it stood to reason that saving my energy for a moment that might never come was potentially a mistake.

Regardless, that didn't mean I should use it on frivolous tasks. I would simply assess situations as they arose and decide whether I needed to use my reserves.

Although…

Perhaps the energy stored in the liver would fuel my physique better than that from my dantian? Perhaps I should only be storing purified energy from my heart in the refined liver? That actually sounded like a solid idea, but it wouldn't fix everything.

Which left me with the fifth and final organ. My brain.

I had yet to actually complete its refinement. Thus, I had no idea what its function would be. I could guess at them, based on what the brain did for me usually, but that was no guarantee.

Perhaps it would improve my cognitive functions? No, that sounded too simple. All the refined organs so far had something to do with energy.

Its refinement.

Its manipulation.

Its purification.

Its myriad uses and properties.

So it stood to reason that the brain would do something with energy. Likely something that would bring all the other organs together for some grand purpose.

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It was time to begin.

I considered where I would start. Perhaps the lungs? They were the first organ I'd refined. Yet, when I considered the purpose of my physique and what I wanted to accomplish, it made little sense.

Why would I refine spiritual energy into medicinal energy if I was then going to purify it afterwards? In fact, I felt that the lungs should come last. Or maybe the brain?

In any case, I wouldn't begin with them.

No, the place that I would start was my heart.

I believed that the purified energy fueled the rest of my organs most efficiently. So, with the stars in the sky as my witness, I began to cultivate.

I drew the ambient spiritual energy into my body slowly, directing it towards my heart. This was different to how most would cultivate. Then again, most cultivators only had their dantian to work with—I had a variety of options.

It disappeared into my heart. For a few breaths of time, nothing happened. I could feel the swirling energy within my heart, but it was like a void which devoured the energy.

Then a trickle of purest spiritual energy began to leak out. It gradually thickened until it was a stream, then a raging torrent. That wouldn't do.

Chaos was not what I sought.

I pressed down on the energy, focusing my efforts. I controlled the spiritual energy which entered my heart and managed the pure energy leaving it. Only the amount I desired would enter my body.

Once I had a controlled and steady stream of pure energy trickling from my heart, it was time for the next step. I had to give it somewhere to go.

Right now it was simply flooding out into my body. In the short term it wouldn't do much, but if I allowed it to run rampant it could end up damaging my muscles and bones.

I briefly considered where I would send it. I'd already discounted my lungs. They would be the final step in the process. Or perhaps penultimate. I would follow my gut feelings.

No, the next step needed to be the liver or the stomach. I had yet to use the energy from my liver. There was no better time than now. Given the properties of my refined stomach, I felt that using the stored energy and sending it there made most sense.

Given that, I directed the stream of energy from my heart towards my liver. Once it connected, I felt the refined organ filling up at a much faster rate than usual.

That was because normally I only sent a fraction of the energy I absorbed into my liver. This time I was sending it all.

Not only that, but the energy I was storing in my liver was pure energy from my heart rather than ambient spiritual energy. Thinking that, a grimace appeared on my face.

I wanted to achieve the greatest foundation possible. I was the first to walk my path—that I knew of, anyway—but that didn't mean I couldn't strive for perfection. What I was going to do next would be painful, but necessary.

Before I sent the energy into my liver, I focused my spiritual senses around the refined organ. There was almost five times as much energy in there compared to the limits of my dantian.

That was a great deal. Enough to fuel dozens of techniques. Enough to save my life in a deadly encounter.

I emptied it all into my surroundings with a pained wince. The energy dissipated into the air and the earth. I could've sworn the nearby flowers and trees seemed to… quiver with excitement as the energy flooded the environment.

The gaping emptiness in my gut left me nauseous for a moment. I took a deep breath to steady myself. That was a loss, but not a truly painful one.

If my theory was correct then getting rid of the impure energy was a necessary sacrifice to pave the way for true greatness. It might even have been a requirement to complete the first layer of the Fivefold Medicine Forge Physique, though I doubted it.

Then again, what the hell did I know? I was doing all this by ear.

As the stream of pure energy began to pour into my liver, the empty sensation slowly subsided. It was replaced by a warmth that spread from my liver as it filled rapidly.

In fact, I knew the moment the pure energy was slowly stored that I'd made the right decision. This felt… perfect.

I allowed the energy to gather for quite a while. I estimated I spent almost two hours simply absorbing energy from my surroundings, purifying it, then storing it in my liver. I wanted a large buffer before moving on to the next step.

I had not been idle while storing energy. All of my focus was on what I would do next. The stomach was the organ that had to come next in the cycle, that much was clear.

What wasn't so obvious was how exactly it would work here.

So far, it had shown exceptional function as an alchemical cauldron. It also had the ability to absorb the spiritual techniques of my enemies and turn them into beneficial energies for myself.

I'd had a rather dangerous idea. It might not work. In fact, it might backfire spectacularly and damage my body. However, I had the utmost faith in my healing and regenerative abilities.

Whatever I did to myself, I would be able to fix it in no time at all. Thus, I was confident in my plan and prepared to suffer in order to advance along my path.

So, that was why my next step was to use my poison qi technique. On myself.

The poison was uncontrolled at first, rampaging through my body. Even though it had been created from my qi, that didn't make me immune to it.

Some techniques were unable to harm the one who had cast them, but that wasn't often true for techniques involving poison or corruption—unless the cultivator casting them had a specific resistance to such things.

I did of course have a great deal of ways to deal with poison. In fact, I would be relying on one of those ways right now in order to test my hypothesis.

As the poison began to ravage my body, I focused and activated my stomach. All of a sudden it awakened like a ravenous black hole, sucking all the poison in my body towards itself.

Within two breaths' time, the poison had been gathered and was swirling around my stomach. The damage it had done to my flesh was already healed, but that was only the beginning of my plan.

I started to draw the energy from my liver and directed it towards my stomach, mixing it with the swirling poisonous energies. As I did that, my eyes widened in surprise.

The energy that I drew from my liver wasn't the same energy I had stored within it. Well, it sort of was. It was still purified energy, but it had been changed in an almost imperceptible way.

If I had to describe it, I would say that the energy I was able to withdraw from my liver was more condensed. It seemed… hotter? More potent was perhaps a better way of putting it, but the language I grasped at seemed inadequate to describe the sensation and the feeling of manipulating this energy.

In fact, it made me feel like an idiot for not utilising my refined liver more in the past. It didn't matter now. I would only look forward.

After the momentary surprise passed, I continued to direct the energy towards my stomach. The stream began to meld with the poisonous energies, becoming something new in the crucible that was my refined stomach.

This was the longest process so far. The two energies were like oil and water. Both equally potent in their own right, not quite wanting to blend.

My purified energy had many uses and seemed almost able to support anything, but here it had met its nemesis. Or… its match.

Purest pure and corrupted toxic energy most foul. The two were gradually forced together by the pressure in my stomach and my tenacious intent.

Sparks of deep obsidian purple and bright white flashed within me as the two clashed. Slowly but surely they were being merged as the process continued. After almost three hours of intense focus, it finally happened.

Like a dam bursting, the moment the first drops of toxic energy merged with the pure energy, the rest followed in an instant. Even though there had been a limited amount of toxic energy to begin with, it didn't stop there.

All of the pure energy that entered my stomach from my liver was converted into the new, bright purple energy. I wasn't sure what to think of it.

It didn't feel poisonous, but nor did it give off the same aura as my medicinal qi. Regardless, I had started down this path and there was only one way to go.

Forwards.

Now it was finally time for my refined lungs to enter the fray. The cycle progressed as the fourth of my refined organs joined its companions.

I gathered the stream of mysterious, purple energy which I had produced and directed it towards my lungs. A spiritual inhalation aided the flow and soon it was filling every single branch of them.

The sensation was strange. It was akin to drowning, but it was not unpleasant. A sort of herbal aroma filled my senses.

This single inhale lasted almost a minute, until my lungs were so full they might burst. So, I exhaled.

With that exhale, a stream of the most potent medicinal energy I had ever wielded was released into my body in a thick cloud. That wouldn't do.

I didn't want to waste a single drop of this heavenly elixir.

I gathered the cloud and pressed it together until it was a single drop of shimmering, bright healing power. I felt as though this one drop might be able to bring even a Foundation Building expert back from the brink of death.

However, that wasn't what I was going to use it for.

I kept the drop and continued breathing. Inhales, each lasting around a minute. Then a quick and forceful exhale that produced another drop of the potent healing energy.

Within half an hour I had a small pool of the stuff simply sitting in the centre of my chest. I had plenty more energy in my stomach to fuel my lungs. In fact, at the rate I was going it might last forever. Or at least, until the ambient spiritual energy on Million Flowers Celestial Peak ran out.

That was ideal, as I had no idea how much I would need for this final step. It was time to truly see if my hypothesis was correct. I suspected it was based on the absurd potency of the medicinal energy I'd produced, but my physique was an enigma.

Gathering the pool of medicinal energy, I sent it towards my brain and coated the entire organ with the stuff. It was as though I was giving my mind a herbal bath. Such things were used by cultivators to purify their bodies and advance their cultivation.

In my case, I hoped it would allow me to push past the final barrier. To loosen and then smash the bottleneck keeping me from completing the first layer of the Fivefold Medicine Forge Physique.

My steady cycle of breathing continued all this time. More medicinal energy continued to be produced from the complete cycle of four organs. It was time to see if my idea worked.

It was time to take another step forward on the path of healing.