Chapter 35: Attempt at Treatment
In the midst of the swirling chaos, the ethereal figure of Bai Qian materialized, and upon seeing Wang Zijia, she first appeared bewildered. Then, almost instinctively, she lowered her gaze, looking at her intact hands in disbelief, realizing she could see again.
"Your vision hasn't fully returned yet, so take a look around first," Wang Zijia spoke up.
"What?" Bai Qian glanced around in confusion, asking, "Look at what? The white mist?"
Even with her own spiritual realm as reference, could she not see it? Was this white mist truly her mental sea?
Wang Zijia furrowed his brow. "Then what can you see?"
"Well, sir, that big glowing ball above your head is too bright, can't see clearly!" Bai Qian shielded her eyes with her hand, speaking so.
Wang Zijia looked up at the reddish-brown weight above his head, understanding the situation. With a slight shift of his mind, he concealed the weight.
"Gone, the big ball is gone!" Bai Qian glanced around as she spoke, saying, "There's nothing here, except for you, sir, it's just a vast expanse of white."
Wang Zijia nodded, then waved his hand. "For my next move, if you feel anything, try to resist."
Bai Qian nodded silently.
Immediately, Wang Zijia's mind moved slightly, communicating with the reddish-brown weight. He felt as if he held a balance/scale in his left hand. Then, with a gesture of his right hand, the weight of contamination flew into the balance, followed by grabbing the eye weight.
"Exchange!"
As Wang Zijia made his choice, the weight of contamination, used as bait for the medicine, slowly disappeared, replaced by a new weight merging with the eye weight, resembling a point of light in his hand.
"Do you feel anything?" Wang Zijia asked, turning his head to question. However, his brows furrowed as he realized that with the exchange, Bai Qian had gradually disappeared.
With a thought, Wang Zijia, carried by the reddish-brown weight, returned to his own mental sea, then immediately withdrew from it.
At this moment, Bai Qian was clutching her eyes, curled up on the ground.
"What's wrong?" Wang Zijia frowned, asking.
"It hurts, itches, there's something in my eyes," Bai Qian murmured in response.
"If you want to remain blind forever, you can continue to cover them, a little scratching won't hurt," Wang Zijia said indifferently.
Shocked by his words, Bai Qian released her hands from her eyes and stood up from the ground.
Wang Zijia bent down, examining closely. He saw countless fleshy buds wriggling and growing in the hollow sockets where her eyes had already healed.
In just a moment, most of the eyeballs had already grown.
After observing for a few breaths, Wang Zijia noticed Bai Qian instinctively stepping back, squinting, and shielding her eyes from the not too strong sunlight. Then, she looked at her hands once again with an incredulous expression.
"Can you see?" Wang Zijia asked.
"Yes!" Bai Qian's face was filled with shock as she nodded vigorously.
"Is there anything wrong?" Wang Zijia carefully examined her newly formed eyes, asking.
"I feel a bit sore in my eyes, and everything is too bright," Bai Qian squinted, responding.
"You'll get used to it. What did you see just before coming out?" Wang Zijia straightened up, ceasing his observation.
"Sir, you were holding a glowing ball and waved your hand twice, then I felt my eyes hurt and suddenly emerged," Bai Qian described.
Listening to her description, Wang Zijia roughly understood the situation. It seemed that after completely infecting Bai Qian's spiritual root with demonic energy, she couldn't resist the weights.
That makes sense, after all, the innate talent said that after completing the demonic infection, one can even control life and death.
But it seems that if he doesn't actively pull her, she can't even enter that space.
Is that really her mental sea?
In his thoughts, Wang Zijia re-entered the space and made some attempts.
Actually, what he most hoped for was to exchange Bai Qian's silver-white weight for his own, so he could find someone to work for him to cultivate. Unfortunately, he couldn't operate across space, at least not currently.
"Let's call it a day for now. We'll start restoring your face tomorrow; it's a delicate process. As for your right arm..." At this point, Wang Zijia looked her up and down, saying, "You're too thin now, it's a bit difficult to create a hand! Let's fatten you up this month, we'll talk about it next month. After all, you don't have any cultivation now, feeding you rage pills would be suicidal."
"As for some other miraculous medicines for ordinary people, they're too expensive. It's more cost-effective to fatten you up. Oh, and there's half an ear, I'll make it for you tomorrow. There should be enough flesh to spare."
"Ah!" Bai Qian responded with a mixture of understanding and confusion.
" It's getting late. You should go rest. There's no need for you to attend to me anymore," Wang Zijia said, ushering her to leave.
"Okay," Bai Qian replied obediently as she left the study.
Once outside the door, she shed her previous wooden demeanor and began to examine her hands and feet, glancing around with curiosity, finally showing a hint of childishness.
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After the other had left, Wang Zijia reached for the newly acquired technique, "Rune Perception," and began to peruse it. As he flipped through the pages, the characters seemed to flicker with ethereal light, flying into his mind.
After going through it once, he noticed that the book remained unchanged in his hand, but the earlier pages had disappeared, leaving only the latter half intact. His recollection of the related techniques was also somewhat fuzzy.
He carefully reviewed it again, but this time, the book turned into scrap paper and crumbled upon touch. However, the techniques in his mind became clearer.
Looking over the information, he saw:
Spells:
- Talisman Card Crafting Technique (Minor accomplishment 500/1000)
- Clay Shapeshifting Concealment Technique (Novice 300/600)
- Earth Spear Spirit Arrow Technique (Novice 200/400)
- Rune Perception (Uninitiated 50/300)
- Tai Chi Fist: 117
[ Note: Beginner/Novice>Proficient>Minor accomplishment>Great mastery/Perfection]
Initially planning to make money by crafting talisman paper/card, he now had the option to create rune talismans with Rune Perception.
However, mastering the intermediate level only required a value of one thousand, while the advanced level demanded three thousand. Currently, he only had a little over one thousand silver-white skill weight, enough to elevate talisman paper crafting to the perfection level, but Rune Perception, even though it is basic level, required one thousand five hundred, still lacking five hundred.
So, he needed to test whether crafting intermediate-level talisman/rune paper for profit was more lucrative than producing advanced-level rune talismans.
With his thoughts in motion, he allocated four hundred of the two earth-based techniques' skill weights, along with those of Tai Chi, to temporarily elevate rune paper crafting to perfection level.
As the rune paper crafting reached the perfection level, Wang Zijia noticed a white illusory rune slowly condensing in his sea of consciousness, with numerous insights flooding his mind.
After a while, when he snapped out of his trance, he had thoroughly grasped the essence of rune paper crafting. Mastery of the intermediate level technique could condense related technique runes. This was another condition for breaking through the childe stage!
Exiting his sea of consciousness, he reached out and retrieved the one hundred spiritual materials, no longer needing to handle them with care.
With a wave of his hand, the spiritual materials danced before him. Through the manipulation of his Qi, they swiftly coalesced into a card.
Without delay, he tossed it aside and began again.
Thus, except for occasional failures, cards were rapidly produced, akin to assembly line work.
After more than 7 hours of practice, Wang Zijia had made sixty to seventy cards in one go before halting due to Qi depletion.
He then fetched the two spirit coins he had left from yesterday and began to meditate to replenish his Qi. As the spiritual energy from the spirit coins was absorbed, the exquisite coins dimmed rapidly. Nonetheless, it took over an hour for him to fully recover his Qi.
About half of the spiritual energy in the spirit coins had been consumed, leaving him with the potential to recover two more times at most.
(End of This Chapter)