Molting the Mortal Coil

“Neither.”

Sage was caught off guard by the Doctor’s assumptions, though after thinking about it, he wasn’t actually surprised by such conclusions. At that moment, Sage pulled out an Oathstone and held it out to the Sect Elder.

“I follow an uncommon legacy, my poison skills are not based upon knowledge. Can you please swear not to reveal what I show you to anyone?”

Lanyan thought about it for a moment before nodding and putting his hand onto the stone. He infused some Qi and swore a quick oath, “I vow not to share any of the secrets that Lang Sheng reveals to me today at any time in the future.”

Sage thought about the oath for a moment for any loopholes and then nodded, it was good enough. Then he climbed onto the bed, “Sit him up for me.”

The two of them took a few moments to push Xuelong into a seated position. Sage sat behind the man, crossing his legs like he was entering a meditation position, he then placed both hands against Xuelong’s back and started to circulate his Qi in a certain special method. Then his Qi moved through his right palm and rushed into Xuelong’s body. It traveled through Xuelong’s meridians and made its way towards the man’s Dantian and then slowly swirled out and back through Xuelong’s body before re-entering Sage’s body through the left palm. As it moved through Xuelong’s body, the Qi was tainted by the poison he was infected by and then returned back into Sage’s body.

Of course, Sage’s body had no problem with this. His second set of meridians drew away the poison from his Qi and after making a full revolution through his Inner World, it rushed back into Xuelong’s body. Entering clean and then returning corrupted once again. The Sect Elder Chang Lanyan was surprised, not by the method Sage used, but by his willingness to do so.

Said technique was called ‘Living Tallow’ and was not uncommonly known by Doctors. It was based around an idiom, ‘A candle illuminates others, at the cost of burning itself up’. It took the illnesses of others onto oneself, it didn’t repair wounds of the flesh, but it worked for diseases, poisons, and many other ailments. It was usually only used by the very powerful to cure the very weak. In most cases a powerful cultivator used it to save their mortal family members.

Sage actually learned the technique from the ‘Thousand Poison Pamphlet’, a manual he got from that dreadful woman in the Earthdawn Sect so many years ago. It hadn’t been much use to him, as it mainly contained poisons only effective on those between rank one to three and only a few very obscure rank 4 and 5 poisons. The problem of course being that it wasn’t an actual Poison Master legacy or training manual. It was mainly a huge collection of poison concocting instructions. More of a recipe book then a manual teaching you how to be a chef. He had no training as a Poison Master, and always seemed to have something more important to do. It was only after he retrieved the Universe Ring from Guan Zhenyan that he stumbled upon it again and gave it a read. That’s when he saw that there were also a handful of techniques scattered throughout the book, most of them were meant specifically to handle certain poisons or as antidotes for the preceding poison.

It took a few hours for the treatment to be completed. Each revolution of Qi through Xuelong and back through Sage could only transfer over a small amount of the poison. The poison didn’t seem to be spreading, but it almost felt like it had melted away something important inside Xuelong’s body. Sage wasn’t a Doctor, so he didn’t know any of their specialized diagnosis techniques, nor was he very knowledgeable of medical science back in his old life. He didn’t have much of an idea of what was going on, other than that he was succeeding in pulling some sort of poison out of Xuelong’s body. The poison continued to collect inside Sage’s Poison Dantian, slowly taking the form of a small sphere. It was currently quite blurry around the edges, shifting and swirling like a small nebula. As soon as it reaches a semi-solid and perfect shape that would mean Sage could start to produce it and use it as his own. Of course, that was all secondary to healing Xuelong. He wasn’t doing this for the poison, but in the hope that the favor would get him out of the mess with Huifang.

When Sage’s Qi returned to his body without any further signs of corruption for the last dozen revolutions, he lowered his hands and called over to the Doctor. Chang Lanyan came over from where he was guarding the door and picked up Xuelong’s hand. He placed his index and middle finger over the man’s wrist and Sage felt a surge of Qi before the Doctor smiled, “You’ve done it! Though, I shouldn’t be surprised. Living Tallow is certainly an ancient and effective technique. How are you? Will you…”

He trailed off, obviously wondering if Sage had some terrible price to pay for his usage of the technique. Except, Sage merely shook his head, “The only poisons that can do anything to me are those that can hurt Saints.”

The Doctor was surprised by such a statement, but it made sense given how he was sworn to secrecy. He held Xuelong up so Sage could climb off the bed and then he used some sort of technique that cleansed the sheets of the bed before laying Xuelong back down. Chang Lanyan fed the treasured Discipled a few pills and then looked at Sage, “May we allow the others in, now?”

Sage was merely exhausted from channeling his Qi for such a long period, but otherwise in perfect condition so he had no objections. With that, the Doctor nodded to him, a show of respect for his help and then walked back over to the doors of the room to allow the others back inside. The room they were in was quite large, almost enough to be a hall, and so he chose to sit far away from the important bed to take a rest. The important people from the Sect shuffled in and took turns examining Xuelong in their own ways, with some sort of technique in use that prevented Sage from hearing anything. They conversed with the Doctor for a while before Uncle Rong finally came over to where Sage was sitting, “A life for a life. I’m surprised that you’ve managed to save your neck. Well done, but it’s not over yet.”

My neck? They were serious earlier…

Some time later, a servant came and led him to a private room, not bothering to reunite him with Songji or Dian Huifang. When he tried to ask about Songji, there was no response, and the defensive formation outside his room was much stronger than the one at the Dian Clan. As nice as his room was, he realized that these guest quarters also seemed to double as a prison. The worst part was that the arrays were fully featured. Sage couldn’t use any of the messaging devices he had, not even the Messaging Jades, which were the most difficult to block. Not even his Twin Soul or a small insect were able to sneak out. He thought about trying to break through by force, but without knowing more about the situation he decided not to go overboard. It was still possible that his actions had changed their opinion of him and he didn’t want to ruin it by breaking their expensive arrays. Even so, he wasn’t at ease and spent the night with his guard up, maintaining a light meditation to keep his awareness.

The next afternoon, he was summoned once more.