Chapter 52

“Trash, so trash! Do you only know trash arts?” Madam Sue’s angry chiding voice rang out in Zairen’s head.

Zairen pursed his lips and suppressed the urge to yell back.

Sitting alone in the suite that he, Alivia, and Finn shared, Zairen held a half-empty jade scroll in front of him. He was currently in the process of imprinting his spirit energy to inscribe arts into the empty jade scrolls for Alivia and Finn to use.

In his previous life, he had traveled widely around the entire content and had slowly gathered a large array of diverse arts and techniques. Some of these had been gifted to him, some of them found, and some of them taken from slain enemies. With his nearly-perfect photographic spirit doctor memory, he was able to store all of these arts and techniques into his mind to write down later. Thus, he was now able to recall these arts and imprint advanced ones for Alivia and Finn.

After spending about an hour going through this catalogue of arts to select the best suited ones for Alivia and Finn, he landed on Hell Dragon Fire Art for Alivia and Great Golem Earth Art for Finn.

He chose carefully. The Hell Dragon Fire Art was a powerful art that gave unparalleled raw power, but without insanely good control and talent, it would be uncontrollable and useless. Alivia had an almost godlike amount of control, so it was perfect for her. The Great Golem Earth Art, on the other hand, gave simultaneously great offense and defense, and was most suited for impetuous types, so it was very suited for Finn.

After seeing how much mastery Alivia and Finn had gained over their spirit energy and how their basic scrolls had basically become useless, he had immediately worked to produce much more advanced, long-term arts that they could cultivate throughout their lives.

In actuality, these were very high-level arts that couldn’t be underestimated. Zairen suspected that even the best schools in Sunrise City wouldn’t have any arts better than these.

But now, Madam Sue was calling them trash? Groaning inwardly, Zairen felt that he was beginning to get a headache with all the torment he was taking from Madam Sue. It was like having an inner voice that constantly belittled you and doubted you. This woman was a freeloader! And she still wanted to criticize him?

“Trash? You think they’re trash? From all my travels, they’re the best I’ve found that are suited for Alivia and Finn,” Zairen replied in his mind a bit exasperatedly. “Do you know better ones?”

“Better than this trash?” Madam Sue chortled, sounding extremely smug and condescending. “Of course I do. Things I picked off the street are better than these.”

His lip shaking, Zairen tried his best to suppress his anger. “Then will you pass some of them on to me so I can teach them to Alivia and Finn?” His words sharply curved, as if challenging Madam Sue.

“...huh? What? No.” Madam Sue sneered.

“Then why even comment?!” Zairen suddenly burst out, angrily gesturing with his hands. “Congratulations! You know legendary arts, better than mine! But what use is that if you won’t tell me them? You should really stop showing off!”

A moment later, however, the ramifications of his actions hit him and he froze up.

‘Oh no…’

He had yelled back at Madam Sue! If he knew anything about Madam Sue, it was that she did not like her authority challenged. Would she become irate?

For the first time, Madam Sue was silent.

Suddenly, she laughed out loud. “...Hahahaha! You’ve got spunk! Ok, fine. Go ahead, use those trash arts then.”

With that, she was gone.

“Phew…” Zairen let out a breath, wiping the sweat off his brow. Thankfully, she hadn’t been in an angry mood, or else he really might’ve died.

He couldn’t help but roll his eyes. Why did she have to be like this?

After taking a deep breath, he picked up right where he left off and began mentally inscribing an art into the jade scroll in front of him.

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Knock, knock. There was a light knocking on the door.

“Hm?” Zairen looked up with a slight bit of surprise. “Come in.”

With a slight creak, the door slowly slid open. A familiar tall, handsome, blond-haired boy walked in. It was Jannie.

Jannie did a little wave, making sure to politely catch Zairen’s attention.

Jannie? Seeing this familiar person, Zairen was at first a bit surprised, but then after a moment of thought, smiled. He could guess why he had come.

“Um… hello, Zairen,” Jannie first greeted. He rubbed the back of his neck, seemingly embarrassed. The dynamic was a bit weird: an 18-year-old was talking so politely to a seven-year-old child. “Do you mind… do you mind if we talk for a bit?”

“Sure!” Zairen enthusiastically replied, seemingly unaware of this dynamic. “What do you want to talk about?”

“Um, I’ll first close the door then.” Jannie gently closed the door behind him so that it clicked shut. Turning forward, he faced Zairen head-on and met his eyes.

“I apologize!” He suddenly bent forward and bowed.

“Jannie?” Zairen was a bit startled, and hurriedly raised his objections. “Come on, what’s this all about? You don’t have to do that.”

“First and foremost, I just want to apologize deeply,” Jannie said with a clear voice, his body still bent. “Last week, when you graciously offered your attempt at treatment, I turned my frustrations toward you. I sincerely apologize for my rudeness - it was completely uncalled for.”

Zairen raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Hey, hey, there’s no need for this. It’s completely understandable to be frustrated. In your situation, I feel that anyone would become angry. I think you’re handling it extremely well. In fact, you weren’t even rude to us last week, so there’s nothing to apologize about. So stand up!”

Zairen found himself extremely impressed with Jannie’s demeanor. It took a lot to be down-to-earth enough to apologize so sincerely to a seven-year-old.

The more he interacted with Jannie, the better the impression he had.

“...alright.” Jannie slowly stood back up.

Resting his eyes on Zairen, he also felt impressed. Horace and Yinry had been right: this child Zairen had an aura that made him seem wise beyond his years. Furthermore, he demonstrated a level of maturity that might not be present even in an adult.

Jannie suddenly felt he was not staring at a child, but a full-grown, sensible adult.

“So now that that’s out of the way, did you need something else?” Zairen asked. “What did you want to talk about?”

“Well… First off...” Jannie said carefully. “Not to doubt you at all, but I was confused...”

“Hm?”

“Well… Can you really fix injured meridians? When I heard it, I found it really hard to believe,” Jannie furrowed his eyebrows a bit doubtfully.

“Absolutely,” Zairen responded with no hesitation. “As long as it’s not a major injury complicated with many different dangerous factors, they can definitely be healed.”

Confident! Jannie had a strong impression - Zairen had responded instantly!

“But… every other doctor has said it’s impossible. How could it…?”

“Want to try?” Zairen smiled. “I know I can cure you. I promise, even if it doesn’t succeed, it can’t hurt you.”

Jannie’s eyes slightly widened. Zairen could cure him?

That was a bold claim!

After a moment of thought, he slowly replied: “What would that entail?”

Would it really be that easy to cure a fatal injury to the meridians? If it wasn’t dangerous, he supposed it didn’t hurt to try.

“Well, first, I should first do a short examination to make sure I can identify the exact problem and prepare the correct treatment,” Zairen easily replied. “Do you mind that? We can do it now, if you’d like. It’s not so complicated.”

“Oh, sure,” Jannie assented. Medical examinations were normal for him - he had gone through many in the past three years.

“Great!” Zairen looked around and tapped a space on the bed he was sitting on. “Um, I guess just sit here for a moment - it’ll be very unofficial; It’ll take a minute at most. The injury is in the heart protector, correct?”

“Yeah…!” Jannie’s eyes widened in surprise.

How did Zairen know where the injury was? Aside from his grandfather, he hadn’t told anyone, so it wasn’t possible for Zairen to have heard from anyone. Then, that meant he must have discerned it... from just observing him?

Was that such a simple thing?! Jannie was amazed.

The more he thought about it, the more his confidence in Zairen began to increase. The fact that he was able to identify his problem so easily spoke volumes.

“Alright, let’s do it.” He sat down next to Zairen, feeling a bit awkward. Usually, when he received examinations in the past, it was from older, more experienced elders.

Zairen held out his palm, face up.

The distinct aura of spirit energy appeared, a blurry milky white shape slowly forming, floating above his hand.

Jannie stared at the spirit energy shape. He rubbed his eyes.

His eyes widened.

Wh… what?! WHAT?!

It was incredibly surprising to see such a young child have such an intuitive control of spirit energy. Having never seen Zairen utilize his spirit energy before, this was his first time seeing Zairen’s ease of control and it was very impressive and surprising.

Yet, that wasn’t what shocked Jannie the most. What was most unbelievable… was the color of the spirit energy!

Staring wide-eyed at the milky white shape floating above Zairen’s hand, Jannie could scarcely believe his eyes.

The more milky white spirit energy appeared, the purer it was. The flip side was also true - the dirtier the color and darker the tone of spirit energy, the less pure it was. This was true even for people with elemental spirit affinities - the lighter the color of the spirit energy, the purer it was.

How important was this purity of spirit energy? Incredibly important!

Understood as a constant at birth, it was the first thing looked at by big schools when recruiting students, right after elemental spirit energy affinity. Almost all amazing geniuses had very pure spirit energy. Purer spirit energy had many advantages: it was much more effective to use, much more fluid to channel, had exponentially much more raw power, and exemplified the rare aspects of each person’s individual spirit energy, making them much more unique.

Jannie had previously considered himself pretty lucky. His spirit energy had been medium yellow, with a bit of dark dirtiness. This lighter color placed him above the vast majority of spirit energy cultivators - most had a dark, dull, and impure grey color.

Some were very gifted and had very light spirit energy, with almost no hints of dirtiness. One such example was the famed Captain Janor, who had a spirit energy which was a clean light pink with fire affinity spirit energy. This was incredibly rare - as a top student, she had been praised to the heavens and considered an extreme, once in a century genius. Nobody was able to surpass her.

However… this notion was challenged today. Zairen’s spirit energy was completely milky white, with literally no traces of darkness at all. It was actually a blank white! Jannie kept on trying to look for darker spots or off color impurities in the cloud, but failed to find a single one. Did that mean it was… completely pure? With literally no impurities at all?

How was that possible? Jannie blinked repeatedly, thinking he had hallucinated.

In actuality, Zairen had not been born with perfectly pure spirit energy. When he had first awoken his spirit energy as a child, although it had been pretty light colored, there had still been some dirty grey spots in it. However, they had cleaned up as he cultivated.

In general, this continent actually had a misconception about spirit energy purity - it wasn’t stagnant. It could improve. Several rare, high level arts were able to raise it up a few levels. However, the cultivator had to be talented enough.

The Silent Shadow Art fell into this category of rare arts that could purify spirit energy. After many years of training with it, Zairen had slowly but surely purified his spirit energy until it was a pure white, completely rid of purities. This was still a testament to Zairen’s talent - even given the right arts, not many could complete such a feat. However, Zairen was not such a shocking freak genius that he had just been naturally born with perfectly pure spirit energy.

However, Jannie didn’t know that.

“Alright,” Zairen continued casually. The milky white blob of spirit energy floating above Zairen’s hand slowly thinned out into a thin, almost invisible layer.

“I’m going to do what’s called a spirit energy scan,” Zairen explained, glancing into Jannie’s blank eyes to make sure he understood. “Basically, it’s a technique to use spirit energy to scan the inside of the body to identify problems. Although it may sound dangerous, I have full mastery of it and am absolutely sure it’s completely safe.” Giving a slight questioning gaze, he looked for Jannie’s consent.

Jannie seemed to not hear Zairen’s words at all and just gaped blankly.

Not only was his spirit energy so incredibly pure, but Zairen’s control was so fine that he could he could manipulate it into such a tiny layer so fluently?! Jannie found that at this point, he had almost developed shock fatigue. Yet, he still almost couldn’t believe how much control Zairen had over his spirit energy. He himself, even at his peak, wouldn’t have been able to make an even layer even twenty times as thick consistently.

‘Is this the power of perfectly pure spirit energy?’ Jannie wondered. He suddenly realized why Alivia and Finn respected Zairen so much, even though they both had elemental spirit affinities and were older. So such a monster really existed!

“Is that okay?”

“Huh?” Jannie was brought out of his stupor. Blinking a few times, he asked sheepishly: “Um, sorry. What did you say again?”

Zairen chuckled. “I’ll explain again.”

He proceeded to repeat what he had just previously said.

“Oh, of course!” After listening properly this time, Jannie immediately hurriedly nodded, a bit embarrassed. “Let’s do it.”

After seeing Zairen’s spirit energy and his manipulation of it, all of his doubts had left his mind. Suddenly, Zairen looked more legitimate than any other doctor he had seen.

“Great, I’ll start now,” Zairen replied calmly.

Zairen slowly moved his palm up toward Jannie’s heart, causing the thin layer of spirit energy to along and harmlessly enter his body.

Even though he had been warned of it prior, Jannie still couldn’t help but jolt a bit. Another person’s spirit energy entering the body was usually never good. However, after seeing Zairen’s calm expression and feeling no pain, he relaxed a bit.

Zairen slowly moved his hand back and forth, extensively scanning the heart area. After a few more repetitions, Zairen withdrew his spirit energy and smiled.

“Yep, as I thought. It’s just a mild ulceration on the bottom surface of the heart protector. Totally curable.”

“R-Really?” Jannie couldn’t help but exclaim out.

“Yep! Don’t worry, it’ll be easily fixed.” Zairen laughed, finding Jannie’s reactions a bit humorous.

Jannie stared incredulously back at Zairen.

This situation felt surreal. Could it be… after these three years, he really could be cured?

His gut reaction was to be doubtful. However, in the past week, many miracles had happened at the school. Could there be another?

“As for the treatment…” Zaire’s expression suddenly turned serious.

Treatment?

Jannie involuntarily gulped. He had completely forgotten: what would the treatment Zairen prescribed be like? An injury to the meridians was incredibly serious. Would the treatment require surgery? Would it be time-intensive and have excruciating side effects?

He clenched his fists. He was ready for any treatment, no matter how painful. Thinking back to incident from earlier today, his resolve was strengthened further. After seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, he was willing to go through hell to get his spirit energy back.

The next moment, Zairen pulled out a small jade jar from his pocket and held it out. “Take these twice a day, morning and night. They shouldn’t have any side effects. If your spirit energy hasn’t returned within a week, come find me.”

Jannie blankly stared at the small jade jar in Zairen’s hand.

“That’s it?”

“Yes,” Zairen chuckled, reaching over and placed the jade bottle into Jannie’s motionless hand. “As I said, this type of thing is no deal. Drugs are very effective nowadays. In fact, I had already prema… er, received pills for most minor meridian injuries prior, just for occasions like this.”

Jannie was silent once again, as if trying to interpret Zairen’s words. He flipped open the lid of the jade bottle and stared down at the small white pills inside. “Sorry if it’s rude to ask… but… where did you even get these? What… what even are they?”

“Ah…” Zairen paused for a moment. “Um... I got it from a wise master pill refiner I met from a different province. He had a great relationship with my father so he passed on to me a large supply of his stash,” he lied. “They are just called Heart Protector Pills. Don’t worry, they are completely safe.”

Zairen decided to deflect all of the credit to a generic ‘wise old master.’ He felt that if he told the truth, it might be too unbelievable, and would only make Jannie more suspicious - how would it be possible for a seven-year-old to be not only an experienced doctor but also an accomplished pill refiner?

“Oh… “ Jannie stared at the small jade jar in his hand, seemingly not registering what Zairen was saying.

Would just two simple pills a day really cure his injury? Out of everything he thought the treatment would be, he could never imagine it was just something like two pills a day, like some kind of vitamin supplement!

“Anything else you need?” Zairen dusted off his hands and reached for the jade scroll he had been previously working on.

“O-Oh, no… that was it,” Jannie spit out. Glancing once again at Zairen with a strange expression, he slowly stood back up. “Well, I guess I should take my leave. Thank you so much for everything…”

“Oh, no problem!” Zairen replied cheerfully. “Remember, if it doesn’t work, just come back and I’ll have something better.”

“Alright…”

Jannie turned and left the room, staggering slightly.