I scowled at the teen. “It’s not like that mission at all.”

The flabbergasted expression on his face was priceless.

“Listen up, junior, we just watched a pinnacle stage 5 beast beat up a low stage 3 ascendant white tiger. During the crab mission, we saw two stage 5 krakens kill each other.”

He glared.

I raised a finger before he could interrupt. “We also didn’t embarrass ourselves so badly afterwards that we all agreed to never speak of this mission again.” I crossed my arms and grinned. “This is obviously different.”

“I can’t believe you said that when it’s become disproportionately dangerous again! This is exactly like the previous two missions!”

I tossed him a bottle full of pills I specifically created for sword cultivators to replenish their energy. He grabbed it and scowled.

“Are you trying to tell me to eat this and shut up?”

“Your intelligence is why I like to keep you around, Little Clear Eyes Mad Tongue.”

He scoffed. “Whatever mission you go on next time, don’t expect me to tag along.” He put a pill in his mouth. His eyes widened as he likely realized that his Great Martial Aunt had good shit. He cleared his throat. “Unless it’s extremely profitable!”

I smirked. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

He huffed and started to meditate.

I downed a cup of spiritual water and used a half dozen spirit stones to refill my own energy within minutes. Now it was time to contact the kid. The low-realm telepathic technique I used worked well only when the person was close by and I knew where they were. This meant that I’d have to use a secret sound transmission to talk.

“Little Spring, are you safe?”

No response. Even after several minutes of waiting.

Not giving up, I kept trying, repeating the same message. Still no response, even after a quarter hour.

I ground my teeth.

He was alive. He had to be! Knowing what I did about the genre, I wouldn’t believe he was dead even if I saw his body.

Maybe I could use a more powerful version of the secret sound transmission? One that could even wake the half-dead. There would be some minor backlash since I’d be using a Foundation Establishment technique at Qi Condensation, but if I could get in contact with that stupid Spring of the Universe, it would be worth it.

I should have taught it to Mad Tongue and had him use it before he started to cultivate. Well, whatever. He might have taken too long to learn it.

“Wake your ass up!” A sour feeling spread through my chest. A trickle of blood dripped down from my lips and I wiped it with a handkerchief. This much was nothing.

“Sis—?” His whispered reply sounded like gravel.

I fucking knew he was still alive.

Now that I’d woken him up, I could switch to a regular sound transmission that wouldn’t hurt my body. “Where are you?”

“Everything hurts...” His voice trailed off as if he would pass out any second.

Fuck. I shouldn't have wasted all that time arguing with Mad Tongue.

“Don’t you dare go back to sleep! Are you in a private enough place to enter your space?”

“Think so?”

“Then move to the treatment room.”

“Hard.”

How injured was he?

“You do it anyway!”

“Always.”

I had to trust that he’d have at least that much energy.

With that taken care of, it was time to set up a way to disappear without that observant teen noticing. I spread my divine sense out to check the dimensions of the cavern. While the area was shallow, there was enough room for a small tent and a meditating person, even though it would be cramped.

While I should have informed Clear Eyes, disturbing him while he cultivated would be dangerous. Unfortunately, if everything and the formation flags were going to fit in here, he needed to move.

I gently lifted him with my spiritual energy and dragged him to the very back of the cavern, but still within my protective formation. Considering that he didn’t flinch, and his internal energy remained steady, I’d been careful enough that he didn’t notice.

Next, I placed my new single person tent exactly where I wanted it. It was barely big enough for me to curl up in but to fit into the cave the supports that held it up had to bend significantly. When a disturbing crack sounded, I knew some of them snapped. Whatever. I could always get new sticks.

As soon as I activated the defensive formations of my tent, I went into the space’s treatment room.

I had no idea what its original purpose was. It had been a nearly empty room with some cabinets. I’d cobbled together a bunch of tools, baths and a bed to make it the perfect place to cure a serious wound. This way I could rely on treatment methods I’d documented, rather than just throw a strong pill at every cut or gut wound.

Healing pills became less effective the more a cultivator used a specific type. So, I would often treat a wound first, then use a less efficient prescription. This way, I could save the more potent ones for an emergency.

A bloody pile of rags suddenly appeared on the bed. I stepped back. Wait, that was Little Spring. Shit! Was he actually dead?! I didn’t think he would be this bad!

There was a slight movement in his chest as he breathed in. How the fuck was this child even still alive? Why hadn’t he taken a healing pill yet?

Ah! He wore Ghosty’s necklace. This kid likely survived because I’d taught that old man the technique, Bloom of the Night Flower. He’d used it to save the brat and now suffered from depleted energy. It would take him months to recover from this.

I strode over to the bed and quickly scanned Little Spring with my divine sense. My stomach churned and I clenched my hands into fists. Because it was easier to list the places that weren’t damaged.

If I ever met the author of this dumbass Xianxia universe, I would fucking murder them!

No child should have to go through this. This kid’s bones were broken. Shattered in some places. His muscles were torn up. His insides were only together because of his body cultivation. While Ghosty’s shield had saved his life, it obviously hadn’t protected him completely.

Someone had to die for putting my cute junior brother through this pain. Rather than a dumbass author that I couldn’t get my hands on, that Golden Core asshole with the crimson rope was a person I could murder if I ever met him again. Normally I liked to wait until I was strong enough and take revenge myself but, didn’t we have a convenient Shadow Gopher around here? Yes. I would have to make a deal with my Nascent Soul junior later.

I also needed to lecture this brat to use his goddamn space sooner!

Okay. I had to calm down. He required treatment.

Other than the insane amount of damage that would have killed a normal Qi Condensation cultivator, Little Spring also had some of the White Tiger’s residual energy within him. If he’d used a pill, his body would just revert back to this horrifying state, making the healing pointless.

Lingering sword Qi and other types of energy was a classic trope I’d often experienced. Those energies would wreak havoc on my body long after the fucker who inflicted the wound was dead. It was a painful shitty experience, and this poor kid was going through it. On top of that he was dealing with the energy of a fucking Ascendant Beast — something even I hadn’t seen in my last life.

I gently grabbed Little Spring’s head that, thankfully, wasn’t harmed that much. He had several cuts that had bled a lot, making his face look worse than it was. His eyes flew open, and his expression became pained.

“You’re lucky your martial sister is a thousand-year-old badass. Because I’m the only one in this universe who could cure you.”

He mumbled something, then moaned.

Right. He wouldn’t be able to think straight. Before starting the procedure, I had to solve his pain. And I couldn’t use a knockout pill because I might require his cooperation. That meant I needed to use one of my semi-failed experiments.

I took out my acupuncture needles and placed them in a formation to block out a significant portion of his nerve receptors. This was a technique I’d developed late in life just to see if I could. It was a combination of medical techniques and formations by using needles as flags. Frankly, I was the only person mad enough to try this. Although awkward and hard to use, I had created a working non-drowsy, non-medicinal anesthetic.

While effective, it wasn’t something I liked to use. The energies that ran through it ruined good acupuncture needles and the formation often stopped working once a patient moved. These flaws were why I considered it a semi-failed technique.

Little Spring blinked at me, and I could tell the acupuncture-formation was working.

“Okay, I’m going to need your help here. There is a tiny bit of foreign energy inside you. However, to our weak Qi Condensation asses, even this amount could do significant damage to our bodies and cultivation.”

To put it simply, it was like taking a pinch of gold dust, making it 10,000 times heavier and spreading it all over the kid. I had to clear away that hyper dense gold, but I only had a 14-karat scraper. While larger, it was soft and malleable. The denser material could easily go right through it if I wasn’t careful. It would be very difficult. However, if two scrapers worked together to share the burden and strengthen each other, it would be possible to extract the dense particles much easier.

It also helped that the energy was thin and spread out. If it weren’t, then I likely wouldn’t be able to remove it at all.

We also needed somewhere to put it. This was something from a rare Ascendant beast. It would be a waste to toss it away like trash.

I leaned back and called, “Spirit of the Space!”

The golden dragon traveled through the wall, then worriedly made figure eights above Little Spring’s head.

“Hey, store this residual energy somewhere.”

His eyes narrowed, and he glared down at the kid’s injuries. “If you can bring it out of his body, I could just eat it.”

“Can you throw it back up again?”

The golden dragon huffed out an annoyed breath. “Or I could put it in the deep storage.”

That was more like it. “Let’s do that.”

“Okay, junior brother. How are you feeling?”

“Can’t feel most of my body. It hurts some, but I can think now.”

This kid looked really miserable. “Regardless of the pain, I need you to work with me. We’re going to remove this residual energy from the most dangerous areas first, starting with your heart.”

I sent a glare to the dragon. “As soon as you sense it outside his body, send it into storage. I don’t want to risk it suddenly returning to cause more damage.”

“Hmph, I would never harm my master.”

Since I couldn’t use the cleaning technique on Little Spring in this state, I used a clean handkerchief to wipe the blood off his face. “It will be difficult with your numbed senses, but you need to work with your spiritual energy. Rotate it the opposite of mine but move it in the same direction.”

I showed him what I talked about by rotating the strand I sent into his body like a little drill and moving it toward part of the foreign energy. Because Little Spring and I cultivated mirror techniques, I could send my energy into his body and easily keep it separate from his.

The kid copied and reversed the drill. Sweat beaded on his forehead and I wiped it away. There, a few weak-looking strands of the dense energy surrounded and pressed down on his heart. Frankly, the fact that this kid was still alive was a miracle. If we hadn’t finished our body cultivation meals, he would be dead right now.

I tried to drill it in the middle of the strand, thinking that moving it from its center of mass would be easiest. Unfortunately, while this moved it, it was very slow, and was inefficient. I had us spread out along the string until we came to the third lines. The strand advanced much easier if we pushed it from there. It was almost like Little Spring’s energy was positive, mine was negative, and the foreign particle was a magnet getting repelled by our energies.

A minute or two later, we had the first one out of his body.

The dragon moved its small claws, capturing the string and sending it away.

Fuck, this was taking forever, and I didn’t know how fast Clear Eyes would finish his meditation and check the tent. Well, we knew what worked. We just needed to get it finished sooner. Since removing one strand at a time would take an eternity, I sent more tendrils of Qi into his torso.

“Sister Lin?”

Once again, I wiped his forehead. “I know you’re exhausted, but I need to get this done. The faster we take this energy out of your body, the faster I can heal your injuries.”

He mumbled something but complied. We pushed a dozen parts at a time. I watched Little Spring to see if he had trouble keeping up, but he followed my lead perfectly. Meanwhile, the dragon caused the strings to vanish the moment they left, relieving us of a burden.

As soon as we finished that batch, the kid cleared his throat. “Are you angry with me?”

“Concentrate on the task.” I grimaced as I continued throwing out more strands of energy. “I’m not upset with you. But I regret taking you with me. You shouldn’t have to go through this at your age.”

“The world isn’t safe. I’d rather face danger with you than remain secure and protected in the sect.”

This fucking crazy-ass protagonist. How could he go through something like this and still say that? Was I not teaching him, right?

“I need to train you how to take better care of yourself during a crisis.”

“Some things I can only learn by experiencing them.”

Well, he wasn’t wrong. But was it necessary to go through these things when he was only nine?

“Focus. I’m going to add more tendrils.”

“More?!”

“Less talking, more pushing.”