novelraw Chapter 895 - 894 - Healers Until the End
Chapter 895 - 894 - Healers Until the End
The massive stone sarcophagus was pristine and Lind understood the room had shielded it completely but he had to examine the inside to find out how.
The formations had been fueled by low Immortal grade spirit stones! He saw the remains of a Law Array as well that broke down when he opened the door!
An Immortal must have made it in a rush from what he could see. He quickly examined the entire area but only found a handful of the rooms as sealed as the first one he examined.
The few with partial formations revealed cracked open objects from something forceful. He realized what he was seeing.
"Someone died to make this work." He turned back to the thick layer of dust but there was only one way to be sure.
He looked over the structure of the inscriptions on the stone of the sarcophagus and carefully found what he needed.
There was a spot to infuse Qi and there was no security at all. It was a gamble but clearly it was someone desperate to make it work quickly. Security arrays were complex and required integration to any other arrays on the object they were meant to protect.
Not using them sped up construction immensely.
He infused his Qi and a hiss instantly came from a crack at the halfway mark of the sarcophagus. A glow came from the lower half that raised the top and slid it towards the back of the room.
Gravity took over at one point and the stone cover fell away. He saw the arrays had run out of power at last but had held on till then.
Mist blew out and revealed a perfectly preserved human. Before he could grow concerned, she took a breath. Not only that, but she was very pregnant. He also felt the faint effect of Time Laws.
His friend George had long told him about what he was seeing.
"Suspended animation. They could do it!" Healing, no matter the world, was a game of time and numbers. The more time a healer had, the more they could throw at a problem until they healed their patient.
He had never encountered an application like that before but the uses of it were immeasurable as sometimes diagnosis was easy but creating a pill or elixir exceeded the time a patient had left.
The shelf life of those pills and elixirs was also very short even with the best preservation vials used.
He had tried to fix that for some and succeeded but the vast majority still had the problem. These sarcophagi would solve that issue! Diagnose a patient and then put them in there until the cure was ready!
He quickly scanned mother and child but they were fine. He checked their vitals that were coming in line with a healthy World Realm before he realized her vitality was only a century at best!
The formations had been barely working but had perfectly preserved their lives for over a million years!
She had dark skin with bright blue hair. He knew that meant a beast bloodline might be mixed in but it was too faint for him to sense it.
She was breathing normally and the baby was starting to kick. He quickly summoned some food from his ring that was easy to swallow and some pouches of water. He also prepared some elixirs but waited for her to awaken fully.
She slowly began to blink and revealed dark eyes that came into focus as they saw him. She went wide eyed but flinched in pain before grasping her stomach.
"Please don't kill me, senior!" Her words were slightly different from what he was used to but he could interpret it easily. He did not understand why she was terrified but he gently placed the items he had at the edge of the bed area.
He then stepped back and waved at them. He was unsure of her mental condition but it seemed fine as she quickly identified the food, water, and elixirs for what they were.
A soothed look passed over her face but she then took in their surroundings and frowned. Panic quickly returned as she began to shout.
"Theo! Theo, where are you?!" He stopped her from running out as her coordination seemed to fluctuate.
"Anyone living here died long ago. There are only a few rooms like this left in the entire area the city once stood in." She shook her head and tried to deny him but then pain came from her stomach. "Calm yourself! Your baby is aware of you as you well know. Calm!"
He put more authority into his voice and she took deep breaths as tears formed in her eyes.
It took awhile for her to calm down but still she was looking around as if hoping to be finding that Theo she called for.
"Listen to me carefully, a lot of time has passed. A lot has happened in that time and it is too much to absorb but you are in no condition to move. Can you stay here and wait? There are 3 more rooms I need to open like yours." She froze at his words.
"What do you mean 3? There should be far more than that!" His eyes narrowed at her words but he did a swift count of all similar rooms.
"I can sense there are over 30 attached to this building and some similar ones on a few other structures but only the 4 here are still totally sealed. About 10 are partially sealed and full of ruins, but the rest are as broken as the rest of the city." His words hit her hard but she seemed to pull herself together.
"W-which 3?" He pointed to the left side of the room.
"There are 3 more in that direction all attached to this building. One is 3 doors down, the other 2 are at the very end of the wall." She closed her eyes and grasped her belly.
"You are a healer, great Immortal?" He found her address odd but each area is different.
"I have some experience but based on what I have learned, I have long to go before claiming such a title. I am an elixir master." He produced his badge and she looked stunned to see the prismatic shield filled with the profound aura of Laws!
It showed he was a mid grade 7 elixir master but he was unsure how she viewed him with the old standards. Clearly it was still a big deal.
"Please! Save them!" He bowed to her and left her to go to the other rooms. Much as he did with hers, he simply touched the arrays and they shattered like glass.
He found another woman, a boy, and a little girl. None of them shared any characteristics but they were all at the Gold Tier at most. He figured out why that was fairly easily.
The weaker a cultivator, the lower the requirements to maintain their lives.
It made sense that they had the greatest odds of surviving but it left some dark questions for him.
The other woman was not pregnant but was as upset at his words as the first woman. She had vibrantly red hair and pale skin but she was at the highest cultivation of Gold Tier.
The boy was at the peak of the Soul Realm and the little girl was actually a Sand Tier.
They hid from him at first but their needs for food, water, and some elixirs to stabilize their foundations before they followed him to the first room.
He was glad to see she was still ok but the others raced to her to see how she was doing. He confirmed she was only at the Iron Tier.
They wept and talked while Lind discreetly examined the ruined rooms with his senses. He found a few remains that were not dust but only deeper inside the cracked open sarcophagi of the other rooms.
Still, the care for each room was precise and complete. It was simply the exhaustion of time that made it impossible to pull it all off. He was glad that none of them were recently broken down and were at least a hundred thousand years old as the most recent damage.
"Great Immortal Master, do you know if anyone survived?" The other woman approached him but he noticed she kept her voice very soft.
He glanced behind him to see the children sticking the pregnant woman animatedly and caring for her.
[I know a bit but it is quite shocking, do you still wish to know?] She nodded and he relayed a compact version of events. He skipped over his involvement in resolving the issue but laid out the massive gap in time and the results on the Celestial Fields it had.
She paled but remained steady throughout until he explained that the city was just ruins now.
She looked out and tears fell once more down her cheeks.
"I am an apprentice. I was chosen due to the potential I have to learn the Arts but they are all gone. They sacrificed it all for nothing." He swiftly scanned things again before he found an oddity.
There was a spatial node at the very center of the waterfall! It was faint and too small to hold a person but now that he knew what to look for, he found it!
"Don't assume things, I believe they never gave up." She looked confused until he ripped open space and reached his hand through to find an ancient storage ring in a pocket space.
It was still stable and unlike the entire city, it was in good condition. He held it out to her and she tentatively grasped it before she nearly fell!
"Master! It is my master's!" He felt a formation flare as she put a drop of blood on it. A flickering projection appeared suddenly among them all.
[I sincerely hope you are hearing this Kyren. The Qi was flying away as we sealed up the sarcophagi worse than I told you. The city defenses are collapsing even as I make this. I have no time but know that I entrust our legacy to you. The world that comes after will need all we learned and you are my best student. Live, my apprentice. Live.]
The old man smiled before vanishing. The robes he wore seemed profound but were hard to make out from the flickering image. His long hair and beard showed how long he had lived.
His slim form was like many cultivators that focused only on support too.
The small group cried once more but Lind bowed low in respect. They had known the danger and saved how they could. They also preserved a legacy the world did badly need.
The question was what to do now? There were no villages or towns nearby thus far. These 4 could not rebuild things on their own but he did not want the powers he knew to usurp it.
He then looked up and had a thought. Perhaps he could call in a favor.