The Sect Leader System

Chapter 356 - Healing

Benton gladly left the trio of teenagers behind as he Teleported to the Healing Pavilion, where he greeted Pan Xiaolian.

“How goes the training?” he said. “Have two of you reached Mastery yet?”

She cupped her hands. “Apologies, Sect Leader, but only I have reached that level. Two others are at Large Success.”

That wasn’t good. Acupuncture was a medical procedure that required skill. He didn’t want to put either twins’ health in the hands of someone who hadn’t even mastered the technique.

He told Pan Xiaolian his concerns.

“I share your hesitation, Sect Leader,” she said. “I would not be comfortable having anyone other than me perform such an important procedure.”

Benton frowned. “You mean consecutively? The process is quite lengthy and labor intensive, is it not?”

“The old woman you inducted into your sect absolutely would not have had the required stamina, Sect Leader, but that woman is no more, replaced by one who is young of heart and who possesses the strength of a cultivator in the seventh minor realm of Qi Gathering and who is at the peak of Bronze Body Cultivation. I can handle sticking some needles into my patients.”

True. He experienced little cognitive dissonance when seeing youngsters performing superhuman feats after advancing a few minor realms, but for some reason, it was harder for him to accept that people as old as he had been gained the same abilities.

“Besides,” she said, “if I don’t feel that my stamina will hold out, we’ll simply do the procedures on different days.”

He tensed at that suggestion. Due to the nature of them being twins, they seemed to have a metaphysical bleed-over effect where one influenced the other. Ideally, they’d both undergo procedures at the same time. He told her as much.

“There are only three choices, Sect Leader. One, proceed as I have suggested. Two, wait until another from the pavilion advances to Mastery. Or three, call in an outside expert.”

None of the solutions sounded good. The first risked a metaphysical blowback disrupting the procedure. If that happened, the ramifications could range anywhere from minimal loss of effectiveness all the way up to triggering the qi deviation they were trying to avoid. He suspected that the most major of the ill effects were highly unlikely, but he hated placing the kids at risk.

The second meant that putting off the procedure until after the tournament. Which at first glance didn’t seem like a bad thing. But any battle carried risks, meaning that it was possible that he’d be hurt or even killed. Losing would put the entire sect into dangerous territory, and the thought of the twins not being at their absolute best during such a situation filled him with dread.

Finally, the last required trusting a stranger. Presumably, the Poison Claw Sect had someone expert in using acupuncture who could be trusted not to betray them. The problem was that what he considered expert and what the rest of the cultivators on the continent considered expert were two entirely different things. He’d honestly trust one of his own people at Large Success over someone using whatever passed for a technique that one of the other sects had drug up.

When considered in those terms, it felt like the lowest risk was … the first option.

“Perform the procedures consecutively,” he said. “The closer in time, the better. Whatever it takes.”

“Of course, Sect Leader.” Pan Xiaolian paused significantly.

“What?”

“There’s another issue, Sect Leader.”

She went on to explain that she was not fully qualified to perform the treatment because proper acupuncture required the person applying the needles to sense the flow of energy through the body.

“Since I’m only at Qi Gathering…”

That problem, at least, was one he could solve, which was the answer that she anticipated. The formation that he would be creating could easily be modified to sense the energy flows she needed to monitor, and by that point, he was well acquainted with outputting data to a tablet.

This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

He left her to construct the arrays, which didn’t take too terribly long since he used his Time Manipulation. A few of the other pavilion members agreed to be Guinea pigs, and Pan Xiaolian soon certified the results as perfect.

The functionality shown by the formation and the new tablets, however, made her ask if he could do something similar for general health diagnostics, which wasn’t something he’d previous considered. After some back and forth planning, he created another design and, by the time he finished implementing it, he’d produced a medical scanning system and output reports that would have made Dr. McCoy toss his tricorder in the trash and weep due to sheer happiness.

For Benton, it was all in a morning’s work.

Yang Xiu wasn’t processing her situation well. Partially, her problems were because her emotions felt like they were transmitted to her in the same way that sight would have been if she were submerged deep underwater. She still felt things, but it all was quite muted. And when something did make her react, it came in a burst that she couldn’t control. It was like something constrained feelings most of the time, but if one grew strong enough, the containment failed, leading to an explosion.

Her gut, though, insisted that she shouldn’t feel emotions at all, so when one erupted, it frightened her. But fear was also an emotion, so her reaction to the reaction caused her to be even more frightened. Which irritated her. Which was yet another emotion.

It was a vicious loop that threw her completely off kilter.

One thing—one person—triggering her intense, uncontrollable reactions was the girl on her knees apologizing. She just wouldn’t shut up, and every time she spoke, a great ball of conflicting feelings bubbled up inside Yang Xiu’s head. Love. Hate. Anger. Pity. All of that and more.

An even bigger trigger were Master’s words. Yang Xiu had always been on the receiving end of his praise. Never his anger. Never displeasure. Not disapproval. And certainly never disappointment.

“I am quite disappointed in both of you,” Master had said.

The statement was clear and unambiguous. He, Master, was disappointed in them, including her. Maybe even primarily her.

Being stabbed through the heart with a sword would have been less painful than those eight words. Every fiber of her being wanted nothing more than to fix whatever she’d done wrong so that he would be proud of her once again.

She took a deep breath, trying to clear away both the emotions attacking her psyche and the cloud that seemed to prevent her from reacting normally.

Yes, she clearly remembered being angry at Kang Lin, who had publicly hurt Yang Ru. The boy wasn’t perfect, but he was the only family Yang Xiu had left. It was not okay for anyone to hurt him.

Kang Lin wasn’t family, but she had been a friend. A best friend. A near and hoped for sister.

Was it okay to throw away a friend when they messed up? Especially when they saw the error of their ways and apologized?

Yang Xiu’s instinct was to say that forgiveness was unwarranted. A cultivator did not forget a slight.

Something about that inclination bothered her though. Master’s words. He was a cultivator. If cultivator’s didn’t forgive, did that mean she could never regain his favor?

No, not at all. He’d be the first to accept a true apology and grant forgiveness. Which meant that she … should follow his example?

Yang Xiu closed her eyes and let out a long breath. When she reopened them, she said, “What you did was wrong, and we are no longer in the same place we once were because of it. I refuse to hang onto my anger and hate, however, and am willing to start over. That’s the best I can give you.”

Kang Lin literally had tears running down her face as she kowtowed again. “Gratitude.”

The open display made so many emotions flicker through Yang Xiu—anger at herself for causing such pain, pleasure that her friendship meant so much to the girl, and envy that Kang Lin could so easily experience feelings. They’d no sooner registered, though, than they were again subsumed by depths of pure Ice.

Yang Xiu simply nodded.

Yang Ru was frustrated and flummoxed. The former because he just wanted to move on from the whole debacle that was Kang Lin, and the latter because he’d been ordered to resolve the situation, meaning he had to keep looking backward.

But what more could he do? He’d already told her that he held her blameless and that he bore her no ill will.

Maybe Master hadn’t actually meant that he was disappointed in both of them. Maybe he just meant Yang Xiu.

That would make sense. She was clearly still hanging on to anger and hate.

Yang Ru nodded. That had to be it. He’d done everything right.

That conclusion didn’t feel right, though. Master had specifically said, “both of you.” Both. Two. Yang Xiu and Yang Ru.

But that brought him right back to what more could he do?

Ugh. Once he got out of that room, he was swearing off girls for the rest of his life. Joining a monastery was an option. Yeah. Leave the sect and become a monk. Perfect.

Okay. He had to think about the situation logically. Despite what he’d said about bearing Kang Lin no ill will, he’d complained that she had been the one to break up with him and basically whined that Master hadn’t said he was disappointed in her.

Maybe, possibly, there was a reason Master hadn’t believed what Yang Ru had said.

He thought for a long time before saying, “Kang Lin, ever since you began pulling away from me, my life has been miserable. For the longest time, I wanted only to know what I did wrong and how I could fix it. Now, I just want to move on. Maybe I haven’t fully forgiven you, but I want to. That’s all I can give you for now.”

She kowtowed to him. “That is enough. It’s more than enough. Gratitude.”

He sighed. “Good. Now, how do we get out of here?”