The Sect Leader System

Chapter 357: A Good Uselessness

Pan Xiaolian had been a healer a long time, though for most of her life that had simply meant bandaging wounds or giving a sick person a herb known to help with their symptoms. She’d watched, powerless, as many villagers had succumbed to injuries and diseases.

That had all changed with the arrival of the sect leader. She and the other former village healers had received knowledge techniques and training far more advanced than anything they’d known previously. At the same time, the miraculous healing pills made that knowledge almost worthless as most issues could be resolved by alchemy.

The main contribution Pan Xiaolian made in helping a patient who entered the pavilion was to determine if the person needed a Major Healing Pill or if a minor one would do. Which was both frustrating and amazing.

She couldn’t help but feel a bit useless. Literally anyone could hand out a pill. But she couldn’t complain about the results. Now that the vast majority of the villagers had been inducted into the sect, there were no more deaths to mundane causes. No one even suffered from the sniffles.

Younger idiots suffered injuries from doing stupid things as teenagers were wont to do, but those issues were easily resolved. One young man on the last expedition had fought a spirit beast that was too strong and had his arm bitten off. He’d simply popped a Major Healing Pill in his mouth, and his limb regrew in minutes.

When he’d returned to the sect, he hadn’t even thought to report to the Healing Pavilion to have it checked. Pan Xiaolian hadn’t found out about the injury until weeks later and, after dragging the young man in to be examined, found that he was essentially good as new.

Being useless as a healer was a good thing, but sometimes it didn’t feel like it, especially considering that so many resources had been expended to create the pavilion. The entire team felt like they weren’t contributing as much as they should be.

The Martial Pavilion trained warriors who would become the sect’s protectors. The Alchemy Pavilion would one day create miraculous medicines that could fix any injury and cure any disease. The Formations Pavilion eventually would be able to replicate the miraculous arrays the sect leader so easily made. And so on and so on.

Up until less than a week prior, the entire Healing Pavilion felt like they’d be relegated to handing out the creations the Alchemy Pavilion made, something most cultivators could do perfectly well on their own.

Then the sect leader introduced the Acupuncture technique. It required true expertise to perform and fixed issues that couldn’t be resolved just by popping a pill. Once the technique was mastered, she and her team would provide a valuable service to the sect.

All of them were elated.

The fact that their very first patients for the new procedure were Senior Brother and Senior Sister added quite a large bit of pressure, though. Pan Xiaolian wouldn’t want to cause harm to anyone, young or old, from the least competent laborer in the village to the sect leader himself, but she knew the importance of those two teenagers—the most talented members and heirs to the sect.

She thought she had the sect leader’s measure, that he was a good man who wouldn’t lash out at others even for a grievous mistake, but cultivators, especially ones as high realm as him, were known for their tempers. In any other sect, failing to heal such important core disciples would be death sentence.

Sooner than Pan Xiaolian expected, the sect leader returned with the twins, and the four of them moved to one of the pavilion’s consultation rooms.

“Yang Xiu, Yang Ru,” the sect leader said, “it is obvious that something is influencing your emotions and personalities. You have noticed this, correct?”

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“Yes, Master,” they chorused.

“Good. I’m here because I believe myself to be the foremost authority on the continent, maybe the world, regarding your condition. Healing Pavilion Master Pan Xiaolian is here as the expert on the process for treating that condition. Understood?”

“Yes, Master.”

“I’ll explain the condition. Healing Pavilion Master Pan Xiaolian will explain the treatment. You will each decide for yourselves on whether or not to proceed with the treatment. Neither Healing Pavilion Master Pan Xiaolian nor myself will command you to pursue a particular path. We are only here to provide information, so you each can make an informed decision. Understood?”

“Yes, Master.”

He smiled at them, and the fact that he cared deeply for both of them was quite evident on his face. “To put it bluntly, your energy has gotten out of balance, and that is causing your respective qi aspects, which had previously affected your opposite number, to instead influence your own personality. Since you’re unused to your own elements, you haven’t developed any immunity to it, making them exert outsized influence.”

The twins shared a look.

Though neither of them said a word, the sect leader appeared to have interpreted their question. “Honestly, I don’t know how dangerous it is long term. Maybe you’ll each adapt to it, and it will be no big thing. Or your personalities may stay drastically altered, and you’ll each live as people wholly different than who you used to be. Worst case scenario, the energy imbalance causes a qi deviation that could lead to problems with your cultivation or even death. The variables are too wonky to determine an exact outcome.”

Wonky was not a word Pan Xiaolian was familiar with. It didn’t seem to faze the twins, though.

“You mentioned an energy imbalance,” Yang Ru said. “Does that mean our qi is imbalanced?”

“Not exactly. I’m using energy to represent sort of a unified mixture of all possible energies. It incorporates qi and karma and mana and a whole host of other metaphysical powers that are present in this universe or connected ones.” The sect leader paused. “You know how I’m always saying that anything can happen in a cultivation world?”

“Yes, Master.”

“This energy is part of the reason for me saying that.” He turned to Yang Xiu. “If I set up one hundred clay targets and gave you one hundred arrows and told you to shoot each one with a single arrow, I guarantee that two things would happen. One, you’d hit each target with an arrow. Two, each arrow would shatter the target it hit. Makes sense?”

It seemed to Pan Xiaolian that his hypothetical situation depended on a number of factors including distance, wind, etc. Both twins, on the other hand, readily agreed with the sect leader.

“Now let’s take that same scenario and introduce some of this universal energy into the mix,” he said to Yang Xiu. “This time, you’d hit and destroy the targets only, say, ninety seven times. One time, you’d miss. One time, the arrow would bounce off the target. And one time, your arrow would turn into a bird and fly away.”

The twins shared another look.

“I know. Ridiculous, right? But that’s exactly the kind of thing that can happen when this energy is involved. Most of time, fortunately, it doesn’t interact with our world much, and during the few times that it does, it’s mostly harmless. That one time that it decides to be spontaneous, though.” The sect leader shrugged. “That’s why this is completely unpredictable.”

He paused. “Honestly, my biggest worry isn’t a qi deviation or death or anything like that. The chances of something that drastic seem slim, though they are definitely possible. What I fear is that your personalities keep changing. Now that it has happened once, it is more likely to happen again, maybe at random or possibly based on intense emotional triggers. If we fix it now, I’m hoping you never have to go through it again.”

Pan Xiaolian decided that was a good spot for her to take over. “Which is where I come in. You’ve heard of acupuncture?”

The twins had.

“The sect leader provided me with manuals and a technique, which I reached Mastery with. I have not, however, had much practice. Likewise, I have not, nor to the best of my knowledge has anyone, used acupuncture to correct a condition like yours. On the other hand, correcting energy imbalances in the body is the exact kind of issue that the process was created to solve.”

The two looked at each other again.

“What are the risks, Healing Pavilion Master?” Yang Xiu said.

“One possibility is that it simply that it doesn’t work. In the worst case, it causes a qi deviation like we’re trying to avoid. And I have no way even to put odds on whether the procedure will be successful, do nothing, or result in a catastrophic ill.”

Yet again, the two looked at each other. That time, Yang Ru grunted, and Yang Xiu nodded.

“I’ll go first,” he said.