The Healer Demands Payment!
chapter-41-1

Ch.41 Part 1 – Farewell and Departure (I)

Xiao Qi stretched his waist and jumped off the bamboo bed, then slowly walked towards the array’s boundary. The spirit stones Meng Qi placed in it weren’t that bright, but the whole room was illuminated by the light from the array’s initiation.

Seven spirit stones that shone the brightest were connected into a Big Dipper constellation. Xiao Qi slowly moved his fluffy claws and lightly touched the outermost part of the array. He seemed to be curious and came to see what Meng Qi was doing.

Meng Qi glanced at him and said: “Xiao Qi, be careful not to touch it.”

She then took a deep breath and slowly stepped into the array. A massive amount of spiritual aura instantly engulfed her body. In Three Thousand Worlds, the spiritual aura in a single eight-grade spirit stone was almost equal to a cultivator who had just broken through into the Great Ascension stage. However, cultivators couldn’t use the aura inside spirit stones directly.

People have tried it in the past. However, they were disappointed to find out that even after successfully releasing spiritual aura from a spirit stone, the aura quickly dissipated and couldn’t be absorbed into cultivators’ body. No one could explain this phenomenon. The only plausible hypothesis was that the aura inside spirit stones was different from the aura needed to cultivate.

Cultivators in Three Thousand Worlds relied on breathing techniques and meditation to absorb spiritual aura from the surrounding environment and incorporated it into their body to be tempered. The accumulated spiritual aura gradually changed from quantitative to qualitative, which enabled them to break through to the next cultivation realm.

People with high cultivation talent could easily absorb the surrounding aura for their own use, getting twice the result with half the effort. Meng Qi wasn’t particularly stupid, but her talent wasn’t high either.

Meng Qi closed her eyes and sat cross-legged in the center of the array. Her master disdained her slow cultivation progress, so he specially designed an array that enabled her to incorporate spiritual aura in the spirit stones for her cultivation.

Thanks to that, in her previous life, Meng Qi finally entered the Golden Core stage, which enabled her medical cultivation to break through into the fourth rank. Finally, her medical cultivation didn’t have to suffer a bottleneck because of her slow cultivation speed.

The little white tiger quietly watched the girl being surrounded by spiritual aura. Faint light flashed on her body, making her skin looked even fairer. Her long eyelashes quivered slightly, and beads of sweat slowly rolled from her forehead.

Xiao Qi’s eyes flickered, and the Big Dipper that usually was hidden once again became visible inside his blue eyes. Stars rose and fell, and a faint trace seemed to connect the stars together. Looking more closely, it was very similar to the array Meng Qi drew. If there was any difference, it was that Meng Qi’s array was much rougher. However, the essence was identical. Seven gleaming spirit stones seemed to reflect the shape of the Big Dipper inside the little tiger’s eyes.

Xiao Qi kept watching in silence. The cultivation technique used by demons was different than the one used by humans in Three Thousand Worlds. Humans cultivated against heaven by robbing the essence of Dao that existed between earth and heaven. Because of this, human cultivators had to walk steadily step by step. As their cultivation realm improved, the spiritual sea inside their body would also expand naturally, enabling them to store even more aura for the next breakthrough.

Demon cultivators, on the other hand, were absorbing spiritual aura with their every breath. Ordinary demon cultivators also had a certain star shadow projected on their bodies. With the star shadow’s help, they could absorb the spiritual aura between heaven and earth. Celestial demon carried a constellation of stars, and they could use all different kinds of aura for cultivation. What restricted the demon’s cultivation speed was their spiritual sea’s growth rate, which was far slower than the rate of which the spiritual aura was accumulating. So in many cases, the aura that entered a demon cultivator’s body was wasted.

Because of that, neither human nor demon had an absolute advantage towards the other, which maintained a delicate balance between the races and realms.

Xiao Qi’s gaze gradually regained its calmness, and the Big Dipper shadow inside his eyes disappeared. He once again examined the array before him. This array was still very rough. If used for cultivation, at best, it would only help Meng Qi to break through the Golden Core stage. To break through from Golden Core to Nascent Soul, she would need a stronger and more complete array.

However, no matter how rough this array was, it was a fact that Meng Qi was now using the demon clan’s cultivation method to improve her own cultivation. And this was obviously a significant threat.

Xiao Qi slowly lifted his fluffy front paw. He looked at Meng Qi’s slender profile, surrounded by the light from the array. This girl seemed to trust him very much. She always let him stayed by her side and never hid anything.

Xiao Qi knew very well the threat that would emerge if this array was leaked to other human cultivators. The greatest obstacle in human cultivation would be cleared away, and humans would be able to incorporate any kind of spiritual aura for their cultivation. The great sects of Three Thousand Worlds could utilize their sect’s power to assist their most talented members cultivating at least five times faster than they were now. If things went on like this, the delicate balance between the three realms would inevitably break, and the consequences would be terrible.

Compared with devil realms inhabitants such as devil cultivators or devil beasts, the demon race was naturally smarter—especially celestial demons, whose intelligence wouldn’t lose even to the wisest humans of Three Thousand Worlds. Even so, taking account of the whole population, on average, humans of Three Thousand Worlds had higher intelligence than devils and demons.

Xiao Qi’s front paw was raised higher. He was very proficient in array. With just one brush of his claw, he has hundreds of ways to instantly…

However….

A light flashed slightly through the pair of azure eyes. In the end, his little paw didn’t fall on the array. Xiao Qi recalled his first encounter with Meng Qi in that valley. Although the girl was extremely rude, she genuinely wanted to save him. Meng Qi was just a weak Qi Condensation cultivator, and she wasn’t rich. Previously, the things inside her storage space were all of the lowest grades. However, to cure his injuries, she has never been stingy with spirit stones.

Xiao Qi was hesitating.

“Uh…” Meng Qi groaned, her body trembled slightly. The speed of the aura pouring into her body was too fast, making the absorption process painful.

The array suddenly made a buzzing sound.