I observed Xiao Cui as she finally began her treatment. Compared to the others, her diagnosis had taken a little longer, but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. This was without a doubt the most intense and complex challenge any of them would have faced.

Treating a patient suffering from a dangerous affliction was one thing, but suffering it yourself and being forced to figure out a treatment before you succumbed? Nigh impossible, especially for such inexperienced healers.

However, this wasn't any old competition. The winner would become the one who led all the healing disciples of the sect, at least until we raised other disciples to the inner sect. They had to be outstanding and unmatched among their peers.

Xiao Cui was now a Qi Gathering cultivator. That meant she had access to qi and could efficiently utilise healing techniques. Only, there was one thing that had been bothering me ever since she returned.

I had created the two foundational healing techniques just before she left. I had never shown her them before her exile and she'd only returned earlier today. There was no chance she'd been able to learn them.

So how was she supposed to heal my devastating cocktail of pathogens, toxins, and wounds? I actually felt like a fool for putting her in this position, but she had been so confident.

So it was extremely surprising when her qi started to pour from her dantian and cycle through her spirit veins. I watched eagerly, wondering what she was going to do.

While she gathered her qi, Xiao Cui took out two small jade bottles from a storage artifact. Then, she took out a strange looking herb along with a mushroom that looked eerily similar to the one I'd infected them with.

Her roots had been in herbalism before she'd even been able to cultivate, so I was glad to see that she hadn't forgotten that despite her progress. Which was frankly incredible. Going from mortal to the Qi Gathering Realm in about a year and a half was absurd. Not quite as absurd as my cultivation speed, but she would be considered a talent worth fostering in any sect.

She unstopped the first of the two bottles and withdrew a purplish-blue pill with strange cloud-like designs across its surface. They looked familiar, sparking a long-forgotten memory, but I couldn't quite recall it. She tossed the pill into her mouth before unstopping the second bottle.

Rather than taking whatever was inside herself, Xiao Cui lifted the mushroom in her other hand, before pouring the liquid in the bottle over it. The liquid was the strangest of the three items—it was thick, like honey, but seemed to move erratically as though it were alive.

It slowly coated the entire mushroom, forming a faintly translucent film around it. Then in the blink of an eye the mushroom absorbed it all and grew to almost twice the size.

The long tendrils of the cordyceps seemed to sway gently like an anemone. Then without hesitation Xiao Cui threw the mushroom into her mouth. She chewed a couple times and then swallowed.

By now a sizable quantity of qi had gathered, swirling through her spirit veins. Xiao Cui's eyes glazed over as she sat down into a lotus pose, hands on her knees with palms facing upwards.

She pressed her pointer fingers to her thumbs, the rest of her fingers curling up gently like a pair of unfurling lotus flowers. She inhaled sharply, causing all of the qi to rush towards her heart.

Within a single breath, she seemed to empty herself of qi. Nothing really changed about her, but I suddenly felt as though she had become a pure lotus flower, unwilling to share its space with any pollutants.

At that moment a raging storm of dark purple energy exploded inside her. I narrowed my eyes, preparing to step in at a moment's notice in case something went wrong.

The storm of energy was like a tsunami threatening to wash away Xiao Cui's body. All of the diseases and toxins I had infected her with went crazy, their rate of multiplication and spread accelerating by the second.

However, beneath it all, there were two forces slowly gathering momentum and fighting against the infections. Near the base of the spine, I watched a battle unfolding between the two different cordyceps mushrooms.

I realised what her intention was. It was utterly ingenious. One could use poison to fight poison. Xiao Cui had taken that to an extreme, using one parasitic mushroom to fight another.

However, while the cordyceps I'd given them fed on the toxins to grow, the solution that she had fed to her cordyceps made it into an unstoppable mutant. It latched onto a central vertebrae, before sending dozens of tendrils out into her nervous system. Every time it encountered the other cordyceps, it didn't just kill it—it latched on and drained the tendril of its very lifeforce.

While that was happening, the pill she'd ingested was whipping the other infections up into a whirling maelstrom of malevolent death and corruption. Now, rather than feeding on one another and synergising to tear her body apart, the various afflictions had been turned against one another.

Rather than devouring her cells, they exclusively fed on one another. However, Xiao Cui didn't escape unharmed. The damage this was causing to her body was immense.

Yet her eyes remained serene like a tranquil lake in a mountain paradise. Her body remained utterly still in that strange lotus pose, as though frozen.

I wonder… Thinking back to the time I'd awakened her spirit roots, there had been a few that were tinged blue, along with the golden and 'normal' roots she'd awakened. I wasn't sure at the time if they had any relevance, but things were becoming a little clearer now. I would keep watching and see how she handled the rest of the trial.

There was no sign of all the qi that had been absorbed into her heart. I wondered if she was struggling, or simply waiting for the right moment to act.

I received my answer about ten minutes later. The afflictions and toxins were consuming one another at an absurd rate. The exposed skin around her collarbone was stained black, with thick veins bulging out. Some of the flesh was being consumed by the flesh-eating bacteria.

Despite this Xiao Cui seemed unbothered. I remembered something one of my teachers in the Cloudy Falls Sect had told me about lotus flowers.

They were arrogant and haughty. They refused to share their ponds with other flowers or plants. All they allowed were animals to live beneath its roots. Those animals kept pests away, while the lotus purified the waters and released nutrients for them.

Almost like servants.

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The relevance of her hand seals and positioning became clear as her eyes suddenly clarified. The mistiness was banished in an instant as she awoke. Her eyes shone in the light of the sun and the qi erupted from her heart in a radiating wave.

Rather than banish or destroy the infections as I expected, they seemed to just… stop. Then it hit me. They were frozen.

Those blue spirit roots hadn't been water affinity roots, because I knew what those looked like and they weren't the same. They must have been an ice affinity, although a weak one.

I worried now that I might have compromised the purity of them by introducing the gold affinity roots, but without that treasure she never would have been able to cultivate in the first place. Building the best foundation possible was important, but building an imperfect foundation was better than never building one.

As the wave passed through her, everything stopped. It was as though time had frozen simply for her body, but I knew that was only an illusion.

When everything was frozen, I wondered how she planned to deal with the afflictions, wounds, and the damage she'd suffered. If all Xiao Cui had managed was to delay the inevitable, then she would fail the challenge.

However, I needn't have worried.

As the radiating wave of qi faded, I smelled the faint scent of lotuses in the air. Then I heard the distant chiming of bells as a golden wave of qi burst out of her heart. Everywhere the golden qi passed, the foreign bodies were eradicated.

The bacteria, the viruses, the toxins, the two cordyceps fungi—all were destroyed and purged from her body. I saw a film of black gunk being forced through her orifices and pores, as though she'd broken through a cultivation star.

I noticed the damage to her flesh and internal organs hadn't been healed much. However, it had stopped getting worse. She exhaled, a black tinge to the air that was released.

Then she took out another jade bottle from her storage artifact and swallowed it. The bleeding wound on her thigh started to knit shut, and the devoured flesh seemed to bubble as it regrew.

It would take a while for her body to be healed completely, but I knew that she'd succeeded. I was so shocked and impressed by the entire process and the revelation of my disciple's new abilities that I almost missed Feng Mei's treatment beginning.

Unlike the preliminary round where Feng Mei had raced ahead of her fellow disciples with unshaken confidence, she had taken her time in the finals. I saw her face contorting in pain every so often as she suffered from the various afflictions raging inside her body.

Her diagnosis had involved a variety of tools, clearly custom made. We didn't yet have any skilled artifact refiners in the sect, so I assumed she must have had them made in Twisting Ridge City.

I recognised most of them—I had disseminated knowledge of a few medical tools to the disciples and clearly she'd taken note—but many were new to me. Whatever their purpose, they had clearly helped her figure out what exactly was wrong with her and how to fix it.

Unlike Xiao Cui, Feng Mei had yet to reach the Qi Gathering Realm. She was still a nine-star Body Tempering practitioner, though she was surely at the peak. All she needed was an insight to break through.

Unfortunately that wouldn't help her now. Despite that she was confident as she moved. Placing the final tool down into the cloth wrap, she sat up straight and her gaze sharpened.

Even though it seemed as though she'd been entirely focused on her own diagnosis, I hadn't missed the way she paid attention to Wang Tan's near-success and Xiao Cui's actual success.

In fact, with little Cui's treatment completed, the other disciples were on a timer. Technically I'd specified the victory condition as bringing themself back to perfect health. Which meant she wouldn't win until the rest of the damage to her body was healed.

Clearly that stress was affecting them. All of them began to quicken their movements as they treated the afflictions. Not Feng Mei.

She moved with precision and care, not slowly, but not hurried. She returned her pouch of diagnostic tools to her storage artifact and withdrew a leather roll. Unfurling it, she revealed a set of glistening acupuncture needles.

I had never seen her practice acupuncture before. As far as I knew, it was most effective when applied by a cultivator in the Qi Gathering Realm or above. However, there was no worry or nervousness in her expression.

She took a slow inhale, then exhaled sharply. As she exhaled she began to move as though possessed.

Needles appeared in her hands and then vanished just as fast when she plunged them into various points on her body. In two breaths' worth of time they were all placed. With a sharp yell her blood essence flared to life.

Feng Mei had some of the sharpest blood essence manipulation I'd ever encountered. Second only to myself, perhaps. However, I was undoubtedly an anomaly. My Fivefold Medicine Forge Physique was to thank for that.

I was interested to see how she approached her treatment. All of the other four competitors had used additional aids—pills, elixirs, or various herbs—alongside their techniques.

Feng Mei didn't hesitate at all as she progressed. At first I was confused by her methods. It didn't seem like she was even trying to purge any of the diseases or toxins.

The more she worked however, the more impressed I became. It was reminiscent of watching a masterful conductor leading an orchestral symphony.

Seemingly simple movements that produced a magical combination of melodies. In this case, her constant removal and reapplication of the acupuncture needles was her conducting, while the shifting blood essence was the instrument.

The final result, the beautiful symphony, was what she was doing to the various afflictions. It became obvious after her first few actions, but to achieve this was beyond impressive for one of her realm.

Rather than directly purging them, she was using a similar method to Xiao Cui. However, while Xiao Cui had used other afflictions to fight the ones I'd infected her with before purging the entire collection with her strange technique, Feng Mei was masterfully puppeteering them.

Her first move had been to direct the flesh-eating bacteria towards the base of her spine, rather than keeping it confined to her chest. With a gentle push, it began to devour the parasitic fungus rather than her flesh.

The cordyceps was fighting a losing battle, but she then began to feed various toxins into it, giving it renewed strength and allowing it to begin fighting off the bacteria. She'd created a war of attrition between two equally matched opponents that would gradually wear them both down while also draining some of the toxins from her body.

However, that still left the final bacterium and the two viruses wreaking havoc on her insides, along with the profusely bleeding wound on her thigh. Still, as with any good conductor, she made use of every instrument available to her.

The petrifying bacteria usually targeted the brain of a cultivator. I hadn't even known it could petrify other organs, but Feng Mei forced it to obey her regardless. She directed it into her lungs, where it began to consume the bronchial tubes one by one and turn them to stone.

While this might have seemed like a foolish decision—as a Body Tempering practitioner she still needed to breathe air to stay alive—it was actually genius. By petrifying her lungs, she robbed the respiratory virus of its entryway into the body. It no longer had cells to infect and use to replicate itself.

Normally the immune system would react horribly to the petrifying of the lungs, but the negative reaction was reduced by the immune-suppressing virus. She had used all of the afflictions against one another.

Gradually her treatment began to work. The cordyceps and flesh-eating bacteria had reduced each other to scraps. The respiratory virus was almost gone and the toxins had all been consumed by the fungi.

Then with a final yell, she used her blood essence to activate the Disease Purging Technique and eradicate the final traces of the afflictions. She followed it up with a Body Restoration Technique.

At the same time, Xiao Cui's pill had almost finished its work. The crowd had all fallen silent. They might not be able to sense what I could, but they could see that most of the disciples looked a lot healthier than before.

Even Zhang Wujin and Chen Jing were close to finishing. However, it was obvious to them and myself that they would not be able to beat Xiao Cui or Feng Mei. Despite that, they pushed on, competing with one another.

I held my breath as the final minutes of the competition dragged on. Feng Mei and Xiao Cui were entirely focused on their own healing, their bodies drawing close to perfection as their treatments drew to a close.

And then they were done. The crowd gasped as the two girls shot to their feet. My eyes went wide as I replayed the final moments, trying to analyse them. Surely not…

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