Breakthrough

Magistrate Yang was due to leave office that year, and he didn't want his record of achievements to look too poor.

He forced the city's gentry and wealthy households to set up more than a dozen gruel kitchens, barely keeping the refugees alive and preventing too many from starving to death.

At the same time, he issued a notice, organizing the doctors in the city to provide free consultations inside and outside the city.

Naturally, the old doctors who lived in comfort were eager to avoid this thankless, exhausting work—one that could easily expose them to an epidemic—and they made excuses and dragged their feet.

Xia Dong had also been invited. Unexpectedly, not only did he refuse to decline, he readily agreed. He did, however, make one small request of Magistrate Yang: he wanted to go out of the city alone.

Over the past three years, Xia Dong had served as a physician in the Eagle-Wolf Guard and had occasionally been "forced" to show off a few neat martial arts moves.

Magistrate Yang knew that Scholar Xia was not only a master of medicine but also had some skill in a fight, more than enough to protect himself, so he didn't try to stop him.

Meanwhile, over the past few years, Xia Dong had not only expanded his residence into a spacious three-courtyard mansion, but had also moved Changchun Medical Hall to a busy street in the city.

The medical hall's daily operations no longer required him to see patients in person.

Over the years, Xia Dong had taken on many apprentices from poor families free of charge. As long as they were quick-witted and willing to work hard, he taught them everything he knew.

He broke down complex medical theory into simple, easy-to-understand lessons. After just a few months of training, his apprentices could competently treat colds, injuries, and common epidemic diseases. They could then return to the countryside and become respected country doctors.

Every month, these apprentices who had graduated would reliably return to the city to ask their senior fellow apprentices at the medical hall for Xia Dong's latest Lecture Notes and continue their studies.

This move by Xia Dong not only made medical care affordable for the common people of Pingyang County, it also squeezed the business of the other old-fashioned medical halls.

After all, Doctor Xia was skilled, gentle, and modest—practically a living bodhisattva descended to earth!

Besides teaching apprentices, Xia Dong also helped the He Family improve its methods for selecting raw materials and processing medicinal herbs, raising the quality of their goods by an entire grade.

In exchange, the He Family had to search for rare, valuable herbs that had grown for many years.

These days, Xia Dong only treated martial artists with serious injuries or people of considerable means, and his fees were exorbitant. Martial artists without money could trade their martial arts insights instead.

He had set himself a small goal: to one day collect the martial arts and cultivation techniques of the whole world and build his own Langhuan Blessed Land!

Now that the apprentices ran Changchun Medical Hall, Xiao Hong served as the accountant and manager, keeping the Xia Family's businesses in perfect order.

Although the family's fortunes had grown, Spirit Stones were still incredibly hard to come by.

Spirit Stones were the hard currency of the cultivation world, but they circulated very little among ordinary people. They mostly passed between high-level martial artists and cultivators.

And when these people fought, the loser was usually left with tendons torn out and soul refined away. There were few who escaped with their lives after being badly wounded and came looking for a doctor.

They were even less likely to seek out a famous physician in a county town.

So for Xia Dong, earning Spirit Stones was harder than reaching the heavens.

Taking advantage of the free consultations, Xia Dong arranged for his apprentices to distribute medicine in the city while he packed his medicine chest and left on his own.

When the people in the city heard about it, they praised him unanimously. They all said Doctor Xia was a truly benevolent physician.

After leaving the city, Xia Dong spent the day providing free consultations. Late at night, he quietly sought out newly formed, weaker haunted places.

Over time, Xia Dong silently rounded up all the weak ghosts that had just taken shape and stuffed them into the Bronze Ancient Bell in his mind.

In an instant, they were refined!

Over the past three years, Xia Dong had also come to understand the Bronze Ancient Bell better and better.

Though he had no Spirit Stones, he could use his spiritual sense to forcibly draw in the spiritual energy of heaven and earth and "feed" the bell, letting it slowly accumulate spiritual power. Roughly ten days to half a month of drawing in energy yielded about as much spiritual power as a single Spirit Stone.

But as time went on, the Bronze Ancient Bell also consumed some of that spiritual power, and the rate of this "basic consumption" seemed to be increasing.

If he had Spirit Stones on hand to pour directly into it, this wouldn't be a problem.

That was why Xia Dong's need for Spirit Stones kept growing.

After sweeping through a large area outside the city and obtaining enough Yin Evil Pills, Xia Dong returned home, satisfied, and went down to the secret room beneath the Withered Well in his residence.

Over the past three years, his martial arts cultivation had steadily reached the peak of the Bone Forging Realm. His qi and blood were astonishingly vigorous, and with mana nourishing his spiritual sense, the strain it placed on his body had become very slight.

Now was the time to use the Yin Evil Pills to break through.

Xia Dong sat cross-legged. With a thought, a pill as black as ink flew into his mouth, and the Mysterious Yin Spirit Refining Art instantly began running at full speed.

Pure, untainted soul energy surged straight into the sea of consciousness between his brows.

However, Xia Dong had still underestimated how difficult it was to advance his spiritual sense to the "Fifth Layer of Qi Refining."

As he refined one Yin Evil Pill after another, Xia Dong reached the bottleneck that stood between his spiritual sense and the next layer.

But his first attempt to break through only made that invisible barrier tremble slightly.

He didn't hesitate and swallowed Yin Evil Pills one after another.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

After repeated impacts, the spiritual-sense bottleneck, hard as iron, finally began to give way.

Now!

The immense qi and blood of Xia Dong's peak Bone Forging Realm roared to life.

At the same time, the "qi" condensed deep within his heart through the Evergreen Qi-Conducting Art stirred. It wound around like a thread, helping his qi and blood refine and fuse with the medicinal power on a deeper level.

The cold, dark mana of the Profound Yin Scripture burst from his dantian like a black serpent and firmly guarded the acupoint between his brows.

Qi and blood as kindling, Innate Qi as the flame, Mysterious Yin Mana as the cauldron.

Crack.

A sharp, crisp sound of shattering rang out in Xia Dong's mind.

In an instant, Xia Dong felt as if the entire world had been pressed into slow motion.

His spiritual sense expanded, passing through the secret room and reaching the courtyard.

He could clearly perceive the flight path of a flapping insect, the wriggling of earthworms underground, and even the rise and fall of specks of dust in the air, all as vividly as the lines on his palm.

Not only that, but his spiritual sense had become more solid and resilient.

Fifth Layer of Qi Refining spiritual sense, achieved.

Xia Dong continued taking the remaining Yin Evil Pills.

But he soon discovered that although he was refining the pills faster, their effects kept growing weaker.

Have I already built up a tolerance? Xia Dong furrowed his brow slightly, then relaxed it.

Over the past few years, he had realized that refining the spirit was far more difficult than refining qi.

And all along, he had sought out low-level ghosts to make Yin Evil Pills. Even the artifact spirit he had first refined from the Yin Gathering Banner had been badly damaged.

Later, he could try finding stronger souls and ghosts.

The Yin Evil Pills were still effective for now.

However, after his spiritual sense broke through to the Fifth Layer of Qi Refining, the strain on his body became noticeable again. Refining the spirit, refining qi, and refining the body truly had to advance side by side.

Over the next while, Xia Dong began to familiarize himself with his Fifth Layer of Qi Refining spiritual sense and prepare thoroughly to seek out Zhang Ping's inheritance.