Golden Core Department

The balding doctor led Hu Mang straight to the Golden Core Department.

As they entered the elevator, they happened to see several doctors pushing a transfer bed inside.

A young man lay on the bed, bound hand and foot.

His eyes were bloodshot, and he struggled and roared in fury.

"You ruined the foundation of my Dao and shattered my Golden Core! How could you be so heartless?"

"Just you wait! All of you, just wait! Once my consciousness returns to its rightful place, I'll slaughter every last one of you!"

"What's wrong with him?" the balding doctor asked in surprise.

"He was having his gallstones broken up."

"How did breaking up gallstones give him hysterics?"

"The procedure accidentally interfered with his lower Dantian, triggering some 'Golden Core hallucinations.' We're taking him to the Divine Sense Department now."

"Oh."

The balding doctor nodded.

Neither spoke for the rest of the way.

The two soon reached the Golden Core Department.

There weren't many people in the department, and only a few were in the hall. There were, however, two groups outside Golden Core Consultation Room Two.

One was a pair of parents with a little girl wearing an ancient-style dress and her hair in round buns.

The other was a pale-faced guy with dyed blond hair.

Hu Mang glanced at the parents.

Their bearing was harmonious and immaculate. Two Golden Core cultivators?

As for the blond, Hu Mang couldn't tell how deep his cultivation ran. Like Hu Mang, he seemed to be using something to conceal it.

Hu Mang's gaze fell on the photo by the consultation room door. It showed a kind-faced old man named Qin Mo.

Doctor Qin? Doctor Mo?

Just hearing that name made him sound like someone who was good at teaching and nurturing people.

The balding doctor glanced at the two groups and said casually:

"There are only two of them anyway. Let's wait."

"Mm."

Before long, the patient inside came out, and the Golden Core couple went in with their little girl.

"Hello, Grandpa Qin," the little girl with two hair buns said sweetly.

"Hello, little fellow Daoist. What can I do for you?" A smile appeared on Qin Mo's lips.

"My mom said to ask you to check my Dantian and see which Golden Core path I should take in the future, Grandpa."

Qin Mo glanced at the couple and frowned.

"Isn't it too early? How old is this little fellow Daoist?"

"It's not early. She's already succeeded in Foundation Establishment, so we wanted to prepare in advance and get a head start at the starting line," the middle-aged man said at once.

"...All right. Are you planning for her to take the 'Direct Current Golden Core' or the 'Alternating Current Golden Core' path?"

"We can't make up our minds either. What do you think?" the wife immediately asked.

"For a 'Direct Current Golden Core,' you first use Divine Sense to construct 'Spiritual Electrode Plates' in the Dantian, liquefy Spiritual Qi, and use Divine Sense as a 'membrane' to separate the yin and yang charges. Then yin and yang unite, and once the core forms, its Spiritual Qi output is stable."

"For an 'Alternating Current Golden Core,' you first construct a 'Spiritual Power Magnetic Field Core' in the Dantian and use Divine Sense to drive a 'rotor' at high speed, producing an alternating Spiritual Qi field. Its power output is three times that of a Direct Current Golden Core. Of course, forming the core is somewhat more difficult."

"Didn't you two form cores yourselves? Don't you know?" Doctor Qin Mo asked in return.

The middle-aged man smiled awkwardly. "The main thing is, I heard that Dantian expansion surgery has become a well-established procedure. Do you think our girl needs to-"

Qin Mo frowned.

"Dantian expansion has risks. We don't perform it on underage cultivators!"

"You see, Mentor Zhang referred us-"

"I don't care who referred you. A child's Dantian hasn't stabilized and her foundation isn't set. What are you messing around with? Do you know how dangerous this is? There's a thirty-one percent failure rate, and you haven't even chosen a cultivation path, yet you're already thinking about her Golden Core? You're reaching for the heavens without keeping your feet on the ground!"

Old Doctor Qin scolded them without holding back.

"...If you're under pressure in your own cultivation, deal with it yourselves. Don't pass that pressure on to the next generation at every turn!"

"Yes, yes, of course," the couple said, not daring to argue. The wife seemed to want to say something more, but her husband stopped her.

"But I heard that some major spiritual enterprises now offer 'custom Golden Cores' and 'Golden Core modification' services. They're supposed to raise a Golden Core's level somewhat. We're asking about this for ourselves as well."

"Golden Core customization isn't as miraculous as you think. It's simply a matter of breaking a 'Golden Core' down into several modules: the Spiritual Qi storage module, the Divine Sense command module, the Law Technique output module, and the meridian adaptation module."

"To put it more plainly, it quantifies the insights into heaven and earth you've gained during cultivation, then focuses on strengthening the parts you need. It's mainly used to make the core compatible with your profession."

"If you need to add particular Law Techniques or Divine Abilities, you can ask a few of the major spiritual enterprises and see how compatible they are."

"But if you're hoping to raise your Golden Core by an entire level, say, from an 'Industrial Golden Core' to a 'High-Standard Golden Core,' or even up to a 'National Standard Golden Core,' I can tell you with confidence that current 'Golden Core technology' isn't advanced enough for that. This sort of 'customization' is mainly modification for a professional path."

Qin Mo glanced at the two of them and said:

"Neither of you has a high-level Golden Core or a strong foundation. Don't go modifying them recklessly."

"Yes, yes, that's why we don't want to hold back the next generation. Immortal Physician Qin, I've also heard of something called a 'Data Golden Core' that doesn't require Spirit Root aptitude. What's that about...?"

After quite a while, the couple left, thanking him profusely. The little girl with the hair buns waved goodbye to everyone there.

As soon as the couple left, the blond rushed to sit down and cried to the heavens:

"Old Master Qin, save me! If you don't save me now, I'm finished!"

Qin Mo looked at his dyed blond hair, nose ring, and lip stud with distaste.

"What kind of look is that? Are you pretending to be a demonic cultivator? Does your father know you look like this?"

"Of course he doesn't. If he knew, he'd beat me to death."

"And you think I can't beat you to death?" Old Master Qin found fault with everything about him, from his nose to his eyes, and looked particularly disgusted. He did, however, seem very familiar with the blond.

"Then save me first, Old Master, and beat me to death afterward, all right?"

Qin Mo looked at him with distaste.

"Out with it. What happened?"

"It's nothing much, really. I just modified my Golden Core a little in private," the blond said quietly.

"That trash Golden Core of yours, and you still went and modified it? Do you know how many resources that old man in your family wasted just to get you to form a core?" Qin Mo said, lamenting his misfortune and angry at his failure to do better.

"I modified it because it was trash! If it weren't trash, I wouldn't have modified it, boss! I mean, Old Master!"

Makes sense.

Hu Mang, silently eating his melon on the sidelines, gave that a thumbs-up.

"Tell me what you modified."

"I added three divine-thought processing cores."

"I added two Divine Ability slots, one for racing flying swords and one for racing flying shuttles."

"I also used a Law Technique to modify my stomach a little. I was planning to add a backup spiritual power bank to my Golden Core."

"Oh, right, I also heard that a removed appendix can be used to connect a little Golden Core in parallel..."

As Old Master Qin's gaze grew colder and colder, the blond's voice grew quieter and quieter.

"And what happened?"

"What happened was... I can't sense my Golden Core anymore."

"Mm. Get ready to have your core shattered. I'll write you an authorization."

Qin Mo put on his reading glasses and began writing the medical record and a surgery request.

"Don't, bro! I think I can still be saved! Shattering my core right off the bat would be the death of me! With my aptitude, there's no way I could condense another Golden Core from Foundation Establishment! My grandpa will beat me to death! My dad will beat me to death! My brother will beat me to death too..."

The blond stood up in terror, wanting to snatch the medical record but not daring to.

"Don't be so optimistic. You might not even make it off the operating table. Given how badly you messed around, there's a good chance the core shattering will kill you."

Qin Mo spoke without looking up.

Just as the blond panicked and prepared to run, Old Master Qin pointed a finger backhandedly. The medical record in his hand flew straight onto the blond's forehead, and he immediately froze in place, unable to move.

"Go pay the fees yourself first, then go to the inpatient department. Oh, right, don't forget to notify your family to come sign the paperwork. Don't worry, the use of lethal Law Techniques is prohibited in our inpatient department."

The blond's eyes darted about in terror, but his hands and feet obediently did as Old Master Qin had instructed.

Hu Mang silently stepped aside, glancing at the medical record on the blond's forehead as he passed.

While writing the medical record, Old Qin seemed to have inscribed a talisman on it as well.

What level of talisman is that? It can actually control a Golden Core cultivator!

Though it was a trash Golden Core.

"Come in," Old Master Qin said, glancing at the two men by the door.

"Grandmaster, who was that?" the balding doctor asked familiarly.

"The previous prefect's youngest grandson, from here. He's not all that bad by nature, but his brain doesn't work very well."

Hu Mang was taken aback.

From his shallow understanding of the Heavenly Gate's official system, wasn't the "prefect" the number one big shot in a grotto-heaven? And a local one at that, which made him even more famous.

The one who had raised the "Zhongshan Grotto-Heaven" to the "Zhongshan Holy Land" was quite famous indeed!

Tsk~

"What's the situation with this man? The turbid Qi on him is far too heavy. Sit down first," Old Master Qin said casually, glancing at Hu Mang.

Hu Mang obediently sat down.

"This patient was caught in a 'calamity ash eruption.'"

"The calamity ash eruption developed into a turbid Qi shockwave. He resisted one of the waves and, to stay alive, drove the turbid Qi into his acupoints using the 'Dragon-Suppressing Stake.'"

Qin Mo glanced at the medical record, a hint of interest appearing on his face.

"Where did the calamity ash erupt?"

Hu Mang was taken aback. "Overseas, on Java Island."

"What were the exact time and location? You practice earth and wood cultivation, so you should be able to distinguish the eight trigrams' directions. What were the celestial phenomena like? Tell me what happened."

Hu Mang hadn't expected Qin Mo to be interested not in him, but in that "turbid eye."

Still, it wasn't a secret anyway.

The only thing that could be considered a black mark was that he had "robbed a tomb."

But then again, he hadn't dug up any graves within the Heavenly Gate.

The Heavenly Gate's laws couldn't reach overseas.

So Hu Mang told him everything he knew, leaving nothing out.

After all, he didn't have a "prefect" for a grandfather.

After listening, Qin Mo nodded, glanced at Hu Mang, and said directly:

"I have two solutions to the turbid Qi problem. The first is to replace your meridians: all twelve of your regular meridians, your eight extraordinary meridians, and all the related divergent meridians and collateral vessels with 'artificial meridians.'"

"Once the replacement is complete, your acupoints will develop anew. Then we can surgically cut out the areas severely permeated by turbid Qi and resolve the problem."

"You'll also be able to cultivate again."