“Are you… saying it’s mixed in?”
“Well… where should I start explaining this…”
The Poison Doctor began to speak while smacking his lips.
“How much do you know about blood vessels and qi meridians?”
“Well, how many people really know what blood vessels and qi meridians are, even if you ask?”
“Whoa, I was surprised when we talked about new martial arts earlier, but you have quite a deep understanding. In truth, blood vessels and qi meridians are fundamentally different. To put it simply, the term qi meridian shouldn’t actually exist.”
There were many reflections and studies necessary about what qi really is.
I was, after all, a modern person who came from a world without qi, so I needed to understand what qi was.
One of the core elements of qi is circulation. Qi is essentially a kind of energy, and energy inevitably has to circulate in some way. The internal power is what holds on to this circulating energy and endows it with specific traits.
“To begin with… there is a lot of magic energy in your body. And the reason I can sense that energy is because I have mastered the Magic Arts.”
I swallowed. I had just discovered that the famed Poison Doctor was trained in the Magic Arts.
“The reason I mastered the Magic Arts… is because I’m bald.”
“…Huh?”
“By the way, Feng Ying Hall Master is also bald. We’re all part of the Solar Club. I also know you and your young lady offended the hair of the money singer Da Jeryong.”
Overwhelmed by the sudden influx of information, I unconsciously looked at the Tang Clan Member’s head. Since it was covered with a cloth, I had assumed it was meticulously managed without a single hair out of place… but he was bald? No, the fact that Feng Ying Hall Master was bald was even more surprising.
“You might wonder why I’m bringing this up all of a sudden, but I… researched the Magic Arts based on symptoms like hair covering the arms or chest growing long. There’s no physician in this world who knows the Magic Arts better than I do. What physician has directly practiced the Magic Arts? That’s something even magic users couldn’t accomplish.”
“Do you understand? No physician can interpret your body better than I can.”
“Ah… I understand.”
The Poison Doctor poured water into a cup and added an unknown number of fruits.
“This is the current state of your blood vessels. In your blood right now, there are clumps just like these fruits floating about. Right. Have you ever built a dam with pebbles or stones to catch fish? Water flows past, but fish can’t get through.”
“Are you saying that’s the current state of my blood?”
“Exactly. I don’t know how or why your blood was made into this state, but it’s in terrible condition. To more accurately express your state…”
The Poison Doctor kept pouring fruits into the cup, to the point it was almost overflowing.
“Those clumps are floating about in your blood as well, and although there are gaps large enough for qi to circulate, there’s no room for the qi to gather within you. So your potential has already reached the top tier, yet you can’t cause qi to gather.”
“So… you mean… my blood vessels are filled with impurities?”
“Honestly, seeing this phenomenon for the first time, I’m not sure if I should call what’s in your blood impurities. It’s fundamentally different from the phenomenon where martial artists say their qi meridians or blood vessels are blocked with waste.”
Perhaps overwhelmed by suddenly receiving too much information, my head spun. The Poison Doctor brought a teapot and poured a cup for me.
“Well, it’s just some herbal tea, but it has calming effects. Whenever my research gets stuck and my temper flares up, I drink a cup.”
Silently, I blew on the hot tea and sipped it slowly. One cup. Sipping the hot tea and waiting for it to cool down took some time. I wasn’t sure how many minutes had actually passed while I cooled the hot tea, but I felt my head calming down.
It seemed that the Poison Doctor didn’t just use a rough method for treatment as I expected… but given that I had already had the tea by that point, it was a bit out of the ordinary.
“Good, are you feeling more at ease?”
“Yes, Elder.”
The existence of this body I’m using, Ho Cheon-an, was still a mystery. Was Ho Cheon-an’s body used by another soul until the age of 15? If so, then why did I suddenly possess this body, where did those memories go, and why did I wake up in the grass? Or was it just a body created when I fell into this Martial World? If it was a created body, then why was such a complicated process involved?
Filled with questions that couldn’t yield any conclusions, I decided to focus on what needed to be resolved first.
“So, can my symptoms be treated?”
“Well, let’s talk again about the particles floating in your blood. First of all, there are various energies within your body. What I can say for sure is that among the particles in your body, there are both pure qi and magic energy.”
“Pure qi… and magic energy?”
“The particles of pure qi seem to be few, but there’s quite a number of magic energy particles.”
In the Martial World, the attributes of qi are so vast that they can’t be easily specified. For example? The heat-scaling technique used by the money singer Da Jeryong is a relatively common internal power, while the Poison Doctor’s Acupuncture Internal Power is unique.
Pure qi and magic energy are different altogether from these typical internal powers. Pure qi refers to a highly distilled state where qi is refined and only the essence remains.
It’s not just pure energy found in nature.
Natural energies are merely collections of energies that commonly occur. It’s like the mixture of oxygen, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen in the atmosphere.
If I had to compare, pure qi would be like air with an extremely high oxygen content. In terms of food, it could be like sugar or syrup; refined to easily be converted into energy.
On the other hand, magic energy is just… a hodgepodge.
It’s the opposite of pure qi, blindly increased in quantity. Food-wise, it’s like corn porridge mixed with sawdust or a soup filled with a lot of wood skins. It’s easily obtainable but equally harmful to the body.
Thinking about this brings up a question I couldn’t help but ask.
“Is that… possible?”
Does it make sense for magic energy and pure qi to coexist in my body? Shouldn’t they neutralize each other upon meeting?
“I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen you. Ha ha. A body… no, blood where pure qi and magic energy coexist. That’s why I drank a whole bowl of your blood, wasn’t it?”
“Y-Yes.”
“There’s a high chance that your physique, specifically your blood, possesses some special traits. As I said before, having qi mixed within your blood is not a common occurrence. As mentioned earlier, blood vessels and qi meridians are fundamentally different.”
“I see… so… will it be treatable?”
“Well, we’ll have to research that from now on.”
With the Poison Doctor’s statement, my heart sank.
“But there is a way to achieve some short-term effects, at least.”
“..What is it?”
“The spiritual medicine in your possession. Can you show it to me?”
Could he be referring to the Okryong? I took out the wooden box containing the Okryong from within my clothes and handed it to the Poison Doctor.
“Well, can I prick it with my needle to taste?”
“Of course.”
The Poison Doctor tasted the Okryong, nodding his head.
“If it’s this, it can resolve part of your problem.”
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