A humble abode, yet enriched by virtue.
Inside her simple stilt house, built from local timber and raised above the damp earth, Su Min squinted in concentration at the tightly sealed ceramic furnace cradled in her hands. Though the unadorned lid was closed, her sharp, cultivated senses could clearly perceive the complex dance of the medicinal concoction inside as its components slowly dissolved and fused together under the gentle, sustained heat. Soon, a peculiar, earthy smell, tinged with a hint of metallic sharpness, began to waft out from the small, strategically placed vent.
With a practiced, almost unconscious flick of her wrist, she extinguished the small, controlled flame beneath it and lifted the lid, allowing the hot, viscous contents to cool in the open air, the steam rising in a thin, fragrant plume.
A line of crisp, clear text seemed to glow in her mind's eye, a confirmation from her deep seated knowledge.
[Black Jade Bone-Setting Ointment: Rapidly heals bone injuries.]
Her Alchemy and Artifact Manual was a true treasure trove, an endless source of wonder containing countless pill formulas and intricate forging blueprints. But there were strict, immutable limits to this bounty, gates that would not open through effort alone.
Each significant breakthrough in her cultivation, each new stage she reached, seemed to unlock a new section of the manual, revealing more advanced and potent recipes and schematics. Unlocking them was one thing, a gift of progress, but actually gathering the often rare materials and crafting them successfully was another challenge entirely, a test of skill and patience. Currently, everything she could reliably refine, whether simple pills or specialized ointments, fell squarely within the first tier category, the foundational level of the alchemical arts.
"Master, my child, please, you must help!"
As Su Min stepped outside her hut to get some fresh air and clear the lingering herbal scent from her lungs, a woman dressed in the vibrant, colorful ethnic attire of the local tribes rushed toward her, her face a mask of pure, undiluted panic.
"How did this happen?" Su Min asked, her voice calm and level, a steady anchor in the woman's storm of fear.
She did not wait for a detailed answer, instead looking down at the wailing child the woman dragged with her. The boy could not have been older than ten, his face blotchy with tears and shock, but his lower leg was the true horror. It was bent at a horrifying, unnatural near ninety degree angle. She could even see sharp, ugly white bone fragments pressing against the torn and bloody flesh, a stark contrast to his sun darkened skin.
People in this world were surprisingly resilient. Though most could not consciously harness spiritual energy, merely breathing it in from the air over countless generations had subtly strengthened their constitutions, making them hardier than those from her old world. In the year she had settled here, she had rarely encountered common illnesses like colds or fevers. But traumatic injuries from hunting wild game, tilling rocky soil, and the general hardships of frontier life, those were plentiful and often gruesome.
"He was teasing a calf today, showing off for his friends," the woman sobbed, her words tumbling out in a frantic rush. "The mother cow, she got angry and protective, she rammed him straight in the leg. Master, you have to save him! He will be a cripple!"
The woman sobbed uncontrollably, her shoulders shaking. Su Min remained impassive, her expression neutral, assessing the injury with a clinical eye. Panic was a luxury a healer could not afford.
"Master" was the honorific the locals had settled on for her. Since arriving, she had treated various ailments and wounds with her pills and salves, earning a quiet but firm reputation for near miraculous recoveries where their own traditional remedies failed.
Truly serious internal illnesses or congenital defects were often beyond her current skill and first tier pills, and minor scrapes or fevers did not require her specialized attention. But injuries like this one, clean breaks and torn flesh, were right within her expertise, problems her alchemy was perfectly suited to solve. Establishing herself here had not been easy, though. When she first arrived, young, pretty, and traveling completely alone, some of the local men, emboldened by rice wine and a sense of impunity, had assumed she was easy prey, a woman without protection.
The next morning, the boldest offender had been found hanging upside down from the village's largest banyan tree, stripped of his clothes and dignity, a living warning to the others. Then she had paid the local Tusi chieftain a "friendly visit" to discuss the terms of her stay and the value of mutual non interference.
No one had bothered her after that. Respect, she had learned, was often rooted in a little well demonstrated fear.
With her proven, effective healing arts, she had quickly gained genuine respect from the rest of the community. In these remote, harsh parts, where a simple infection could be a death sentence, having a skilled physician as an ally was worth its weight in gold, or more.
"This is the bamboo token our family received from Lao Li for the rare mushroom we found last month. Please, use it," the woman pleaded, handing her a carefully carved and notched bamboo slip, the local currency of favor.
Hard currency was scarce here, and bartering goods and services was the norm. Su Min's system was simple and pragmatic, she needed a constant, reliable supply of rare herbs and unusual ores to hone her alchemy and forging techniques, to feed her cultivation.
Rather than spend her own valuable time scavenging the vast, treacherous wilderness herself, it was far more efficient to rely on the network of locals. The hunters, trappers, and gatherers who roamed the mountains daily were her eyes and hands. They could not tell a spiritual plant from an ordinary one as she could with a single glance, but generations of experience had sharpened their eyes for the unusual, the oddly shaped, or the strangely colored.
In exchange for their finds, she issued these bamboo tokens, each one redeemable for a set amount of medical treatment or a specific pill. To her private amusement, these tokens had become a form of local currency themselves, traded for food, tools, and favors across the neighboring villages, a small economy she had inadvertently created.
Each token also bore a hidden, intricate mark only she could create with a wisp of her spiritual energy. When held under moonlight, faint, silvery luminescent patterns emerged, swirled into the bamboo. Counterfeits were easy to expose, not that anyone had dared to try in a long, long time.
After all, what kind of healer, people whispered, could not break bones as easily and efficiently as she set them?
"This will do. Kid, take a deep breath for me."
After verifying the token's authenticity with a subtle touch of her finger, Su Min snapped it in half, the sound final. She then produced a small, unmarked vial from her belt. The moment the boy, confused and in blinding pain, inhaled its faint, sweet contents, his screams cut off abruptly. His eyes rolled back into his head, and he slumped into a deep, completely unconscious state, his body going limp in his mother's arms.
[Soul-Dazing Incense (Tier 1): Induces temporary coma.]
For Su Min, a cultivator with a fortified body, it might cause a slight, passing dizziness. For mortals, it brought instant, deep slumber lasting at least two hours, a mercy for what came next. She sterilized a sharp, thin blade over a candle flame, carefully and quickly removed the necrotic flesh and debris, and then, with practiced, brutal precision, wrenched the broken bone ends back into their proper alignment. The sound of grating bone was wet and grim, but clean.
From a small, dark gourd at her waist, she retrieved a single, pale green pill, pulsing with a faint vitality. She crushed it into a fine, cool paste between her fingers and slathered it thickly over the now closed wound before bandaging it tightly with prepared bamboo splints and clean cloth. This was not Earth, with its sterile hospitals and gentle physiotherapy. Her methods did not need to be gentle to be effective, they just needed to work, and work fast.
"Alright, did you see what I just did?" she said to the trembling, pale mother, her tone instructional. "In about a week, when you change the bandage, crush one of these green pills and mix the powder with a little clean water to make a paste. Apply it directly to the wound. Once you have used them all, the bone will have almost grown back, good as new. And here is another type of pill, the white one, to prevent infection and fever. Have him swallow it with clean water when he wakes up."
She handed the woman two small, labeled gourds, each containing several of the precious Tier 1 pills. By modern standards, each one would have been considered a miracle drug worth a fortune, a scientific marvel. Here, they were payment for a mushroom.
"Also, I had to use your local hemp cloth instead of proper bandages. Change the dressing daily. Wash the used cloths thoroughly and boil them in clean water for a long time before drying them in the sun. No exceptions."
"Thank you, Master! Thank you! A thousand thanks!"
The woman kowtowed repeatedly, her forehead touching the dusty ground before Su Min's porch. In the past, such a severe, compound fracture would have meant certain amputation with a dirty axe, or a slow, agonizing death from infection and fever. Now, not only was the leg salvageable, it might even heal completely, allowing her son to walk and run again.
Though whether there would be any long term complications like a slight limp or pain in the cold was anyone's guess. Perfection was a lofty goal, but survival was the real victory.
"Ugh."
As the woman left, carrying her sleeping son as if he were the most precious burden in the world, a sudden, splitting headache, sharp as a shard of glass, slammed into Su Min's temples. It was so intense and unexpected it nearly sent her to her knees. She barely caught herself on the wooden support beam, her knuckles turning white as she gripped the rough hewn railing of her porch, the world swimming for a moment.
But the sharp, unexpected pain brought with it a sudden, clear revelation, a download of understanding. It was not a sickness or a side effect. It was an awakening, a cognitive blossoming.
"This sensation..." she whispered, her eyes widening slightly as the pain receded, leaving behind a profound and startling clarity. "This is it."
Her Heavenly Dao Insight was stirring, responding to the path she had consciously walked. The virtue she had accumulated, not through grand heroics but through simple, consistent acts of healing and integration, was finally bearing its first fruit.