The moment Theodore said those words, the expressions of everyone present changed dramatically.
Richard and the bald middle-aged healer from St Mungo's had both been shaken by Theodore's earlier analysis. Though neither of them had fully understood every technical detail, they had both worked in this field for years. The parts they did understand were already enough for them to make a judgment.
That treatment plan likely did have fatal flaws. It almost certainly could not heal Neville's parents.
And by Theodore's own reasoning, the current magic of the wizarding world was fundamentally incapable of treating their condition. At best, one could only hope future generations might develop something better.
But Theodore's meaning now was unmistakable—
he had a way?
The two healers exchanged a glance. Shock churned in both their eyes.
If this really worked, even if it only managed to improve Neville's parents' condition a little, the achievement alone would be enough to explode across the top journals of magical medicine.
No.
More than that—even the Order of Merlin would not be out of reach.
After all, in terms of contribution, this absolutely qualified.
And as for prestige and recognition? Those were the only other real barriers to entering the Order of Merlin.
But in that respect, the seals Theodore had already produced earlier were more than enough to crush any opposition.
If this really succeeded...
Then the youngest Order of Merlin recipient in magical history would be standing right in front of them.
Compared to the two healers' storm-tossed awe, Augusta Longbottom's mind had gone completely blank.
She had thought hope had already been extinguished.
Who could have imagined that just when all seemed lost, a path would open again?
The successive shocks hit her so hard that she swayed on her feet, nearly collapsing. Theodore caught her in time and quietly sent a wisp of spiritual energy into her, calming her heart and settling her breath.
Only after she regained herself a little did Augusta grip Theodore's hand so tightly that the veins stood out on her skin. Her eyes were full of bitterness, hope, and pleading.
"Theodore…"
Theodore nodded seriously.
"I'll do everything I can."
"And I'm confident."
The moment those words left his mouth, Augusta felt as if she had swallowed a stabilizing draught. The chaos in her heart immediately eased.
Neville had written to her many times, saying Theodore never acted without confidence.
No matter how difficult or impossible something seemed, once Theodore stepped in, danger would always turn to safety.
Before, Augusta had thought those were just the exaggerated words of an admiring child.
Now, at last, she understood exactly what kind of reassurance Theodore's presence could bring.
Her eyes reddened with gratitude.
Whether Theodore succeeded completely or not, from this day onward the Longbottom family would forever stand with him in loyalty and friendship—through honor and disgrace, through life and death.
At that moment, Theodore gave Richard and the bald healer a simple instruction.
"Call in all the relevant healers."
Richard and the other man immediately nodded again and again.
"We'll do everything we can."
"We'll help you with everything."
But Theodore shook his head.
"No."
"I want you to remember everything I'm about to do."
"I can't stay at St Mungo's forever treating patients myself. For some less severe cases, you'll have to learn how to handle them."
Richard and the others froze.
At once, the System screen flared with spirited text.
[You stand within the Medicine King Sect, your bearing lofty.]
[Its reputation has long been famed, yet now that you have seen it for yourself, you find the reality does not quite match the name.]
[Today, within this place, I shall lecture on the higher path of medicine and let you all witness what true inheritance from the profound sect really means!]
Theodore ignored the System's theatrics and stepped into the ward.
Soon, Richard and the bald healer brought in a whole stream of St Mungo's doctors, crowding both the ward and the corridor outside until there was barely standing room left.
A dozen different emotions filled the eyes turned toward Theodore—astonishment, suspicion, doubt, anticipation.
Theodore remained unmoved.
Under Neville's trembling, excited stare, he extended a hand and gently laid it upon the foreheads of Neville's parents.
A thread of Origin Sea power flowed out from within him. It then reversed and transformed into the gentlest possible spiritual energy, soft as spring rain, and slowly seeped into their brains.
Theodore lowered his eyelids, but a subtle gleam passed through his eyes.
The condition within Neville's parents' minds was even worse than he had imagined.
Strands of many different kinds of magic were knotted together inside their brains.
There was their own native magic.
There was the twisted, dark residue of the Cruciatus Curse.
And there was also the lingering magical residue of all the different therapeutic spells and treatments St Mungo's had tried over the years in hopes of easing the damage.
Magic was itself touched by madness.
With that much magic forced into the brain, the result could only be catastrophic.
No wonder Neville's parents had not immediately become the way they were now when they were first broken by the Cruciatus Curse. Back then, they had still retained bursts of lucidity, even amidst their pain and madness.
But over the years, they had fallen into deeper and deeper sleep.
Outwardly, it looked as though their condition had become more stable.
In truth, it had only become a far greater tangle.
Once Theodore had clearly understood the situation, he exhaled slowly.
A condition this complicated was likely beyond the magical world's medicine not just now, but even fifty or a hundred years into the future.
But in the primordial world, similar situations were actually rather simple in concept.
They would be described as external evil entering the body and provoking internal corruption—barely even qualifying as a low-level form of heart-demon infestation.
Of course, this was different from the high-level inner demons produced when great cultivators' Dao hearts wavered.
This was merely the lowest grade.
Aside from the fact that the condition had gone on for many years, any cultivator with even the most basic calming pills or a cultivation art for resisting inner demons would have been able to restore such a patient without great difficulty.
Theodore did not possess a cultivation art for resisting inner demons.
But as for calming pills?
That was another matter entirely.
With both Transcendent Mastery of the Healing Arts and Transcendent Mastery of Alchemy, if he could not derive a low-grade mind-clearing pill formula on the spot, then he would become a complete laughingstock.
If Jade Cauldron True Person or Taiyi Zhenren ever learned of such incompetence, they might very well tell him to stop ever touching the arts of medicine and alchemy again, lest he ruin their reputations.
The next instant, Theodore flicked a finger.
Lines of glowing text appeared in the air.
One herb after another, along with its corresponding method of preparation, floated into view.
The bald healer was stunned for a moment, then whirled on the other doctors and barked,
"What are you all standing around for?"
"Some of you go fetch the ingredients!"
"The rest of you—write!"
At once, the room fell utterly silent except for the frantic scratching of quills.
As the formula grew more and more complete, the doctors' expressions became increasingly strange.
The reason was simple.
As healers at St Mungo's, they had all studied not only healing magic, but potion-making as well. Each of them had once been among the most gifted of their year.
They knew common medicinal brews by heart.
Many obscure healing concoctions were familiar to them too.
And yet the formula Theodore was constructing before their eyes—whether in its combination of herbs or in its methods of preparation—was something none of them had ever seen before.
The same thought rose in all of their minds at once.
Could it be…
that Theodore had invented this entire formula himself?
For a moment, they all felt as though life itself had become absurd.
Had all their years of study gone to waste on a dog?
Of course, some doubt still lingered among them.
After all, how many countless hours did it take to perfect a single magical potion formula?
Could a first-year student really produce anything useful?
But then Theodore gave a soft snort.
A ball of flame sprang into being in the ward, startling everyone.
No wand. No incantation. And control this precise?
Monster.
Even Dumbledore in his youth might not have possessed magical mastery like this.
Then Theodore waved a hand.
An unseen force lifted the herbs one by one, processing them in accordance with the formula he had just derived.
With another wave, all the prepared ingredients flew into the flame.
Only a few moments later, a faint, mysterious fragrance drifted out from the fire.
Nine smooth and lustrous pills dropped neatly into Theodore's hand.
The mere scent of them sent a chill of clarity through every person in the room. Countless distractions and restless thoughts vanished from their minds at once.
Looking at the nine pills in his hand, Theodore showed clear satisfaction.
Strictly speaking, this was the first pill formula he had personally derived from scratch in this lifetime.
Even the ingredients had all been native to the magical world.
And yet in terms of effectiveness, it was not the slightest bit inferior to the low-grade mind-clearing pills used by low-level cultivators in the primordial world.
"We'll call it the Clear Spirit Pill."
With that, Theodore waved again, and the words Clear Spirit Pill appeared in the air.
Then the entire formula shone brilliantly and imprinted itself upon a sheet of parchment.
"With the Clear Spirit Pill, nearly every mental disorder caused by magic in the wizarding world can be treated."
"Even elderly wizards whose behavior has become abnormal due to age and declining control over their magic can suppress their madness with it."
"At the very least, it should restore them to the point where they can take care of themselves."
After a pause, Theodore added calmly,
"I release the Clear Spirit Pill formula freely."
"Consider it a small contribution I can make for the suffering wizards of the magical world."
Then he placed two of the pills into Neville's parents' mouths.
At once, the System screen flared with golden radiance.
[You leave behind a Golden Pill formula within the Medicine King Sect. When the formula is completed, golden light pierces the heavens.]
[The people of the Medicine King Sect cry out in astonishment. Such mastery of alchemy is sufficient to found a sect of one's own.]
[Chan sect true inheritance, Jade Void disciple—terrifying indeed!!!]
At the same time, Theodore felt something stir within himself and looked upward.
Petals of golden lotus flowers, visible only to him, began drifting down from the sky.
Merit.
Even more merit than before descended onto him.
The amount was second only to what he had received when he first created the "Mythic Great Dao" path.
It was enough to refine two more Grand Celestial Constellation Formation flags—
or to elevate the Abi Hellscape Sword by another tier among merit treasures.
Theodore drew in a deep breath, delight rising in his eyes.
At that very moment, after taking the Clear Spirit Pill, Neville's parents—whose minds had been wrapped in countless threads of magic, wandering like living corpses in endless fog for over ten years—suddenly felt a cool and lucid current enter them.
That clear current washed through the tangled magic, sweeping away a large portion of it in one pass.
At last, their consciousness saw daylight again.
In the dead silence of the ward, beneath countless burning eyes, Neville's parents—
slowly opened their eyes.
At that instant, all the emotions Augusta Longbottom had suppressed for more than a decade exploded like a volcano. Her legs gave out beneath her and she collapsed against the wall, sobbing with joy.
She had borne too much.
She had cursed fate too many times for being so cruel and so unjust.
But now, at last, the black clouds had split.
A single ray of sunlight had fallen upon the Longbottom family.
Neville himself opened his mouth, but for several seconds he could not make a sound at all. He could only stumble forward and collapse by the bedside, tears pouring down his face.
His parents—Frank Longbottom and Alice Longbottom—looked upon the face before them.
Though they had drifted in unconsciousness for over a decade, in that moment they still felt the call of shared blood and flesh.
"Neville?"
"Our child?"
"You… you've grown so much!"
And then, at last, Neville broke.
A ragged sob tore out of him.
Everything from the past—
was finally past.
And in that same instant, line after line appeared across the System screen.
[You used medicine and alchemy to heal the mortal parents of Tuxing Sun. Tuxing Sun is moved to his very core.]
[Your relationship with Tuxing Sun has reached the level of life-and-death friendship. You have obtained the divine ability — Earth-Traveling Divine Movement.]
[Your relationship with Tuxing Sun has broken through its previous limit and reached a deeper level — My Dao Is Not Lonely. Upon the Great Dao, the road is long, yet even through a thousand incarnations Tuxing Sun is willing to walk it at your side.]
[You have obtained the divine ability — Wu Earth Divine Light.]
[Wu Earth Divine Light: one of the most famous earth-element divine abilities. A single beam of this light carries the weight of ten thousand mountains and possesses peerless suppressive force. It stands alongside Ren Water Divine Light, Yi Wood Divine Light, Geng Metal Divine Light, and Li Fire Divine Light as one of the Five Great Divine Lights.]
[If all five Divine Lights are gathered, fully comprehended, and fused into one, they can form the innate supreme divine ability — Five-Colored Divine Light!]
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