55 Chapter 53: Home Visits Cost Extra.

"Let's see…" I mumbled, I had to admit, cultivator ailments were far more interesting than those from common people. There were so many factors to take into account, I loved it so much.

If these problems were in a normal person, they would have died tens of times, but he was still able to move, even if with difficulty.

Alas, the common people needed my work more, otherwise, I might concentrate on studying cultivator illnesses and start cracking the mystery that is these profound veins.

They were somehow connected to every single part of the body, but it was not a physical connection, it was something far more fundamental, something beyond the biological.

I probably would need to start creating advanced physics from scratch since I knew nothing about it, it might probably take thousands of years if I was alone. Thankfully, I was more than ready to start my academy to teach the next generation of thinkers.

Although, I was pretty sure that if I tried any of the things I was planning for, someone might just come out and kill me.

But for now, I marveled at this old man's physique. He was strong, even as I could visibly see his muscle cells depleted, dehydrated, and lacking many nutrients.

Even still, the muscle fibers were different from normal humans, I needed to study them under a microscope to be sure, but I could feel faint threads of energy flowing through each single muscle fiber.

If it was just him or everyone past a certain cultivation, that was for further research.

Maybe it was some kind of body cultivation similar to my Buddha technique… No, mine was fundamentally different, I wasn't even sure I could qualify as human after using that.

I looked at the man with my preliminary analysis, "You're dehydrated and lack nutrients, your cells are cannibalizing themselves just to make you survive, but it can't go on for longer without lasting damage." 

"Doctor, I eat just as much as before, maybe even more, nutrition can't be a problem, our Royal Doctor, Master Gu, said that it's simply a sign of old age." the old ruler replied weakly.

There was a hint of condescension in his voice, as if he was talking to a child, which from his point of view was exactly what was going on. I was even younger than his daughter, after all, in body at least.

Mind was a different matter, I was a professional and, their doctor was a complete and utter incompetent, "Then you should fire this Master," I replied, making clear my contempt, "not even an amateur should be unable to tell that these issues are not related to age." 

"Master Gu has been a holy medic of the Empire since before I was a child!" I heard the princess comment, her voice somewhat heated, but it didn't matter to me.

That doctor was a fraud, or malevolent, or maybe both.

"Well, the reason behind this condition is evident to anyone who searches for it, and it has nothing to do with old age, you have a parasite," I replied calmly. 

If even I, who was completely clueless about this world's parasites, could realize the issue even if with the aid of my glasses, then someone who rose to the rank of Royal Doctor should be able to as well.

It was obvious by looking at the signs, that the blood pressure didn't correspond to the strength of the heartbeats, the heart was strong, so it wasn't the problem, the vessels were fine as well. The blood was being filtered right at the start of the main artery body, by something.

Concentrating at that point, I could see it.

A worm, small, the effects were unknown to me but, I could bet that it was the reason behind the lack of nutrients in the body.

"A parasite?" mumbled the man, evidently troubled, "What kind of parasite? How did you discover it?" 

"Well, I don't know what its name is or if it has one, but it is certainly a worm, a second please…" I said briefly before placing a hand on the chest of the man, right above where the thing was. 

I sent a pulse of energy around it, as thin as it could be to not disturb it into any reaction, my energy acted akin to a sonar to create a precise 3D image in my mind.

After making sure I had every detail down, I removed the hand and flipped my palm up, starting to rapidly create the runes necessary to create a hologram to display the parasite's looks to them.

"Here it is, the root of your lack of nutrition, that led to your lack of energy that you could confuse for old age, but don't misunderstand me, this worm is the cause, I'm sure," I explained.

The two royals both stared at the hologram, something I was still not completely satisfied with as it lacked a lot of detail, it looked more like a low polygon old-style game character. Still, it was enough to explain my point, or maybe not.

Why did it feel like they weren't staring at the worm, but marveling at the hologram's existence itself?

Oh well, "Sir, did you receive any wounds before the time the symptoms started to develop? Especially around your chest area." 

"I did…" The man replied weakly, opening his robe to show me his chest, a big scar right above where the worm was, "Three, almost four years ago, I received an injury to my chest, a slash, I still carry the scar." 

"That might be the point of entry for the parasite, but I still can't exclude that it might have been ingested," I mumbled, did I even have any way of figuring it out?

I didn't have many test subjects to find out.

The princess replied without missing a beat, showing that she had done her research, "That can't be the case, my father has tasters for every single one of his meals in case of poison, they haven't shown any signs of this same illness." 

"I see, that's useful, who dressed the wound?" 

That scar looked awful, a student would be able to sew it better.

"It was Master Gu…" There was rage simmering under the facade of cold calmness, he wasn't a great actor since it was pretty evident despite his efforts to restrain it.

This Gu guy just gained points for both incompetence and maliciousness.

I mean, a Royal Doctor that sews up a slash like that? The dude didn't even try to make it clean, it's a wonder it didn't get infected.

Maybe it did, I had no idea how a high-level cultivator's immune system worked.

"I'll leave the investigation about whether it was an intentional poisoning or gross incompetence to you, I'm here to take care of the issue." 

I kept switching from x-ray vision to spiritual vision, seeing the issue turning from just a parasite, into something completely alien to me.

It integrated into the host's profound veins, and I didn't have any clue if I could take it out without causing irreparable damage, nor did I have any clue how it was possible at all… "This is great." 

"Excuse me?" I heard an aggrieved voice from the princess, "Are you happy right now?" 

I was smiling, why was I smiling? 

"Because this is a hard issue, and hard issues are the most fun to solve." I replied offhandedly, "I can't solve this right now, I need to make more tests and will need to take a vial of your blood, Sir, I need any clue on how to help you." 

"You don't know a way?" the man replied, his expression turning into disappointment.

"I don't, for now. This is the first time I've seen something like this, the worm has integrated into your profound vein system, if it was a normal parasite I could take it out without a problem. But I'm sure I can find a way to take it out, do not worry," I replied with a confident smile, but if they had any alternative, I was more than happy to listen to them.

But they didn't have anything either.

The ruler signaled to one of his men to come close to him and whispered something in his ear, his voice low enough not to be heard by his daughter, but it didn't escape my hearing.

"Apprehend Gu and bring him to the dungeons." 

I shivered slightly from the coldness in his voice, but that Gu guy had harmed his ruler, I didn't trust his chances for a bright future.

Or any future.

After the guard left, and I took the blood sample that I needed, I told the Emperor, "It will take me a couple of days to find a way, but I can't operate here, I need my tools. Is it possible for you to move to my clinic?" 

"It is not possible, the emperor cannot show any signs of weakness, lest our enemies figure out the seriousness of my condition," he replied immediately, shooting down the idea.

"Then, we could be two brief visits, the first for a more accurate check-up since my glasses are limited, then a second visit for the operation, would that be possible?" 

The man seemed to think for a moment, "That would be possible, we will offer your clinic a big donation, this will give us a reason to visit." 

Ugh, politics, but that was useful, money was more than appreciated, I could use it to lower the price of any medication I gave the common people.

As for overcharging the fascist ruler of an Empire, I couldn't care less, the money he gave me would benefit the common people anyway.

"Then I thank you, Sir." I nodded to the man in thanks.

"You should refer to him as 'Your Majesty', Doctor." Cang Yue finally cracked a smile, seeing a solution to her father's problem.

I was pretty confident as well, I already had a bunch of ideas on how to solve this, and I was going to learn so much from this worm.

"Oh, I apologize, I come from afar, and I don't yet know the formal etiquette for Royalty." I smiled.

She chuckled, "Do not worry, as long as you use the correct terms when in public." 

Her father had fallen asleep, and after a few pleasantries, I was finally free to go back home to have fun teaching my kids, which they didn't enjoy most of the time.

Meh, they would thank me when they got older, I hoped.

As soon as I was out of that place, I went into a sprint on the house roofs to get home as soon as possible, my mind so filled with new ideas that I wanted to test out immediately.

Firstly, I searched for any foreign bodies inside the blood I took, I started to love the Poison Sky Pearl too much. I threw the vial I took into it and directed it to separate and purify everything down to the molecular level. It was so amazing, something that would have cost hundreds back on Earth was instantaneous here.

The annoying girl in my mind was right when she called it a heavenly treasure.

Now that I thought about it, I had yet to see her today, it surprised me a little that she didn't say anything while in that palace.

"It was nothing impressive." 

There she was. 

"Jasmine! How are you?" I replied enthusiastically, taking out of my amazing green realm a new vial, much smaller than the first one.

It had just a single smear on one of the glass walls, the substance was in too little quantity to be even visible, but it was all that I could get from that blood sample.

"I'm bored, I had to guard you from that Sky Profound Cultivator, who knows if he would get any dangerous ideas after seeing how disrespectful you are," she smirked, "and what is that?" 

"I was being as respectful as possible!" I replied, "And this is DNA, very, very different from human DNA, it doesn't belong to the Emperor, so I'm going to preserve this, I'll eventually be able to recreate that worm from this alone."

I chucked the vial back in the green and took out a different one before getting to work.

"You broke every single rule possible," she shot back, "that Sky Profound cultivator was grinding his teeth from the disrespect!" 

"So the strongest one was at the Sky Profound, huh," I mumbled, ignoring her words completely.

"You could sense him?" She replied, sounding mildly surprised.

"He wasn't very subtle." 

"I'm sure your little princess wouldn't be able to sense him until she's at least two major realms above you," she said with a deadpan face.

"Huh." 

She said something else, but I was too busy programming a destruction runic array that wouldn't touch anything containing the Emperor's DNA, creating not only a worm destruction array but an anti-infection array.

"You aren't listening, right?" she narrowed her eyes.

The danger-sensing rune array I had created to detect Jasmine's anger activated, "Yes, I'm listening, I just don't have anything to reply to." 

I kicked back my chair and scrapped the idea for now, I couldn't protect every good bacteria from this…

This would be a very difficult problem to solve.

I loved it. 

hellooo~

Gimme your stones and all of your love~

and most importantly, gimme feedback, I'm still trying to get back into the story-writing mind, and I might need a while to return fully operative.