Chapter 320: The Fourth Layer of the Observation, Listening, Questioning, and Pulse-Taking Technique

Because most of the injured had taken Body-Refining Soup to repair their flesh and Ice Spirit Powder to clear fire poison, they could now walk on their own; consequently, long queues of patients formed in front of every medical stall.

After treating more than a dozen patients at the Danyuan Peak medical stall, Hua Changxi realized that mixing mortals and cultivators severely slowed down diagnosis and treatment, so she instructed Yu Fu and Zhou Shou to erect four signs before the stall, categorizing the injured into four groups.

Mortals, Qi Refining cultivators, Qi Sea cultivators, and Core Formation cultivators.

Thereafter, the queue of patients before the Danyuan Peak medical stall split into four lines.

Treating mortals required only ordinary apprentices versed in medicine; treating Qi Refining cultivators mostly fell to the First-Grade and Second-Grade Alchemists of Danyuan Peak; for treating Qi Sea cultivators, Hua Changxi directly assigned Ye Lingxuan, Jiang Henian, and several other heirs of the Alchemy Saint Hall.

As for Hua Changxi herself, she alone handled the line of Core Formation cultivators, summoning only two apprentices to assist her in writing medical records and prescriptions.

Seeing how Danyuan Peak managed its triage, other medical stalls found that not only did the order of their patient queues improve significantly, but the speed of treatment also increased considerably, so they one by one began to emulate the practice.

Since its emergence, Danyuan Peak had relied solely on Hua Changxi to hold it up; although the development and management of the Danyuan Secret Realm had now entered a proper track, Danyuan Peak had ultimately not accumulated much capital.

For one thing, the variety of pills stored in the Danyuan Peak warehouse was limited; after diagnosing patients, the disciples of Danyuan Peak could mostly not dispense medicine directly but had to write prescriptions on the spot and refine the pills immediately.

This caused the speed of triage to slow down drastically.

Although Hua Changxi refined pills and medicines quickly, she was only one person; if she was diagnosing patients, she could not refine pills.

Moreover, the patients she treated were Core Formation realm cultivators; the only Danyuan Peak disciples capable of refining Third-Grade pills were Ye Lingxuan and Jiang Henian, who were already occupied treating Qi Sea realm cultivators, so she could not very well call them over to serve as her assistants.

Thus, after diagnosing one patient, she had to pause triage, first refine the pills required for that patient, and only then proceed to diagnose the next.

For the first three days, this method of triage was indeed very slow, but later on, although the injuries of the patients varied according to the individual, most could still be categorized and summarized; often, refining one type of pill could save ten or more people.

Gradually, Hua Changxi's speed of triage picked up.

[Observation, Listening, Questioning, and Pulse-Taking Technique (Great Success): Diagnoses 138/1000]

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[Observation, Listening, Questioning, and Pulse-Taking Technique (Great Success): Diagnoses 500/1000]

As she continued diagnosing the injured, warm currents occasionally swept through Hua Changxi's eye sockets, making her eyes increasingly bright; slowly, the dantian and qi sea she could see became clearer and clearer.

Previously, she could only vaguely perceive the general condition of the dantian and qi sea; now, she could clearly see the boundaries of the dantian, whether the spiritual energy within the qi sea was impure, and whether it nurtured spiritual artifacts.

Because she could see clearly into the qi sea, she suppressed the demonic energy within the patients' bodies faster and more precisely, resulting in an increasing number of patients treated each day.

[Observation, Listening, Questioning, and Pulse-Taking Technique (Perfection): Diagnoses 1001/]

Several days later, after Hua Changxi had diagnosed over a thousand cultivators using the Observation, Listening, Questioning, and Pulse-Taking Technique, her eye sockets were suddenly enveloped by a warm current.

Feeling the warm current grow increasingly scorching until her eyes even began to ache, Hua Changxi halted her triage and said to the queued patients, "I need to rest for a while; please seek medical help elsewhere."

Having spoken, she rose and went into the tent Yu Fu had erected for her.

Once inside the tent, Hua Changxi set up an isolation array, took out a stone bed crafted from Fire Spirit Stones, lay upon it, and carefully felt her increasingly painful eyes.

During the previous breakthroughs of the Observation, Listening, Questioning, and Pulse-Taking Technique—Entry Level, Small Success, and Great Success—the warm current had not lasted long, and her eyes had felt no abnormality, but this time the reaction was somewhat intense.

As her eyes grew hotter and the stabbing pain more pronounced, Hua Changxi knew the warm current was tempering her eyes; without excessive worry, she relaxed her body and allowed the warm current to scour her eyeballs.

Meanwhile, outside the tent, the physicians and alchemists at the other medical stalls, seeing that Hua Changxi had finally gone to rest, secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

During this period, Hua Changxi had been so immersed in improving her Observation, Listening, Questioning, and Pulse-Taking Technique that she had failed to notice that her rapid triage speed had caused patients from other medical stalls to transfer to hers.

This matter immediately displeased the persons in charge of the various medical stalls.

Consequently, the people at the other stalls held their breath and secretly competed against Danyuan Peak.

While Danyuan Peak treated the injured day and night without stopping, the other medical stalls did the same.

Under such circumstances, the number of treated patients increased, but the physicians and alchemists were exhausted.

Now that they saw Hua Changxi go to rest, the people at the other stalls felt they too should be able to take a break.

Inside the tent, the stabbing pain in Hua Changxi's eyes lasted for nearly an hour before the temperature of the warm current began to gradually decline.

Only when the abnormal sensation in her eyes had completely vanished did she open them.

Putting away the stone bed and the isolation array, Hua Changxi hurried out of the tent, eager to see what effects the improvement of her Observation, Listening, Questioning, and Pulse-Taking Technique had brought to her vision.

However, she was disappointed.

Standing before the Danyuan Peak medical stall, Hua Changxi activated the Observation, Listening, Questioning, and Pulse-Taking Technique and discovered that, aside from being able to see through a cultivator's dantian completely, her 'eyesight' seemed little different from before.

"How did Hua Changxi finish resting so quickly?"

The people at the other medical stalls looked far from pleased upon seeing Hua Changxi.

At the Qingyao Peak medical stall, Xia Zhen watched Meng Qingyao treating patients in silence, her brows knotted tight.

Hua Changxi's triage speed was too fast; with her present, Qingyao and the other medical staff were completely overshadowed.

After a moment's hesitation, Xia Zhen summoned Xia Ziyang and whispered, "Make a trip to the Demon-Suppressing Army and tell Chu Junling that Hua Changxi possesses superb medical skills and can treat Nascent Soul cultivators."

Xia Ziyang paused, stunned: "The Nascent Soul cultivators of the Demon-Suppressing Army have all gone to stabilize the spiritual energy shield; I haven't seen anyone injured."

Xia Zhen scoffed: "I don't mean the Nascent Soul cultivators of the Demon-Suppressing Army."

Hearing this, Xia Ziyang thought of something, and his expression changed involuntarily: "Do you mean those who destroyed the Hushan Great Array of the Artifact Saint Palace?"

Xia Zhen glanced sidelong at Xia Ziyang: "Don't pry into matters you shouldn't; just convey my words to Chu Junling."

Xia Ziyang asked no further questions; he took one look at the Danyuan Peak medical stall and walked briskly toward the Demon-Suppressing Army camp.

Not long after, just as Hua Changxi was feeling disappointed that the improvement of her Observation, Listening, Questioning, and Pulse-Taking Technique had not strengthened her 'eyesight,' a middle-aged general clad in Demon-Suppressing Army armor, with an unstable aura, approached.

"Peak Master Hua!"

Without deactivating her Observation, Listening, Questioning, and Pulse-Taking Technique, Hua Changxi turned her head at the sound; the instant she saw the man, five-colored spiritual light flashed in the depths of her pupils.

In that instant, the Nascent Soul above the middle-aged general's dantian and qi sea came fully into her view, laid bare before her eyes.

Excitement surged in Hua Changxi's eyes; she seemed to understand which aspect of her 'eyesight' the improvement of the Observation, Listening, Questioning, and Pulse-Taking Technique had enhanced.

The Entry Level of the Observation, Listening, Questioning, and Pulse-Taking Technique, that is, the First Layer, granted one's 'eyesight' meticulous observation, allowing even the breathing of the skin to be perceived.

Upon reaching Small Success, the Second Layer, one's 'eyesight' directly gained the ability to scan and see through the flesh, enabling observation of spiritual roots, the amount of spiritual energy stored within them, and whether that energy was impure.

Then, upon reaching Great Success, the Third Layer, the conditions of a cultivator's dantian, qi sea, and spiritual platform consciousness sea could all be 'seen.'

Now, with the technique at Perfection, the Fourth Layer, the Nascent Soul above the dantian and qi sea, and the Primordial Spirit above the spiritual platform consciousness sea, had nowhere to hide.

If the Second Layer of the Observation, Listening, Questioning, and Pulse-Taking Technique was transparency of the flesh, then the Fourth Layer was transparency of the Golden Core, Nascent Soul, and Primordial Spirit.

At this moment, in Hua Changxi's eyes, the middle-aged general's Nascent Soul was laid bare, every detail visible; she could clearly see that a wisp of black qi was binding the surface of his Nascent Soul.

Based on the improvement pattern of her diagnostic arts of observation, inquiry, and palpation, Hua Changxi knew that while she could currently only perceive the condition of the Nascent Soul's surface, as the number of cultivators she treated continued to increase, she would also be able to 'see through' the internal state of the Nascent Soul.

Seeing Hua Changxi staring at him without speaking, the middle-aged general broke the silence once more: "Peak Master Hua, the Pill Yuan Peak treats Qi Refining, Qi Sea, and Core Formation cultivators, yet has omitted Nascent Soul cultivators; why is this?"

In Hua Changxi's view, Nascent Soul cultivators possessed great power and were mostly individuals capable of saving themselves, so she had directly excluded injured Nascent Soul cultivators from her care.

With this middle-aged general stepping forward to question her, Hua Changxi would have certainly retorted in the past, but now, wishing to verify her 'vision' and accumulate practical experience, she smiled and said, "I assumed Nascent Soul cultivators would never get injured."

The middle-aged general: "......"

Hua Changxi looked at him with a smile: "Fellow Daoist, are you injured? Come, sit down, and let me examine and treat you."

The middle-aged general remained standing without moving: "I request Peak Master Hua to move to the Demon-Suppressing Army camp; several of my comrades are severely injured."