The Journey Forward | ONC 2023 Version

6. Training

After a few days of Jing's gentle care, my strength returned. And when I experimentally touched on my traumatic memories, I didn't immediately become overwhelmed again. Whatever master Zhou and Huizhong had done had helped, at least enough that I wouldn't be a basket case for a while.

Huizhong was responsible for my healing, and though I could not tell him everything about my past, Angel found parts of Bai's past similar enough to help create a plausible story.

Once I could eat entire meals without vomiting, Huizhong released me from my room. Jing and I spent several days wandering around the stone sanctuary, meeting its inhabitants. Most were older cultivators with ailments who chose to reside in the peaceful Anxiang mountains for their remaining years. Healers were thieves, so the cultivators paid for their repose by feeding those who eased their pain. This likely would shorten their lives as the cultivation that extended them drained away. But, like a patient who chose hospice in my first world, they chose comfort and dignity above longevity. I respected their choice, even if I couldn't fully understand it.

A few weeks after we arrived, master Zhou began my training. With all the information I had to learn before progressing, I felt like I was back in med school again. This time, however, the training rigors were buffered by my instructors' compassion. In Zhou and Huizhong, I had teachers who gently directed me toward focusing on my center and manipulating the energy surrounding me. Both rewarded my successes and never punished me for failing.

Once he felt I had mastered the basic skills, master Zhou provided me with texts about healing and how to use the strength of heart stones to heal all sorts of wounds. Huizhong, on the more practical side, brought me with him as he healed the sanctuary residents. As I read and observed the knowledge handed down by cultivator healers for generations, it struck me as incomplete. Just one entry-level anatomy book would have blown both of my teachers' minds.

Had no one here ever done an autopsy?

"It is not an area of wide respect, though some are venturing into it. Practitioners are held in contempt and suspected of practicing necromancy," Angel explained as I slammed my text closed again. How many people died because of this incomplete information?

"Is necromancy a thing here?" I glanced at the shelf of books master Zhou had given me. None had mentioned using the dead to gain power.

"Not that Bai has seen, at least not outside of legends and stories."

"Oh." It frustrated me when Angel gave me these qualified answers. It could mean she knew more, but Bai didn't, so she couldn't tell me or that there was nothing more to learn. Perhaps, this is why I asked her questions less and less often.

With the medical knowledge ingrained into my soul from years of repetition, my healing abilities advanced surprisingly fast. I achieved level one cultivation within months of my arrival at the sanctuary. I knew the anatomy and the dysfunction that caused various diseases and could work backward to heal sick organs and chase away infection. After observing my accomplishments, Huizhong insisted on advancing his craft by learning from me without any sense of shame. This and Master Zhou's praise and joy for my achievement pushed me even harder, and in less than a year, I attained my second level.

Soon after I settled into my new cultivation level, Huizhong and Tengfei brought Jing and me down the mountain to help the villagers at its base. Here, I could learn to heal those without heart stones.

"Not all masters teach their apprentices how to use their heart stones to heal those who can not pay back the energy expended," Huizhong explained as he healed a young boy's broken leg.

"Then why does master Zhou do so?"

"Because without healing, this boy would become crippled, and the small promise his life once held snuffed out by a moment of carelessness."