Eternal Life Begins with Learning

Chu Mu had no desire to speculate any further.

This wasn’t a moment of joy, nor one of yearning, but one of profound helplessness.

He had been studying and practicing martial arts almost day and night, yet his progress was minuscule.

He had no choice but to find another path, painstakingly studying medical texts and learning medical skills, all to give his minuscule progress in Qi and Blood Cultivation a slight boost.

Despite his tireless efforts, what he had learned so far seemed to be of little use.

In fact, it might not even show any results for a long time to come.

And now, judging solely by his body’s instinctive reaction, he feared that even several years of hard work couldn’t compare to this single stalk of Cyan Calm Ginseng!

The feeling was far more shocking than when he had seen that blood-red Elixir Pill not long ago.

After all, the old man from Qili Village was clearly no ordinary person, and the white-robed man from the Nanshan Li Family was someone far beyond his reach.

But this was right here, something he could touch with his own hands, something that even fell within the scope of the medical skills he had painstakingly studied.

Elder Li glanced at Chu Mu, then looked down at the Cyan Calm Ginseng in his hand and said with deep meaning:

"This herb is precious."

"But knowing its medicinal properties, and understanding how to best use it, is even more precious."

"Cultivation is fundamentally a process of absorbing external forces. While those forces are important, understanding how to better integrate them into yourself is even more so."

"I... understand." 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

Chu Mu cupped his hands, his expression slightly heavy.

Elder Li gave a slight nod and said no more. A faint green fluorescence seemed to flicker at his fingertips as he gently wiped them across the Cyan Calm Ginseng. A trace of the same light appeared over the herb’s broken roots, only to vanish a moment later.

With that simple gesture, the inexplicable craving and excitement Chu Mu felt vanished without a trace.

His eyes flickered. Chu Mu lowered his head slightly, averting his gaze.

What had been a strong suspicion was now a fact he had witnessed with his own eyes.

This Elder Li was truly one of the Extraordinary.

"Old Doctor..."

Just as Chu Mu was lost in thought, a sound came from the doorway, and a woman hurried into the Medicine Hall.

"Old Doctor, you have to help me! I woke up this morning, and my stomach has been in knots..."

Chu Mu looked up to see a young woman clutching her stomach, her face pale and clearly etched with pain.

"Sit."

Elder Li pointed to the consultation chair before the desk. The woman sat down, and Elder Li took her pulse for a moment before observing her tongue and complexion.

Normally, following his usual style, Elder Li would have swiftly stated the diagnosis and prescription, and then... the medicine would effect an immediate cure!

This time, however, Elder Li looked to Chu Mu, who was standing at his side. "Brother Mu, can you diagnose the cause of her illness?"

"I’d like to try."

Chu Mu’s eyes lit up, and he immediately agreed.

Stepping forward, Chu Mu took her pulse. As far as he could tell, aside from a few Extraordinary peculiarities, the Medical Skill of this era was no different from the traditional Chinese medicine of his past life.

A diagnosis like this was inseparable from the four classic methods: observation, listening and smelling, inquiry, and palpation.

The moment he touched the woman’s arm, a chill traveled up from his fingertips. It was winter, so it was normal for hands to be icy, but Chu Mu keenly sensed this was not a chill from the outside world.

’An internal cold, is it...?’

Chu Mu mulled this over, his fingertips carefully perceiving the nuances of the woman’s pulse.

After a moment, Chu Mu released her wrist and looked at her face again.

Her complexion was ashen and her eyes were dull. According to the texts on diagnosis by observation, this pointed to weak Qi Blood, a sign of yang deficiency.

"Let me see your tongue."

At Chu Mu’s words, the woman obediently endured her pain and stuck out her tongue.

The tongue itself was pale, with a thin coating.

According to the texts on tongue diagnosis, this was a classic sign of yang deficiency.

And according to the book *On the Theory of Yin Yang and the Five Elements*, yang deficiency

means that one’s yang energy is diminished. When yang is deficient, yin becomes excessive, resulting in a condition of yin-cold.

Combining his findings from her pulse and face, Chu Mu was quite certain of the answer.

Chu Mu pondered for a moment, carefully reviewing his logic to make sure there were no oversights. Only then did he look at Elder Li. "Yang deficiency and yin-cold. It’s a yin-cold condition and should be treated primarily by warming and tonifying."

Elder Li nodded. "Explain the basis of your diagnosis."

Chu Mu organized his words. "Based on her pulse..."

When he had finished, Elder Li nodded. He neither denied nor approved, but instead changed the topic. "Given that diagnosis, what prescription would you write?"

"The prescription..."

Chu Mu hesitated. He could manage a diagnosis by just reciting what he’d read in the books, but writing a prescription...

After a moment’s thought, Chu Mu said with some uncertainty, "According to the *Treatise on Prescriptions*, with yang deficiency and yin excess, warming and tonifying is the priority. The first step is to expel the cold and support the yang."

"Use Hidden Scale Grass to expel cold, Guishou to support yang, and then add Cyan Spoon, Bai Lu..."

After Chu Mu finished, Elder Li said nothing. He simply picked up his brush, dipped it in ink, and wrote out a prescription with smooth, flowing strokes, handing the paper to Chu Mu.

"Fill the prescription according to this, and study it well."

Chu Mu took the prescription, and with just a cursory glance, he felt a sense of sudden enlightenment.

He had only been mechanically thinking of "yang deficiency, yin excess," but where exactly was the yang deficient? And where was the yin excessive?

Why had the yang become deficient? And why had the yin become excessive?

Know the patient, know the medicine.

If your understanding of the patient is incomplete, your understanding of the medicine will also be incomplete.

How shallow his approach had been!

Following this line of thought, he realized that the prescriptions he’d been trying to figure out to aid his martial arts practice followed the very same principle.

Qi and Blood Cultivation was the process of refining the Five Qi to nourish the internal organs. As the body transformed into something beyond human, its Yin, Yang, and Five Elements would naturally expand and rebalance along with it.

Aiding Qi and Blood Cultivation also required prescribing the right remedy for the condition. It’s just that this "condition" wasn’t an illness, but rather the specific state of the body’s organs, and its Yin, Yang, and Five Elements.

The underlying principle was almost identical to healing the sick.

The only difference was that one approach involved prescribing medicine to eliminate an illness, allowing the body’s Yin, Yang, and Five Elements to return to balance.

The other also involved prescribing medicine for a specific condition, allowing the body’s Yin, Yang, and Five Elements to grow in a balanced way within the framework of Qi and Blood Cultivation.

Faintly, Chu Mu felt that he had grasped something crucial.

After preparing the herbs and seeing the woman off, Chu Mu stared blankly at the prescription. In his mind, his own learning, the woman’s condition, and this prescription resonated with each other as he analyzed them time and time again.

After a long while, Chu Mu finally came to his senses. His gaze shifted, settling on the several medical texts on the desk.

He pulled one out. Its title was *Ailments*. It was not a traditional medical text, but rather a book written by Elder Li himself—a compilation of the many conditions he had encountered in his practice, along with their diagnoses and prescriptions.

In the past, when Chu Mu had tried to read it, his own medical foundation had been too weak, leaving him feeling completely lost. Thus, after a cursory flip-through, he had set it aside.

Now, Chu Mu felt that this volume, *Ailments*, might just be the most important medical book he had ever read.

After a moment of contemplation, Chu Mu picked up *Ailments* and opened the cover. The characters within came into view.

After only a moment, Chu Mu’s brows furrowed deeply. With his current knowledge, the text was still too abstruse.

He tried to put himself in Elder Li’s shoes, simulating a prescription for a clearly described condition, but his final answer was once again poles apart from the one in the book.

Chu Mu glanced at the Light Curtain Panel, where a good amount of Spiritual Radiance Value had once again accumulated. Without hesitation, he activated it with a thought, and the Spiritual Radiance Blessing descended.

His concentration was as intense as ever, but his thinking had already made a quantum leap.

Though the text was still complex and profound, with the leap in his cognitive abilities, his capacity for understanding and absorption had leaped as well.

He turned the pages, one by one.

Time flew by...

...