Road to Mastery: A LitRPG Apocalypse

Chapter 338: Jack’s Path of Healing

Vivi sat cross-legged in the middle of a field, experiencing the morning sun. Her breaths were deep, her brows relaxed, her mind free to gallop as it pleased. She was currently meditating on flames, as the Flame Dao was most vibrant in the morning. In the afternoons, she cultivated the River Dao, and at nights she rested.

She was just one step away from the D-Grade, but that step could be as short or long as she made it. Some cultivators broke through within days. Others tried for decades and never succeeded. The sprouting of a Dao Tree was an intricate process that depended not just on reaching the max Level of the E-Grade, but also having a deep and consistent understanding of your Dao.

Vivi was not in a hurry. Though she had reached the threshold of breaking through, she had chosen not to attempt it yet. After all, reaching the D-Grade earlier would earn her little. It was better to invest a few months in increasing her chances of success as much as possible, as well as establishing a more solid foundation in the D-Grade.

At the end of the day, Jack was her man. She refused to be stopped at a mere D-Grade.

Not to mention that she had more to do in life than cultivate.

Even while meditating, Vivi never cut off the world completely. Right now, hearing that something fun was going on, she cracked an eye open.

A few feet away, two babies were sitting on a blanket laid out on the grass. A kind-looking man with a goatee sat with them, spreading his arms and conjuring all sorts of dancing lights. The children clapped and laughed, making the cute sound of babies. Eric was chewing on his foot, while Ebele was watching the spectacle with her wide open eyes.

All sorts of shapes emerged from between Edgars hands. There were dogs, cats, giraffes, people. A small green dragon flew around Ebeles neck, while a tiny blue fairy drew Erics attention. Forgetting about chewing his foot, the little boy tried to grab her, but she only flew away, luring him to chase. All these shapes were made of bright colors as if tiny stars.

At this point, the shape of a heart flew out of Edgars palms, slowly reaching the center of the picnic blanket. Eric was busy chasing the fairy, but Ebele looked at the heart, then tried to grab it. Her chubby little fingers passed right through the conjured image. She was startled. She kept trying. Finally, enough was enough. Firmly closing her little hand around the heartand catching nothingshe raised her fist and crawled closer to Vivi, finally extending her hand and opening it.

Mom! she cried out, smiling brightly.

Vivi, with one eye open, smiled. As soon as Ebeles hand opened, harmless flames formed the image of a heart inside it, which Vivi grabbed and exclaimed.

Thank you! This is beautiful!

If Ebele was surprised that shed finally captured the heart, she did not show it. She giggled merrily, and Vivi patted her head. The little girl then crawled back to Edgar and his magics, while Eric was still busy chasing the mischievous fairy who kept pecking him with little kisses.

Vivi smiled, watching her children play. The sun was bright and pleasantly warm, the grass was cool, the food in their baskets delicious. Laughter kept ringing. Her childrens happiness warmed Vivis heart.

Cultivationwas not the most important thing in life.

***

Jack sat in a cold, dark, silent place where a thousand gravities pressed down on him. Taking a deep breath, he slid a dagger across his palm, cutting a line of dripping blood. Before long, the blood stopped flowing, and the wound slowly but surely closed.

Three breaths, he muttered.

He cut his palm again. This time, he activated the power of the Life Drop, enhancing his natural regeneration. The wound closed almost instantly. Jack shook his head.

Reaching into his soul, he grabbed the Life Drop and pulled out a tiny thread of Life energy, a miniscule amount. He guided it through his body until it reached his outstretched hand, then held it there. He sliced his palm a third time and gently guided the life energy into the open wound, trying not to waste any on the pristine skin surrounding it. He even directed the energy with his mind, teaching it how to best help his body heal.

A faint green light emerged from his palm. The wound knit itself together and disappeared, leaving not even a scar. This time, it only needed two breaths.

Jack smiled widely. Good!

Cultivation was about two processes, expansion and consolidationtheory and practice. By alternating between these two, you could steadily progress down the right path. However, this principle wasnt limited to cultivation; it worked on anything from chess to boxing to science. In Jacks pre-System experience, this was the best way to progress in most human endeavors.

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Healing was no different. Before he began practicing, he had spent a week studying the basic introduction to healing. Any more than that would fill his mind with more knowledge than he could digest, and any less would not give him proper foundations, so his practice would delve into random directions and be inefficient.

Of course, this delicate balance was different for all people and tasks. Jack took a week because he was a super mega genius by pre-System standards; for most people, it was better to start with small bites.

Finally, however, he had succeeded on his first attempt. He had healed a wound! It was only the most minor, easiest one, and it was also on himself, and he had also accelerated self-healing by only a small amount, but it was a first step down a long road!

Jack called it a warm-up. He was not nearly done.

Reaching inside his soul, he pulled another tiny thread out of the Life Drop. This time, however, he didnt just move it to his hand. The soul was close to the heart. Wrapping that thread of life in a tiny bit of his own Dao so it wouldn't dissipate, he deposited it in his bloodstream and let it flow naturally. This process was easier on him and also faster. The thread of life followed his blood as it ran along his body, slowly circling it.

His perception remained locked onto the thread, guiding it along the right route.

This was where Jacks study came into play. He had already memorized the entire structure of a humans blood network. Blood flowed out of the heart and would return to the heart, but it didnt pass through every point of the body in every circle. The blood network contained innumerable branches, where the massive bloodstream parted and followed different routes before eventually returning to the heart. His thread of life wouldnt get stuck no matter what path it followed, but if he wanted to get it to his hand specifically, he needed to guide it well.

Though he had memorized every branch in the blood network, this task was easier said than done. Blood could move up to three feet per second. It was fast, and his perception was limited. He had to make continuous split-second decisions. The first ones were easy, as he just had to choose between the major arteries, but as the thread got closer and closer to his hand, the bloodstream broke into a vast number of increasingly tiny tunnels. The difficulty shot up.

Jack kept his eyes closed, fully engrossed in his task. In the Cathedral, he had nothing else to do, nor was there anything to distract him. Even sound itself was absent. Time lost its meaning and endlessly stretched on. Jack kept trying, the thread of life passing through innumerable circles in his body. Every time he failed, he memorized the mistake so he wouldnt make it again.

Slowly, the structure of his blood vessels was clarified in his mind, every branch becoming intimate. With each cycle, the thread was getting closer and closer to his palm. Then, it got closer and closer to the center of his palm, where he was guiding it.

But it didnt arrive immediately. This place had the tiniest vessels and highest degree of difficulty. Sometimes, the thread would rush up and down his fingers before moving back towards the heart. Other times, it would stop at the wrist. Frustratingly, it could even circle the wound without actually touching it. Finding the precise path was like threading a needle blindfolded.

Jack didnt mind. He would get it eventually. A few more tries was nothing.

Time flowed.

Of course, in a real scenario, finding the wound would be much easier. The wounds that healers were called for were much larger and on more vital places than a tiny slit in the palm. The more blood that escaped a wound, the more central the blood vessels underneath, so the easier it was to reach them.

However, Jack didnt aim for mediocrity. If he did something, he wanted to do it well. This was just practice to increase his mastery.

The thread of life finally reached the wound that Jack had purposely kept open, and then he saw it close at a rate visible to the naked eye. He smiled. Success!

He then aimed at his right heel. Another thread of life entered his bloodstream, and he gently guided it over, once again making a ton of mistakes and learning from them.

His first goal was being able to reliably guide a thread through his bloodstream to anywhere in his body with a ninety percent success rateon the first try. After that, he would increase the volume of life energy and try to achieve the same result. He would even experiment with guiding multiple threads at once. According to the book, guiding energy through the bloodstream should become second nature to him, to the point where he could do it completely on instinct.

The reason for that was because different people had different internal structures. If Jack could do it on himself, it didnt mean he could do it on Dorman or the Sage. Moreover, a healer had to deal with more than just humans. The universe was filled with all sorts of species, each of which had a very distinct internal structure. A real healer should be able to work on even a species they hadnt seen before, and that could only be achieved through a mind-boggling amount of experience.

Moreover, there were species that did not possess blood vessels but entirely different systems of internal energy transfer. The same principles applied then, but it was another step of difficulty higher. An expert healer could even handle those cases without prior experience.

Jack didnt hope to achieve that degree anytime soonor ever. Hopefully, the Life Drops ridiculous amounts of energy would make up for his insufficiency in finesse.

As for skipping the bloodstream control altogether That was impossible. While he could push the life energy directly through his own body if he wanted to, he couldnt do the same for others. Their Dao and body would resist greatly. Unless he intended to brute-force the issue, the only way was to insert his life energy through an opening in their body and then gently guide it to the injury, influencing the patient as little as possible. Otherwise, you could even do more harm than good.

The path of a healer was long, hard, and could definitely not be walked in a few months or years. It was impossible for Jack to achieve that level of success in time for his battle against Don Cranxiao.

Thankfully, there were other ways. Many novice healers followed the hail-mary approach, where they just poured life energy into the patients body, let it run free, and hoped for the best. It was far less efficient than the real approach, but it could work, especially if he used the Life Drop to completely disregard efficiency.

He grinned.

Healing is a hard, delicate practicebut I can just punch my way through with overwhelming power!

That will be my path of healing!