“Why is there still no sign of improvement?” Pei thought to herself as she continued to monitor Jin’s vitals and inside the Luxury Recovery Instance for a proper investigation.
“Call in Milk, please. Perhaps she has some idea of what is happening.” Pei requested the System after she brought him into the intensive care unit of the instance and started to shout for the nurses to give Jin some hydration. The senior Panda nurses who were more advanced in their AI and were partially controlled by the System immediately brought in the intravenous fluid bags which Pei injected via Jin’s arm.
She subsequently imbued the fluid bags with some of her chi, hoping that some of her chi transferred into him might lead to some improvement. Milk came in at a short notice, dressed skimpily looking like she was about to go for a long sleep after that counter offence operation against the Banned Emperor Assassins.
“What’s the matter? Why do you look so panicked? It’s rare for you to call me in the first pla-.” Milk asked until she saw that the person Pei was treating was none other than Jin. She quickly changed from lazy mode to serious priest mode. She conjured a long jacket to cover herself and used a spell to check Jin’s vitals.
“He has fainted hard a few times before, but this is the first time his Maqi output is close to zero. If Kraft had informed me any later, Jin might have died from chi exhaustion.” Pei informed her. She was in fact quite angry that Kraft did not notice the seriousness of his condition any sooner. Yet, at the same time, she could not bring herself to fully blame Kraft for not recognising his condition.
Extreme Chi Exhaustion was fairly common to cultivators who wished to push themselves to the limit. Unfortunately what Jin was experiencing right now was a more severe form of Extreme Chi Exhaustion.
It was Chi Death Syndrome.
The chi circuits of a person were similar to muscles in a sense. Both could be willingly strained, and they would both heal over time and get stronger as a result. However, no matter if it was muscles or chi circuits once either was completely torn apart, there was no way for the body to repair it by itself. (Well unless with magic or chi.)
That was why Pei had called Milk over because in Jin’s case, not only did his chi circuits rupture but his mana circuits too. It was odd that his body was still fully intact and his blood circulation system was still working, and the physician believed that it was the System’s workings.
If the System had not been controlling the flow of Maqi, both of his circuits could have been overwhelmed, and Jin would have gone into shock immediately rather than the current delayed reaction. “His Dantian Core is still alive and working, but his twelve primary meridians are showing severe weakening.”
“I saw. His mana circuits are in a similar state. The Cloud Gate in his lungs and Moon Gate in his stomach are severely broken. Even if I can repair them with my magic, this transfusion will take days. How the hell did he manage to practically cripple himself with just one Banishment Circle?” Milk remarked while tapping her fingers on Jin’s body to check on mana circuit’s reaction.
“A what?! Banishment Circle?!” Pei, who had not followed the chain of events, was surprised when she heard that.
“Yeah, Jin got into System Rider Dark Templar Form to banish the big bad boss back to the nether realm.” Milk recounted what had happened as she started to ask the Panda Nurses to bring blood transfusion kits over.
IV hydration might be the standard in transferring chi quickly into the circuits but to cure the mana circuits, blood was a far better medium. It also had the practical benefit that they could infuse chi and mana at the same time into Jin.
“Any normal cultivator, would be dead by now.” Pei did not waste time by putting a tourniquet on her arm and wiped it with an alcohol swab to clean the area. She was preparing for the blood transfusion since her chi was already in the process of repairing the circuits via the IV hydration fluids. Besides repairing one circuit at a time was simpler than doing two at once, so it would be easier to use her imbued chi blood rather than Milk’s for now.
“Thank the System for his cultivation. When he is asleep, he will always be generating chi…. I honestly envy him sometimes for such a convenient way to cultivate. If he did not have this cultivation, he would definitely be dead by now.” Milk shook her head as she started the checklist for the blood transfusion.
And even after inserting the needle through Jin and Pei, Milk was still frantic. She was contacting Ayse for Peppers’ mana crystals which she had collected over time from all the experiments and fights when she had her jacket on. Because it was clear that there was no way she could hold out that long giving mana to Jin.
With the Mana Crystals, Milk could at least repair the major circuit intersections by putting them close to proximity. However, she also had to take note not to interfere with Jin’s Chi circuit.
When contacted, it honestly did not dawn to Ayse that they could be used for such a medical situation and she began rummaging for all the mana crystals she had secretly kept in case of an emergency.
“Pfft. You should be thankful that my blood is suitable to yours.” Pei grumbled as she lightly flicked Jin’s head for being this reckless. After which, she called on the Panda Nurses to request from the System to obtain more blood packs as Pei initiated the first round.
At the same time, the System’s only licensed doctor was also wondering why the Legendary Inscription Charm had not been activated with their chi and mana combined. “Is it because it’s too attuned to Jin’s Maqi so it won’t activate from our chi and mana combined?” Pei questioned herself.
Yet, the whole situation turned even more tense when Kraft came into the room surprised by the entire scene, and it is solely because Pei was staring at him with much anticipated angst.
“How could you allow this to happen to him? You should be the one protecting him and not making him suffer until this kind of state! How are the others going to react when they learn that he is suffering from Chi Death Syndrome?!”
“Then, don’t tell them. Restrict the place and limit access only to the bellators or something. Maybe just leave it at us three and the panda nurses.” Kraft shrugged his shoulders. “I was busy protecting him from the riff raff and allowing ‘Hero Jin to save the day’, while the System was with him the entire time controlling the flow of Maqi.”
“System was overwhelmed with multiple things happening at the same time.” The System retorted, not wanting to apologise but instead choosing to explain its rationale. “During the drawing of the Banishment Circle the chances of the User suffering from Chi Death Syndrome were less than 1%, and the risk of perishing from it was at 0.03% especially when taking into account his highly regenerative Dantian Core.”
“Well, if he is still generating some chi it means he is cultivating even while unconscious. That’s a beast move itself. Maybe he can experience a breakthrough in cultivation and automatically bring himself to the next grade? That would very likely fix all our concerns in one go.” Kraft replied though the rest felt that was being overly optimistic.
