Chapter 36

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Translator: MadScientist

Chapter: 36

Chapter Title: Medicine Immortal

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Medicine Immortal

How many gallery members are registered in the Gallery in total?

The answer is unknown.

The Gallery's history stretches back so far, and the gallery members affiliated with it have lived for such incredibly long eras, that the active ones and the inactive ones are split apart.

The former are the familiar faces, while the one who had just shown up belonged to the latter.

The gallery members welcomed him warmly.

They even seemed accustomed to his repeated disappearances.

This really was a community of ancient relics.

The newly appeared gallery member exuded an air of leisure, overflowing with it.

Innate abundance—that might be the right way to put it.

He looked just like an immortal sage.

'Come to think of it, his nickname was actually in that vein.'

Gallery member Not a Pill Peddler.

The name sounded like some street peddler, but back in ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠his original world, he was called the Medicine Immortal.

He even possessed his own space called the Peach Blossom Paradise.

Yet this impressive Not a Pill Peddler suddenly appeared and showed deep interest in me.

In a very positive way, at that.

It's nice, but...

Why?

I couldn't guess why he took a liking to me from the start.

But the other gallery members all seemed used to it.

What?

What the hell!

Tell me too!

As my curiosity wracked me, a DM arrived from my trusty ally, Colorless Bird.

Of course I knew that.

Each one had lived at least thousands of years.

They were all martial obsessives, but aside from that, each had some pastime that had sustained them through those endless ages.

The varieties were incredibly diverse—tree planting, rock collecting, human-head harvesting, and so on.

Medicine Immortal's pastime was none other than a cooking class.

Now featuring elixir crafting.

'Come to think of it, her conceptual posts were heavy on elixir recipes.'

I hadn't thought much of it then.

But now it was clear her tastes were rock-solid.

"Sounds good?"

Whatever the case, it was great news for me.

Being able to mass-produce artificial elixirs?

Copyable elixirs?

The gallery members' mockery poured in.

But I didn't yield.

You gotta be polite to your sponsor.

Can't walk around with my head held high.

Fortunately, Not a Pill Peddler was extremely friendly toward me.

No, beyond that—

Not a Pill Peddler showed tremendous interest in me.

Maybe some misunderstanding, but...

Actually, I love it!

Keep misunderstanding like this.

With both sides' needs clear, things wrapped up quickly.

I promptly opened the sparring arena.

"Oh ho, so this is the sparring arena, eh?"

Once the sparring arena opened, Medicine Immortal appeared from beyond the misty mountain foothills.

For reference, the arena taking this form was 100% Medicine Immortal's preference.

True to her title, she'd requested a foothill-shaped arena.

Anyway, the Medicine Immortal who appeared was...

"...A tiger?"

"That's right."

At a glance, she clearly wasn't purely human.

Glistening long hair cascading down to her hips.

Tiger ears perked up atop it, and a long, swishing tiger tail.

And a bear pipe clutched in one hand.

If you personified the era of smoking tigers, it'd look exactly like this.

"Pleased to meet you. You're the newbie, right? This one was once the Mountain Lord, but after attaining enlightenment and undergoing bone-shedding rebirth, I obtained these immortal bones as the Tiger Immortal. With my new form, I discarded my old name, and now I'm known as the Medicine Immortal among the gallery members."

Keh heh heh—

Not a Pill Peddler—no, Medicine Immortal—burst into hearty, hero-like laughter.

"Uh. Newbie here. Gallery tag is Unyielding Magic Sword."

"I see. Then, if you'll allow, let me take your pulse for a moment."

After my introduction, Medicine Immortal nodded and abruptly extended her hand.

At that gesture, my Heavenly Mechanism Calculation Method activated instinctively, but...

Smoothly—

Her hand pressed down like a tiger's paw, heavy and unyielding, halting the Heavenly Mechanism Calculation Method in an instant as it was gripped firmly in her grasp.

'What the...'

It was a moment that freshly reminded me she was a transcendentally powerful Martial God, despite her affable demeanor.

The Heavenly Mechanism Calculation Method that could catch and return even Allah's magic wand firing grenades...

Was simply pinned down gently before her tiger paw.

Of course, Medicine Immortal didn't even care if it had activated or not as she grasped my wrist and examined it this way and that.

"Hmm. Fascinating."

Meanwhile, as I sank into various thoughts, Medicine Immortal, lost in her own musings, tilted her head.

"What's wrong?"

"Truth be told, I had a lot of interest in you. More precisely, in your body."

Whoa.

"Gasp! Why?!"

"Don't let your imagination run wild. My curiosity is purely as a martial scholar and as a medicine sage."

Correcting the grave misunderstanding, Medicine Immortal prodded various parts of my body with her pipe.

"From the previous posts, you entered the Gallery without any foundational knowledge of martial arts whatsoever, right? And with the Martial Gods' help, you've been cultivating the optimal techniques from a complete blank slate. As a result, your internals were recreated based on the Yin-Yang Five Elements Scripture, treating the body as a microcosm, and your externals refined with the Heavenly Mechanism Calculation Method for reading celestial energies and responding. This is a path no Martial God has ever walked."

I knew that much.

My body was the result of the Martial Gods pooling their heads to craft the most ideal method.

But since no one had tried it, it existed only as a hypothesis—

"Is there... some problem?"

I hadn't worried at first, but hearing a doctor's take made my heart thud with sudden fear.

You know how even the most well-maintained athlete feels frail before a physician?

That's exactly how I felt now.

"A problem... Well, if you call it one, it is, and if you don't, then it's not."

Damn, what is this, the army?

As I shot her a look begging for more details—21st-century K-military style—Medicine Immortal chuckled and added,

"To be precise, there's no middle ground. You tried making Wall Valley Pills at first but ended up with Purple Mist Divine Pellets, right? That's connected to this too."

"What do you mean by no middle ground?"

"Warriors walking the path of martial arts often liken it to stacking a tower. Walking a path and stacking a tower are similar, after all. Just as you prepare to tread the straight and true way by firming the foundation, you lay the cornerstone with your first step. Layer by layer, steadily, you build a tall, unshakable tower."

"Well... yeah."

Starting from page 1 of a workbook is standard.

Like solving math textbooks from chapter 1, martial arts should be the same.

"But you're different. While all other Martial Gods gradually built their paths step by step to complete their unique martial ways, someone transplanted a fully completed tower onto you. No shaking, but no middle either. Do you know what that means?"

...No clue?

How would I?

As I made a dumb face, Medicine Immortal lightly tapped my crown with her pipe and said,

"It means perfect in performance, but incomplete in function."