The Divine Doctor of Hundred Herbs
I helped Myeong Hyeon out through the doors.
"…I honestly thought you'd killed every last one of them. Seems that wasn't the case after all."
Hardly surprising words to utter. Twenty warriors of the Bright Moon Sword Clan had their blades trained on us.
"…You mad bastard… do you have any idea where you are, pulling a stunt like this!"
I had killed many on the way in — the corpses sprawled across the floor were proof enough. But not all of them, and there were more left standing than I'd expected. Every one of them stood in the Four Realms of Qi Condensation, with the strongest among them at Three Flowers Gathering. However I looked at it, those twenty were clearly their finest.
I lowered Myeong Hyeon to the floor and tossed the groaning fool the last of my bone-numbing sedative pills. Then, letting the Cloud Dragon Sword hang loose at my side, I slowly drew up my refined qi.
"Do I know where this is? Why wouldn't I. It's a secret branch of the Emperor Sword Sect, isn't it?"
The warriors flinched.
"I came for my man. Stand in my way, and you die. I will now count to exactly five. Decide before I finish."
I counted in my head.
One.
Two.
Apparently that was enough. All twenty warriors lunged at once. My eyes flashed. I kicked off the ground and brought my sword down, and the sheet of qi that had erupted a full foot wide tore apart into five strands.
Splitting Light Sword.
Shhk—!
The warrior right in front of me was shredded into five pieces. Two blades came chopping down at my head; I batted both aside with the Cloud Dragon Sword and spun, my sword qi coiling into the shape of a dragon.
Supreme Clarity Dragon Form Sword.
Shk-rk—!
Two bodies split in half. I kicked off the ground and drove a knee upward, and a warrior's face burst apart. I reached out and caught a sword thrusting in from my side. The sword qi wreathing it was potent enough that my palm stung — it had certainly been cut, but I showed nothing. I tightened my grip. The warrior, trying to wrench his blade free, panicked, and I drove the Cloud Dragon Sword up into his throat. In that same instant my instincts screamed a warning: dodge.
I shifted forward on the Heavenly Steed Divine Steps, but a beat too late. My left shoulder, just above the shoulder blade, split open. It stung. I wrenched the Cloud Dragon Sword out of the warrior's throat and swung it behind me.
Clang—!
A terrified Three Flowers Gathering warrior deflected the blade. Power flooded into my legs, and I thrust them out in a lunge.
Crunch—!
The man's right thigh buckled at an unnatural angle. His balance collapsed, and I brought the sword down. His head split in two. Behind him, two more warriors were already charging — I kicked off the ground into the Flying Dragon Whirling Assault of extreme momentum, crossed the distance into their blind spots in an instant, and swung with blistering speed.
There was one sound, but two heads fell. I snatched one out of the air and hurled it sideways; a warrior sprinting toward me batted it aside — and in that very instant I thrust out the Cloud Dragon Sword. It sank into his solar plexus and he let out a groan of agony. I ignored it, swept the blade wide, and his heart split apart in full. I stepped forward and raised my sword overhead.
BOOM—!!
That one too was a Three Flowers Gathering warrior. The ground his braced legs stood on caved in, and the impact was enough to make my arms tremble faintly. I knocked the strike aside anyway. The man steadied himself.
I spun my three qi rings and detonated the refined qi surging out of them all at once. Compressed qi and blood accelerated my body past its limits.
"…You're… not bad…"
Shhk—!
His head fell.
With that, every Three Flowers Gathering warrior was dead. Only those at Five Dragons Soaring or Two Immortals Radiant remained. I turned. Seven warriors were stumbling backward, and when I searched for the rest, I found them writhing in agony around Myeong Hyeon.
I let the sword hang low.
Clearly.
"I gave you your chance."
I kicked off. Shhk — one head dropped. I reached for the skull of a warrior backpedaling away, caught it clean, and squeezed. Crunch. I drove the sword into the heart of the man beside him, and the moment I tore it free, hurled it at the bastard fleeing with his back turned — it buried itself neatly in the back of his head. The last one swung his blade in naked fear; I deflected it aside and drove my fist into his jaw. His face caved, he staggered off balance, and as his face tipped toward me—
Crack—!
I crushed it with my heel.
I turned my head. One warrior sat collapsed on the ground. I sprinted over and drove his skull into the dirt. The last one crawled away on all fours, too terrified to stand. I picked a sword off the ground and threw it. It sank into the back of his neck.
Hoo.
I caught my breath. Not one of them survived.
I fished three Asura Pills and two fifty-year Heaven Flower Pills from my robe and dumped them into my mouth.
I couldn't absorb all of their energy, but it was better than nothing.
Counting the elixirs I'd eaten on the way here, I had now consumed well over three hundred years' worth.
I didn't regret a single one. Plenty more elixirs would find their way into my hands soon enough.
I retrieved the Cloud Dragon Sword and helped the fallen Myeong Hyeon upright. The fool blinked his eyes open.
"…I really do have to ask. How in the world are you perfectly fine?"
A fair question.
The distance between Baekmun Town and Jangan Commandery was considerable. I had run the whole way here, which meant I'd burned through my internal qi recklessly — by all rights I should be collapsed from exhaustion right now.
The Heavenly Spirit Spiritual Root Pill I'd swallowed back in Jangryeong Commandery.
That was the reason.
My recovery speed was beyond all comparison. The rate at which my refined qi replenished itself had grown incomparably faster than before, and extracting energy from elixirs had become effortless as well.
That was all it was.
And I had no intention of delivering this long explanation now. It wasn't as if I had time to spare.
Myeong Hyeon let out a long sigh.
"Still full of secrets, aren't you."
"Regretting it?"
"Regret? Not a chance. I don't do regret."
We walked on in silence for a while before he asked, "So where are we going now?"
I glanced over his body.
Too many wounds, too much blood lost. That gash on his face in particular had been hastily staunched, but it was far worse than it looked — and it wasn't as if he'd merely been cut. Someone had clearly stomped and hammered that wound with fists and feet, over and over. His teeth were visible now. Not through his mouth — through the cheek that had been carved open.
I thought for a moment.
"Don't tell me you're thinking something like… you only took me in on a whim? Because that would genuinely hurt my feelings."
I let out a sigh.
I had meant to head straight for Jangan Commandery, but that was a gamble now. And I couldn't take him to the Asura Sword Sect's headquarters either — if we showed up at Uigyeonggak like this, the entire mountain would be in an uproar.
First things first.
I needed to treat Myeong Hyeon's wounds, and at the same time purge the demonic qi festering inside his body.
Which meant I needed to find someone capable of both.
I dredged up the memories in my head. Someone with urgent business at this very moment. Someone who had spent years wandering in search of a single answer. Someone whose medical skill was so extraordinary that their name had spread across the entire murim. And yet someone so fiercely independent that they allied with no one, holding to strict neutrality above all else.
Two names came to mind.
The Sacred Tree Medicine House of the Upper Murim.
And the White Spirit Medical House of this murim.
The Upper Murim was far too distant. Its Divine Doctor of the Sacred Tree could no doubt heal Myeong Hyeon within a day — but Myeong Hyeon might die on the road before we ever arrived.
Which left the nearer of the two, the White Spirit Medical House.
And its Divine Doctor of Hundred Herbs had, as far as I knew, one problem on his hands — one that would plague him for the next fifteen years.
"There's someone I need to see."
"…Right now?"
"Yes. Right now."
"Where are we going, exactly?"
"To meet the Divine Doctor of Hundred Herbs."
Myeong Hyeon's eyes went wide.
"…You mean… that old freak?"
The Divine Doctor of Hundred Herbs bore another title as well: the Mad Doctor.
An eccentric, certainly — but his skill was beyond any doubt.
"Worried?"
"…I mean, come on. His reputation is terrifying. They say a man came in with a bad arm and he amputated the man's leg instead."
I didn't bother denying it.
Judged as a fellow culprit, he was unquestionably an extraordinary man. He possessed deep — likely unrivaled in the murim — knowledge of how damage to one part of the body cascaded into others, beyond the simple interplay of meridian and meridian. He really had cut off the leg of a man whose arm hurt, and cut off the arm or gouged out the eyes of a man whose leg hurt. Insane deeds, all of them.
But it would be fine.
"…Can't I just die as I am?"
"I have plenty of work for you."
"…"
"Don't worry."
"…Yes. Understood. But… are you using clone arts, by any chance?"
I turned my head. Myeong Hyeon's eyes were going strange.
"Uh… why do I see three of you… now there's four…"
Thud.
Myeong Hyeon crumpled to the ground.
I swept my hair back.
Tsk.
I hoisted him onto my back and set off.
The Mad Doctor resided in a town called Yongpyeong — roughly four days' travel from Baekmun Town.
The body on my back was in bad shape. Beyond shivering now, he was foaming at the mouth.
I couldn't feed him elixirs in this state. They would tear his blood pathways apart from the inside. That was how thoroughly wrecked he was.
Feeding him my own qi, slowly and steadily, I kicked off the ground.
I would need to hurry.
Yongpyeong Town, nestled in the southeastern corner of Jeok Country, was one of the most famous places in the murim.
Not for any specialty goods, not for a resident grandmaster, and not for housing one of the Eight Great Sects.
Yongpyeong Town was famous for one reason and one reason alone: it was home to Yang Il, the Divine Doctor of Hundred Herbs.
As head of the White Spirit Medical House, Yang Il carried a rumor that he could bring back even those whose breath had already ceased — the finest physician in all of Jeok Country. In truth, he could not raise the dead. He had merely saved people who had died only moments before.
Regardless, a man of that caliber drew pilgrims from every corner of the murim, and so Yongpyeong Town bustled day after day.
But exactly ten days ago, the White Spirit Medical House had locked its gates tight.
Word was that the Divine Doctor himself had fallen ill and taken to his bed — as if that man, of all men, could catch some ailment.
It was nonsense too absurd to laugh at, yet the fact remained: no visitors were being received. Even the sect leader of the Full Moon Dao Sect, an old friend of many decades, had personally requested a meeting and been refused.
The Southern Ten Thousand Moons Sect, the Full Moon Dao Sect, even the Yin-Yang Sect.
Prestigious clans and the murim's most renowned masters had all come calling, and never once had the gates opened.
Which brought everything back to a fundamental question.
Yang Il, the Divine Doctor of Hundred Herbs. What manner of man was he?
People described him a hundred different ways — that like the Cruel Demon Yi Do, his hands were merciless; that he was resolute; that he was a cold-blooded man without a single tear to shed; that he valued debts and grudges above all; and on and on. With so many answers, no single word could pin him down.
Yet everyone who knew Yang Il named one trait without exception.
Stubbornness.
Yang Il's stubbornness was genuinely beyond comparison. Once he said no, it was no. Once he refused, he would never do it — not with a blade at his throat. That was why, despite his title of Divine Doctor of Hundred Herbs, he was equally known as the Mad Doctor.
Truly desperate souls had climbed the compound walls to beg for treatment in person, or to beg him to come to them. Not one had ever succeeded.
Worse, the White Spirit Medical House had issued standing bans against every wall-climber and kept a written list — and across decades, names had only ever been added to that list, never once removed. That was the kind of man he was.
And so, no one climbed the walls of the White Spirit Medical House.
Until today.
Today, a man with a blood-soaked body slung across his back climbed the wall. Everyone in the compound saw it, and sighed.
Another name carved onto that list today, then.
Some witless madman running his mouth again.
Tsk, tsk.
Still, an intruder was an intruder. The warriors of the White Spirit Medical House drew their weapons as one and leveled them at him.
The man lowered to the ground the person-shaped lump of flesh he'd been carrying.
The phrasing was fitting. That thing was human in shape alone — a lump of meat through and through, smeared head to toe in blood, alive by nothing short of a miracle.
Suddenly, the reason for the intrusion was obvious.
The man spoke.
"I've come to see Yang Il."
"…Forgive me, but are you unfamiliar with the rules of the White Spirit Medical House?"
"I know them."
"The Divine Doctor is in seclusion. It has been over ten days now. However urgent your need, climbing the wall means… well. You know how this goes."
The warriors' realms ran the full gamut — Two Immortals Radiant, Five Dragons Soaring, Three Flowers Gathering. The man currently doing the talking was the head of the White Martial Pavilion, the arm of the White Spirit Medical House. His realm: Five Qi Unification.
"So don't tell me your name. Just… turn back. Do that, and your name never touches the list."
The man met the White Martial Pavilion head's eyes and spoke.
"My name is Yi Do."
The corner of the Pavilion head's mouth twitched at the name.
Who in the murim didn't know it? That man was the talk of the murim right now.
Yi Do, the Cruel Demon Sovereign. A branch leader of the Asura Sword Sect — the seventeen-year-old who had razed Jangan Commandery of the Yeon State to the ground and claimed it for his own.
"…I told you not to say it… Now that you have, I can't exactly turn a blind eye, can I."
"Seomun Hyeok, head of the White Martial Pavilion. Bring me Yang Il."
"I can't, even if I wanted to. Still — you came all this way, and you had the nerve to say your name outright. Reckless, but I respect it. I'll summon a few physicians from the medical hall and at least see to your wounds. It would surely beat refusing you outright."
Yi Do shook his head.
"You're making me repeat myself. Go and deliver this exactly: I know the secret of the White Spirit Medical House. If you want the answer, come out. Now."
"…Being the man who's thrown the whole murim into an uproar, you certainly are something else."
Yang Il — rather, Seomun Hyeok — called over a nearby warrior and whispered in his ear: carry that man's words to the family head, word for word. The warrior bolted. Seomun Hyeok turned back around.
Yi Do was infusing his internal qi into the lump of meat lying on the ground.
…A pity.
It truly was a pity. No one doubted the Divine Doctor's skill — at the level of a true Divine Doctor, he could save that man. But anything short of that, and the man was beyond saving. Of that, there was no question.
And the Divine Doctor was a man of iron stubbornness.
Whatever Yi Do might know, that man would never bend.
Before long, an old man in white robes came shuffling out, and the moment he appeared, every warrior dropped to one knee.
"We greet the Divine Doctor."
The old man waved a dismissive hand.
This was the Divine Doctor of Hundred Herbs, Yang Il — the finest physician in all of Jeok Country. He fixed Yi Do with a sour glare.
"So it was you, was it. The whelp who dared climb the walls of the White Spirit Medical House and summon this body."
Yi Do smiled.
"Smiling, are you? They said you'd thrown the murim into an uproar — clearly no ordinary man. But it means nothing. Leave. And never set so much as a toe near the White Spirit Medical House again."
Yi Do answered him anyway.
"And yet you came out."
"…"
"You came because you're curious what I know. Or am I wrong?"
"…Heh… Right. I won't deny it. I came out because I'm curious what in the world a brat like you could know. You claim to know the secret of the White Spirit Medical—"
Yang Il could not finish the sentence.
Yi Do's secret voice transmission was sounding in his mind.
Seomun Hyeok and the other warriors tilted their heads.
Why is he…?
Yang Il's brow knitted tighter by the moment, his eyes blowing wide, his mouth opening and closing again and again.
And then the words that finally left his mouth stunned them all.
"…Follow me."
The Mad Doctor had bent his stubbornness.