Waterstrider

Canvas Town, Tseludia Station, Pantheonic Territory, Fourthmonth, 1634 PTS

When pain lasts long enough, one becomes numb to it.

I had been fighting a fraught battle against the crack in my cerebral dantian for over a week now, and while the tide had not once let up, I had mastered the art of controlling it. The waves of sanguine miasma washed through my channels, and I redirected them back up another set of meridians, keeping the rest of my body clear of their influence. This left me able to maintain full control of my body, able to walk and talk normally, though occasionally surges of miasma would cause me to need to pause and rebalance the flow. Most importantly, it kept my other two dantians clean of the sanguine miasma. If they were tainted, my martial path might be forever altered.

The balance that I had created was sustainable, though only during normal movement. It would become impossible to maintain were I to use martial arts, and at best I expected I would only be able to use either two strokes or two movements before I would have to stop and rebalance myself. This was enough to deal with any mundane threat, but I would have to avoid matters of the underworld as best I could until I had healed.

Finding my new subordinates competent enough, I had set them to arranging matters of the sect while I focused on hiding my condition as I sought a doctor or a surgeon who might have experience in the matter of repairing fractures in a martial artist’s dantian.

A cracked dantian could never truly be fully repaired perfectly, as the material used to fill the cracks would not be the exact same in composition as the rest of the dantian. However, it could be effective enough to allow for one to use martial arts again, and if it was done well enough, they could even continue progressing. This was more than enough for my needs. It was even said that if one could make it to the peak of spirit refinement despite a patched dantian, it would have no impact on the outcome of their ascension attempt.

This was a very specialized skill, however. The torrents of miasma that flowed through a dantian at every moment were quite dangerous for a mortal to handle, after all. For that reason, special doctors who had been trained in both martial arts and spiritual medicine were needed.

Spiritual doctors could be said to be the antithesis of poisoners, the use of miasmic arts to heal the body rather than to damage it. It was a skill that was greatly in demand by everyone, though the unorthodox path was in far greater need of it due to our tendency for poor health states caused by the effects of our arts.

Rachel and I had looked into all spiritual doctors on the station, and had sadly found that they were all under the employ of the Hadal Clan. While it was a disappointment, it was no surprise. We had considered asking Nahalken’s help, to see if Staiven medicine was capable of solving the issue, but ultimately I found myself still wary of the corporate leader. I couldn’t bring myself to trust the man with knowledge of my condition.

In the end, our solution lie in the fact that being under the Hadal Clan’s employ did not mean that one was a perfectly loyal member. In the underworld, nearly anyone could be bought for the right price. While it would wipe out most of our remaining funds, we had convinced one of the spiritual doctors to secretly tend to my wound.

“Is there anyone else inside of the compound?” I asked, wary of a trap.

“I see three souls total, only one of which is a martial artist. That should be Doctor Tamara. The others seem to be an assistant and a janitor.”

I nodded, glad to hear it.

“I suppose he wasn’t lying, then. Good.”

With that problem solved, I wandered past the street to the nearest stairwell, and slowly made my way to the clinic’s side entrance as I had been told to. I didn’t even need to tap the door open as the hatch slid up into its recesses, seemingly on its own. I was met by a rather pretty man wearing nurse’s scrubs. His features seemed like they would be more at home in a host bar or on a stage than in medical gear. Knowing Rachel, I expected to be forced to listen to a comment on the matter. The man’s expression was perfectly blank, however, and he stared at me in a very inexpressive manner.

“Are you the patient?” he asked in a monotone voice, fully void of emotion.

I nodded in response, and before I could say anything he had turned around and started walking into the dark hallway behind him.

“What an odd man,” whispered Rachel, “I do like his face, though.”

I sighed.

As I followed, the hatch sealed shut behind me with a resounding click. I was immersed with the sounds and scents of the clinic as the outside world faded away.

The clinic smelled like disinfectant, and it was perfectly silent other than the clicks out our footsteps and the slight, ever-present hum of the filtration system. All of the lights in the rooms were off. Everything was designed in traditional styles, and every so often I could see small prints, paintings, and unlit incense tables set up. This was clearly a place that catered to the wealthy.

Even though he was not a martial artist, the man I was following clearly seemed to know his way around the dark corridors, swiftly traversing the maze of rooms. It wasn’t long before I saw him enter a room at the end of a long corridor, the only lit room that I had seen in the entire building. I cautiously followed behind him.

Unlike the traditional design of the hallways and lobby, this room was very modern and technological, as if it was trying to replicate the look of a Staiven operating room. Though, it was clear that unlike the Staiven, this room’s designer had at least a basic sense of aesthetics. There were no seemingly random patchwork splotches of different colors interspersed throughout the walls, just a pale, slate gray design that would not seem out of place in a space ship.

Standing next to an operating table was an older sei man. Thick wrinkles covered his face, and his long blonde hair was tied back tightly. Like the man who had led me in, he wore a set of scrubs. He grinned as I entered. His arms raised up as if he wished to hug me, but made no effort to approach, and nor did I.

“My mysterious client!” he called out exuberantly. “What a pleasure to meet you!”

I nodded politely in response.

“You as well, Doctor Tamara.”

His face hardened suddenly, becoming serious.

“There are some rules we’ll work with before I perform the surgery. First, if we meet in public or private in the future, we treat one another as complete strangers, no history of meeting.”

He looked at me for a response, so I nodded my head again.

“I can agree to that.”

“Good. Second, there is to be no recommending my services to others. My private practice must be kept absolutely secret.”

“That’s fair. I expect you to do the same as well, though.”

I paused for a moment, but he didn’t say anything else, just bobbing his head in assent.

“Is that it?” I asked.

He nodded, and got to busying himself with some tools that had been set out on a counter. The unnamed quiet man with the pretty face, presumably an assistant, closed the door and started pulling out masks and surgical gloves.

For a moment I awkwardly stood there, but soon Tamara motioned me to the operating table.

“Lay down here and describe the exact nature of the injury.”

I did as told, setting myself down atop the padded metal table.

“There’s a crack on the left side of my cerebral dantian. I need it repaired, and assistance in a deep scrub of my meridians to get all of the sanguine out.”

“Hm,” he replied, brows wrinkling in thought. “That is about what I expected given what you said online. I certainly see why you came to me. Are you able to control yourself through intense pain?”

“Yes,” I replied.

“Good. You’ll need to be awake for this surgery, I need to be perfectly clear on this point. There will be issues if you are not. I’ll give you orders on how to channel the miasma in your body, so pay attention after we get started. By the way, what type of miasma do you practice?” he asked.

This was a big moment, the true reveal of whether he kept up with the news and if I could trust him not to sell me out.

“Formless,” I said.

I could see a flicker of surprise and recognition cross his face, but Tamara quickly regained control of his expression.

“I see. I’ve never worked with that variant before, but I know the theory.”

“That will be fine,” I replied.

The next several hours were nearly lost to me in a haze of agony as I shifted the miasma inside myself under the doctor’s orders while he carved into me with scalpels and poured liquid crystals into the tiny cracks in my dantian. The pain was far more intense than it was just to maintain the balance as I had, but the intense discipline training I had undergone as a child was enough for me to avoid passing out. If I were to do so, I might very well die, and the surgery would certainly be a failure.

Time passed in an infinite void, and I wouldn’t be able to say how long it was before I heard that distant voice saying that it was over, and I needed to cycle the remaining sanguine out of my apertures. I carefully did so, opening my eyes.

I found that the pain had greatly lessened, and my dantian was no longer spewing streams of sanguine into my body. I leaned upwards, turning to Doctor Tamara to give a thankful nod. The lines in his face were far deeper, etched into him with weariness.

“Thank you for your hard work, Doctor Tamara,” I said.

He nodded as he leaned back on the cabinet in exhaustion.

“Just make sure to pay back the full amount.”

“Of course.”

I stood on shaky legs to walk out, but as I did, the doctor’s quiet assistant intercepted my path, arm outstretched to hand me a small card. I raised an eyebrow at him.

“I was told to hand this to you before you left,” he said.

“By who?” I asked, but he did not respond.

I inspected the card. It was a business card, belonging to a name that I found quite familiar.

He was a man I had met at the black market, a relative of Ria and Taek Hadal, the aide of the matriarch herself.

The spirit refiner, Wei Hadal.

Spiritual Doctors: [One half of the vital discipline of spiritual medicine, spiritual doctors use genesis miasma to allow them to operate within the bodies of other martial artists without being wounded or disrupted by the energies. Spiritual doctors are rare and highly prized by martial organizations, and wars have been fought over inheritances and knowledge that can be used to help this trade. It was originally an orthodox discipline, but one that is prized even more highly by unorthodox practitioners. It is said that if an unorthodox practitioner wishes to live for a long time, they must prize their doctor as highly as they do their own lives.]