Alex asked her a few more questions, shrinking down the possibilities until he was left with a more concrete understanding of the issue the woman faced.
"I will have to see if I can figure out where the problem lies. I can only tell then if I can help you or not," Alex said.
The young woman nodded.
Alex took her wrist and checked her.
Even before checking, he already had so ideas of what the problem could be. The most major issue he figured it could be was that she had small or weak ridians.
So, when she did cultivate, the Qi would push on it, expanding it a bit beyond its capacity, making her feel the pain.
Alex could not see where else the issue could lie, so he checked her ridians first as he went through her body. As expected, the woman had weak ridians.
Alex could tell just with his spiritual sense that the ridians were bad, and yet, for so reason he did not believe that to be the cause. Upon checking further, he realized that the ridians were indeed damaged and were likely the cause for the pain, but there had been sothing that had damaged the ridians and that was not sothing that Alex found.
He checked all around but he could find no source for anything that could have damaged the ridians. If Qi were damaging, then the woman would've felt pain each ti she used her techniques. But the pain only ca during cultivation, so the issue lay sowhere else.
He thought for a long while, contemplating what the problem was but ca up with no answer. It seed he would have to witness the problem in action.
"Can you sit down and cultivate for ? I need to check it directly," he said. The woman thought for a bit and nodded. They walked into the formation, where the woman sat down on the prepared mat and began cultivating.
Alex took her wrist the entire ti, checking her body with his spiritual sense. At first, there was nothing happening at all. But then, the woman began cultivating and he noticed the issue.
The Qi that flowed through her body when she cultivated was poisonous. It was a damaging Qi that slowly destroyed her ridians. Even if she ate healing pills, her body would still get wrecked the very next ti.
Alex followed the Qi and reached her Dantian. The Qi within the dantian wasn't poisonous at all. He could sense it. But in between when it was in the dantian and when it ca out of it, it transford into a poisonous Qi.
Which ant, the issue lay within the Spiritual root. Considering the fact that the issue only arose when she cultivated, the problem was with the 'Cultivate' opening of the spiritual root.
Alex made sure whether it was both spiritual roots or not and confird that the issue was only the one on the right. "You can stop now," he said.
The woman stopped and breathed a long sigh of relief. Her face had perspired a bit while she struggled with the pain of cultivating. "Did you figure out the problem? Am I sick?" she asked.
"I know what the problem is," Alex said. "One of your spiritual roots is causing your Qi to turn toxic, which is, in turn, destroying your ridian from the inside, slowly. No matter how many pills you eat, it will continue to be damaged."
"The higher your cultivation base, the stronger the poison is likely to be, so you cannot escape either," Alex said.
The woman gasped in shock. "My… my spiritual root is creating poison?" she asked.
Alex nodded.
"Why?" the woman demanded.
Alex didn't have an answer. It didn't know why it was what it was. It could be a complete coincidence, just a genetic mutation that no one could foresee.
'Still, it sucks that the spiritual root to do so is a regular one. She can't even escape it,' he thought. If it was any other spiritual root, she could maybe find cultivation techniques that didn't make use of that root.
But a regular one was used nonetheless when one cultivated, even if on accident since it neither added nor hindered the cultivation.
'Is it a coincidence?' Alex wondered.
He asked the woman about her ancestors and if anyone had similar issues. She revealed that she did not know much about her ancestors. "My grandparents were orphans of the war. I do not know anything beyond them and neither they nor my parents faced this issue before, so I don't know," she said.
Alex thought for a bit. Maybe the playground could be of so help again. He quickly gathered a bit of blood from the woman and gave it to the playground to find out if there was sothing important about her bloodline. The playground returned with an answer very soon.
"She has a Redscaled Poison Lizard's bloodline. It's very diluted, but it is there," the playground replied.
"Redscaled Poison lizard," Alex thought for a mont. It was a poisonous lizard whose Qi itself was poison in most cases. As far as Alex knew. Its Spiritual roots changed all Qi to be poisonous.
'That is the case here too,' he thought. 'But unlike a lizard's body, her body isn't immune to the poison.' He had now found the issue, and the issue behind the issue. Now, he needed to find a solution.
Alex thought for a long mont, coming up with all the solutions. He could give her pills to eat during cultivation, but that was a temporary solution. Learning how to cultivate with just other Spiritual roots was a good solution too, but it wouldn't last very long.
The mont the woman reached the Immortal realm and used a new cultivation technique, there was a possibility that she would kill herself from the poison by accident.
He was not the sort of doctor to let his patient leave while knowing that. No, he could not do with any temporary solutions. He needed sothing more permanent.
And nothing was more permanent than just cutting away the woman's spiritual root. That was a violent solution, albeit a solution, but that ant the woman couldn't so easily cultivate anymore.
However, while healing spiritual roots and Dantian was difficult, it was not an impossibility, so there was a chance that she could just heal it back at so point in the future.
He needed a better and more permanent solution. There was only one that ca to his mind. 'I should… replace her spiritual root,' Alex thought.
That was the best solution he had, but sohow it also felt like the worst solution. Cutting away soone's spiritual root was simply so… demonic. Was that a good solution?
He explained the scenario to the woman, telling her everything except for the last thing. He waited for her reaction.
"Are my choices really just to either live with my spiritual root removed or forever live in the fear of accidentally poisoning myself?" the woman asked, seemingly not happy with either choice.
"There is another thod, but it is not considered an orthodox thod. Would you like you hear about it?" Alex asked.
The woman nodded and Alex explained it to the best of his capability without making it sound like he was a demonic cultivator.
"I accept," the woman said before he could even finish. She was ready for it.
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