Even though I was confident in my abilities as a healer and ready to take on the challenge of healing an entire forest, I still had to figure out where to begin. The first time I'd attempted to heal one of the trees my qi had simply burst out of the canopy and disappeared into the sky.

Given that, the first step should be figuring out where my qi had disappeared to. How would I manage that, given that my spiritual senses had a limited range that didn't reach into the sky?

Cultivators liked to ponder such mysteries in seclusion, but I was a doctor. A scientist. When faced with a mystery that had no obvious answer, the only way forward was to experiment over and over.

Failure was the path to success.

I had plenty to spare, so to begin with I simply repeated the same process. However, I used a different tree to the one before—not that I would have been able to find it again given how far I'd travelled since then.

At first it seemed as though my healing technique was going off without a hitch. The moment my medicinal qi reached the halfway mark of the tree's trunk it suddenly shot upwards.

Upon reaching the canopy it flew into the sky. I attempted to follow it with my spiritual senses but it reached the limit of my awareness and continued to travel. I was left without answers once more.

This was a puzzling mystery. At first it seemed as if there were no leads, but that wasn't necessarily the case.

My healing technique always targeted the areas most wounded or sick first. My qi had seemed to want to settle in the trunk, before suddenly racing towards the sky.

Actually it was more like it was being sucked in by a force above, rather than travelling of its own volition. After all, it had no intent other than my own—to heal the patient.

Unfortunately that method was still a dead end. No matter how many trees I used my technique on, the result was the same. I wouldn't figure anything out by continuing to do this endlessly.

I considered the goal of this trial. While my choice had been to heal the forest, the inheritance belonged to the Spring Autumn Sage. His challenges would be to find a fitting inheritor—someone who could use his techniques to the fullest.

I regretted not asking the black dragon more questions about the sage. It would have equipped me for this trial a lot better than my sporadic knowledge.

However, it was too late for regrets. My next idea was a simple one, but I hoped it would give me more information than simply using my healing technique on the trees.

Instead of focusing on the trees themselves I wanted to inspect the mycelial network beneath. I'd already encountered a somewhat sentient fungal lifeform in the Blossoming Heavens, when we first arrived here in that dead, misty forest.

Almost all forests had one beneath the roots, so perhaps if there was a problem with the mycelial network it would transfer to the trees above. There was no harm in checking it out.

The only issue was that my healing technique worked on touch. So first I had to improve it to the point that I could use the technique at a distance. I'd already done so for a few of my other techniques, so applying the same method shouldn't be too difficult.

I'd failed in this attempt once before, but my knowledge had improved in leaps and bounds since then. Luckily I had plenty of willing test subjects all around me.

Well, I wasn't sure if the trees were willing but they couldn't complain or run anyway. That was better in many regards.

I stood a distance of about five metres away from the tree I had chosen. It wasn't the sickliest looking, with a few leaves still a bright green colour. I did that on purpose, as I suspected even my first few successes wouldn't have a potent healing effect and I needed to know when I had made it work.

My qi flowed from my dantian to the tips of my fingers as usual. The moment I used the technique I felt a resistance as my qi was unwilling to pass into the air.

The moment it did, it began to lose its properties and my imprint, returning to spiritual energy. However, I focused with all my mind and demanded it maintain its structure and purpose.

For a moment I believed I'd done it. The healing technique passed through the air towards the trunk of the tree. The moment it was about to seep into the bark the qi suddenly burst into a mist of spiritual energy, no longer mine.

I sighed, knowing it was going to be a long session of repeated practice and cultivation before I was able to grasp the secrets of using my techniques at range. While I was at it, there were a few other matters that I could put my idle mind to work on comprehending.

****

Without a true way to tell the time—the sun in this place never moved from its position directly above the mountain—I had no idea how long I spent cultivating. However, it felt like it could have been weeks or even months long.

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Spending all that time with single minded focus had paid off. Not only had I successfully used my healing technique at a distance of five metres, I had even managed to do so at a distance of ten and then twenty metres.

It wasn't anywhere close to what the Celestial Jade Emperor had done, but it was a start. Unfortunately, the trees I healed at a distance still had the same issue as those I healed up close. The qi that entered their trunks shot into the sky and vanished.

While I was no closer to solving that mystery, improving my healing technique wasn't the only thing I'd accomplished during my cultivation session. I'd also made some progress towards reaching the Foundation Building Realm.

I was at the peak of the Qi Gathering Realm and had been for a while now. The only thing stopping me from breaking through was a feeling of lacking insight—that my Dao or my comprehension of qi wasn't sufficient, even if the quantity of qi in my dantian was enough.

It wasn't like the bottleneck before the Qi Gathering Realm, where I had to truly understand a fundamental truth of my physique and unique cultivation method. It was simply a lack of insight and knowledge.

In the end what had made the difference was the spark in my spiritual sea—the fragment of my dao, as that elder had called it. Wrapping my head around the fact that comprehension and knowledge was an almost physical thing in this world was difficult.

The further I climbed, the more important my dao would become, if I understood what I'd learned correctly. Thus, while I'd been practicing the healing technique I had also used that time to ponder on my time in this world so far.

What I'd achieved, what I wanted to achieve, and most importantly, why I wanted to do those things. To no one's surprise, my mindset and goals had shifted since my initial arrival.

Dazed and in a foreign body and world, I had clung to the only thing I knew—being a doctor. However, time in this world had taught me that my old morals were no longer applicable. At least not in exactly the same way.

My old knowledge only had rudimentary applications at best, although I had made strides in modifying it to fit my new existence. The conclusion I'd reached was that healing the world was an admirable goal, but I shouldn't aim to do it at the cost of those closest to me.

That was a selfish choice, but it was the right one. Understanding that had made the spark in my spiritual sea become more real so that it now resembled a vibrant green crystal with dozens of sparkling facets.

Each time I used my healing technique now, I felt a gentle tremor in the crystal as it empowered my technique. That was a phenomenon I didn't yet understand, but in time I would crack the mystery as I'd done to so many already.

What all of that meant was that the bottleneck holding me back from the Foundation Building Realm had loosened little by little. I felt that it was now paper thin. All I needed was one last push to make the breakthrough, but it wouldn't happen by sitting around and repeating the same techniques.

Now that I'd reached the necessary accomplishment in my healing technique, it was time to actually put it to use. I wanted to 'heal' the mycelial network beneath the forest to see if it was part of the problem and now I was able to do so.

I knelt down and placed a hand against the ground while gathering my qi. I reached out my spiritual senses, attempting to 'see' my target.

I found the first signs of its existence around ten metres beneath the forest floor. A sprawling web of fungal life that was spun between the roots of the trees, connecting them to one another and the mycelium itself.

Immediately I realised there was something terribly wrong. Usually the mycelial network would take a few nutrients and some water from the trees to feed itself, but not like this.

To me it felt as though the mycelium was sucking the vitality from the trees to empower itself. The spiritual energy seemed to ebb and flow in waves, almost as if… the mycelium was cultivating.

I focused on the way it sucked spiritual energy from the trees to empower itself, when suddenly I felt something pricking on my consciousness. I cursed inwardly and withdrew my spiritual sense in an instant.

Had the mycelium noticed me observing it? That shouldn't be possible, but then again I had almost no experience with sentient plants. Who would, coming from Earth? Even in this new world, most plants cultivated on a far longer scale than humans and beasts.

Reaching the level of ten-year, hundred-year, or even thousand-year didn't bestow plants or herbs with sentience, so what was different here?

This also made my plan less feasible. There was a problem with the mycelial network, but not in the way I'd suspected. Rather than the mycelium also being sick like the forest, it seemed it was contributing to the trees' condition or perhaps even the cause of it.

There was one problem that made my head hurt the more I thought about it, however, which was the results of using my healing technique on the trees. Why did my qi shoot into the sky, if the mycelium was draining spiritual energy from the forest?

It was also worrying that it had sensed me. I hesitated for a moment, wondering if it would act, but nothing came of it. Perhaps it wasn't as sentient as I'd feared.

Discovering that it was not only a sentient being, but able to cultivate, I wouldn't be able to simply exterminate it. That wouldn't sit right with me.

However, something had to be done. It was clearly part of the reason the forest was suffering and an obstacle to me reaching the end of the trial. This was still the first part of the Gate of Spring and Autumn and I worried that taking this long might mean I would fail.

The black dragon hadn't mentioned a time limit but who knew what kind of absurd conditions the Spring Autumn Sage had put on his inheritance. Even the kindest of old monsters was still a cultivator—in other words, crazy.

I suddenly stumbled, a wave of dizziness washing over me. It was the oppressive heat of the sun, which had continued to swell from the moment I had arrived in the trial. A constant layer of sweat coated my skin and even with my cultivation realm I was beginning to suffer.

What could I do?

I had a sudden idea. It was far-fetched, but I hoped it might just work. To test my theory I once more healed one of the trees with my healing technique.

Of course, moments after my medicinal qi entered the trunk it shot into the sky as before, but in the brief time it lingered and the tree was healthy, I noticed something strange.

While it wasn't in a sickly state, I noticed a thin, purplish-black line that seemed to pulse from the root to the canopy. It vanished almost instantly, but the image of the vein-like thread was seared into my mind.

I needed to heal a few more trees to test my theory further and try to replicate that, but it didn't always happen. When I observed it occurring for the fourth time, I understood what was going on.

That single moment of realisation tied everything else together and laid the foundations for my solution to this trial. I hoped this would work, because if not, I would probably be stuck here until I died.

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