As soon as I shouted out for my disciples to begin, they all moved in unison. They unstopped the black vial, before raising it to their lips and draining it in a single gulp.

I saw their looks of surprise when the sinister-looking mixture ended up going down smoothly. I had flavoured it with a sweet-tasting berry found in the forests on the peak.

I figured if I was going to subject my disciples to what amounted to torture, I could at least give them some comforts along the way. Unfortunately I couldn't flavour the fungus, but they actually already had a savoury, meat-like taste and rich aroma already—to attract potential victims.

Their appearance was that of furry, brown balls. Like truffles, but hiding a dark secret. I wasn't sure any of my disciples recognised the fungus. They didn't hesitate in devouring it the moment they opened the box. I was proud of their desire to face this challenge without backing down.

Following that, each of them unstoppered the green vial and with a swift motion, swallowed all its contents. They then prepared themselves to begin diagnosing and treating the myriad afflictions they'd just received. Which was why I picked that moment to make my move.

Gathering my qi, I formed five sharp scalpels in front of my body. They were almost invisible to the naked eye—of everyone gathered in that arena, I figured only Wang Ren would sense them. Then, I launched them at the disciples.

None of them saw it coming. They barely sensed it when the scalpels were right in front of them, about to carve open their flesh.

The cuts I made were precisely calculated. I had devised this entire round in order to challenge every single iota of knowledge and resilience my disciples possessed.

The mixture of pathogens contained a flesh-eating bacteria, a virus that attacked the respiratory organs and cardiovascular system, another virus which compromised the immune system, and a hideous bacteria that ate the brain and turned it into bone, causing an agonising and slow death via mental petrification.

Any one of those alone was enough to kill a mortal within a week. Even a Body Tempering practitioner would suffer and die, albeit a little slower. Early stage Qi Gatherers might survive, but would still face weeks of agony and a slow recovery.

When combined? It was a guaranteed torturous and rapid death for anyone below the Foundation Building Realm.

And that wasn't all they had to contend with.

The fungus I'd had them consume was truly insidious. It operated by first implanting itself in the bottom vertebrae of the spine. Once it had a firm hold, it then started to worm its way into the nervous system, taking control of one's movements and actions slowly but surely. When it had complete control, it began to feed on the waste products of digestion and respiration from the body.

It was a prison. One's body was no longer theirs, but their mind remained intact. You were a walking incubator for the fungus. Either you starved yourself—and thereby the fungus—to death, or you took your life quickly.

The problem with the latter option was that the fungus would live and propagate from your corpse. Evil, in every sense of the word.

Starving oneself, or ensuring the corpse was thoroughly burnt, were the only two ways to truly stop the fungus. Unless you were a healer equipped with sufficient knowledge and my healing arts, that is.

Then there was the green vial. A lethal mixture of poisons. Neurotoxins, necrotic poisons, and more.

The absolute worst part of this challenge wasn't even facing all of these awful afflictions at once. It was that they fed off each other in a vicious cycle.

Many of the poisons acted as super-fuel for the fungus, accelerating the rate at which it hijacked the nervous system. The lack of bodily control threw the immune system into chaos, making fighting the other afflictions harder. The loss of essential nutrients caused the body's natural healing processes to slow or even halt entirely.

It would be almost impossible to overcome.

And then there were my clean cuts. A single slash down the thigh of each disciple. They all yelled in shock as the scalpels sliced through their skin and muscle.

Blood started to pour out in crimson waterfalls. They stared up at me with expressions of betrayal, surprise, and fear. I simply kept my expression neutral.

"You will not die. You will either cure yourself, or you will fail and I will cure you. Do your best and show the world why you will become the greatest healers they have ever seen," I declared, before taking my seat once more to watch the show.

Thus, the challenge was set. The five disciples would need to cure themselves of four separate infections, purge a parasitic fungus, cleanse a variety of poisons from their systems, and heal a wound that severed their femoral artery and would cause lethal blood loss.

Despite the level of difficulty the challenge posed, none of them hesitated to begin. They quickly recovered from the shock of my strike and turned their focus inwards.

I had noticed them doing their best to identify the mixtures and the fungus as they consumed them. However, the way I mixed the solutions made it very difficult to do so.

The fungus was easier to identify, but it was exceptionally rare, and I doubted any of them would have encountered it in their patients or lessons before. Thus, they were facing the unknown armed with only their knowledge and skills. A true test.

They each approached the challenge in their own way. Xiao Cui sat down in a lotus position, closing her eyes and calming herself despite the immense suffering she must be experiencing right now.

Following that, I watched as her qi began to flow in rhythmic cycles and pulses. She would occasionally tap or strike a part of her body, then nod or hum when she received the result.

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That had been another surprise upon her return. She'd broken through to the Qi Gathering realm on her own, during the year of exile. I was proud of her. I would need to spend some time developing or finding an art for her to cultivate now, but I was more than willing to do so for my first disciple.

Feng Mei took a different approach. She was also sitting down, but not in a particular pose. Rather than use her blood essence, she took out a leather pouch and unfurled it, revealing a set of metallic tools polished so brightly they dazzled in the light of the sun.

One by one, she removed the tools and used them to poke, prod, cut, and stab various parts of her body. She even sampled her spit.

The other three disciples—Zhang Wujin, Chen Jing, and Wang Tan—all approached the problem in their own way. However, there were definite similarities in the methods of all five.

That was to be expected. While different tools and methods existed, the base solution for diagnosis remained roughly similar. Not to mention they were all trained in the same sect using the same arts.

Their faces contorted occasionally, the afflictions gathering momentum the longer they delayed their treatment. It was an unavoidable agony.

In a precarious situation like this, administering an incorrect treatment could be just as deadly as not treating themselves at all. It could speed up or even mutate any of the poisons or diseases.

In the end, the first to act was Zhang Wujin. He decided to begin by patching the wound on his thigh. A spectator without healing knowledge might have assumed that would be an obvious place to begin for all five disciples, but that wasn't the case.

The infections could cause the bleeding to speed or slow randomly, infect the blood, slow the natural healing of the flesh, or worse. Zhang Wujin wasn't necessarily wrong to do this first, though.

The blood loss would certainly be the first thing to kill the disciples, so finding a way to slow it or stop it entirely would give them more freedom to work on curing the rest of the afflictions. I watched his attempt with curiosity.

He took out a few herbs from his storage bag, along with a mortar and pestle. He ground them into a powder, before pouring in some water and mixing a thick paste. He spread the paste over the wound on his thigh and then activated the Body Restoration Technique in a localised area.

That was an intelligent choice. I was a little surprised at his insight and mastery of the technique, but proud that a disciple of mine had come so far.

If he'd made the mistake of using the Body Restoration Technique across his entire body, it would have killed him in minutes. I would have intervened before then, of course, but it would have resulted in certain failure.

The bleeding slowed, but did not stop entirely. Even with his expert treatment, the wound festered due to the various afflictions and the healing of the flesh was lethargic. Still, he'd bought the time he needed to focus on the rest of the problem.

My focus shifted over to the other disciples as they too began their treatments. Zhang Wujin may have been the first to act, but that by no means meant he would be the first to succeed—or even succeed at all.

Feng Mei had placed her diagnostic tools down and taken out a set of acupuncture needles. I also saw her withdraw a vial of violet liquid from her storage bag, along with some herbs and what looked like beetle shells.

She quickly ground and mixed the herbs and shells, before compressing the resulting powder into a pill using blood essence empowered grip strength and a specialised tool. In a blur of movement, she pierced herself with about three dozen needles at various points over her torso, neck, and limbs.

Once that was done, she drained the vial of violet liquid and then swallowed the pill in quick succession. Her eyes rolled back into her head and she started convulsing, but she remained in her sitting position. I saw her knuckles turn white as she clenched her knees.

Wang Tan's method was simpler in practice, yet the level of forethought and analysis that must have been required to come up with it was astounding. He was a two-star Qi Gathering cultivator—one of the highest in the sect—which gave him an advantage in regards to control of his internal body. He used this to his advantage.

I observed with fascination as he used his qi and willpower to brute force the various pathogens apart within his body. He even constrained the fungus to his vertebrae and the few nerves nearby it had managed to spread to. The poisons were ripped from his veins and flesh by the forceful hands of his qi and then confined.

In the end, each individual affliction had been separated into its own area of his body. The cost of doing so was immense. His skin was blackened and rotting in places, purple and swollen in others. His eyes were bloodshot and many of his veins bulged out of his skin. It was hideous. It must have been absolute torture.

However, his expression was one of determined confidence. Once he'd managed this, exerting almost all his qi in the process, he then used the Disease Purging Technique on his entire body at once.

I watched as first the nerve-controlling fungus was eradicated, then a few of the poisons, then the respiratory virus and immuno-compromising infection were purged. The rest of the poisons followed. His method was working. And then suddenly he gasped and keeled over as everything went to shit.

I sighed. Poor kid. Actually, his treatment had no errors. He hadn't failed because he had devised an incorrect method, but because he lacked the qi to maintain the technique to completion.

However, overestimating oneself was also an error that could lead to a healer making a fatal error. His qi had run out before purging the last two pathogens—the flesh-eating bacteria and the brain-consuming one.

As soon as the technique was no longer suppressing them, they erupted in full force. With less competition, they were free to ravage his body. His muscles and organs were rapidly devoured. The wound on his leg opened further and began to bleed in rivers and streams. His brain turned to bone and I watched the light behind his eyes fading, filled with panic and terror.

This was enough.

In the blink of an eye I appeared on the stage in front of him. Placing my hand on his scalp, I activated my own healing technique.

Unlike the two techniques I had created for my disciples, it had no need to differentiate between restoration or purging. It did everything simultaneously. His damaged flesh was repaired, the two bacterial infections were eradicated, and his petrified brain was restored.

I even gave him a drop of my qi to ensure his dantian wasn't entirely empty. Bottoming out one's qi like that could have disastrous consequences—another error he'd made in his treatment.

He gasped as his consciousness returned in full force. He looked around, flailing. Then he saw me. "Sect Leader! I– You saved me. Thank you," he said, prostrating himself and kowtowing. "I overestimated my abilities and almost caused my own death. I am a failure."

"Don't say such things. Stand up, Disciple Wang. The knowledge and intellect you displayed in devising such a treatment was outstanding. None of the others came close to creating a similarly effective treatment, at least in the same timeframe. You can be proud of yourself. Your only error was, as you already mentioned, overestimating your qi reserves. Knowing one's limits is an essential trait," I said, helping him to his feet.

"Sect Leader, you are too kind. This one thanks you for your guidance," he replied with another shallow bow.

"You may have failed here, but you can hold your head high with pride as one of the most talented healing disciples of the Grasping Life Sect. Now, return to the stands and watch as your brothers and sisters compete." He nodded and made his way out of the arena to loud cheers and applause.

My attention immediately snapped to Xiao Cui, who'd finally begun her own treatment. And it was like nothing I'd ever heard of before.

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