Chapter 987: Surgery
Sam went to visit the sect the next day at sunrise.
If he finishes this deal, he would have some free time before they could get their hands on the last member who is also a Peak stage Pre-transcendent stage cultivator of the Astral Plane. That one challenger.
He can finally reevaluate his recent changes both physically and mentally due to the cultivation and the losses he suffered.
Having that much pride is a borderline character flaw and trying to defend it by being angry at criticism that he gets is even more of a problem. He cannot let something as trivial as that to get in his way and hinder his progress both physically and mentally.
As he walked through the sect entrance, Jwala directly came to receive him and led him towards the volcano.
They climbed the volcano and stood at the mouth of it.
The scent that attracted Yanwu's bloodline got stronger and stronger as he moved upwards and when he finally reached the mouth, he was shocked by what he saw.
There is a giant bird in the middle of the lava pool as it absorbed the fire elemental energy constantly. But what surprised him is not the process. It is the bird itself. A phoenix.
He didn't wait a single second to let Yanwu out and when the majestic golden bird stood at the edge of the mouth of the volcano, the phoenix that turned into a ball at the bottom of the volcano started trembling and looked upwards.
*CAAAWWW*
Yanwu crowed from the top and just the sound itself made the whole sect population tremble.
The phoenix looked upwards and started crowing in reply.
Sam now understood what that exciting feeling of the bloodline was.
It is not exactly an excitement towards the prey or some food, it is an excitement that stemmed from the generations of rivalry that existed since the first of the golden sun crow and the phoenix crossed paths.
As the crowing between them increased as a challenge the two birds soon started communicating and Sam could understand what is happening felt extremely shocked.
"Did that Phoneix ask you to bring me here?" He asked Jwala as he observed the volcano.
Jwala was a bit surprised at this moment and asked.
"You can understand them?"
"Yeah, I sure do. And answer to my question?"
"Yes, Phoenix asked me to bring you here."
"Seems like your little friend is in trouble and couldn't move from that spot. Is that the same trouble you have from moving your sect out of here?"
"Yes, at least part of it."
"Well, then let us take it one step at a time."
Sam and Yanwu exchanged a glance and both of them jumped inside the volcano.
The volcano is wide enough for them to house all of them anyway.
Yanwu started discussing something with the Phoenix and asked all the details of any problem that he has and Sam heard everything.
He opened his wings and hovered around the phoenix while he used the observation ability to check it.
He could have used the harbinger, but since he has these unwanted wings anyway, he might as well try to integrate them as part of his daily routine so that he would be more familiar with them.
So, he started checking the bird and after some time, Sam flew upwards and stood at the mouth of the volcano.
"From what I could see, there is something that was forcefully inserted inside the phoenix that has a large Ice elemental energy that could almost freeze the meridians of the bird.
The phoenix is using the heat from the volcano to suppress that thing from acting up. We need to remove that in order to let the Phoneix free."
I explained the trouble to Jwala. She beamed in expectation and asked.
"How can we remove it?"
"There are two ways. One is to perform surgery. But that thing whatever it is, already had a solid foundation within the body and froze half of the meridians and became one with it, so for me to remove that, I need to dissect various parts of the body and reconstruct those meridians one by one.
In that process, I also need to not let the meridians turn back from their frozen state for which the phoenix should be awake while I am performing the surgery and circulate the fire elemental energy according to its own circulation method and the surgery should be performed within the volcano while we are all hovering in the air."
Sam listed out all the difficulties that an amateur in medicine could understand. There are another hundred or so things that he needs to take care of which Jwala couldn't even understand.
As Sam was thinking, Jwala abruptly grabbed his arms and pleaded.
"Please, I will do whatever it takes for you to heal him. He needs to recover. Please."
Sam currently thought for a moment and then looked at Yanwu to ask his opinion. After all, he should think about whether all this effort is worth it for a single cultivator. That too when he has an extra member because he managed to recruit both Sia and Gran.
Yanwu gave his answer and then Sam looked at Jwala.
"What is the other part of your reason for not leaving this realm?"
Jwala was stumped for a bit and then answered slowly.
"Why are you asking this now?"
"I should weigh my pros and cons before doing this. If it is just this, it was okay. But if you have a ridiculously unreasonable thing to take care of after this just to recruit you, it would be unfair on my part.
After all, I am not hiring you for free.
I also have to make sure that I take care of your sect and its operations. It is too much effort from me and too many things that I need to do just to recruit one cultivator under me. You might be good, but I don't know if you are good enough for all this to be worth it.
So, if you lay out everything that needs to be done, then I will think about it. Either way, don't worry I will perform the surgery, since my friend here wants to be generous. But I want to make things clear before I start it."
Jwala started thinking for a bit and said.
"There is one more thing I need to do. There are some people I need to free from the demon families. They are relatives of the people that are already in the sect. I promised them that I would free their family members. So, I need to do that before I leave.
You have strong members by your side. If you help me with that, it would be easy."
"Yes, it would be easy for you. All this effort for three decades of your work. You tell me, do you think it is worth it? From the looks of it, you don't have any other skills except fire elemental expertise in battle.
I need to think about this before I make a decision. But before that, I will perform the surgery tomorrow. Ask your members to stop drawing heat from the volcano for forging and pill-making. I need the volcano to be at its best state to do this."
With that he left the sect and went back to the inn to do some simulations within the second floor of divine dimension. But Yanwu just stayed with the beast at the volcano and started throwing golden flames at the phoenix to help it deal with that internal cold.
The next day, Sam came back and he used his wings once again as he hovered around the phoenix. Yanwu spread his body wide open and stood on the pool of lava while he supported the phoenix on his back.
Sam used his reaper sword to cut open the Phoneix and started performing the surgery.
He has multitasked as he needs to keep the phoenix awake while also numbing his pain and working on each frozen meridian and muscle fiber that was affected.
The surgery processed slowly for over seventeen hours and finally, Sam removed the thing that caused the freezing effect.
It looked like a lump of slime. And he is pretty sure that it is a living thing. He didn't come across anything like this in his books. But from the looks of it, it is a parasitic creature that slowly takes over the body of another creature while simultaneously drawing energy from it.
Since it is an ice-type parasite this would most effective on the ice elemental creatures. But on the fire elemental creature, it would be a good torture device that could cause a slow and painful death.
After performing the surgery Yanwu still stayed with the phoenix for quite some time. But before Sam went back to the inn, Yanwu said something that made him stop in his tracks.
He looked at the phoenix and smiled quietly before getting out of the volcano.
"I will help you with the problem, but you need to agree to some of my conditions."
Sam said to Jwala before leaving.