Chapter 177: Wake Up. Wake Up. Wake Up

Chapter 177: Wake Up. Wake Up. Wake Up

My paranoia grows, as this seems like the perfect time for my cultivation method to come into play.

Before I approach the old man, I use my scan to verify the probability of such a thing. Im a bit surprised to find that because of the speed and efficiency of my healing rats, as well as the ones from the city's groups, it was only a matter of time before this was done.

It was part of the reason that my scan wanted me to heal at every opportunity, to reach this moment.

While still suspicious, I can accept that when I think of the amount of pain and flashes that I got from that initial scan. In a sense, I was attempting to find secret and detailed information while predicting the future.

Divination. Causality perception.

Any number of words could be used to describe this.

All in all, this really might be my most dangerous power, even above my healing. Once Im able to use it without dying.

It also explains why I almost died using it.

Well. This just reinforces how important it is that I dont reveal the extent of my scanning to anyone other than those I trust with my life or who I have no choice but to.

With this done, I use my scan yet again to study the old man and see what I need to do with him.

Im immediately shocked by the state of his body.

Hes basically crumbling away. Back when I first saw him, he was wheezing and clearly in an enormous amount of pain. Now, its the same, but hes silent and its more that his soul is in pain than anything else. Its as if his soul has been dunked in a vat of acid and locked inside.

As I dive into the root causes of this, I can see that whatevers been teleporting him in around and putting him in this state has tied his health inversely to the state of the city. To a point. He would always be sick, even in the worst state of the city. However, there are no such limits on making the city completely healthy. Even now, the city isnt completely healthy, its just that all the homeless on the streets are now healed. There are still people who are sick but are not homeless or laying in the streets.

There are also those who dont trust the rats and refuse to go into the streets to be healed out of fear.

Finally, there are people who couldnt be healed by the rats as their injuries, diseases or curses are too specialized. All the rats would do for a person like that would be to keep them alive.

Because of these people, this man still lives.

Seeing this amount of pain and suffering, I step toward him with the intention to heal.

As I move closer, something seems to come over me and the urge to kill him becomes overwhelming. A curse.

My healing aura immediately combats it, removing the feeling from me instantaneously. It wars against it, and is clearly winning, as it is a condition.

As I move even closer, Im thrust into seemingly another world. The old man stands in a smoke-filled, war-torn street with a bloodthirsty smile. My parents sit on their knees before him.

He raises his machete and

My scan has been showing me the truth of the world. That Im still standing in front of the dying old man, with nothing Im seeing actually happening.

This is obviously an illusion, but one that seems unassailably real. Without my scan, I would be in that world until I became completely enraged and bloodthirsty towards him. The closer you get, the worse the illusions are.

I was at the farthest possible distance.

This process takes longer than I anticipated, leading me to spend 30 minutes on just this.

As I do, though, it reveals part of what was hidden before. This man used to be at the high range of nascent soul. His cultivation was stripped from him and he was hidden away and cast down into this form by a secret group of elders in the Chia Continuum (the country).

And if I want to get this method

*checks notes*

I will need reinstall this likely mentally ill old mans cultivation, besides everything else.

Why does this seem like an increasingly bad idea, as Im about to go into a forest to retrieve something for a sect?

As I think that, I finally achieve a breakthrough in the curse. I healed this old man all the way to full health almost instantly after.

But he doesnt wake up.

There is one condition left that is required for him to wake up and be fully healed.

Crippled cultivation.

It appears the way they had done it caused him to go into self-induced unconsciousness. It was his way of trying to protect himself, but was overwritten with all the other things they had done. So, he still ended up going through all the pain that they had intended for him.

Because of all this, it is only when he feels safe that he will wake himself up. Something that will probably occur in a month or so.

Time, I dont have.

I throw extensive healing at his crippled cultivation. Expecting another trap or repetitive healing session.

But theres nothing.

Its done almost instantaneously.

Theres silence before I can feel a creak in the world.

I realize something a bit too late.

I just healed this guy countless times to full. Didnt I just refine his body into its perfect form? If he was already high Nascent Soul wouldnt that increase his ability to cultivate and grow by several times?

Ah. I may have made a monster.

Right as I think this, his eyes snap open and the light from them literally shines into the sky like a Superman laser beam.

My eyes snap over to the mountain with multiple nascent soul cultivators.

I think I fucked up.