Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

"Do you understand her situation?" Alex asked.

Liz nodded. "Something about the poison being stuck in her dantian where her soul is protected by her Qi, so you closed off the dantian so that the Qi did not escape."

Alex nodded in return. "Then do you understand why it is troublesome to treat her?" he asked.

"We can't destroy the poison because her dantian is closed off. And we can't open the dantian because then the Qi could escape in great amounts and the poison could kill her."

Alex nodded again.

"So what do we do about it?" Liz asked. "The lady Luoyang said that eating the two pills at once would not work since the effects of the pills would destroy each other."

"It will end up producing a different result is what will happen, but saying they destroy each other is not far off," Alex confirmed for her.

"Then?" Liz asked. "What is it we do?"

"Sister needs to eat the pills with enough gap in between them that they don't conflict with each other," Alex said. "We cannot let the two effects mix together."

"But that won't work," Liz said in an exasperated tone. "We just talked about it."

Alex sighed. "If you let me finish, I would have told you that while she will eat the pill at different instances, it will affect her at the same time."

"How?" Liz asked.

"That is what I want you here for," Alex said. "I hope you can slow down time in her dantian. More accurately, after the dantian takes in the energy from the pill, I want you to slow down time for everything inside of it. The poison, the Qi, the soul. Everything. Can you do that?"

"In just the dantian?" Liz asked. "No, not even that. Just the inside of it?"

Alex nodded. "If the time there is slowed, we will have sufficient time to have sister eat the second pill which will help her. Honestly, I've already done my part with making the pills. Now it is all in your hand."

Liz felt the sudden pressure of her daughter's life being on her hands. "I…" she wanted to refuse, but she knew for a fact that she was indeed the best for the job.

She took a deep breath, calming her heart in the process, and opened it to show the resolution she had brought herself to. "I will do it," she said. "Let me test it on your first."

Alex nodded and let his aunt use him as a test puppet.

Using one's Dao in a particularly small area or a large area came with its own problems. While larger usage of Dao simply required one to have more Intent to use, smaller areas required proficiency in using the dao. The user couldn't just call for the dao and have it work.

As such, Liz needed proficiency in using her Dao for what she had to do next. On top of that, she had to use the Dao on just a small organ inside of her daughter's body. The Dantian was no bigger than a fist and was hidden behind layers of skin, muscle, and fat, all of which were hard to see through with the spiritual sea as a living human body rejected all spiritual sea.

So, not only did Liz have to slow down time in a small area, she had to find the area in the first place, making the problem compound upon itself.

Alex explained how to find a dantian in a human body. Since using spiritual sense directly didn't work, one had to follow the path through the meridians to finally reach the dantian at the end.

Liz practiced it on Alex and Hannah a couple of times just to find the dantian. Then, once she was done, she practiced using her Dao on Alex to slow down the Qi inside.

Alex felt the Dao of Time Stagnation being used on him; he felt the time aura surround his dantian. As the Time aura entered his body, Alex felt a sense of sluggishness through his body, one he couldn't have explained, had he not known what was happening.

"What are those?" Liz asked with a struggling look on her face. "They are rejecting my Dao."

"Hmm?" Alex wasn't sure what she was talking about. So, he concentrated on his soul and looked through its eyes. While he couldn't see any changes immediately, he realized that the information his spirit and his body gained were coming at a different rate.

While minutes passed outside, only a few seconds passed in his dantian. The time stagnation was most certainly working. He then looked for what his aunt was talking about and saw the Yang Source and Yin bead spin around at an inconsistent speed, almost as though they weren't sure if time really was being slowed or not.

"You can stop," Alex quickly told her aunt outside, and Liz let go. She sat back on the bed, breathing heavily as the usage of Dao had taken a lot out of her.

She took minutes to calm down and at the end of it, she was now confident that she could do it.

"Where are the pills?" she asked.

Alex brought out both the pills and pulled out the first pill. "I'll open her dantian," Alex said. "You get ready to stop it from releasing any Qi."

Liz nodded and prepared.

Seeing her aunt ready, Alex fed Hannah the first pill and helped her swallow it. "It's activating. Get ready," Alex informed.

Liz was ready. Her eyes were closed and she entirely focused on her spiritual sense to feel the flow of energy toward the dantian.

The energy flowed down Hannah's meridians moving to every part of her body, expanding them as they went along. Then, it arrived at her dantian where its effect started showing.

As soon as the energy fell on the dantian, it started opening.

At that very moment, Liz sent her spirit to the edges of the dantian and used her Dao on whatever was inside. She had been warned against the poison, so she did not dare enter the dantian entirely.

The Dao of Time Stagnation landed on just the inside of the dantian and not on the dantian itself. So, the opening of the dantian was not stopped in any way.

Alex sent his senses into Hannah's body to check on its status. The 9-veined pill truly had a lot of energy to spare, so there was still a bit going through her body.

"How long?" Liz asked through gritted teeth. Over a minute had passed, and she was still continuously using her Dao on that one small specific area, which was causing her a lot of mental duress.

"Just a little longer," Alex said, keeping watch on the energy level.

Another minute passed and Liz kept at it. Sweat flowed freely down the side of her face, dripping down to her knees while she continued using her dao with the same effectiveness.

Alex looked at Hannah's body and waited until all of the energy had either done its work or had gone stale and dissipated out through her body, no longer affecting anything.

That was the moment he fed her the second pill.