54 Chapter 52: Shish Kebabn't.

"Slowly… slowly…" I did my best, this was the last rune to apply to my Box of Doom, name pending.

In a fit of madness, I began creating the most perfect diagnostic tool this world had ever or will ever see, except for whatever I made next.

One rune was all that remained before I finally ascended like Asclepius and became a god of medicine, surpassing any that came before me!

Imperceptibly small movements to place the rune as the last piece of an incredibly complicated puzzle that I would never be able to replicate at my same cultivation level. It was a gift of heavenly insight, the perfection that could only come from being blessed by the very world that I existed in.

I could already hear the angels singing in praise of my achievement, combining the knowledge of how to control heat and radiation from the divine technique of a fire-bird god with concepts from a foreign world.

Then my alarm sounded, "OH WAKE UP, OH WAKE UP…" My arm jerked slightly, placing the rune slightly off place, overlapping with another volatile rune, "ALL WE KNOW IS TIME THAT'S SLIPPING FROM OUR LIVES…" 

The second rune ignited, setting off the thermal control runes, activating them outside their intended purpose, and instead of maintaining the temperature at the correct level, they fanned the embers.

Embers turned into a burst of fire, destroying the delicate balance and those runes that worked as a containment for the profound energy radiating runes.

"A WORLD THAT KEPT THE TRUTH, HIDDEN IN THE LIES…" It was at that moment that I finally caught up with everything that was going on in that short concentration lapse, "Fuck-" 

BOOM.

"STANDING ON A STAGE, BLEe-" I threw a phoenix fireball at the alarm clock, erasing even its ashes, as well as the table's ashes.

I coughed a small burst of smoke.

I cupped my face between my hands, took an intense breath, and looked at the ceiling.

"AA-"

As I was in the middle of my very aggrieved, and frankly very deserved, shouting in rage against whatever devil made me forget to stop my alarm clock, I heard a very intense knocking sound from the door.

I eventually finished my shout and sent an energy pulse toward the door, allowing entry to whoever was knocking.

Taking care of the mess first might have been better, but I didn't even think about it.

"Teacher! We heard an explosion!?" And immediately entered one of my two disciples, the girl one, Zhu, "Why are you on fire?!" 

She seemed to panic even more, that was fun, yes, fun.

I looked at my shoulder and saw the weird, and very slightly radioactive, fire that I was using devouring what remained of my upper clothes.

"You shouldn't judge other people's hobbies, Zhu," I remarked, my eyes hollow from the pain of losing my rightful spot in the annals of history.

I didn't care that it was a very extreme exaggeration, the fruit of my sleep-deprived mind.

The other disciple, the dumb one, came running in with an item that made me dread whatever insane plan his mind had brewed, "I got you, Teach!" He shouted.

"No, wait sto-" I begged, but it was too late.

He pressed the trigger and large amounts of a solution of water and potassium carbonate combined with oil shot at me, it was incredibly difficult to produce. The Sky Poison Pearl helped with purifying and creating this solution, perfecting what any Earthling could recognize as a less red fire extinguisher.

My plea was extinguished together with the flames still in the room, and on my body, killed by a violent foamy burst.

Even with weird magic, it took half an hour to clean up the place, because I was not the one to do it.

I did what every good teacher should do, and relegated the thankless task to my unpaid intern, Xue.

"I was only trying to help…" he mumbled, but I turned a deaf ear to his plea, just like he had done mine.

"And I told you not to touch the fire extinguishers until I taught you how to do it safely, you could have injured yourself," I explained as if I wasn't just enacting my righteous vengeance on the boy.

Now I have to buy new clothes! That stuff is almost impossible to take off, there had to be a better alternative for the fire extinguisher, but I had yet to create a magical version or a magical clothes-washing machine.

Shortly after cleaning myself up, changing clothes into another casual attire, and turning my old work clothes into ashes, I was finally accompanying my friend to her important patient.

"So, who's this secret patient?" I asked the girl as casually as possible.

It wasn't easy because there were at least five pairs of eyes controlling every single movement I made, all of them being several big realms above me. Although not as powerful as those corpses that I still had inside my green realm. I should start deciding what to do with them, and with the dragon corpse…

More problems for future me to deal with.

"You'll find out soon enough, but I'm afraid I can't say it here, we never know who's watching," replied Lan Xueruo, my friendly contact with this Empire's ruling class.

At least the guards didn't seem hostile, they were probably here to monitor any suspicious activity on my part. Probably bodyguards, but they were being way too obvious about it, I could sense their gaze from hundreds of meters away.

There was no way I'd be able to repel so many stronger people, maybe escaping was possible. But I was only truly safe when I was back inside my clinic, the runic arrays I installed turned that place into an impenetrable fortress. 

Why was I even thinking about what would happen if I needed to defend myself? That Phoenix Village fucked up my mind more than I first realized. Unfortunately, It might be a useful mindset in this world.

As soon as I returned home from this visit, I'd start installing runic arrays around the property, I doubted that my neighbors would mind some added security, but I'd have to ask them anyway.

I'll turn the whole area around the clinic into a fortress.

Not long after, we finally reached the royal palace, not that I expected anywhere else, my patient could be any of the important politicians of this Empire.

The palace itself was big and incredibly tacky, and the architecture was the same in style as the one from the Profound Palace in New Moon City.

Probably because it was the same organization, or maybe they just didn't have any good architects.

It didn't take a genius to understand that certain shapes weren't useful when creating a palace this big.

Shapes… Maybe I could create a barrier through composite runic shields, like in the cartoons, hexagons most probably, the bestagons, but I would have to sprinkle in some pentagons as well…

I noted the idea down as I was led through the gate by Lan Xueruo, attracting her curious gaze to my diary, which quickly disappeared.

"Doctor, what do you think?" She asked, trying to make small talk.

"This place looks amazing, I've never seen buildings this big before," I replied.

The building was humongous, there had to be some profound energy things to keep it up, I could feel some formations everywhere, existing only to keep up the incredibly big building. They should have put in the effort to make it less tacky.

Do they even have modern minimalism in this world? I still haven't seen even a hint of it, might have to contact an architect the next time I move somewhere.

"I'm happy you think so, Doctor." she continued before turning to what looked like an official, maybe, I wasn't sure what an official looked like here.

"The Emperor is ready to receive you, follow me." the man said with a slightly haughty tone.

I didn't like him. But at least I now had a reply on whom the patient was, either it was a member of the royal family or it was the Emperor himself.

"Lead the way," my friend replied as I stayed by her side, while on the way she came a little closer to me and whispered, "Do you remember how I told you that I work for the princess?" 

"Yeah?" I replied, was I going to meet her? Or was she the patient? 

"I am the Seventh Child of the Emperor and the only Princess of the Empire, and my real name is Cang Yue. I hope you'll understand why I normally hide my identity while roaming the outside world," she whispered, making sure that I was the only one who heard her words.

"Huh." 

I've been hanging with a princess?

"Is there a problem?" she asked, seemingly worried about something, but I was unsure about what.

"None at all," I replied.

I was hanging out with the princess of a magical Empire, cool.

"Good, I appreciate your understanding, also, I can finally tell you that your patient is my royal father, the Emperor."

"Huh, I see." that was expected, but still surprising.

How did she even trust me enough to let me treat the Emperor? Maybe I looked trustworthy, it could be that.

"He's been ill for a long time, but none of our doctors understand what ails him, how royal doctor says that he doesn't have long, but I'd like a second opinion," she said with a half smile.

"I see, it must be hard," I replied lightly, already dreading this visit, this might be any of whatever amount of illnesses that existed only in this world. The fact that their medics didn't even recognize it meant that there could be so many varieties of weird stuff.

From a freaky genetic mutation to odd magical mambo jumbo. I hoped it was magical mambo jumbo, they were usually less difficult to treat than genetic problems.

Those were still impossible for me to even touch. At least slapping a runic matrix complex enough could solve, or at least slow down, magical illnesses enough for me to find a way to solve the problem with more accurate runes.

Lan Xueruo looked at me weirdly, "The country needs its Emperor, I just hope you'll be able to find a way to cure him." 

"I'll do my best," I replied solemnly with a nod of assurance, showing a confident exterior brought confidence in people, the last thing she needed was an insecure medic.

I was led to a private room, just as tacky as the rest of the palace, but there were at least a hundred things that violated hygiene and how to handle a patient's accommodations.

Firstly, the room isn't sanitized, which could be fatal to a weakened patient, but was also the easiest one to fix. After that brief sanitary panic, my eyes focused on my patient.

I completely ignored the guards that were looking at me weirdly, and immediately started taking the vitals for my newest patient. I loved these glasses so much, that if they existed back on Earth, they would be more than enough to earn a Nobel Prize.

Magic was truly useful.

I was pretty sure there would be some kind of etiquette I would have to follow for being in front of a dictator monarch of a medieval Empire. And I was proven correct when Lan Xueruo kneeled beside her father, "Royal Father, this is the Doctor I spoke about, if there is anyone that can help you, I believe it is him." 

Wow, holy shit, that's a lot of pressure.

The vitals were low, slow, and irregular heartbeat, some blood cloths here and there, and a strong energy concentration in his body, which I assumed was his cultivation. And finally a ruptured blood vessel in the brain.

How was this person even alive?

Cultivation was so useful.

"Daughter of mine, no matter how miraculous, I've become old, Master Gu says there is nothing we can do about it, you need to be strong." her father replied, somewhat weakly, lacking any imposing presence that an Emperor should have.

In front of me, there was only a patient trying to survive, that was more than enough.

In the room there was only me, the guards, and the Royals, the guards were eying me like a hawk, daring me to make a single wrong step and pay the consequences.

There were also two more people, but they were hidden and as powerful as some of the corpses that I retrieved from the Dragon's cave.

Strong people, like atomic bombs in human form, they could most definitely kill me.

I gave a look at Cang Yue, or whatever her name was, she nodded slightly, probably meaning that I could do my thing without fear of being speared in the butt by those two guards behind me.

I hoped it meant that.

guess who's back?

I love you all, I'll do my best to keep going and return to semi-regular updates.

gimme all those stones to give me motivation~