Chapter 6:

Arriving at what seem like a nice spot: there was a big rock and the trees were sparse letting light shine in, Xian laid down the test subjects on the ground and took out his artifact level knife; it has a short bright red blade that's about 3 inches with a stylized dark-gold handle. First, he had to determine how meridians look from the outside and if he could extract them without destroying them. Then he had to determine how to implant them successfully. Also, Xian was afraid that meridians might have types like blood but right now he lacks too much time and sample to correctly research this, so he decided that for his mother he was going to try finding female meridians of the same tier level. Anyway, before starting the operation Xian needed to do something about this stupid drug high, he wasn't going to operate with shaky hands and blurry vision. However, if he were to simply filter the drug out the fatigue would come back. So, instead of filtering everything Xian sat down and tried to pull the poison out of his arms and head into his chest and lock it there; this help him reduce the shaking to an okay level and got rid of the hallucination. Well, that's not the only thing that happen, the higher concentration of the drug in his chest also boost his heart rate by a lot; so much so that Xian was in pain. Clenching his teeth and sweating an awful lot, he started to do breathing technique to cope with the pain Xian had to go through this to even hope he could save his mother's life. With every breath vapor flew out of his mouth his blood was almost boiling because of the pressure his own meridians were exerting on his veins. Suddenly, he got sent flying crashing head first into the big rock near him. Surprise and quite frankly in pain, Xian stoop up just to witness a 5 meters tall mountain samurai monkey with red-ish fur flexing his peck. With blood dripping in his face Xian swipe it off just to reveal a diabolical grin that send shivers down the monkey spine immediately unsheathing his tail and taking a combat stance this big guy was a blessing in disguise because not only was he the perfect punching bag to help Xian release some of that pressure he was also a way better candidate for the meridians donation than most thing in this forest.

- "Hehehehe hellooo youuu!" - creepily laugh Xian

Without losing an instant he jumps forward and smack that monkey to the ground. The clack sound resonated all around the forest making bird flew off in all direction along with the teeth of the wannabe samurai and leaving a nice smile of relief on Xian's face.

- "Feels good."

He blocked its neck meridians with his Qi just like he did to the two previous monkeys just to make sure it wasn't going to wake up and went back to prepare the autopsy. Xian started inspecting the already injured monkey to make sure its wounds wasn't going to impair the progress of the operation, but it seems okay they were only superficial scratches that already stop bleeding anyway. So, Xian turn the subject on its side lifting its arm to reveal its arm-pit and gave the beast a shave all along its side. Once, that was done he gently insert the blade making sure not to break any organs after all this blade is so sharp it can cut tree like butter. Then he carefully moves the skin to show the inside of the belly, Xian had killed animal before for training, but this was a gruesome sight. Putting his disgust aside, now all he had to do was find the meridians…

- "Well they should be connected to every organ right? Ah god, I just, what? where are they?.. they should be here."

As he was moving the organs with his bare hands Xian got a little impatient and made a small cut with his nail on one organ splatting blood right in his face. Immediately, he spit what blew in his mouth and made a million efforts to hold back his gag reflex, now wasn't the time to vomit and he couldn't even wipe the blood off since his hands where all bloody as well. However, he had to go through with it and find those meridians otherwise how was he supposed to save his mother. Taken aback by the situation he took a moment to think. Then, he remembered that if he was successful in putting asleep the monkey be pressing the acupuncture points in the neck he should be able to start from there to see where the meridians are in reality because they obviously weren't like in the picture he saw about anatomy and what they look like. Before opening the neck Xian stitch the wounds and close the belly with a simple healing spell. Xian laid the monkey on his belly but this time instead of cutting without thinking he place his hand on the neck of the subject and insert a small amount of Qi in the acupuncture points and let it flow like a string to highlight the meridians. The monkey started to have spasms, it seems like injecting Qi like this was interacting with its breathing it wasn't going to kill the animal however, so Xian kept going for about 5 seconds to make sure where the meridians are then he shaved the neck. Now that everything was ready he made a very light incision to the top-left of the monkey right side scapula. Gently, he lifted a square of skin to reveal the spine, muscle, veins of the neck and jackpot the meridians. They were brimming with a dim yellow light because of the Qi string. Weirdly enough they look like they were in fusion with the veins, muscles and bones and the acupuncture points were the only places where they would show up.

- "Now, how do I extract this shit…"

- "Maybe I shouldn't start in the neck I don't necessarily want to kill the beast since I want to see how or even if bacteria affect cultivators and I'm also not that cruel." Xian answered himself.

So, Xian stitch the neck and repeat the operation but this time on the foot of the monkey. At this point, Xian thought that this monkey was already unlucky to begin with, but that he got three operations in only a few hours made it really miserable. Hence, our surgeon decided to pick up the pace. After opening the foot, the right one, Xian quickly spotted the meridian and to extract it he decides to scrape one by one each layer of skin and muscles surrounding the acupuncture point. This was a very slow process, after 5 hours Xian had only revealed about half an inch of meridian and a lot of blood was starting to accumulate making the procedure even harder therefore he took what he could and cut straight what he had reveal. Immediately, Qi overflowed out and the monkey was falling in epileptic shock.

- "Shit! Shit! Shit!"

Kind of overwhelmed by the situation Xian just pinned down the injured foot with his left hand and with his right that was still holding the cut meridian rammed his finger in the wound to try to stop it… Obviously, that didn't do anything but gives him a few seconds. Luckily, those few seconds were enough for him to block everything up with his healing spell. But, Xian wasn't at the end of his sentence because the things in his hand that has been sort of dancing as if it was alive was now looking like it was about to withered away.

- "Can't a cultivator catch a break?" he said as he was staring at the thing wondering what he should do.

Well, it's a meridian so I guess I could just put Qi in it.

So, Xian directed Qi in his hand and the little tube started to dance again and regain a pinkish yellow taint. However, he was now facing with a little problem, he couldn't operate on the second monkey with only one hand. For a moment Xian wondered if he should just push through with it after all he is a rebirth realm cultivator AKA awesome. But he decided against it as this whole thing wasn't something he wanted to rush as he was going to operate his mom. Still, Xian had to find a way to continuously provide Qi to the meridian piece. Being the heir of the third best sect in the continent he probably had something in his spatial storage ring. The key word here is probably because it's not like item that give Qi are something you store, you use it. So, he has a basic survival kit: with a sleeping bag, clothes, basic utensils and some food. Also, he has 500 low level spiritual stones… Even though spiritual stone are generally use has money they do have Qi hence Xian wondered that maybe if he crushes some and mix them with water he could get some sort of Qi soup to preserve the meridian piece. After doing just that, he ended with some bubbling water where he put the little piece in and it seem like it was working but from the look of it, it wasn't going to hold for too long about 10 minutes at most with 1 spiritual stone. So, he crushed 50 more to give himself enough time. Now that the preparations were all done it was time for the main event. Xian laid the second monkey on its belly and start the operation. When he had revealed the meridian about 3 hours had passed, he was already getting better at this. Xian took the waiting piece in his hand to be ready to make the swap this left him trying to awkwardly hold the piece and the meridian with one hand while cutting with the other. Like last time it started spitting out Qi all over but this time he stitched it with the first monkey meridian.

- "Finally done!" - exclaim Xian.

Taking the time to admire his work before closing the incision he remarks that the two pieces had a slightly different pink taint. Even thought he was completely exhausted he decided to repeat the procedure on the first monkey which was going to give him more experienced and also be another sample to see if the body would deny the new meridian. By the time he was done the big red monkey was starting to wake up so, Xian took out some rope and tied up all three monkeys and took off in direction of the sect because now all he had to do was wait.