Chapter 37: The Cure of the Crystal Disease

    Merlin’s investigation went on. He went out to check the stream by himself and examined the water in the area of origin with the magical hoops from Lemegeton knowledge.

    A perk of the Lemegeton encyclopedia was that it enabled one to know all the benefits of magical hoops. So, Merlin summoned each type of magical hoop to synthesize the water in this stream to find the source of the crystal disease.

    Unfortunately, after a long time, the presence of the crystal disease became really diluted. But luckily still, although it was so faint that it was unnoticeable by human eyes, with the power of Lemegeton Eye, these germs could not escape Merlin’s eyes.

    Merlin stared at the water in the bottle and examined it.

    “As I thought, someone intentionally spread this disease.”

    As soon as Merlin said that, all his followers were shocked.

    The cause of this contagion was the poison in the water.

    “I will find some information at the end of the stream. Do not follow me.”

    After saying that, Merlin leaped up in the sky and disappeared like smoke.

    The villagers did not dare to disobey Merlin’s command; even if they had wished to follow him, they would not have had the ability to do so because Merlin’s movement was very fast. And worse, he could fly.

    “He is a true alphabet user. His power is beyond any ordinary people,” said a villager.

    “It was such good luck that he had stumbled upon our village or else nobody would have survived.”

    “I am so ashamed that I once insulted him; my eyes were too blind. I hope he does not hold grudges.” The bar owner said.

    “He is such a good person to help our village and look past everyone’s mistakes.”

    “I am truly grateful for his help.” A girl with pustules shared while wiping off the tears on her cheeks.

    “We should head back; there’s nothing we could do here. If we try to chase the alphabet user’s tail too hard, it might bug and burden him.” A man said and turned back to the village.

    In the past, when Merlin was a Qi accumulation practitioner, he was discouraged from walking on this path. At one point, he decided to turn back to live as an ordinary person and study medicine to make it his career.

    It was not his first time finding a disease’s origin. He had done it countless times when he was a commoner.

    After he arrived at the lake, or the end of the stream, looking around, he found that there was a spot in this lake where the water was too clear. Its clearness was unusual.

    Without hesitation, Merlin bottled that water.

    When he got back to the village, the headman nicely prepared him accommodation and food.

    But unfortunately, eating and sleeping were almost unnecessary for Merlin. People in stem-building-staged cultivation did not need to live like ordinary people. He had deserted these factors for quite some time.

    Merlin used his residence’s hallway as his workspace. With a few flicks of his hand, the prepared stuff was pushed aside and the inside of the room became an empty space.

    The drops from the stream and the lake were taken out of the magical ring.

    Merlin concentrated and flicked his hand adeptly.

    And shortly, a lot of inspectional magical hoops came out.

    Merlin checked those drops right away.

    His countless distilling experiences were equipped skillfully.

    And the alphabet that turned into magical hoops was briskly used. Colorful beams shone out brightly showering the whole house.

    These colorful beams from the magical hoops truly amazed the villagers.

    “What is the alphabet user doing?” Out of confusion, a girl said.

    “I have no idea, but these lights must be something extraordinary,” another man shared.

    “Do you think he can cure us?” A woman sadly asked while looking at her hand that had already turned into crystal.

    “I cannot answer you this question. He is the only one who can.” A guy answered.

    “I pray to all the gods, please, let it be successful.”

    “I will do the same.” After saying that, the two guys walked away.

    Merlin spent one night trying to find the crystal disease’s germs, unfortunately, it did not go as planned.

    In these water drops, the germs were badly diluted. It was probably because they were put out here a long time ago, so they became so faint.

    Merlin wanted to find a strong source of the germs for the research on the cure. But sadly, this small number of germs was not enough for him.

    Another two nights had passed; Merlin was still studying the treatment.

    Merlin did not even touch the food that the headman of the village had prepared for him. Plus, he did not allow anyone to see him during these days.

    There were more and more talks about this alphabet user. He was still a child; however, he was highly skilled. Those hundreds of soldiers were not even his matches.

    After he came back from exploring the stream, he had been locking himself up in the house. And some nights, strange lights would drench this whole place, seriously scaring the villagers.

    But the strangest thing that happened after the alphabet user came to this village was that he never slept, ate, or drank. He would be like this for several days, which was not something a normal person could do.

    They did not know whether other alphabet users were like this or not or if all the alphabet users needed no food or sleep.

    A lot of people said he was a god—a god that saved their village.

    The fact that one did not eat or sleep was incredible if he was just a normal person. But if he was a god, it would sound more reasonable.

    Then the rumor that this alphabet user was a god sent down from heaven spread out widely.

    Many people started to worship and pray for Merlin.

    Now, Merlin became even more worshipful for the villagers.

    Three days later, Merlin summoned the headman and ordered him to assemble the villagers again.

    This time Merlin wanted some volunteers: whether those who just got infected, those who just showed symptoms, those with a stable condition, or those who were severely sick, for him to thoroughly diagnose the disease.

    Those who just got infected had symptoms like they were having a fever. They felt hot flushes all over because of the disease. As for the severe ones, some parts of their bodies were eaten up by the disease and turned into crystals. Luckily, those were not important organs like heads or hearts; or else they would not be able to keep their lives.

    Merlin used a leaf glazed in Xian vital essence to cut into a part of each volunteer’s body. He forced the blood into the empty bottles he had prepared until he got a lot of bottles filled with blood all in order and categories.

    After he had all the blood samples, Merlin went back to his place.

    His actions created questions for people in the village, but not a soul slipped those doubts.

    Right now, everyone trusted Merlin.

    After obtaining the specimen, Merlin started the synthesis again. A number of magical hoops were created.

    They were glowing and spreading magical power waves.

    The beams were repeatedly moving through the blood in each bottle.

    Almost a day later, Merlin found that those blood samples were contaminated with the crystal disease’s germs. Although he found the shapes of the germs, he still wanted those sources from the stream.

    These germs had all devoured life energy. As for the germs that were contaminated, Merlin was not sure if they would work.

    The living spirits of these crystal-disease germs would consume life energy from people’s blood and turn it into a crystal. Then they would continue doing so throughout their bodies and distill the life energy into drop-sized Living Spirit Crystals.

    And to make powerful Living Spirit Crystals, lots of lives were sacrificed.

    Merlin tried mixing different elements to constantly kill the germs of the crystal disease. This experiment went on for almost a week.

    Merlin was really determined to suppress these certain germs. He devoted a lot of his power and time to this research to the point where all the plans were left behind.

    Eventually, one trial was successful.

    Thirty-six water-element magical hoops were used to attack the germs until those living spirits disintegrated.

    After he tried putting in nine more light-element hoops, it turned out that those spirits started to vanish.

    The crystallized pieces also began breaking up. Even though he could not completely vanquish the germs, the disintegrated spirits would already be unable to do human bodies any harm.

    Merlin thought of when he was at the end of the stream.

    At the lake where the crystal germs lived, there was a lot of watergrass different from any normal grasses because it grew in water. The leaves and stems were translucent. And up close, the grass was fluorescent.

    From the water sample from that place, the germs were badly destroyed and diluted.

    So, Merlin enabled the ability of Lemegeton encyclopedia; shortly, he found this type of grass was called “Starlight Watergrass.” After reading about its properties and doing his research, there was a high possibility that this kind of grass could be used to produce medicine for this disease.

    BANG!

    His front door was opened; that white figure leaped up in the sky.

    These few days, the villagers had been coming by in this area; they pin all their hopes on this alphabet user.

    When the door burst open, they really hoped to hear good news; but unfortunately, in a few seconds, the person in the house leaped up and disappeared into the sky.

    “Where is he going?” Said a villager.

    “Did he fail and try to escape?” A guy desperately asked.

    “If it was not because you are not infected, I would beat you up. The alphabet user is not that kind of person. Don’t you see that he has not even slept, or touched food or a drop of water? Do you really think he is what you said?” Another man aggressively responded. He trusted Merlin so genuinely that the last man felt guilty for saying those things.

    With Merlin’s formidable movement, he arrived at the lake in a short period of time.

    A lot of Starlight Watergrass was picked. With his incredible Xian vital essence, the harvest was not such a hard thing to do.

    Merlin did not pick all of the grass but left some to grow and dug some with soil. He put it into the capturing formation. And with its power, some of the Starlight Watergrass could grow inside.

    Merlin put everything into his magical rings; he carried dozens of them. And because of his position now, it was not a problem if he wanted to produce more of these.

    After the harvesting mission, Merlin dashed back to the village immediately.

    The villagers were thrilled when they saw Merlin; even though they did not believe that guy’s words, they were still anxious thinking about them.

    When Merlin came back, their fear was vanquished.

    After this situation, they believed in this alphabet user even more.

    Merlin went back to locking himself up once again; the potion-making process began after that. And after three days had passed, Merlin’s voice echoed out of the house.

    “Bring me an infected person.”

    That voice was powerful. It resounded all over the village; everyone could hear it.

    Hearing Merlin’s voice, the villagers hopefully waiting were exalted. Many of them even camped outside his house and waited.

    The village’s headman hurriedly did as Merlin ordered; with high hopes, a guy who had the crystal disease volunteered himself. He had no fear of being the first lab rat. For his family and the village, he was willing to risk his life because, anyway, having the crystal disease felt like he was already half dead.

    That guy was in the severe stage: the crystal completely ate up his left leg. So, he needed a cane to carry himself while moving.

    For making a potion this time, Merlin used water and light elements in Starlight Watergrass as the primary ingredients. For the secondary ingredients, he used translucent powder, Sunlight Wax, Sea Sedges, and Teardrops of Fireflies.

    He brought almost all of these from the Blue Cloak Shop.

    They were distilled by hundreds of magical hoops until they became liquid.

    Then Merlin filled the liquid into the bottles he had prepared.

    When that man walked into the house, Merlin handed him a pure white potion right away.

    “Drink it,” Merlin looked at the guy and said in a monotonous voice.

    That man was not slightly hesitant; he followed Merlin’s words swiftly and willingly.

    After taking the bottle from Merlin’s hand, he chugged it down.

    Suddenly after the liquid went into his body, there appeared around him golden and blue particles seeping out of his body. Thirty breaths later, the crystal on his body started cracking then, finally, breaking up and disappearing.

    The man’s leg looked like it was molting; every part of his body slowly turned back to normal.

    “It works!” The volunteer said unconsciously.

    His face was covered in tears; the happiness was overflowing from his eyes. The painful disease was completely cured.

    He collapsed and prostrated himself on the ground for Merlin.

    “Thank you…thank you so much, alphabet user. Thank you…your kindness…I…I will never forget it…thank you.”

    He was performing prostrations paying Merlin respect with his tears falling down. He thanked Merlin over and over like someone who had lost his senses. Before this, he thought he would really have to die because everyone who got this disease never survived. Their destination was the same: death.

    The boy in front of him was like a saint—a god.

    So, he could not help worshipping him.

    Majestically, Merlin was standing with his hands clasped behind his back. He stared at the man with a satisfied look.

    “You can get put now and call the headman to see me.”

    Merlin’s voice brought the man’s consciousness back.

    He thanked the boy again and again before leaving.

    As soon as this guy walked out, Merlin heard a loud noise of people shouting happily. Those voices made him quite content. Both corners of his mouth were lifted unawares.