He waved his hand once again and thirty-three storage rings flew from the corpses, gathering into a neat pile floating in front of him. He plucked the three high-grade rings from the Sisters and tossed the rest into his own storage space to be sorted later.

He walked over to the massive Elder who was now wary of him but was still clutching his bleeding shoulder. The monkey was staring at Li Yu with wide and surprised eyes.

Li Yu tossed the three rings onto the ground at the Elder’s feet.

"Interest," Li Yu said with a faint smile. "For the wine I stole earlier."

The Elder looked at the rings, then at the field of corpses and finally at Li Yu. The red fur slowly faded back to gray.

"You already paid," the Elder grumbled, his voice echoing in Li Yu’s mind. "You left enough spirit stones for the wine and the herbs you left behind are useful to the little monkeys here. I had already considered your debt paid even though you stole from us… and I almost flattened you into a pancake."

"Let's call it even then," Li Yu said. "I am Li Yu."

"I am Yuan," the Elder replied. He slumped against a rock, wincing as the adrenaline faded and the pain of his wounds set in. "You... you are quite ruthless, human. Those attacks... they were absolute, there was no room for anyone. They deserved it though."

"They wanted to enslave you," Li Yu said simply. "I don't tolerate slavers and those that do evil. Leaving an evil that I see behind might cause someone else to suffer one day, it could cause me to suffer one day."

Li Yu stepped closer to the elder monkey. "May I?"

Yuan hesitated, eyeing the man who had just massacred everyone in the area. He didn’t think that what Li Yu was wrong but the calmness at which he did it did make him a bit worried. But he sensed no malice from Li Yu, only a strange calm warmth which was the exact opposite of what he had just seen. Yuan eventually nodded.

Li Yu placed a hand on the monkey’s arm and he sent his spiritual sense into the body. What he found was catastrophic.

"How are you even moving?" Li Yu asked, his eyebrows shooting up.

"The Soul is the master," Yuan wheezed, tapping his head. "The body is just the puppet. When you reach Soul Formation, you realize all the wonderful things a strong soul can do. You also realize that Qi is everywhere. I don't need to store it inside me if I can just grab it from the air to move my limbs. But... it is tiring. And my puppet is breaking."

"Your dantian is shattered," Li Yu noted, analyzing the damage. "Your meridians are withered husks. You are running on fumes. From what I know and what I can see, you are indeed breaking and there should be a limit to how much the soul can do for the body."

"I know," Yuan sighed. "I am dying, Li Yu. Slowly. My soul is strong but without a vessel, it will eventually dissipate. I have maybe a decade left before this body simply turns to dust."

Li Yu looked at the massive creature. He thought about the joy the wine had brought him. He thought about the resilience of this being, protecting his tribe for centuries while broken. It was clearly his will that had allowed him to last this long.

Li Yu's thoughts then drifted towards the three healing techniques that he had learned in the ruins. His second mind had made time for them during his travels and his proficiency of them had increased greatly.

Verdant Spring's Renewal. (Flesh and Organ repair). Life-Weaver's Suture. (Structural Meridian reconstruction). Five-Organ Cleansing Light. (Purification).

Individually, they wouldn't be enough. They were meant for normal cultivators. But Li Yu wasn't just a scholar; he was an innovator. He had life-aspected Qi from Viridius and he had the dual-souled power of the Fisherman and the Koi.

"I can fix this," Li Yu said.

Yuan laughed, a dry coughing sound that sprayed blood on the grass. "I have tried boy. Many healers have tried. They all nearly burned out their cores trying to bridge the gap. My body rejects common Qi."

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"I am not them, I am Li Yu," Li Yu said, sitting down in the lotus position in front of the massive beast. "And I have better tools than them. Hold still sir."

Li Yu closed his eyes.

"This might tickle. Or it might feel like I'm knitting your insides with liquid fire. Try not to squash me."

Li Yu raised both hands. A brilliant emerald-green light erupted from his palms. But it wasn't just green; there were streaks of gold and opalescent qi mixed in. This was the combined art that he had mastered and was continuing to perfect. It was the combination of all three of those healing arts together. He named it the ‘Verdant Life Weave.’

He pressed his hands against Yuan’s chest. The energy didn't flood in; it wove.

Inside Yuan’s body, Li Yu’s Qi acted like millions of microscopic needles.

First, The Cleansing Light. It burned away the accumulated rot, poison and stagnant blood in the meridians, turning it into grey smoke that steamed out of Yuan’s pores.

Second, The Weaver's Suture. Li Yu grabbed the tattered ends of the meridians. With his incredible soul perception which was now amplified by the Fisherman’s White Eye, he stitched them back together. He didn't just patch them; he reinforced the walls with his own dense life-aspected Qi.

Third, The Spring's Renewal. He poured raw vitality into the flesh, forcing cells to regenerate, muscle fibers to knit and the cracked shards of the dantian to pull together. Once they were together and slightly rejuvenated Li Yu wove once again, collecting all the pieces together with life-aspected Qi so they stay together. The idea was by the time the life-aspected Qi dissipated, it would be healed enough on its own to stay together.

Yuan threw his head back and roared. It wasn't a roar of anger but of pain from the procedure and mostly shock. He felt heat, genuine circulating heat, for the first time in three hundred years.

Li Yu sweated profusely. This was incredibly taxing on both his qi and his soul. It required absolute precision. One slip and he could severely injure the monkey's life force connection to his soul.

"Hold it together," Li Yu gritted his teeth, his veins bulging. "Don't fight the current. Let it flow. Accept your new self."

He visualized Viridius. He visualized the relentless and unstoppable growth of a forest after a fire. He continued to pour his qi and his very being into the technique.

POP.

A sound echoed from inside Yuan’s body, audible even in the physical world.

The Dantian sealed.

It wasn't pristine, it was scarred and smaller than it had been in his prime but it was a sealed vessel once more. It could hold water again.

"Now!" Li Yu shouted. "Pull Qi! Fill the vessel!"

Yuan instinctively obeyed. He drew on the ambient Qi of the mountain. For the first time in centuries, the energy didn't leak out into the void. It swirled. It condensed. It settled in his core.

A shockwave of energy blasted out, knocking the unexpected Li Yu backward. He tumbled over his own bamboo staff which he had placed behind him and landed in the dirt. He was exhausted but grinning.

Yuan stood up. He looked at his hands. He clenched his fists and they crackled with blue lightning, his original affinity.

The grey fur on his arms darkened, regaining a youthful luster. The hunch in his back straightened. He wasn't back to his absolute peak, far from it, but he was no longer a broken puppet. He was a cultivator again.

Li Yu sat up, wiping sweat from his forehead. "That... that was harder than killing thirty people. They always say rebuilding is harder than destruction."

Yuan stared at Li Yu. The massive monkey slowly went down to both knees, bowing his head low until it touched the ground. The other monkeys peeking out from the cave, chattered in awe.

"You stole my wine," Yuan rumbled, his voice thick with emotion. "You slaughtered my enemies and saved us. And now... you gave me back my life. I don’t know how I can thank you."

"The wine was really good," Li Yu said with a tired smile.

"You have a name, Li Yu," Yuan said, raising his head. "But to the Spirit-Brew Tribe, you are 'Life-Weaver'. If you ever need aid… or just a bit more of our wine... send word. I will come to help if possible."

"I'll settle for another gourd of wine," Li Yu joked, standing up and dusting himself off.

Yuan grinned, a terrifying display of fangs. "Take ten. Take the whole cellar."

Li Yu stayed for one more night, celebrating with the monkeys. He drank, laughed and he watched the stars with them. He was a bit surprised that they had their very own culture with stories for where everything came from.

The next morning, he was still enjoying his time with the monkeys. His storage ring was filled with an additional 5 containers of wine and his heart light. He was offered more but didn’t want to take too many.

Yuan gave him a large pat on the back, asking him what he wanted to eat for breakfast, offering a few fruit options. They had talked about the soul the previous night and Yuan shared with Li Yu what he knew and had learned about the soul himself. It turned out that Yuan was at the 1st stage of Soul Formation before he was injured.

Given how Yuan had been using his soul and will to keep himself going all these years, they both suspected that once his body was fully healed he would be stepping onto the 2nd stage of Soul Formation. Making one of the strongest beings that Li Yu knew about on this continent. Li Yu asked about the thunder-bird that had injured Yuan but Yuan said it has been gone all these years and he didn’t know where it was.