Chapter 715: Weird Li Qi

In the evening, when Mo Long walked in covered in wounds, twenty-five Patrol Officer mechs followed behind him.

He seemed a bit dazed, walking blankly to the outside of the shelter, then collapsing with a thud.

The twenty-five mechs behind him also powered down, standing silently in place.

The area around the shelter's entrance fell into darkness and silence.

This darkness lasted for a short while.

Then, with a bang, the shelter door was abruptly opened, revealing several people inside, both men and women, some of whom Mo Long had rescued earlier that day, with Li Qi following behind them.

"Patrol Officer Li! He's back! The one you mentioned, he's back!" These people rushed to Mo Long's side.

They all knew that Mo Long had gone out to gather intelligence, and the more than twenty mechs behind him were likely the result. As the only two Patrol Officers here, everyone else was very worried.

Only if the Patrol Officers lived, would they live!

"Everyone, move aside, go back to what you were doing." Li Qi pushed away the person in front of him and quickly walked to Mo Long, patting his heavily damaged mech.

This pat seemed to trigger an electrode, and the mech's escape mechanism immediately activated. Various devices abruptly opened their locks, and a repulsive force seemed to want to burst forth, ejecting all the devices.

However... the repulsion layer was broken, so the automatic escape mechanism also failed, and all the devices remained attached to him.

Li Qi frowned slightly, then patted it again, and the last bit of energy from the repulsion layer was squeezed out, ejecting all the devices and causing the unconscious Mo Long to fall out.

Li Qi examined him.

Hmm.

Cerebral hemorrhage, brainstem burn, a blood clot twenty centimeters long, arteries completely blocked, Spirit Soul weak, heart exhausted, and traces of being affected by Martial Dao Divine Intent on his body.

The cerebral hemorrhage and brainstem burn should have been caused by an overload of the internally connected neural circuits.

The blood clot... was a side effect of stimulants. He took too many, causing a coagulation effect. Such a long blood clot, plus the spider web hemorrhoids on the capillaries all over his body, were they completely blocked? How much did he take? He didn't use up all the reserves, did he?

The weak Spirit Soul was the result of being suppressed by Martial Dao Divine Intent.

The exhausted heart was the result of excessive deliberation. Was the combat pressure too great? Considering the Martial Dao Divine Intent, he didn't confront a Martial Artist directly, did he? Was this caused by deciphering the opponent's moves, or did he do something that consumed a lot of brainpower, like... using his own brain as a central hub to control twenty-five or even more mechs?

He truly has no regard for his life.

Li Qi was a bit surprised.

But he also immediately realized that now was not the time to think about these things; Mo Long was dying.

In all fairness, Li Qi didn't want him to die, but he also didn't want to break his Seal. He still wanted to use this opportunity to regain some of a Mortal's perspective.

So, he would do what he could with his current abilities.

Li Qi immediately picked him up and carried him to the operating table inside, then locked the shelter door.

Then, he remotely controlled the more than twenty mechs outside to come in. Their cockpits were filled with parts, medicine, and a small amount of finished equipment.

There was also a long saber emitting a strong ominous aura, making people afraid to approach it.

Everyone watched Li Qi rummage through the medicine, seemingly finding some drugs, then entering the operating room.

What followed were truly terrifying sounds.

It was genuinely terrifying...

The several women all trembled upon hearing it.

"Sister... that, that's the sound of a chainsaw, isn't it?" A younger girl asked, trembling.

"Don't be afraid... he's treating him, it should be treatment, right?" They said, unsure if they were reassuring the little girl or themselves.

But Li Qi was banging and clanging inside. Although the noise was a bit frightening, it must be said that the effect was very good.

Because he was opening the skull, which was a bit hard. He had sealed his cultivation and couldn't use spells, so he could only use a chisel.

After a series of bangs and crashes, and then sawing off half his head with a chainsaw, all the clotted blood was finally drained. As for the burnt brainstem, there was nothing he could do about that, he would have to nourish it with medicine.

Fortunately, this world had special medicines. According to Li Qi's estimation... the survival rate was above thirty percent.

To be honest, this survival rate was already quite astonishing for someone of no rank. A burnt brainstem should have resulted in immediate death. When Li Qi was at the sixth or seventh rank, he went to a Buddhist country and had his brain burned there. That was a very serious injury, causing significant damage to the human body's small heaven and earth, and directly leading to sluggish thinking organs.

To be able to persist in collecting Materials under such an injury, and finally collapse at the entrance of the shelter... Mo Long's willpower was truly commendable.

Li Qi even regretted it a bit; he shouldn't have installed two engines on that mech.

Higher output meant higher overload, and the nerves couldn't withstand such an impact. Although he optimized the circuits, making the two engines only produce the normal load of one engine, which was already a terrifying optimization for the Advancement Alliance civilization—the most excellent scholars in the entire civilization would find it difficult to achieve this level—due to limitations in the overall design concept and the actual performance and Material properties of the parts, it was just like that.

Burning out a pilot's brainstem was still no problem.

Carefully scraping off the charred traces on the brainstem, by rights, the person should have already died at this point, because the heart and other organs would have stopped beating. After all, the brainstem controls a series of important physiological functions such as cardiovascular movement, respiratory reflexes, swallowing, and vomiting reflexes.

However, the Advancement Alliance's operating table had temporarily taken over these Systems. The artificial lungs completely replaced the respiratory System, the blood pump replaced the function of the heart, and the filter was filtering waste from the blood at more than two hundred times the speed of the kidneys. This waste included a large number of dead cells and charred body fragments. These metabolic wastes were enough to cause acute kidney failure, but with this operating table, none of these were problems. The Advancement Alliance's ex vivo organs were very mature, saving his life.

Moreover, Mo Long himself was no longer a natural person; he had undergone quite a few internal modifications, so it wasn't as fatal.

Li Qi immediately began the intensive rescue.

Scraping off the burnt part of the brainstem—a move that would surely cause a neurosurgeon to stop breathing—but Li Qi's hands, manipulating the operating table instruments, were incredibly steady, maintaining at the cellular level that only the useless parts were scraped away.

Then... connecting external optical fibers, re-connecting to the spine.

Optical fiber nerves, this was also a technology of the Advancement Alliance, but it could not replace true nerve endings, only large nerves. However, it was just right that the internal nerve interfaces were on the spine and brainstem, and the large nerves in this area could be replaced by optical fibers.

After solving the most important external injuries, the rest was slow recuperation.

The most crucial part of the recuperation was the Spirit Soul; his Spirit Soul was also very weak.

Fortunately, this was the part Li Qi was good at. Although he had no cultivation now, he still had some knowledge he could use.

He went outside and found the men and women who had been rescued. They were all handsome men and beautiful women, and it was their appearance that allowed them to survive.

Being ravaged was better than being sent to a concentration camp.

"Now I need your help. You need to hold a few threads and light them later." Li Qi said to them, completely without asking for their opinion, speaking directly in a commanding tone.

"Patrol Officer Li, what is this?" Someone asked, puzzled.

"It's for treatment. Just do as I say, don't ask why, and don't mention it afterwards." Li Qi instructed.

Saying that, Li Qi twisted a five-colored thread into a rope, binding the patient's neck, hands, feet, waist, and abdomen with spells. He extended the thread, giving a piece to each person to hold, carefully tying the knots, and then making a vow over the five-colored thread with a spell.

He also placed a Seal on the thread and chanted forty-nine times, tying forty-nine knots.

He should have held an incense burner, but without one, Li Qi folded one out of paper. Then he found various fragrant Materials, wood, fabric, and even seasonings from canned food in different places, using his knowledge to create a usable incense powder. He kneaded it into a paste, dried it, burned these various incenses, and ground them into incense ash.

Ritual spells, this was Li Qi's old trade.

With the help of these people, he planned to construct a ritual to nourish Mo Long's Spirit Soul, using human Qi, human soul, earth Qi, and heaven Qi as the five directional components.

No sooner said than done, he instructed the others to hold the ends of the threads firmly, then he began to arrange the other things.

However, to the others, Li Qi's actions seemed particularly bizarre.

His movements were especially strange, speaking words no one understood, singing eerie and chilling melodies, looking peculiar.

He wrapped the patient's wrists, ankles, and chest and abdomen with silk threads, then pulled the threads out, winding them around the room. Then he searched for many strange things, burned them to ash in the corners, twisted them into threads, and then folded a pile of incomprehensible things out of paper, muttering to himself, seeming completely disoriented.

It was too strange, too bizarre.

This scene made the others' hair stand on end, but they didn't know what to say, after all... this was a Patrol Officer.

A Patrol Officer performing these mystical and bizarre actions, coupled with the apocalyptic atmosphere around them, even made one girl cry from fright.

They held the threads, not daring to let go, but whispered to each other in private.

"What is this...? Why does it look like those sacrifices I saw in videos before...?"

"Don't say it, if you don't say it, you won't be scared."

Not only was the atmosphere in the scene very strange, but they also smelled a peculiar odor. Li Qi was squatting in the corner, and the incense ash he burned was indescribably difficult. This smell was like long-fermented decaying flesh, mixed with the scent of some flowers and various edible spices, forming a pungent odor.

Everything was so terrifying. To them, it was as if they had fallen into a demon's den overnight.

Outside were ruins, piles of corpses, and various monsters.

Inside the shelter, there was another mystical Patrol Officer.

The only one they could trust now seemed to be Mo Long, who had saved them but was now lying on the operating table.

"Patrol Officer Mo Long... please get better soon." Several people couldn't help but pray like this.

This 'Vow Power' was gathered by Li Qi along the silk threads.

This was 'human Qi'.

This place was originally underground, so with a bit of arrangement and guidance, there was earth Qi.

Heaven Qi was nowhere to be found; this had to come from the incense Li Qi rolled. These incense ashes, meticulously prepared by Li Qi, possessed the ability to draw heaven Qi under his knowledge.

The three combined, plus the five silk threads, formed a Formation, like conductive wires, guiding all this Qi into Mo Long's Spirit Soul, and the ritual was complete.

To outsiders, all of this seemed bizarre and unfathomable, as if they had stumbled into a horror game.

But Li Qi didn't care about any of that; as long as those people held the silk threads without letting go, what they thought didn't matter.

It's just that... Li Qi's indifferent attitude made the atmosphere even more bizarre. As the only one present who knew the truth, his typical mystical and shamanistic behavior, like a Shaman performing a ritual, pushed everything into an even more terrifying atmosphere.

In the eyes of others, he was like a madman driven insane by the apocalypse.

But no matter what, this thing really worked.

A day later, the ritual was mostly complete, but the men and women holding the silk threads were utterly exhausted, an indescribable fatigue weighing on their chests.

Li Qi made some food and placed it in front of them, saying, "Alright, give me the threads. Eat something, then get some good rest."

Upon hearing Li Qi's words, they felt as if they had been granted a great pardon. They quickly dropped the silk threads, each took their food, and found a small corner in the shelter, preparing to rest well.

They had been sitting uncomfortably holding the silk threads for an entire day and were already exhausted, not to mention that the essence of the silk threads was to gather their human Qi. While this wouldn't cause any harm, it was truly tiring, like intense studying, consuming mental energy.

Li Qi then began to gather the silk threads and sprinkle the incense ash on Mo Long's body.

Although this might lead to infection, as incense ash was indeed not very clean, the power within it was enough to nourish the Spirit Soul.

As for infection... and aseptic infection caused by foreign matter entering the body...

Hmm, just give him some anti-inflammatory medicine, that's more practical.

After all, both mysticism and medicine must be grasped firmly. Since both are correct, just use both.

On the third day, Mo Long, after being rescued by Li Qi, finally woke up.

Li Qi looked at him and breathed a sigh of relief: "Whew... you're finally awake, good buddy. How do you feel? I replaced the connection between your brainstem and spinal cord with optical fibers. Is there any sluggishness? If there is, you'll have to lie still, I'll have to operate on you again."

"It's... fine, no sluggishness. How many artificial organs did I get?" Mo Long asked weakly, his voice hoarse.

"Didn't replace any. My craftsmanship is excellent. Rest well, you're on nutrient fluids, that's enough for your recovery. Don't think too much, sleep more, it's good for your nervous System to recover." Li Qi patted him: "Alright, the sedative has been injected. Sleep."

Before he finished speaking, Mo Long fell unconscious again.

The medicine was very strong.