"By the way, I have over 10,000 years of experience in the field of medicine, and there hasn't been a single patient that I haven't been able to cure since I became a doctor." Li Shizhen said.
Yuan nodded, "I will trust you."
Though it was not like he never trusted Li Shizhen.
Even if Li Shizhen didn't say any of that, Yuan would've still trusted him, as he was someone that Feng Yuxiang trusted enough to approach.
"Great. Now then, why don't you tell me what seems to be troubling you?" Li Shizhen asked him a moment later.
Yuan took a deep breath and proceeded to explain his situation to Li Shizhen without telling Li Shizhen that he was the person on the topic.
"I have this friend who grew incredibly sick out of the blue when he was young, and he has been crippled since then."
"Everything seemed to be normal for the first seven years of his life, but then he suddenly lost his ability to see, becoming blind. Five years later, his body suddenly stopped functioning, so everything below his neck became useless and numb to feeling, forcing him to stay in the bed."
"However, when the doctors checked his condition, they weren't able to find anything wrong with his body. They checked his blood, his muscles, and even his bones, but they were unable to find anything."
"The doctors said that he was perfectly healthy, yet he was unable to move."
"However, after 5 gruesome years, my friend finally started recovering after he started cultivating. He started feeling his body again, and now he can even move his limbs slightly."
"He's also a peak Spirit Warrior on the verge of breaking through to Spirit Master, but he still feels as though his body doesn't have any strength to it. He can feel his body overflowing with energy, but he cannot exert any of that energy. Do you have any idea what's wrong with him and if there's any cure that will allow him to recover faster?"
"Hmmm… Give me a moment to think about this…" Li Shizhen said to him before closing his eyes and turning silent.
Many minutes later, he opened his eyes and spoke in a calm voice, "This is an interesting case— not to make fun of your friend. I have seen many cases similar to this, but there are some distinctive differences."
"One such case being Qi deprivation. Once a cultivator reaches a certain cultivation base, they are required to continue absorbing spiritual energy to keep their bodies functioning, and if they stop absorbing spiritual energy for long enough, their bodies will slowly lose their functions. They will go blind, and their bodies will no longer be usable until they start absorbing spiritual energy again, just like your friend, but this only happens when the cultivator purposefully stops absorbing spiritual energy."
"As cultivators, we subconsciously absorb the spiritual energy around us even if we don't actively cultivate, so one must forcefully stop their bodies from absorbing spiritual energy, or something is preventing them from doing so."
"However, that isn't the case for your friend, as he's only a peak Spirit Warrior, meaning he's not at the level where they can experience Qi deprivation in such a manner. Furthermore, his problem began even before he started cultivating."
After taking a moment to breathe, Li Shizhen continued, "Now onto the second case— poison. There are powerful and deadly poisons out there that can have similar effects on humans if ingested. However, this is also unlikely for your friend, because you said that the doctors have checked his blood."
"Even an incredibly incompetent doctor would be able to detect the poison in his blood if he'd ingested some. Although there are undetectable poisons out there, none of them could cause the effects your friend is experiencing— at least I am not aware of any."
Yuan nodded and said, "I also don't think it was caused by poison."
"Then onto the last probability and also the one that's most likely the cause of your friend's misfortune." Li Shizhen said.
Yuan swallowed nervously, feeling his heart rate increase rapidly.
"Curse. Your friend was cursed."
"W-What?" Yuan's eyes widened when he heard Li Shizhen's words.
"Your friend was cursed, hence why the doctors cannot find anything wrong within his body, as most of them do not have the capabilities to detect even the weakest curses. The field of medicine and curses are vastly different, so unless they're a Divine Doctor like me, they most likely won't know anything about curses."
"Another reason that supports this theory is the fact that despite being a Spirit Warrior and feeling energetic, your friend cannot exert any strength. Now the question is whether your friend was cursed by another individual or is it due to a natural curse." Li Shizhen pondered with a serious look on his face.
"..."
Yuan was speechless, and he recalled his conversation with Doctor Wang sometime ago. Although Doctor Wang also mentioned that he could be cursed, neither of them took such a theory seriously, as it was a ridiculous thought that curses could be real.
And even though cultivation was proven to be real, that doesn't prove curses were real. After all, even though cultivation existed in both Cultivation Online and the real world, magical beasts that also exist in Cultivation Online don't exist in the real world.
This meant that just because something existed in Cultivation Online, it doesn't always mean their world will also have it.
"Is there no other reason why my friend is like that?" Yuan couldn't help but ask.
"If he's not cursed then I don't have any idea what's wrong with your friend, as there's no illness that could affect one's body like what you explained to me. One could go blind due to illnesses, and one can even lose functions to their entire body due to illnesses, but to have a healthy body while having all of that problem just isn't possible."
"However, if your friend is cursed, then that would explain why his body is in that state despite being completely healthy, and that also explains why he started recovering when he started cultivating, as most curses have weakened effects on cultivators, especially the stronger they get." Li Shizhen said.