Matt looked at the child, it was covered up with a blanket and no more in critical condition. He wasn’t sure what kind of person would beat up an 11-year old like that, but he would certainly like to have a word with them. For now, he left then walked over to the mother, that was a bit out of it after he calmed her down with his technique.
“The boy will be fine, he just needs to rest. He should wake up soon.”
The woman snapped out of it and looked at her boy, then to the scary-looking older man. She dropped down to her hands and knees, doing the usual head bobbing maneuver that made Matt uncomfortable, he could never get used to how quick these people went down to their knees.
“Thank you, Senior, how can I repay you… I don’t have anything to repay you with, I can be your slave, I’ll do anything… even…”
The grandpa in question moved back slightly after hearing the woman wanted to become his slave and even wanting to do extra services.
“What? girly what are you even on about. This was free treatment, I don’t need any slaves.”
He turned around, still trying to keep his elder persona up. He swished his sleeves and moved so that she could only see the back on his head.
“Haven’t you heard, the generous and magnanimous Zhang Clan is offering treatment free of charge, they are truly a virtuous family. If you want to be grateful to anyone, be grateful to them. I also heard that they are accepting children from broken homes into a special school, your child has some cultivation aptitude, you should go ask about it… and stop bowing your head already…”
The woman didn’t look at him, just hanging her head down as if he would poke her eyes out if she dared to look at his face. But she soon moved her gaze upwards as the elder started talking about a special school and that everything here was free.
“M-my son has potential?”
“Ah yes, with the right schooling he shouldn’t really have trouble in reaching the foundation establishment realm.”
He checked the youth’s potential, it wasn’t anything great just a C. But this was enough and slightly above average from what he could tell. Most people had potentials in the F – C range, with F being quite rare and people with that having zero aptitudes for cultivation. Though an ‘F’ aptitude also showed up if people had some illnesses like blocked meridians that didn’t allow for cultivation.
The ‘C’ potential was the top one an average person could have, ‘C+’ was the start for gifted people this would be the start of the gifted tear. ‘S’ was the most you could have, the largest potential that Matt had ever come across was the one his two disciples had being at a ‘B+’. So this kid was top at the average mark, which wasn’t bad at all.
“F-foundation establishment?”
The woman got dizzy, her child wasn’t even at the first level of Qi condensation the family not having any cultivation manuals at all. Though people reached that level naturally in their older teen years even without any manuals just by passively absorbing the rich Qi in the surroundings.
“Ah yes, he’ll probably reach the first level of Qi Condensation soon, maybe even the second level, his body absorbed a lot of my healing energies, guess you could call that a side effect…”
The woman gasped once more, there were a couple of the workers listening to the conversation from the side as they gathered waiting for their punishment.
‘Side effect my ass, this is a big scoop!’
The workers started to think, that maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to go into some alleys and get themselves trashed by some hooligans. When the elder healed them afterward, maybe they could get through their cultivation bottlenecks.
“But I need to get some things done, just stay with your son he should wake up soon.”
He walked back to his office, glaring at the workers from a side profile which made them get goosebumps. It was time to punish the infidels, he needed to show how things were run here and explain to them that they couldn’t just leave injured people outside in the cold.
“Everyone into my office!”
He walked in first, hunched over slightly and with his hands behind his back. He was getting used to acting like an old geezer, it was kind of fun he could have temper tantrums and the people just thought it was normal. He waited for them to enter his large office, there was enough room for everybody to sit down in a heel sitting position.
Everyone was nervous, they had their back straight and knees tightly pressed while sitting down in this uncomfortable position. Their boss was sitting at his desk, just sipping on his tea while everyone was quiet and afraid to mutter a word. Finally, he placed the teacup to the side and spoke up, his voice stern and domineering.
“Do you know what you did wrong?”
The people looked at each other, no one really wanted to speak up but someone had to, one worker finally mustered up some courage as he answered.
“W-we didn’t follow orders and caused the Elder to lose face?”
Wei Hung’s face twitched a bit after he heard that reply, the people in the room not sure if that was the right answer but it seemed logical. The Elder and Zhang Clan wanted to look magnanimous for some reason, so if the Seniors came to that decision it would be a loss of face if their juniors didn’t follow through on that order. They didn’t realize that the answer that this man was looking for, was a lot simpler and he just wanted them to show some compassion.
“Ho ho? So, it was all about me losing face now, is it…”
The man rubbed his long white beard and glared at the people in the room. From his reaction, the workers knew that something was off.
“Damn you people, show some empathy once in a while! This isn’t about saving or losing face you fools!”
A teacup was flung at the wall, whizzing past the man’s face that did the reply, the tea leaves and the residual water in the cup making a mess on the wall.
“Please Elder Hung, appease your rage, we were in the wrong, it won’t happen again.”
The members pleaded while bowing down again.
“You’re damn right it won’t! But that’s not the point, you lot better listen well now. Helping people that have nothing isn’t wrong, showing compassion to strangers once in a while isn’t either. You must lose that backward mindset of yours, this is not how the Zhang Clan or this clinic operates!”
He soon started lecturing them about the virtues of life, words like ‘sympathy’, ‘kindness’, ‘mercy’ were just some that he threw out at them trying to make them understand his point of view and that it wasn’t a weakness to being a good person. But he wasn’t sure that he was getting through to these people, that just bobbled their heads at him, their expressions mixed.
“And another thing, don’t be afraid to call for me, there is a little button to the side of the door of the room I do my pill concocting. If you press it I will know that you need me and I will arrive shortly, you will not be punished.”
He tried a couple of angles, presenting them with hypothetical scenarios.
“How would you feel if your family got annihilated in some useless squabble about face and there was no one that helped you out. You could only die outside in the cold or get devoured by beasts, no one willing to give you a helping hand. How would you feel then, try putting yourselves in their shoes once in a while.”
“You might not know this, but the Dao of compassion is a powerful one!”
He wasn’t lying, you had to be compassionate for the holy elemental energies to actually work. That’s why you mostly saw only people like priests and nuns using the holy healing arts, you had to have a vitreous hart for it.
“Behold!”
His finger glowed with a golden light, the area filling with comfortable holy energies that made everyone in the room feel at peace. They could feel their fatigue receding as they were gaining their stamina back.
“Maybe if you show some warmth to your fellow people, you might awaken this power too…”
He left them with something to think about, maybe if the words didn’t get to them. The show of an unknown Dao would, their eyes went wide as saucers the moment his finger started glowing. He would be happier if they realized that being nice to your fellow man wasn’t so bad. But if he could get them with the show of future gains, it would have to do for now.
‘This will be a long process… I spend to much time crafting for these past years. Thought these people were getting better, but not much has changed.’
“You can leave now, hope you learned something.”
The workers slowly walked out in an orderly fashion, seaming quite confused about what they had heard. Matt in his Wei Hung disguise just slumped into his chair, his hand going to his face as he did a normal facepalm gesture.
‘Ahh… that was stressful… but I’ve gotten better at things like this now…’
He didn’t suffer from stage fright as much recently, his fear of conversation had mostly gone away by now. He wasn’t sure if he just got used to talking to people or if it was the Tranquil technique at play. It being quite a quality of life one, the more he used the calmer he got and the less outside factors could affect his calm demeanor.
‘I miss the old cash shop… most of the techniques I got from that library aren’t as good and I can’t even get points from slaying monsters.’
He didn’t feel as motivated to battle other people or monsters since his system had changed. He could still get cores to absorb but those items were better used as crafting materials for armor or weapons, most of the beast he hunted were demonic ones that were bothering the people around the area that he owned. This also adding more daily point gains that were added to his system as his people felt safer.
‘Ah, I forgot to get one of the workers to clean the wall…’
He looked at the shattered teacup and the tea leaves on the ground that scattered into all directions after it shattered. His grumpy old man act had gone well, the people sure were afraid of him. He raised his posterior from the chair he was sitting on and went out, the moment he stuck his head out to see if one of the nurses was around he heard someone shouting loudly.
“No, you mustn’t. Zhu’er you’ve just gotten better, you must rest.”
“Let go of me mother, you don’t understand, I need to go back… The others…”
Matt raised a brow as he could see the boy squirming around in his mother’s grasp. He was trying to move down the bed but the woman was clinging to him tightly. The boy obviously didn’t want to hurt his mom so he only tried to push her away, but the woman wasn’t having any of it.
“No! Do you know how much your poor mother went through, you can’t go!”
“But the others, they are in danger… those cultivators are going to kill them!”
The boy was a bit frantic, still a bit weak as the holy healing art wasn’t perfect just yet. It seemed that the men that had beaten him out would be heading to the urchin’s hideout, the boy heard them talk while they were giving him the beatdown. He wasn’t sure how they would track them down, but they apparently had some kind of tracking treasure with them and wanted to punish the little thieves. He was lucky enough to have played dead and them just kicking him to the side, then he barely made it back home and finally woke up in this clinic.
“Oh? Who is going to kill who now? Could you explain?”
The family of two stopped squirming and looked to the voice, it was the large elderly uncle that had healed the boy. He was standing there while stroking his beard, wondering what this was all about.