120: New diseases

Two months quickly passed.

Ning was now a volunteer in the Volunteer Hall, carrying some notes. Since he cured that woman with the different black-blue abdomen, he had been regularly assigned 2-3 women per week.

Recently, that number had decreased, and he only got 1 per week. Even so, people outside could see a woman with a large belly walk in, and a woman with a flat abdomen walk out.

This piqued the patients' interest in Ning. Although they hadn't forgotten the fact that he no longer performed those Heavenly Massages, they were still willing to visit him if other volunteers were a bit busy, just in case a serious problem occurred.

Furthermore, there were still some who needed a real massage to heal themselves. Ning's visitors had also started to decrease, but the number was still quite normal.

"Yes, just boil some water, soak a clean towel in the steam, and place it on the swollen area. You'll recover soon," Ning told his patient.

"Is that so? Thank you, Doctor," the woman in her fifties said, handing him a Coupon before leaving.

"4 points, not bad," Ning thought.

He opened the box storing the Coupons to check. He had been keeping a tally of the amount; his current total was around 2016.

Ning thought, "For the next exam, I can take one of the three tests. I wonder which one I should take." To become a doctor, one had to pass three different exams.

The first was related to patients. The exam was to see if one could identify what injury, illness, or simple problem a patient had. Accurately identifying the issue was necessary when seeking a solution.

The second exam was related to treatment methods for wounds. Those who came to see a doctor were people who couldn't be cured by volunteers. That is, they needed some form of treatment or medication. The doctor's job was to determine the medicine or treatment method required to heal the patient.

The third, and final one, was probably the simplest of the three.

It involved identifying the ingredients used in making medicine. There were too many ingredients for making medicine, and it was very important to remember which was which.

Therefore, only after completing these 3 exams with significant results could one truly become a doctor.

"Maybe I should start with the ingredients. Because it's the easiest, even Old Neil can't bully me with the questions," Ning muttered to himself.

Now, he couldn't leave and go wherever he wanted; he was stuck there for another year and two months.

Ning's ward once again fell into a state of boredom. For the next 2 hours, no patients came at all, so he started preparing his lunch.

This had already become the norm for him. Since the system left him, whenever he had the chance to become stronger than he currently was, he would cultivate normally.

Over the past two months, his Qi cultivation had improved by one level, and his body cultivation had improved by two levels. For some reason, even though he had fully adapted to the surrounding Qi, it was still difficult to break through when he encountered a bottleneck.

However, for body cultivation, there was no bottleneck; it was just an uninterrupted flow of cultivation from beginning to end. Therefore, his body cultivation was now at the eighth level, while his Qi was at the seventh Qi Condensation Realm.

Still, he was quite close to the Eighth Qi Condensation Realm. He could already feel the bottleneck approaching. That day, he cultivated all day, and no one came to find him.

Then, when it was time to leave, he stopped cultivating and stood up. Suddenly, someone walked into the room. Ning turned to look; it was a young woman.

"Are you leaving?" the woman asked as soon as she saw him getting up from his seat.

"Yes, I was just—" Ning stopped when he saw the woman's body. The woman's skin was covered in black spots everywhere. Ning immediately approached the woman and examined her skin.

These black spots were unusual; they seemed to follow a pattern, mostly equidistant from each other. Only in rare cases were there multiple black spots in the same place.

"What is this?" he wondered.

"I think I got sunburned or something. Doctor, can it be cured quickly?" the woman asked.

Ning didn't answer, but he knew this wasn't sunburn. "Can you tell me when this happened and how it occurred?" Ning asked.

"I don't know. It suddenly appeared on my body this morning. At first, there weren't many. I thought it would disappear, but this afternoon it suddenly flared up, reaching this level. So, I came here right after work," the woman explained.

"I see," Ning said while looking at the black spots more carefully. There were hundreds of possible black spots that could appear; he knew that. Now, he had to figure out which one it was.

"Can you show me more skin? I need to confirm it's everywhere," Ning said.

The girl blushed a little, nodded, then lifted her robe, revealing skin covered in black spots everywhere.

Her hands...

"Have you eaten or touched anything unusual?" Ning asked.

"No, not really. Just ordinary food from the restaurant where I work," the girl said.

"I see, then how about—"

"Doctor!!" the girl screamed.

"Wh-what? What's wrong?" Ning was startled.

The girl pointed at him and said, "Your hand." Ning looked down at his hand and nearly lost his heartbeat when he saw black spots starting to grow on his fingers as well.

"What?!" he screamed. Those black spots, whatever they were, were contagious.