Alex watched the middle-aged man walk into the barrier and asked, “No one can see or hear us from the outside. You can tell me what is wrong here,” he said.

The man nodded. “How long have you been working as a healer?” he asked. “I don’t know if I can take advice from someone who hasn’t been working that long.”

“I have been doing this for about 50 years now. If you do not think I will be a fit for you, you can leave,” Alex said.

The man thought for a bit and shook his head. “No, my issue is severe enough that I need to take my chances with you,” he said. “Can I trust you to not reveal my problems to others?”

“Of course,” Alex said. “This thing will remain between you and me. How can I help you?”

The man nodded and slowly rolled up his right sleeve which Alex only now noticed was unusually long. As he rolled it up, Alex saw what he had been hiding within it.

While the man seemed fine below the wrist, from his wrist to his shoulders, his arm was completely swollen with dark green veins covering it entirely. Even the flesh around the veins seemed greenish-white and rather sickly.

Alex could smell a slightly rotting scent coming from the arm now that it was exposed to the air.

“What is that?” he couldn’t help but ask.

“I don’t know,” the man said. “It just appeared one day. I thought it would heal on its own, but it hasn’t healed in a while.”

“And the other healers couldn’t help you?” Alex asked.

“None I came across so far,” the man said. “I’m hoping you can do it, despite your weak cultivation base.”

“I will try,” Alex said. “Let me try and find out the root of the problem.”

He made the man sit on the mat and took his right arm. His guess was that it was some sort of poison, but he didn’t know about any poison that acted this way, so it made him wonder what different poison it was.

His spiritual sense brought back no result that he could use to determine what the issue was. There was certainly some sort of fluid building up in his veins, but it was difficult to say what it was without taking it out.

“I will have to cut some of this fluid out,” he said and took out a small scalpel to make the cut. The swollen arm oozed out with fizzy black sludge. It was a viscous liquid that didn’t drip as easily and mostly stuck to the man’s arm.

The smell that came off of the liquid was enough to make a man gag, but Alex held his instincts and tried to go through not just his knowledge, but also the knowledge left for him by the Alchemy God. There was nothing there that helped him immediately. The fluid wasn’t dark green surprisingly. It turned out that was just the man’s blood veins. Alex scooped a bit of the black sludge with his scalpel and smelled it. It smelled rotten certainly, but there was another sort of smell hidden within it that caught his attention.

He realized what the smell was almost immediately. It was the metallic smell of blood. Which meant that this black sludge was in fact mostly blood.

Blood shouldn’t ever be this viscous on its own, but Alex didn’t sense any poison. The only situation he saw possible here was that the man had come into contact with blood that wasn’t compatible with his own and had somehow gotten it into his body.

There were many possibilities. The main one was that the man had been in a battle where the enemy’s blood had mixed with his own. The other person had to have stronger blood to have this sort of situation where he couldn’t heal on his own.

“Did you come across foreign blood in recent times?” Alex asked. “Normally if you get it into your system, your Immortal body should have been able to heal it. But if it was too strong, it could have caused this issue.”

As Alex said that, he realized that there was another possibility than just that too. The blood could also be weaker, but if it was in a much higher quantity, then it would do the same thing.

But then… why would the man have across a large amount of blood and have it put into his body?

As Alex contemplated that, the man moved spontaneously.

Alex reacted a second too late, and the man had his hands wrapped around his neck, choking him. With his other hand, the man brought out a spear, the end of which he pointed directly at Alex’s dantian.

“Make any action that I don’t tell you to make, and I will stab you through right now,” he said. “Understood?”

Alex looked at the man and slowly nodded. “I see,” he said. ‘You’re a demonic cultivator.”

The man shoved the spear through Alex’s body, but a bit away from his dantian, only as a threat. He pulled it out. “Speak another word that I don’t ask for and I will cripple you next. Understood?”

Alex stared at the man for a long second and then nodded. He understood the situation perfectly now.

“What is the solution to my problem?” he asked.

“What is the cause of the problem?” Alex asked in return. “Is it some strong blood or a lot of weaker blood?”

As Alex expected from the man, it turned out to be the second one. “I consume a lot of blood for my cultivation base. What is the issue here?”

“The amount,” Alex said. “You are consuming too much too quickly and your body is failing to break it down completely before putting the blood into your bloodstream. The incompatible bloods are reacting to each other and destroying it.”

“It has all entirely turned to sludge within your body, but since you’re an Immortal, you haven’t felt the consequences yet.” The man grunted in annoyance. “I asked for the solution,” he said.

“Simple,” Alex said. “Just get rid of all the blood in your body and eat some pills to have your body produce some more.”

The man was shocked. “That’s it?” he asked.

“That is the easiest solution,” he said.

The man thought for a bit. “That will work,” he said. “Do you have the pills?” “I do,” Alex said.

“Give it to me.”

Alex smiled. “No.”

The man paused, confused. “I said give it to me. Or do you want to be turned into a cripple?” he asked.

“And what will you do when you get the pills?” Alex asked. “Get out of here safely? Do you not realize that the moment you leave, I will tell everyone who you are and what you do?” The man snickered a little. “You do not believe my words as a threat, do you?” he asked. “Do you think you can live now that you have found my secret? The only thing waiting for you is death.”

He let go of Alex and at that exact moment stabbed him through the head.