Pain awakened Liam. It was sharp, deep, and coming from all over his body, preventing any chance of sleeping any longer.

Liam forced himself to sit up with a grunt, parting his heavy eyelids to check himself. His vision was hazy, but he could see that his superficial injuries had healed. Even his insides seemed fine.

Of course, Liam’s left arm was still gone. His shoulder was now a stump.

Liam ignored that for now, instead focusing on the sharp pain. He closed his eyes, watching the Qi in his body. Both his cultivation and circulation technique were at full capacity, but the latter hurt.

Nothing leaked. The meridians had fixed the holes, but they were by no means healed. They hurt when Qi circulated through them, as if they were exposed nerves ready to shatter at the first pressure.

There were alchemical products that targeted the meridians, but the Qi was their best cure. That energy couldn’t do anything in the instance of proper shattering, but that didn’t apply to Liam’s case, or rather, he might be able to recover naturally from that, too.

After all, Liam was the son of an Ancestral Beast. His body was made for cultivation like nothing else in the Heavens. Such was his advantage. He could break himself far worse than others and keep going.

Naturally, there were limits, physical ones in that case. The capacity of Liam’s body had diminished. He had less Qi circulating through him because there was less of him. The pathways and space that his left arm used to provide didn’t exist anymore.

There was a fix for that, too, but Liam didn’t even look at his stump as he crawled toward Grace.

Grace was still asleep, with the fan guarding her religiously. The weapon was on the floor next to her face, but it rose in the air at Liam’s arrival, letting him check her.

There was dried blood everywhere, but the wound on Grace’s chest had closed. Even her rib cage had healed. Everything looked to be in place, except for a nasty scar right between her breasts, like a patchwork of oddly sewn pieces with evident mismatched edges.

Liam didn’t know whether that would fade, but he was happy as long as life coursed through Grace. He moved to her waist, but her cultivation was still in high activity, busy processing the rank 3 healing pill’s leftovers and impurities.

The process was slow but ongoing, reassuring Liam. That was probably why Grace had yet to wake up, but the worst seemed to be behind her, and he was ready to wait for as long as she needed.

Liam got to his knees, a smile broadening on his face as he caressed Grace’s cheek, before forcing himself to stand and head to the other side of the room. He would deal with his hurt meridians, but something had to come first.

"I need your help," Liam said once he settled on the opposite wall, showing his hand.

The fan didn’t hesitate to leave Grace and reach Liam, folding itself into a knife and landing in his hand. He grasped it tightly, taking a deep breath, before placing the sharp edge at his stump’s base.

Then, Liam cut upward, reopening the injury the healing pill had closed, even severing an additional piece of flesh.

Liam immediately let go of the fan, which unfolded itself and resumed hovering, not questioning his behavior. It felt his confidence through the mental connection, and the fact that Grace was still alive had changed something.

The fan’s behavior was very low on the list of Liam’s current priorities. His Master’s inheritance had detailed the procedure, so he summoned a yellow pill and stared at it intently.

Regrowing was harder than healing. The former’s products were far more expensive, requiring rare ingredients and materials, making them among the most valuable items alchemy could produce.

To this day, Liam had only two of those rank 2 pills, one coming from the Archbishop’s inheritance, and another from his time in the Roaring Thunder Sect. Its name was Heavenly Blossom, and it could work on both limbs and organs.

Of course, if the injury was closed, there was nothing to regrow. Timing was also key. If a body spent too long with a missing piece, enough to adjust itself to its absence, the Heavenly Blossom wouldn’t know what to affect.

Liam threw the pill in his mouth before the bleeding could stop, and a grunt escaped him due to the sudden wave of pain that expanded from his stump. The flesh all around and inside it seemed to be burning, and the experience only worsened.

After the Divine Cult, Liam thought he had built a good tolerance to pain, even allowing him to disregard it completely, but the Heavenly Blossom proved him wrong.

As bone, muscle, and skin grew, so did the sensations stemming from them. They were literally chunks of mangled and exposed tissue, so all Liam could feel was pain.

Moreover, the regrowth was slow, unbelievably so, the burning making Liam experience every millimeter of whatever managed to stretch from his stump.

It took a full day for everything to end. Liam was curled into a ball, his forehead on the floor, sweat covering him. Even his eyes were watery, and his throat was sore due to his endless grunts.

However, once Liam realized that the torture was over and sat down, he found a welcome sight to his left. His arm was back there. It had returned exactly as he recalled, even with all the calluses and more he had developed on Krosstoen’s mountain.

Still, the limb wasn’t perfect yet. Liam could move it just fine, but it felt too sensitive and slightly weak, albeit the last part was more in terms of a numb mind-body connection than muscular issues.

Both issues were temporary. It was convalescence rather than a problem. The more Liam used his arm, the sooner it would go back to normal, and something that aided the process followed.

The circulation technique still hurt, but it expanded, like a river that had found new pathways, drawing energy from the core to fill those empty spaces.

Qi flowed into Liam’s left arm, restoring his body’s original capacity, the pathways there not hurting at all. They were new after all.

Liam stretched his arm a few times, nodding in satisfaction, before standing up. He washed himself with a tablet, remaining in his trousers, before placing talismans around that side of the room, summoning the white cauldron last.

Qi was indeed the best cure for the meridians, but adding nutrients to the equation accelerated the process. Liam also needed to put his new arm to use to help with the convalescence, and alchemy checked all the boxes.