Although the spiritual medicine that Leonard Brooks gave him was of a quality that ordinary people could never even dream of, Henry Brooks only lay unconscious in bed for seven or eight days at most before he no longer felt the pain of broken bones, but his body still hadn’t fully recovered.

Henry Brooks hadn’t even left Qingxi Peak yet, and there was still some distance to the foot of the mountain, but his heels were already swollen and stabbing with pain like being pricked by needles.

Henry Brooks saw a few clumps of bamboo-like shrubs by the rocky ditch at the roadside, bearing seven or eight purple fruits the size of a baby’s fist. Realizing these were the low-grade spiritual fruits called purple bamboo fruits, he gritted his teeth and forced himself down the stone steps despite the stabbing pain in his legs and feet, picked those seven or eight purple bamboo fruits, and handed one each to Samuel Clark and William Carter, saying, “It’ll take at least ten days to half a month to reach Tieliuling. Uncle Clark, Uncle Carter, have a couple of purple bamboo fruits to quench your thirst…”

Samuel Clark and William Carter had thought that Edward York would start throwing a tantrum and cursing after only half a day, but seeing him still able to endure with such courtesy, they were secretly surprised. However, they kept a straight face and firmly refused the purple bamboo fruits, declining, “We dare not violate the mountain’s rules in the slightest…”

Deep within the Taiwei Mountains, those ridges much lower than Qingxi Peak were covered in snow, but as one of the Seven Upper Peaks, Qingxi Peak was warm and spring-like all year round, lush with greenery and planted with spiritual trees. Low-grade spiritual fruits like the purple bamboo fruit weren’t exactly everywhere, but they weren’t hard to find either.

Although there was no explicit prohibition, among the attendants, maids, and household retainers of the various caves on Qingxi Peak, how many dared to act as recklessly in the mountains as Henry Brooks did?

This time, having been expelled from Qingxi Peak, Henry Brooks would have few chances to enjoy such privileges in the future, so he was even less inclined to be polite. He took a big bite of the fist-sized purple bamboo fruit, his mouth instantly filled with saliva, and a scorching heat flowed down his throat, spreading throughout his body.

Although the purple bamboo fruit was a low-grade spiritual fruit that no one cared about on Qingxi Peak, for Henry Brooks at this moment, it was undoubtedly a great tonic. His body suddenly grew hot, and he felt as if some immense, invisible force was about to burst him open from within.

This was what it meant to be too weak to handle nourishment.

Fortunately, the medicinal power of the purple bamboo fruit wasn’t especially strong. Aside from some initial discomfort, Henry Brooks didn’t reach the point of bleeding from his orifices.

Ever since the snake bracelet was absorbed into the flesh of his wrist, it seemed to have become a special organ within Henry Brooks’s body, allowing him to easily direct his consciousness into the Bloodcloud Wasteland at any time…

At this moment, the puppet avatar, sitting among endless desolation and bizarre piles of bones, maintained a seated posture, looking quite strange. But a faint blue glow emanated from within its body, and under Henry Brooks’s mental perception, he saw countless thin blue lines spreading from the throat through the puppet avatar’s limbs and bones…

Earl Lefton had said that true essence or vital energy, as it moved through the meridians, would be projected onto the puppet avatar exactly, like a mirror. Thus, these web-like threads of faint light were actually a direct manifestation of the medicinal power of the purple bamboo fruit being transformed into vital energy within the body.

He just hadn’t expected the body’s meridians to be so densely packed…

Looking closely at the fiery medicinal power of the purple bamboo fruit, the countless blue threads spreading from the throat throughout the body, Henry Brooks noticed that these blue threads varied in thickness and density. Though as dense as a spider web, they vaguely formed twelve main branches among the limbs and bones, running through the entire body.

This was the origin of the twelve main meridians—although the “Supplementary Record to the Profound Dao Soldier” described the twelve main meridians, it was never as intuitive and vivid as “seeing them with one’s own eyes” at this moment.

Henry Brooks simply took out the “Supplementary Record to the Profound Dao Soldier” from his pack and compared them one by one. He was soon able to identify the twelve main meridians—three yang and three yin in the legs, three yang and three yin in the arms—without the slightest error.

Henry Brooks was secretly amazed. When he combed through Edward York’s memories, he found that Edward York had also studied the “Supplementary Record to the Profound Dao Soldier” after joining Taiwei Sect, but had never fully figured out the exact locations of the twelve main meridians in the body. Yet he himself could identify them so intuitively through the puppet avatar. No wonder that old fellow Earl Lefton felt that giving him this puppet avatar was already a huge favor to the Dragon Emperor Cang Yu.

Henry Brooks also noticed that, within the puppet avatar, the six main meridians in the lower legs and feet were somewhat reddened.

His real body subconsciously reached back to touch his heel, and saw that the puppet avatar mimicked the movement. The more swollen and painful the spot he touched, the redder it appeared.

After walking who knows how many steps down the stairs all day, Henry Brooks’s feet were already injured. He hadn’t expected that even the puppet body could directly reflect the injuries suffered by his real body…

As the fiery medicinal power of the purple bamboo fruit traveled down the meridians of his feet, the redness and swelling shown in the puppet body’s feet diminished considerably. In reality, the swelling in his legs also eased a bit, showing that the purple bamboo fruit not only replenished vital energy but also had some healing effect.

However, the half-crippled body left to him by Edward York still couldn’t fully absorb all the medicinal power of a single purple bamboo fruit. Through the puppet avatar’s mirror-like reflection, he could see that the medicinal power of the fruit spread too quickly in his body, and only a small portion could be absorbed, while most of it was lost rapidly through sweat, wasted for nothing.