Murim's Weakest Princess

Chapter 309: The First Cultivator Gynaecologist

There was so much free time in the week at the Red Palace. Anji had already completed the miasma purging pill recipe and sent it to the adults to handle. The letters she sent all received replies, and Anji’s casual news about her period and curious questions sparked a new idea.As a qualified researcher taught by the best of the Mystical Qilin Sect, Anji decided to compile her first research journal.

As far as medical records go, there was very limited information relating to women’s health. Even in regular medical practise, Doctor He had to furnish the section about women and fertility health with his own records. However, when it came to healthcare for cultivators, nothing of that sort existed.

Thankfully, Anji had very credible sources from a diversity of cultivators. Her curiosity might open a new door nobody thought they needed until now.

Grinding the ink and consolidating the information in her head with letters for references, Anji started to draft her very first original research journal. If she were a regular researcher, she would be pitching these to the Elders for approval at the appraisal ceremony to become a senior researcher. However, as the ninth sect successor, there was no real need for Anji to do any of these.

Summarising the general pattern of cultivation level and women’s fertility health, Anji drew on the stories of older women she asked. At a lower cultivation level, not many differences could be seen. However, for ladies after the Enlightened Core stage or learning particular specialised internal arts, there were significant changes.

Compared to Lizi and Anji, who had lower cultivation levels, people like Zhao Wanting and Gu Ying experienced a very long wait between cycles. Ordinary cultivators like Lizi continued to experience it once a month, on a regular basis. However, Anji learned that her mother only experiences it once every few months at most, and sometimes not for several years.

Yet, the most interesting part that nobody, not even Yang Ping, could confirm was the relationship between the cultivation core’s awakening during the Enlightened Core stage. It is said that pure harmony will recreate the body, transcending mortal limits. Anji had witnessed firsthand how her third brother was reborn during his breakthrough. Every cell had to be altered. Did that also mean the womb was altered?

Unlike Zhao Wanting, Gu Ying expressed that she never had a single period since getting to the Enlightened Core stage. It was as if her body had removed that function completely, and unless she became pregnant, she would not know if her body was freezing the reproductive process for efficiency.

Anji noted this part carefully. Slowing ageing was a well-known phenomenon associated with higher cultivation levels. The Enlightened Core cultivator can live up to two hundred years without an issue. However, the phenomenon of decreased cellular ageing and even frozen animation was something new. No wonder cultivators often had difficulty starting families. Zhao Wanting’s case and the Celestial Dragon Sect’s huge family were a rarity.

At that, Anji also made a short note about her shifu’s case. Yan Ping was about two hundred years old. Her white hair was a side effect of her training days, viewing the memory crystals and experiencing them in isolation, not a sign of her physical age. However, she explained it could be menopause because while the pace did slow, it eventually tapered off and disappeared about fifty years ago as she aged and her cultivation level increased. Nobody could be sure if it were body recomposition side effects of menopause. Truthfully, Anji had seen her teacher’s meridians with the second sight. It’s safe to say her teacher’s body was an extremely efficient energy converter, and there was no room for waste. It would not be surprising to know the body had no longer any human functions present despite looking like one. It explains why her teacher hardly ate. There was no need for it, even if the stomach still existed. She was the closest existence to a true immortal known to mankind and a medical mystery.

Speaking of medical mysteries, there were the irregular cultivator cases. Anji indexed the first section and her findings to take a break, reviewing the replies she received from the Heavenly Phoenix Sect.

According to Liu Yanxia and the Noble Consort Liu, both of whom practised the same Purification Fire internal arts from their sect, the extreme yang nature had completely destroyed the environment conducive to fertility. They were both considered barren as a side effect of the internal arts, which required them to transform the golden core into a furnace that constantly burned life energy.

The question of whether it could be recovered remains unanswered, but Anji jotted her thoughts into the journal on what she thought might help without compromising the unique internal arts practice.

Pausing here, Anji hummed. If there were internal arts based on extreme yang energy, surely there would be those with extreme yin energy as well. Unfortunately, she did not know any female cultivators with extreme yin energy for confirmation. Hence, she made a new hypothetical description for female cultivators who practised this irregular cultivation path and the potential effects based on the information she gathered earlier.

In contrast to extreme yang, extreme yin might render the cultivator barren as well, but in a suspended animation manner. If she were to compare it, Anji would describe it as a permanent hibernation. Unlike the extreme yang internal arts that are full of life that only needed tampering, like building a shelter in a desert, the frigid internal arts would be trickier to manage.

Without a known cultivator, Anji could only write down her thoughts. To counter the extreme yin internal arts, it’s like having to build a greenhouse in the middle of winter. The upkeep is higher, but there was still hope. Until then, it remains in the footnotes for future generations to explore. For now, this was all Anji could do as the first cultivator gynaecologist.

Taking a short break, Anji pondered how to write up the last section.

Dual cultivators.

...

Hong Nian Niang was possibly the only dual cultivator who experienced such a problem. However, it was still an irregular case study that warranted mention. After all, the next Vermillion Bird Sect’s successor might need it.

Although polygamy was uncommon for dual cultivators, Anji understood the need for Hong Nian Niang’s harem. Her cultivation level was so high that finding a suitable partner to grow alongside her was close to impossible. However, her infertility was also a problem born from her creative solution.

Truthfully, Anji knew this solution would work for her Godmother. However, she did not want to recommend it. No cultivator would willingly seal their cultivation level for years for the sake of producing children. The higher the cultivation level, the longer the acclimatisation to re-regulate hormones. It also meant Hong Nian Niang would be extremely vulnerable to attacks with her lower cultivation level during the suppression period. Any damage or stress to the seal will undo everything with risky backlash.

Yet, Anji wrote it down. Before she knew it, the journal was completed, and the moon had already risen high in the sky, just in time to hear someone knocking at the door.