After the conversation, Kairos quickly asked about Alan’s condition.

Although Kairos has fallen unconscious on his way back to George camp, he has woken up with no ill effects. His side has now been bandaged, and with the medical pills made from low-grade spiritual herbs, he is expected to fully recover by a few days. Likewise, Edward whose arm was crushed now has it in a sling, but he should be able to move it by tomorrow.

Now only Alan remained unconscious.

“The medics said that even his survivability is not yet a confirmed thing.”

Kairos drew a deep breath hearing his friend’s condition. The damage that Alan had received was much more than they had expected.

Because everyone was too eager to help, the group were chased away from the medic's tent and told to stay outside while the medics treated him.

But, Kairos ordered them to rest because they are still in danger of the Orcs and might need to fight anytime.

Since many of them are injured, and some that might require urgent attention, their tent is placed conveniently beside the medics' tent. If there is any news on Alan, they will hear it immediately.

The group reluctantly left, and after a while, the healers finally came out from their treatment.

“How is he?”

The chief healer, a young boy they had never seen before, shook his head, “We did all we could. For now, he will be in no danger but when he wakes up is hard to say, and... because his wounds were substantial, his cultivation might even regress. It would be better if you bring him to the Academy’s healers, but in that case, he will be forfeited from this examination.”

“Thank you,” Kairos replied solemnly. To either lose his cultivation or forfeit for the test would devastate Alan. Torn between their choices, the four of them brought their friend back to the tent.

As a generous arrangement from George, each individual of Snowdrifts had been allowed a small compartment, and additionally, they are given one larger compartment that they may also use to hold team strategy meetings. It is in the meeting room that they placed him down.

"Is Alan okay?"

It has already been a day and a half since he went into a coma. This entire time, no one knew if he will be able to make it and the tension had been high.

"He is in no danger now for sure. I believe he will be awake soon."

"Didn't the medics say that they are too inexperienced and does not know if he will have any permanent problems after this?"

"As long as he is alive we can do something."

"IT WON'T BE ENOUGH!"

"Yeah! How could living as a cripple be okay?"

“Everyone, calm down!" Kairos chided when he saw the conversation getting heated up.

"Alan will be fine, he was always a tough one," Tommy joins in as well

"The five of us have been through worse. He will wake up and smile as usual." Edward says

"His smile is really charming, I just wish he would direct it at me a little more," one of the girls in the group suddenly says.

"What? He smiles at me only, when did he ever smile at you?" A beautiful girl with blonde hair farrowed her eyebrows and stared daggers at the other girl.

"Suddenly I'm not so concerned about Alan’s recovery anymore," Jim said, but before his voice faded, a resounding noise reached everyone's ears.

*smack*

"Suddenly I feel like smacking the face that has a charming smile," says Edward with his hand on Alan’s face.

"Shouldn't you say that before you already smack him?" Kairos asked rolling his eyes.

The others who saw this become dumbfounded. Wasn't Alan critically wounded from saving Kairos?

"It's alright guys, getting smacked is Alan's normal state of being," Jim joked, but everyone just stared speechlessly at him.

The five of them really had no experience at having girls worry for them. When they saw Alan getting the special treatment, to say they are not envious is a lie. 

Although Kairos' group of made up of all guys, but the average groups have at least one or two girls, and plenty of all-girls groups in the Academy. After all, there is no unbridgeable gap of strength between male and female cultivators, in fact, there are many martial techniques that require, more agility and higher intrinsic Yin that favours woman practitioners, or muscle mass and stronger Yang that the males have.

A few stayed a while longer to look at Alan, especially the two girls that were vying for his smile. But seeing that he wouldn't wake any moment soon, they left one by one to recover by cultivating.

That night, when only the five brothers are left in the room, the guys quickly sent their soul perception into Alan's body to check his internal wounds.

The energy that came from their Life Force is a part of them, and using it, they could detect very small details.

It is the same technique they used to detect their surroundings, except to check what is happening within a person, they need direct contact.

The book of Origin has mentioned that this energy is actually one's soul being freely utilised.

From their examination, they immediately noticed there is dangerously little life force left in Alan.

Kairos deduced, "It must be because the Orc shattered his weapons when he infused it with Soul Force. Be very careful when using this technique again in the future."

The life force one has is held in a passive state within one's body. Depending on the person's needs, it can be used for recovery, or changed into Ki or stamina.

In that state, one's life force will not easily dissipate into the air.

But once that passive energy, Life Force, is changed into an active form of energy, Soul Force, it is possible to lose their life with a single mistake; just like how Alan lost a large portion of energy infused into his Tonfa when it was shattered.

If the Soul Force is somehow dissipated, it is no different from being stabbed or burned.

In retrospect, because Soul Force is part of the user's life, the battles were exceptionally dangerous against the D ranked opponents like Calculus and those Orcs with the ability to project Ki externally.

Without enough life energy, Alan would not be able to heal naturally.

It wouldn’t be much of an issue if that were all. But, crashing through trees and rock, caused the bones of both his arms to shatter and his internal organs to rupture. Furthermore, the impact he received when he landed broke his spine and caused most of his blood vessels as well as some meridian channels within his body to burst apart.

In such critical condition and without his body’s natural healing ability, it is almost certain that Alan would be dead. 

But, he was fortunate that Alucard and his group who are high nobles. The powerful healing salves and rare medical pills on them are plenty, and the heir of the Light Rose house, Lugh, is a descendant of the royal healers and had skill beyond his years.

But, even Lugh considered it a miracle that Alan could be saved. The wounds were truly frightening.

Now with their Soul Perception running through his body, the boys finally understood the truth that caused this impossibility. Alan himself had instinctively sealed his life force within himself and went into a stasis, allowing him to endure until now.

It is a method only Soul Force users could employ, to prevent the remaining life energy from seeping away. But, at the same time, because he has cut off all the exits and entrances of his meridian channels, he is unable to absorb Heavenly Energy to recover his life force actively.

"The medics were right... Even if he recovers, he would be crippled for life and become unable to practice martial arts anymore."

They grimly looked at each other, with frowns on their faces. But before anyone spoke, an idea popped in Kairos' mind and asked the others suggestively, "We can recover our life force during cultivation from changing the energy around us into our life force. Do you think it will work if we feed him the energy and infuse pure life force into him?"

"That's right! Why didn't we think of it! Let's transfer him as much energy as we can right away!" Jim says as he rapidly nods his head.

"No, wait, Kairos and Edward are still wounded all over, and the two of us are still low on energy," Tommy says, his voice deep as ever. Though they are only twelve, he has already started his voice break. If there is someone among them with an abundance of life energy, it would be Tommy, but even he is uncertain if they can generate enough energy to bring Alan out of the woods.

Reading his medical condition, they know that they have to succeed in one shot. Otherwise, the wounds may worsen instead. A healing simulation will drain the remaining energy of Alan, because regardless how much life force they send to him, Alan has to meet them halfway to heal. This means that, once they start, they will break his stasis.

The boys sat down in their cultivating stance and started drawing the Heavenly Energies around them, gathering the necessary energy to send to Alan.