They provide him a list of techniques he should pick up if he's interested in healing, from Woven Switch Prosthesis, which would allow him to create artificial limbs out of wood qi that would let the flesh and bone slowly grow back, to Waves Wash Clean, which would let him slowly purge poisons and curses from those around him with the slow ebb and flow of water qi. They warn him that healing is, however, a fairly technique-intensive specialisation; he is likely to need to use the majority of his capacity for healing and healing-related techniques, especially as he should pick up similar techniques in multiple aspects, so that he can efficiently deal with patients who have a variety of elemental aspects themselves. It can be managed with a water-wood-fire or metal-water-wood triad, if one wishes to stick to the traditional methods, with the metal-water-wood triad focusing on surgery and behind the front lines healing, and water-wood-fire specialising in sudden bursts of healing and front-line combat enhancements.
Alchemy, in a similar vein, requires a broad spread of elemental techniques, to properly process the different materials. Using a fire technique to try and refine a water ingredient is a recipe for disaster, for example. From the few questions Zhi Gao manages to ask Elder Li, in between the bouts of hammering and grinding and careful painting that occupy the Elder's attention in his workshop, the traditional triads for alchemy are wood-fire-earth and water-wood-fire, with the first offering a better selection of what Zhi Gao considers 'broad utility' pills, and the second being more focused on medicinal alchemy and poisons.
