“Suction,” Pei called as she entered a state of total focus to deal with the impromptu surgery. The Head Panda Nurse became her first assistant, and she precisely followed each instruction Pei gave her.
As soon as Pei removed the final pieces of debris with the suction, Milk was already in the midst of preparing the inscription charms with the aid of their very own General Store NPC.
His personality turned him into somewhat of a hermit who focused solely on his passion. Previously when Jin required anything from the General Store, it had always been the red panda assistants who provided it for him. Nowadays, he would just ask the System to create whatever he needed when he was in the Dungeon Maker.
“Octofussy. I am glad you are able to be here.” Milk said as she was already sweating buckets from preparing the charms without the inscriptions and needing to heal Jin’s minor wounds previously. This was because the charms she was preparing were special. Generally, the kinds which could be placed on a weapon or armour would be impossible to use on Jin. But as Jin had proven with his cosmetic inscription, there was one type which could theoretically be placed onto anything.
Slotless inscriptions.
Milk had to ensure that the charms would not harm the human body else that might affect the chi circuits in his body and in the worst case put an end to his cultivation. However, with his body currently all broken, his chi circuits were in a mess but also provide the best opportunity to place the inscription in too.
After that, the messy chi circuit problem could also be effortlessly resolved by Pei which she was currently doing at the moment. Additionally, if Milk sustained her healing procedure during his post surgical recovery, the chi circuits would return to normal in no time.
There were however other problems to consider too. Instead of the standard permanent inscription charm that required constant activation of chi, a slot to activate and that might mess up the chi circuits, Milk had been ‘fitting’ the current charm with a sort of dispel magic to prevent the chi circuits from coagulating towards the inscription charm.
There was no doubt the System was assisting her in this too, providing the formula of the slotless charm into a piece of rectangular paper which was roughly 5cmx25cm in size.
“If there is any way to serve the master, I will *sneeze* try my best to aid him. *sneeze*” Octofussy said as the System had already begun providing the grandeur greenish grey octopus head humanoid with the tools to create the most crucial inscription charm.
“Please do.” Milk stood up after finishing infusing the paper with holy magic to create the inscription that would dispel small amount of chi away to prevent the chi circuits to grow towards it. But at the same time, a strong, steady amount of chi flowing near it would enable the inscription charm to work.
“Towel to wipe your sweat away. After which, please wear the disposable scrubs.” One of the Panda Nurse was already one step ahead of Milk. Peppers also went towards the exhausted priest, transferring some of her Mana into her. At the same time, Peppers also gave her the anti fatigue concoction potion Milk made for the Sage Queen.
“Thanks, little pepper.” Milk hugged Peppers nearly suffocating her between her chest, which could have potentially caused chaos to the whole operation.
“Your chest is as dangerous as always. You do know that if I faint, the temporal manipulation spell will break.” Peppers pushed her damndest away from Milk in order to get a breather.
“I am just facilitating the quickening of the mana transfer.” Milk rubbed her head a bit and messed up her hair.
“I do not want your stinky sweat all over me, you fake priestess!” Peppers complained until they heard a rough cough from Pei.
“Stop playing a fool and start focusing. Peppers, if you are that free, grab a scrub and facilitate some mana into Jin’s body via his brain. It should nourish his spirit and keep it in place with the body when we start recreating his body. And Milk get those udders here as soon as possible. I need some recovery magic to be cast to quicken the process. Nurse, Tweezer.” Pei commanded the two of them.
“Shouldn’t he need more chi instead?” Peppers questioned as the Panda Nurse quickly took a scrub for her to wear over her current clothes.
“Body and Soul concept. Yes, he should be taking in chi instead, but I have slowed his chi generation from his dantian significantly. This will make his brain thirst for any source of energy. Besides, Milk had been using so many healing spells on him, his brain has feasted on an overload of mana which also serves to help us maintain his spiritual form intact at the moment.” Pei answered as she asked for a cutter to fully remove a partial broken bone that stuck on it.
“Got it. On my way.” Peppers understood exactly what Pei was talking about as she positioned herself towards Jin’s head and recast the temporal manipulation before she started transferring mana into his brain.
The Body and Soul Concept had been a traditional way of thinking by the doctors of the past. The body was not just a husk for the soul to live in. Without the soul, the body would be nothing but a piece of meat. Without the body, the soul would linger on the earthly plane. By maintaining the link of the spirit to the body, the soul would not be influenced by the surrounding chi, which could potentially corrupt the spirit’s essence.
Modern doctors did not believe in such a concept. Instead, they placed their faith in magic and science, which had proven their worth time and time again. Ironically, they had unknowingly been using the Body and Soul concept in their treatment methods even though it was just a minor portion of it.
Only those doctors who were more sensitive spiritually, truly believed in the Body and Soul concept and had published papers to prove its extent in current treatment methods. Yet most medical professionals still regarded them as nothing more than an interesting theory. Still refusing to believe what they cannot see or explain.
“Alright, the spirit form is stable, I can take more drastic actions. Thanks, Peppers. Milk, use a barrier spell on the following points to reduce the impact of the melding affects the other organs. Nurse, prepared 100cc of blood for immediate transfusion in case shit happens.” Pei was blunt, but her orders were straight to the point. Usually, the head surgeons did not explain much because there were too many things in their head.
But not for Pei. She had been the life saviour of the Panda Clan for many generations and honed her craft both in the medical field and in the battlefield. If one were to ask her to do an emergency surgery in a warring trench, she would do it without even questioning it. Her brain worked more like a supercomputer thinking multiple steps ahead while processing the overall situation and accounting for of any kinds of mishaps that could happen to the point of percentages.
What Kraft had said to her wasn’t a lie. The more new masters she had served, the more she had played with the idea of creating a ‘perfect’ Master. For most, this would have been merely a thought experiment, yet Pei had the ability to make it happen.
Ever since she got to know Jin, and had been with Jin for the countless hours as his protective guardian against mental assaults, she secretly analysed his body structure to identify his physical flaws. When Jin who had already proven to her that he possessed the potential to lead the Panda Clan back to its former glory, he became the perfect candidate for an ‘upgrade’.
All humans were born unequal. During this surgery, it reconfirms all the analysis that Pei had found and she was already in the midst of preparing to turn Jin into the Ultimate Master. It was a major boon for her that he finally awakened the true form of the Lazy Astral Panda cultivation. Furthermore, it would be an insult to say that Pei had not prepared the materials in advance for such an accident should happen to her master.
The surgeon had only hoped that she would get to use the materials eventually, but she did not expect for this scenario to arrive this quick when she coincidentally managed to collect everything that she needed about a day ago. (Sometimes, she wondered if that nasty fox had a hand in this.) Those materials to recreate Jin did cost a fortune but the System was convinced to lessen purchasing cost for what she needed since their goal coincided with each other.
Meanwhile, Octofussy, the General Store NPC was getting a hand from Milk to create a high level regeneration charm as well. What Milk did not know was that Octofussy had already decided to pay a major price of his own to aid his master the moment he learned that it would be a long term permanent inscription charm on Jin.
Unlike the red panda assistants and the Panda Nurses, Octofussy, Chef Roro, and the Three Headed Bear in the Weapon stores were more similar to bellators in terms of power, though still a level lower than them. The System’s official classification put them as Enhanced NPCs because they were made from unique souls which the System had managed to obtain via the black market.
Recently Jin had been pumping more resources into all of his NPCs since he was planning to push them out as possible helpers in the coming future. Witnessing the positive effect on the Panda Nurses, he felt it was a worthwhile investment to upgrade the NPCs.
What he did not know was that improving the Enhanced NPCs had allowed them to retrieve abilities their former self had once possessed (or in System’s words, they had levelled up and unlocked more proficiency levels). Thus ever since Octofussy was upgraded, he had been practising to create new inscriptions for the upcoming reveal of the next batch of inscriptions. (Something that Mr Know It All had speculated and mentioned before in the forums)
Nevertheless, Octofussy believed that if Master Jin were to learn about his contribution with regards to the charm, he might get upgraded further, allowing him to create even more complex inscriptions which he loved. Thus, he had decided to use a signature inscription which Octofussy planned to keep for his own so called “Ultimate Inscription Series!” in his General Store.
‘Otherworld Parasite God’ was the suffix that he wished to add into the inscription, making it the ‘Rapid Regeneration of the Otherworld Parasite God’.
For higher level inscriptions, inserting suffix and prefixes into the charms would allow the inscription charm to perform more unique as well as varied effects. For example, a fire inscription charm was a general usage charm that could be used in weapons and armour.
Therefore, a ‘Burning Fire of the Sharp’ inscription charm would not work on armour, only on weapons. It will provide twice the power as well as sharpening the weapon that was equipped on, making it harder to be blunt.
However, adding prefix and suffix depended on the enhancement material too. Thus, in order to create that signature inscription, Octofussy had to cut off one of his tentacles from his head and used it as a catalyst for the inscription.
Painful? It was more than that. He had just sacrificed a tentacle which would take him at least a decade to regrow since it was one of the primary tentacles Octofussy had (Using healing magic to regrow it would only result in him losing a decade of his life). He temporarily stopped the bleeding by using another tentacle on the back of his head to apply pressure. After which, he used the blood from the tentacle he plucked out as ink to write the inscription charm.
Everyone in that pocket dimensional instance was working their hardest to recreate the new Jin until Kraft sneaked into the picture. “Just here to inform you, that half an hour ha-“
“SHUT UP!!!” Everyone, including the Panda Nurses, screamed simultaneously at Kraft.
