“Why is Jin’s pulse suddenly going all haywire again?” Peppers wondered as she tried to maintain the mana output in Jin’s body. They had reached a critical period during the surgery where his brain was consuming more mana than he should be able to produce on his own.
Peppers could only keep up with it to maintain his link between the body and spirit but when she decided to reported that anomaly to Pei, Jin’s vitals went off the charts.
“Peppers, maintain the brain’s mana consumption, we mustn’t allow the spirit to leave the body at all cost especially during the infusion of the inscription charm. ” Pei ordered while hastily asked for a surgical stapler.
“Milk, proceed with the final chanting for insertion of the inscription charm as soon as possible, we need to close his body up. Nurse, get the AED machine in case of sudden cardiac arrest.” Pei calmly gave her orders to the people on this medical battlefield.
The repairs to his body were done. Pei had already inserted the replacement parts for his bones and the inscription charm was attached to his sternum. Milk was starting the final chanting to make sure that it could remain in his body forever regardless of any severe attack in the future.
At the same time, the Panda Nurses were running around in that pocket dimension to prepare the worst case scenario. She acted calm, but Pei still did not have any idea what was really happening to him even with the help of the System. In her centuries of healing, the sudden spike in his charts was extremely abnormal.
“Au Voir Lait, Greg Gi A Hi!!” Milk barely completed the final chanting, before Pei sutured up the body. She had ensured that the inscription charm was meticulously fused in line with the body and it was also thanks to Octofussy who had rushed out the Rapid Regeneration of the Otherworld Parasite God Inscription charm for them.
Pei did the final touches quicker than any surgeon would be able to perform and told the Senior Panda Nurse who was handling the anaesthesia to dial down the amount as smooth as she could while the rest of the Panda Nurses cleared the remaining procedures of the surgery such as ensuring the surgical scar was bandaged properly.
“We have done everything in our power. Now only time can tell.” Pei sighed as she fell to the ground, lying on it dead tired. Milk did the same but not Peppers who seemed unconvinced that Jin’s spirit was stable. She decided to take a risk and increase the amount of Mana output she produced, and suddenly eight panda silhouettes appeared above him.
“Whew, Jin, you scared me back there.” Peppers fell to the ground as well, unable to move a single inch but she had one more thing to do. Increase the speed of the temporal manipulation to hasten Jin’s recovery. What seemed to be just five minutes, was pushed forward to five hours in that pocket dimension which allowed Jin to open his eyes as well as giving the entire surgical team to have some rest lying immobile on the ground.
“Where am I?” Jin asked as he saw bright lights shining onto him as he was still on the rough surgical bed.
“Sorry master, we cannot get you a hospital bed nor teleport you to the Luxury Instance, else we will risk you getting dismissed by Grandma Yuan.” Pei answered as she lay on Milk’s thigh.
“Master, you are a pain in the ass. I was so excited discovering the properties of the magical living armour plate, and here you are getting slaughtered by a Three Tailed Fox Demon fused with your own sludge.” Peppers complained while enjoying the other thigh of Milk.
“It’s glad to see you all well and healthy.” Milk genuinely cared for Jin, but she suddenly got a knock from Peppers Staff to her mandible and a hit from Pei’s paper fan to the head.
“OEI! YOU TWO!” Milk shouted, and Pei disappeared into Jin’s bracelet while Peppers returned into her room post haste. Milk’s temper finally simmered down as she got up and gave Jin another healing spell to fasten the recovery.
“We have made a few adjustments to you while you were out cold.” Pei started explaining as she now was back in her comfy zone. “I have removed your broken bones and replaced them with bones from a more robust creature which have a similar body structure as humans in the wild.”
“Eh? What?” Jin was surprised, but Pei did not allow him to continue.
“I have merged some monster muscle fibres into you as well, so you should be able to surpass human capabilities even without using too much chi.”
“Wait, WHY did you-“
“Milk and Octofussy have produced a one of a kind inscription charm especially for you to make sure that whatever injuries you suffer in the future, will heal almost as instant as snapping a finger. We also ensured that it’s compatible with your body.” Pei interrupted Jin once again.
“WHAT?! How can you-“
“The only thing I regret is not fiddling with your brain, else I would have been able to increase your mental capacity and up your physic defences too, so I wouldn’t have to work too hard all the time.”
“STOP! PEI! STOP!” Jin finally shouted but realised the pain in his abdomen was stopping him from saying anything else. Pei was finally done talking and waited for Jin to catch his breath and ask what he wanted.
“I did not give you permission to do any of those to me! How could you?” Jin was overwhelmed by Pei for receiving such drastic news. They actually turned him into a …’monster’. (Which seemed to be the most fitting phrase.)
“You lost your rights, the moment you signed up with the System.” Pei stuck her tongue out. “After your ‘training’ you were as good as crippled. It would have taken you months maybe years to fully heal from that. I did what I could to help you recover and saw the chance to help you survive in this cruel world out there. And this is the thanks I get?!”
“No! I did not mean that way, I mean…sigh… Thank you Pei. I’ve seen the shagged faces on all the bellators, including you when I woke up. I believe it was stressful for you and the rest of the surgical team. I am grateful for your actions. It’s just well erm…I will just have to get used to my new body, I guess?” Jin apologised and Pei could sense that those were words coming from his heart.
“Hmmph! I will forgive you this once!” Pei replied with a bit of arrogance. She couldn’t be too mad at him. The fox lady had access to his thoughts, so she understood how he felt. And he had every right to feel wronged.
After all, they did just perform a highly complicated surgery and turned him into something which wasn’t 100% human anymore without any consent, even if it was all for his own sake. Focusing her attention on him she asked a very peculiar question.
“I was not able to make the connection during the surgery but now thinking about it, you seem to have reacted just as earlier. Your vitals spiked in a similar way as when you had the bad dream during the taxi trip. Was that it? Did you have bad dreams again? ” Pei questioned.
“Yeah, you can call it a bad dream… I guess? I don’t know and felt unsure about that. It seemed too real to be a dream. As if what I saw, actually happened.” Jin replied while he stayed idle on the bed.
“Heh, don’t think too much into it. Sometimes the ancestors in the System might accidentally form a link with you, resulting in you catching a glimpse of their memories, causing you to have such dreams. ” Pei deduced that his spirit might have contacted something in this Isolation Ward, which she could sensed it was filled with past horrors and lingering essence of past souls. That was also why she emphasised to Peppers to keep Jin’s mental spirit intact.
“Or sometimes, it’s just your imagination running wild. You know the kind of dream, where you get the feeling that you fall and jump out of bed? Whatever it was you probably shouldn’t worry too much about it.” Pei consoled Jin as she and the System could not understand what had happened. “But just to be sure. Do you still remember anything about your dreams? What it was about, what you saw or what you did maybe?”
“Ehh…blue hair? Does any of our ancestors or past Users have blue hair?” Jin asked, and the System instantly gave a quick No. Jin then figured it could not hurt to give Ryuli’s name out and see if the System could cross reference to anybody in the national database system which had that name.
“No, a two tier cross reference check brought up a negative search for the person you called Ryuli. Similar pronunciations were also used without any matching results.” The System stated, and Jin was a tad disappointed.
“Guess, it was really just a dream,” Jin mumbled. Suddenly he remembered about the palm imprint, he made on the wall. Jin was able to get up from the surgical bed and started to feel the inscription within him already working its charms.
The sense of pain lessened more and more until disappearing completely and Pei started to second guess if it was the right choice to give him such an immortal level inscription. Still, that had been Octofussy’s choice, not hers.
“Where are you going Jin?” Pei asked as he walked out to the western wall of Isolation ward and ignited his Black Panda Fire to illuminate the place up even further. It was useless, the walls were already cracked and dented from past attacks, and the battle with the Three Tailed Fox Demon just made the place even worse.
On a separate note, the System had not been completely frank with Jin. There had indeed been a match for the name Ryuli, but no picture was found in the database. Instead, a high level tier SSS executive clearance was required to access the file.
The attempt to search for this person had resulted in an alert being sent out informing the officials that someone was looking at something that should be top secret.
Kraft, who had been bored because everyone shunned him, had checked out what the System was doing at the same time. Seeing what was happening, he managed to respond by retracing the alert to an isolated remote router that was off the grid.
“Wow, this Master really pulls out some pretty unpleasant sucker punches every once in a while.” Kraft quickly went into action and began to analyse the ping and the data it was sending, it was unfortunate, but the ping had already reached the router in record time preventing him from intercepting it properly.
Hence, he did the only thing possible for him before the signal went through all his other proxy servers. The sly old fox changed the location of the IP address and blamed the search on a criminal who he randomly found in the police database that had almost the same data address as what the ping was sending with the help of the System.
It was merely a difference of just a digit, and that was all it took to keep whoever was managing this highly sophisticated database to be unable to trace it back to the dungeon supplier’s store. “Looks like I’ve been too inactive for some time. It may be time to upgrade my cyber skills.” Kraft spoke as he (metaphorically) eyed the System.
“You know what I am getting at, don’t you? Or do you need me to spell it out?”
“Original Bellator Kraft, by releasing the last of the ex bellators to you, you are entirely liable for the future consequences of such an action. Are you completely sure? At your current strength, you will not be able to handle them as you used to.” The System warned Kraft in a serious tone. (As serious as a bodiless entity sounding like a computer could be)
“You saw how advanced that piece of technology was. The speed it reached wasn’t normal and seemed better than any supercomputer. I haven’t seen such advanced tech in ages. Unless you release him, we won’t know whether the existence of this Ryuli is a threat to Jin or a potential ally.” Kraft tried to contend with the System to get the last ex bellator out.
“If we don’t do anything to cover our tracks quickly, the people out there might eventually learn that we have meddled with their database. It will only be a matter of time, for them to realise that our sacrificial lamb isn’t the one they are after. ” Kraft argued while writing additional codes to their existing firewall.
“Let’s not put Jin in unnecessary trouble, well erm… any more unnecessary trouble that is… at least we should be able to control this one to a certain extent rather than having government agents which might consist of Royal Zodiac Clans to come after us.” Kraft hoped he managed to persuade the System.
“Agreed. Changing Original Bellator’s previously won visitation rights to a temporary loan of that person. Limited to this period when User is still confined to the Isolation Ward. Return him after usage. The deal will remain as it is, for User’s safety.” The System replied and Kraft agreed.
“At least you are coming out for your cage for a bit,” Kraft replied with a wide grin.
Meanwhile, Zeru appeared right in front of Jin and threw his Bam back at him. “It’s time to train, no time to waste. I have been waiting for your Astral Form awakening to teach you the things that you need. And thank you Pei, you have my sincere gratitude for providing Jin with an immortal body. I can finally teach him the full extent of my abilities.” Zeru said as he brandished his usual wooden sword in front of Jin.
With a soft wooden click, a red metallic sword was unveiled from inside the wooden one. It looked like Zeru had been fighting with his sword undrawn the whole time.
“Lotus Sword Saint, Thousand Lotus of Hell Cultivation Style. Zeru. Coming forth.” Zeru finally revealed his true cultivation name as he dashed towards Jin with pure murder intent.
