Surgical Modification

With a slight prickling sensation in his arm, Alexios felt something cool flowing into his veins.

The Forged Steel Angel must have been using a treatment method called an IV drip. This therapy came with a cool but slightly stinging feeling that traveled up his arm.

As the anesthetic entered Alexios's brain, he felt dizzy and hazy, as if he were losing consciousness, drifting in a half-awake, half-asleep state. But the Forged Steel Angel Apothecary's hands did not stop.

A faint sting came from his chest, as if his flesh were being cut open by a sharp blade. The restraints binding his limbs prevented Alexios from making any movement; in fact, due to the anesthesia, he couldn't even lift a finger.

Then came the buzzing sound of an electric bone saw contacting bone. Alexios felt his chest vibrating, as if his ribs were being sawed through. Would that mean he'd be missing a piece of bone in his chest later? But by then, the anesthetic had fully taken effect, and that was Alexios' last thought.

Dioscorides the Apothecary, assisted by a medical Servitor, carefully pried open the ribs of the boy's chest, severing several arteries and veins connected to the boy's original heart and sealing them with hemostatic clamps.

The Apothecary issued a command:

"Second Heart."

The Servitor removed the Second Heart, which had been beating under machine operation, from the ventricular assist device. This organ, cultivated from Gene-seed, was the first step of the implantation surgery.

The Apothecary quickly took the heart and implanted it into the boy's body. With dexterous hands, he connected the Second Heart to the arteries and veins, integrating this Gene-seed-cultivated heart into the boy's circulatory system. Releasing the hemostatic clamps, blood flowed into the Second Heart and surged through the main vessels into the native heart. Both hearts began to beat powerfully, quickly synchronizing to the same rhythm.

Not bad. Two hearts beating perfectly. But Dioscorides knew this was only the first step. Transplanting a heart was a minor surgery, not particularly difficult—he had performed it countless times on slaves.

The real difficulty lay in the subsequent rejection reaction. Even though they had optimized these boys' physiological conditions and conducted compatibility tests, Gene-seed and modified organs were mysterious things. Perfect compatibility, successful surgery—yet inexplicable rejection and mutation after the operation often led to the death of Neophytes.

He used intramedullary pins to fix the previously sawed-off ribs back into their correct positions. The next surgery, he would saw them open again and pin them back, repeating this process until all the chest cavity procedures were done, and finally removing the pins.

Then, using a skin stapler—a device similar to a stapler—he closed the skin on the boy's chest. The first modification surgery was complete. He prescribed some medication to reduce rejection reactions and prayed the boy would pull through. After all, there were still seventeen more such surgeries ahead. This was just a simple modification procedure.

Dioscorides finished another modification surgery and finally breathed a sigh of relief. This was the last surgery of the day. But the work wasn't over yet. After completing the surgery, he still had to monitor their physical changes. If any abnormalities appeared, even if it meant killing the goose that laid the golden egg, he would have to retrieve the salvageable Second Heart. After all, organs were more valuable than people. He wouldn't be getting any sleep for at least seventy-two hours.

Dioscorides left the operating room and headed to the cultivation chamber for modified organs. Entering the room, his eyes were met with row after row of cultivation tanks, each containing some bizarre objects.

From hearts thumping in the liquid to a pair of ears connected to nutrient solutions, the most striking were the enormous black plastic sheets floating in the nutrient fluid, waiting for the day they would be used.

Dioscorides was now racked with anxiety, fearing that these organs might malfunction either in his hands or inside the boys' bodies. If even one organ went wrong, it meant a missing piece in a full set of modified organs.

Organs cultivated from the same Gene-seed had the highest success rate when implanted into the same Neophyte. If a loss occurred, he, as the Apothecary, would have to assess and coordinate. Losing one or two minor organs wasn't a big deal, but losing a major organ—like the Second Heart or the Black Carapace—meant a significant loss.

Of course, there was another method. When two sets of organs were missing different parts, one could try to supplement each other, "piecing together" a complete set of modified organs. But this was a bad idea. The Neophyte already had rejection issues with the organs, and doing this would cause the organs to reject each other as well. This method was a last resort, extremely risky.

Fortunately, they hadn't encountered this phenomenon yet—at least not so far.

Dioscorides was a novice Apothecary. In fact, he had learned his craft from the Dark Mechanicus, not from another Apothecary. Thus, performing his first independent modification surgery put him under immense pressure. But even a rookie like him had noticed some phenomena.

Dioscorides went to the monitoring equipment to check all the data:

"In this set of organs, the genetic detection nerves are unusually active. That's not a good sign."

"In this set, the Suan Membrane and salivary glands are far too inactive. Whether they'll even function after transplantation is questionable."

"This set contains some kind of mutation, maybe animal genes? Or perhaps Warp mutation."

"This set looks pretty good, stable in all aspects. The Lariman Organ has a minor mutation, even a benign one."

"And this set—it failed to produce a Multi-lung during cultivation, and the mutation level is close to dangerous."

Perhaps because this was his first real operation, he felt that these Gene-seeds were all over the place, completely different from the data in the simulation manuals. Nothing was within his control. At that moment, he finally understood what the Biologis Sage meant when he said the data was for reference only.

Dioscorides tried hard to recall the biological knowledge he had learned from the Dark Mechanicus, doing his best to follow the steps.

Sighing, Dioscorides could only hope:

"I pray this batch of Neophytes won't have problems. Otherwise, I don't know when the next batch will be available."

After his routine check of the modified organs' condition, Dioscorides took some immunosuppressants from a nearby cabinet and casually handed them to a Servitor beside him.

"Take this to the kitchen and have them add it to the Neophytes' meals. The dosage is marked on it."

The Servitor took the medication, nodded, and left.

Dioscorides leaned back in a recliner, his eyes fixed on the operating room monitors and the vital signs screens. He reached over and grabbed a bottle of expensive wine. This was one thing better about the Maelstrom than the Eye of Terror—at least there was fresh, normal food and drink here.

According to mortals, this precious wine was made by having young maidens tread on high-quality fresh grapes with their bare feet. He couldn't really tell the difference between good and bad, but since they were the masters of this planet, the mortals ought to provide them with the best.

Pulling out the cork, he took a few gulps. Dioscorides continued to lean back in his recliner, watching the monitors and instruments, doing his job.