Another Perspective

"It was... harder than I imagined."

Kraft lay on the floor, his speech fragmented. The irritation of blurred vision, the anxiety of losing his orientation, and the worry over infection—all these emotions erupted at once now that the final step was complete.

While he had been focused on the work at hand, these feelings had been blocked out, his mind occupied solely by how to overcome the crisis before him.

Exhaustion and intense emotion battered his brain, knocking him to the ground. Only now, with the hardest hurdle cleared, could he allow himself to relax for a moment.

Kraft pressed himself against the cold floor, letting his body cool down and loosen up. He felt as though he had finished a peculiar exam, where a malicious examiner had hidden all the necessary conditions, leaving the sole examinee to scratch his head over a chaotic, nonsensical prompt.

Piecing together the fragmented and limited conditions, he had written out his own version of the solution, even resorting to some special means, only to submit a nervous answer sheet that barely met the minimum requirements.

He looked at the stone table as if watching a proctor organizing and sealing test papers to be sent to some grader, who would judge them according to the most objective and rigorous standards.

The grader would critically examine this crude environment, deducting points for insufficiently sterilized instruments, deducting more for the wound being open for too long, and shaking his head at the intestinal segments whose viability had not been further inspected.

A patient's body was the most exacting grader; it never relaxed its scoring standards due to the limitations of conditions, always making unreasonable demands.

He was powerless to interfere with this "grading" process and could only wait quietly for the results in a few days.

That said, the person most worried right now was certainly not Kraft himself, but Gris, who was waiting anxiously outside the door. He could not lie here for too long.

"Could you give me a hand? Her family is still waiting outside for our news." Kraft extended a hand, seeking help from the two guys beside him, who were full of surprise and admiration. "Wipe those smiles off your faces; this is far from over."

"Not over yet?"

"Wait for Lis to wake up, observe her for six to seven days, and after the wound heals, we have to remove the stitches. It won't be too late to celebrate then." Kraft pulled himself up with the hand Lucius offered, draped his black robe back over his shoulders, and straightened his appearance in the metal mirror nearby.

A slight sense of dizziness remained, but for every extra minute he lay here, Gris outside would have to endure another minute of anxiety.

"Don't move Lis yet. Let's go out first and let Gris come in to stay with her for a while; don't move her immediately."

Kraft refused Liston's support and walked toward the door, feeling lightheaded. Lucius stepped forward to pull the door open for him.

The first thing they saw was not just the anxious father, but a hallway full of people in black robes.

Gris was the first to approach, gripping Kraft's hand, though his eyes looked past his shoulder into the classroom, asking the question with the expected tension, "My daughter..."

"As of now, there are no problems; the surgery is complete. She might not wake up until tomorrow or even later. You go in and stay with her for a while; do not move her." Kraft stepped aside to let him in, then closed the door behind him, leaving him some private space.

The surrounding students had already guessed the result from the relaxed expression on Lucius's face when he pushed the door open, and Kraft's words confirmed their suspicions; cheers erupted from the crowd.

Kraft wanted them to quiet down so he could explain in detail, but they didn't give him the chance. As the person who had accomplished an unprecedented feat, he received an unprecedented, heroic reception.

"A pioneer need not concern himself with the words of the mediocre behind him." Lecturer Romolo pushed through the crowd and was the first to come up and give him a firm hug.

Then came the enthusiastic students, who surrounded Kraft, taking turns to hug him and offering the highest praise they could imagine.

In their eyes, this surgery was already a success; regardless of the prognosis, it was the first time in history, and the knowledge contributed by the deceased had proven its value in the living.

Whatever the means, whether it was the Family Secret Medicine or some other help, the first abdominal surgery from diagnosis to treatment had been completed right here in the school, right beside them.

Wenden Port Medical School would remain in future works as a milestone name alongside Kraft, and they were witnessing this historic moment.

A river of joy formed in the hallway, sweeping Kraft along as it flowed throughout the Medical School, bringing the good news to every corner.

Students who hadn't known were informed of the news and joined the river during the celebration; their group grew larger and larger, carrying Kraft in a full circle around the Medical School.

As for Kraft himself, he went from initial shock to embarrassment, and finally to complete numbness, being exhibited everywhere like a float in a parade.

He didn't know how to face these crazed students; they were like super fans watching their favorite team win the championship on the spot, caught in an unconscious collective frenzy.

Throughout the entire Medical School, everyone who heard was amazed, then ran to tell others; the news spread at an incredible speed and soon began to propagate outward. From tomorrow on, every tavern in Wenden Port would likely know that there was a legendary figure in the Medical School who could open a stomach to treat an illness and then sew it back up.

Such news would, of course, undoubtedly ferment and distort, becoming something even more outrageous after being passed through second, third, and who knows how many hands.

Even a few lecturers joined them, cheering and wanting to book out a tavern outside; they hadn't even calculated how many people were going or what tavern could hold so many.

Liston and Lucius, as participants, had been dragged off somewhere at the very beginning and were likely bragging in some part of the celebratory crowd right now.

At this moment, Kraft couldn't care less about any of that. He had finally managed to escape the crowd and flee back to the professor's room. He was the only one out of place in the celebratory throng, worried about things only he knew.

Post-operative infection was the largest dark cloud hanging over his head; it could happen at any moment, and the only way to deal with it was to tough it out.

He hoped there were no necrotic intestinal segments he had failed to detect; with that terrible visibility, it wasn't impossible.

He hoped the Black Fluid wouldn't have any adverse effects on a child like Lis.

He also hoped that intussusception wouldn't recur after the surgery; he really wouldn't know what to do if that happened again.

He had too many hopes and worries, and a sense of powerlessness found him once again. Kraft had too many ideas he wanted to realize but couldn't achieve at the moment; if the situation had been even slightly more complex, things would have fallen into a completely irredeemable state, and even his risky use of the Black Fluid would have been meaningless.

This was a helpless reality; all efforts would return to this fundamental problem—the methods he knew could not be utilized in this era, and he could only watch the diseases he knew how to cure continue to ravage, then turn around to continue writing books for an era that could put them to use.

He was unwilling to stop here; even if he became a professor, even if he passed his books to future generations, he would still have to sit and watch countless people die within his own limited lifespan.

It was a form of torture.

Kraft slammed Lis's thick medical record onto the table. Completing this surgery didn't make him feel satisfied; instead, it made him realize these things he hadn't paid much attention to before.

A mere intussusception, one of the most common acute abdominal conditions in infancy, was enough to leave him helpless.

In a city as large as Wenden Port, how many children were there, how high was the incidence of intussusception under current sanitary conditions, and how many were fatal?

He wavered, beginning to feel that the "do not touch unless necessary" he had written in his notes was somewhat ridiculous. The Black Fluid was very strange and incomprehensible, but was it not also terrifying that so many people were being robbed of their lives by disease?

He thought of the Black Stone Pillar that could not be taken away, and the villagers who insisted on living on that land despite knowing of the existence of the "Fever Disease."

The Anomalous Phenomenon was a dangerous thing he could not understand, and the scarcity of medicine and resources also brought unknown terror and death to the people here.

To them, these things were essentially no different from one another; in fact, the number of people affected by the stone pillar over the decades might not even reach a fraction of those claimed by common illnesses.

Kraft realized something far more terrifying than the indescribable entities: he was the one with the problem, rejecting something of infinite value due to the potential for limited danger.

Lucius's attitude was the one suited for this era—to charge into the infinite unknown and, regardless of the cost, seize every opportunity that could drive technological progress.

For this, one could challenge The Church's ban on dissecting corpses and defy social traditions, or even use oneself as a test subject. After all, it couldn't get any worse than being powerless in the future.

As long as it was proven that Black Fluid could be utilized more extensively, this surgery would become repeatable; he could promote this procedure throughout Wenden Port, and even if it couldn't reach today's level of success, it would still be a qualitative change.

Once his mindset opened up, more ideas began to emerge one after another.

Up until now, aside from the sense of danger transmitted by his instincts, the Anomalous Phenomenon had only brought him benefits. His expanded consciousness and the success of the surgery gave him the opportunity to apply knowledge that transcended this era.

Did that mean they could indeed be utilized under certain circumstances?

This was a shortcut he couldn't refuse; as long as he cast aside those inexplicable fears and added a touch of caution, he could reach his goal directly.

The Dream of the Giant Serpent brought by the stone pillar had broken the limits of his consciousness, allowing him to freely access all the information he had ever acquired; meanwhile, the Black Fluid had broken the limits of his perspective, allowing him to view the Anomalous Phenomenon from a different angle from now on.

Kraft felt something inherently fragile shattering deep within him; he pushed open a brand-new window and re-examined the things labeled as dangerous. The meaning they represented was reconstructed, and the scales began to tip in the other direction.

The emotional fluctuations drained his remaining energy, and the fatigue accumulated throughout the morning washed over him, causing his boiling spirit to gradually cool.

At the very last moment before losing consciousness, he grabbed the copper bottle that had held the diluted solution with satisfaction and slumped over the desk to sleep.