Equivalent Exchange, the Unchanging Truth of Wizards

"Ah?"

Bill looked up at Gray, then down at his wounds, then at the medical needle and thread.

He had to use the needle himself and stitch up his wound?

Bill tried to pinch the end of the needle with his large hand.

But the moment the needle tip pierced his flesh, his wrist went limp, and the steel needle fell to the floor.

It was not that Bill was afraid of pain. It was just that using a needle and thread to pierce his own flesh and sew up his own wounds...

In a sense, that was self-harm, something that conflicted with the instinct of being human!

After all, even using a needle to pick out a thorn stuck in one's flesh was a difficult hurdle for many people.

"Gray, I... I can't do it!"

The handsome blond man standing one meter ninety tall—no, the blond eunuch Bill—looked utterly pathetic.

"I'd rather bleed to death than stitch up my own wounds."

"Then bleed to death. After all, you can't offer anything of equivalent value. You may look strong on the outside, but you're soft within. I see no hope of you achieving anything in the future."

Gray flicked his wide sleeve and turned to leave.

At the same time, he deliberately said in a casual tone:

"Oh, and one more thing. After Ahab Gul sprayed your face with blood, he used a sewing needle to stitch up his tongue wound himself."

"Now he's preparing to remove those stitches, sew it again with medical thread, and then treat the inflammation."

Bill gulped.

This Ahab Gul was not only ruthless toward others, but ruthless toward himself too?

Stitching his tongue? How the hell did he keep his tongue from moving around?

A ruthless man. A truly ruthless man.

Seeing that Bill still had no intention of doing it himself, Gray could not help sighing inwardly.

Good aptitude did not represent everything. If he did not dare lay a hand on his own body, he would probably find it difficult to achieve much in the future.

After all, the path of advancement held things ten times more painful than stitching wounds.

Not approximately ten times. In the biological sense, the pain truly was ten times greater.

With that thought, Gray could not help thinking more highly of Ahab.

Gray had watched Ahab Gul stitch up his wound from start to finish through the crystal ball.

Certainly, daring to treat one's own wounds was one sign of capability.

But Ahab's stitching process had been far too swift and decisive!

One stitch after another; when he finished, he bit through the cotton thread with his teeth and tied the loose end into a knot in one smooth motion...

Gray asked himself: if he went back to when he had first become an apprentice, he could have stitched up a wound too.

But he definitely could not have stitched up a wound as cleanly and decisively as Ahab had.

Halfway through, he would surely have been in so much pain that he needed to rest!

"Maybe I really picked up a treasure this time? Ahab Gul's future achievements probably won't be low."

"It's just a pity that the other two with high aptitude seem..."

While Gray was lost in thought, a whimper sounded beside him.

"Ugh!"

Gray turned toward the sound.

It was Little Potato, Tolia, who was only about one meter fifty tall, with silver hair and sapphire-blue eyes.

Tolia was crouching on the ground, clutching her jaw in pain as beads of sweat rolled down her face.

After taking several deep breaths, she raised her head. Her voice was soft and weak, yet unwaveringly determined.

"Gray, could you give me a set of needles and thread too?"

"I want to... try my best too!"

Tolia's speech carried a slight lisp.

She had just steeled herself and bitten through the tip of her own tongue, just like Ahab had!

Because of what Gray had just said, and because she had seen with her own eyes that Ahab Gul dared to do such a thing!

After Bill and Ahab had left in pursuit of each other, Gray had taken out the crystal ball and watched the entire process alongside Tolia.

When Tolia saw Ahab stitching his wound, the shock in her heart was impossible to describe.

She still remembered spraining her ankle as a child. It had taken three or five people supporting her before she dared go home.

The doctor had warned her that if she wanted to recover well, she had to move it regularly.

But it hurt so badly that she did not even dare let her toes touch the ground!

Now, Tolia had seen with her own eyes that the ruthless Ahab Gul had stitched his own tongue, clean and decisive, without the slightest distortion in his expression.

Such a ruthless man would be her opponent in the future!

Tolia understood that even if she were asked to stitch up her own wound right now, she still would not dare.

But she had to train!

She was already a Wizard Apprentice now. She could not act as she had when she was a young lady.

She could not lose to Ahab Gul!

"And if I lose to him, I really will die..."

Tolia blinked her sapphire-blue eyes and added that sentence silently in her heart.

Gray narrowed his eyes and looked Tolia up and down. Her calves were trembling from pain, yet she stubbornly gritted her teeth. He could not help sighing inwardly again.

"There are as many capable people in this world as there are hairtail fish swimming through the sea."

"Still, biting yourself just for practice... how should I put it?

"Her determination is admirable, her intelligence is uncertain, and she's rather naive..."

"It's over, it's over, it's finally over!"

After attempting to stitch up her own wound, Tolia returned to her cabin.

She locked the door and desperately suppressed the burning sour fluid rising in her stomach.

It hurt. It hurt so much!

Tolia had rested three times before finally completing the stitching.

What kind of experiences had Ahab Gul gone through to be able to stitch himself up so smoothly?

No, that was a little nauseating. Better not think about it for now.

She needed to hurry and read something she liked to distract herself.

She opened her luggage. Beneath the prepared changes of clothes lay several thick novels.

They were all love stories filled with suffering and survival, but with happy endings.

After tying her ankle with a white silk scarf again to stop herself from crossing her legs, Tolia immersed herself in the beautiful story.

She had already read this book three times, yet she was still drawn in by its beautiful love and novel fantasies.

"What a pity. The author said he was going somewhere very far away and would never publish another work."

"That author must be a very gentle person, right?"

"Maybe when I become a powerful wizard in the future, I can try to find him?"

As she thought that, Tolia's heart suddenly went cold, and she involuntarily looked toward the wall on her left.

Living over there was the sinister, cunning, ruthless, unyielding, shameless Ahab Gul.

Whether she could even live long enough to become a powerful wizard was still uncertain.

"If the person living next door were not that demon, but that gentle novelist, how wonderful would that be..."

At that moment, in the cabin next door.

Ahab was already sitting on the bed, spreading open his copy of the Ice-Type Meditation Method.

Of course, before returning, he had first gone to the medical cabin.

He spent one minute removing the stitches, then another three minutes using medical needle and thread to stitch the wound on his tongue again.

It was only a minor matter, not worth paying attention to.

"But this body is truly too weak. A little jumping around and I'm almost exhausted to the point of collapse."

Ahab complained inwardly.

What had the original owner of this body done before?

He seemed to have been a novelist...

No wonder he was so useless.