Resonance

37.2 kHz—Super Senses' touch pressed against Luke's skin, sensing the vibrational feedback from the protein layers.

No response.

38.0 kHz—A faint vibration appeared, but it was nowhere near enough.

38.5 kHz—The vibration strengthened slightly.

The protein chains began showing signs of slight loosening.

39.0 kHz—Closer.

Lynn's fingers could feel an incredibly subtle tremor on the surface of the skin, as if something were coming loose.

39.14 kHz—

Luke's skin changed.

In the thumbnail-sized area touched by the probe, visible ripples appeared across the surface.

That steel-like hardness suddenly vanished—Lynn lightly pressed it with a finger and actually made a shallow indentation.

"Feel that?"

"A little itchy," Luke said.

"The window won't last more than forty seconds." Lynn picked up the scalpel. "Don't move."

The blade cut in.

In its resonant state, Luke Cage's skin was roughly three times as hard as an ordinary person's—still tough, but now within the scalpel's workable range.

Lynn cut quickly yet precisely, completing a three-centimeter incision in a second and a half.

Blood poured out.

Luke instinctively tensed his abs.

"Don't move," Lynn repeated.

Three-point-seven centimeters below the incision—All-Things Diagnosis's marker flickered in his field of vision.

He inserted an extended hemostatic forceps into the incision, his fingers using touch to feel the feedback from the tips with every millimeter they advanced inside the body.

Two centimeters.

Fibrotic tissue surrounding the embedded bullet.

Three centimeters.

The forceps touched something hard.

Metal.

He adjusted the angle. The forceps opened and clamped onto both sides of the bullet.

"This will hurt."

"Go ahead."

Lynn pulled—steadily and evenly extracting the Vibranium bullet from the tissue beside the liver.

Luke's breathing suddenly grew rougher, but his body did not move an inch.

The instant the bullet left his body, gauze in Lynn's left hand was already pressed against the bleeding point.

The hemostatic forceps clamped the blood vessel. Sutures followed.

Thirty-four seconds.

Just as the incision was stitched shut, the resonance window closed.

Luke's skin returned to its original hardness—the sutures were firmly locked in place by the hardened skin, more secure than any surgical tape.

A silver-gray bullet fell into the metal tray.

Vibranium.

Its surface was smooth, its craftsmanship exquisite, and a minute Wakandan inscription was engraved at its base.

Lynn stared at the bullet for two seconds. Then he removed his gloves—

[Ding! Treatment complete! Rating: SS · Exceptional!]

[Saintly Hands Copy activated... Scanning target ability database...]

[Core talent detected: Indestructible (A-rank)]

[Based on treatment contribution rating (SS-rank), automatically copying the highest-quality talent—]

[Copy progress: 11%... 38%... 62%... 89%... 100%!]

[Ding! Copy complete! Obtained A-rank talent: Indestructible (Incomplete Version · 65%)!]

[Ability details: Skin and bone hardness greatly increased. Ordinary blades and low-caliber ammunition cannot inflict effective damage. High-caliber weapons and special materials may still pose a threat.]

A warm current spread through his entire body for about three seconds.

Lynn felt his skin change—not becoming thicker, but denser.

The cellular structure of its outer layer rearranged itself on a microscopic level, forming a tighter protective layer.

He lowered his head, picked up the scalpel from the tray, and lightly drew it across his left index finger.

The blade slid across his skin.

A white mark appeared. No blood.

Lynn put the scalpel back, his expression unchanged.

Luke sat up from the operating table.

He touched the stitches on his abdomen, pressing the spot a few times with his fingers.

"It doesn't hurt anymore." There was something unnatural in his voice—

Not surprise, but closer to the feeling of someone who had never been successfully treated before experiencing what it meant to be healed for the first time.

"How the hell did you do that? Claire soaked me in sulfuric acid for forty minutes and couldn't open me up. How long did you take? Thirty seconds?"

"Thirty-four seconds."

"How did you know the ultrasound frequency? That number—thirty-nine point something—how did you calculate it?"

"I guessed."

Luke looked at him for a second. "You guessed."

"Yeah. Got lucky."

Luke did not believe him.

But he did not press the matter.

He stood and tried moving his body.

Twisting at the waist, bending over, squatting.

"Feels like I was never injured," Luke said.

"About the consultation fee." Lynn pointed at the Vibranium bullet in the tray. "I'll take this bullet."

Luke lowered his head and looked at the thing that had nearly killed him.

"Take it."

"One more thing," Lynn said. "If anyone around you ever needs treatment—no matter what kind of illness—please send them my way."

"No problem." Luke shook Lynn's hand.

His grip was powerful.

Several hundred pounds of force bore down directly on his hand. If this had been Lynn from two days ago, his hand bones would already have shattered.

But now, Lynn merely felt like his hand had been squeezed hard.

Luke noticed.

His brow twitched slightly—a normal young doctor had withstood several hundred pounds of his grip without any discomfort?

But he said nothing.

Word that Luke Cage had been cured spread quickly through his social circle.

It was not because Luke deliberately publicized it—he was not that kind of person.

But Claire was a chatty girl, and after she went back, she told the sisters on the night-shift nursing team all about it.

The fact that "a doctor used ultrasound to cut open Luke's skin" was simply too exciting.

Within twenty-four hours, half of Hell's Kitchen knew.

Three days later, in the afternoon.

Lynn was organizing a procurement list at the front desk.

Frank sat by the door as usual.

A woman pushed the door open and walked in.

She did not greet Frank, nor did Frank stop her—he sensed no threat from her, though he gave her an extra look.

The woman was in her early thirties, dressed in a black leather jacket, jeans, and boots.

Her hair was somewhat messy, and the dark circles under her eyes were deep.

There was an obvious air of not caring in the way she walked—not caring about her appearance, other people's opinions, or what was displayed in this clinic.

She carried an opened bottle of cheap whiskey in her right hand.

Eleven thirty in the morning.

Lynn looked up at her.

All-Things Diagnosis automatically appeared—

[Automatic diagnosis initiated—]

[Patient: Jessica Jones]

[Condition assessment:]

[1. Alcoholic liver damage (mid-stage), liver transaminase levels elevated to 3.2 times the normal value;]

[2. Residual external mental imprint in the brain's Limbic System. Source identified as: Purple Man (Zebediah Killgrave). Residual mind-control signal strength approximately 23%, continuously triggering PTSD-type stress circuits;]

[3. Declining superhuman genetic activity. Current strength output only 68% of theoretical peak. Cause: neural-muscular signal degradation resulting from a prolonged negative state;]

[4. Chronic insomnia. Average daily sleep time does not exceed 3.5 hours.]