Get Up and Show Some Respect to the Captain

The blond Mage stood motionless, staring at Li Ziran. He had little trust in this Witch Doctor they had encountered halfway through the journey.

Using a Medusa right from the start felt extravagant, but Karen had tacitly approved it.

He could only obey. In the Bauhinia Flower, no one could, and no one dared, defy Karen.

While the blond Mage was still puzzled, Li Ziran, covered in grime, had already turned his Witch Doctor's robe inside out, revealing a clean, fine white lab coat. From its inner layers, he laid out special blades one after another across the prepared canvas.

Mithril scalpels, scissors, fine forceps, and more than a dozen slender needles of varying lengths.

Once the canvas was spread out, more than ten thumb-sized bottles were arranged neatly along its edge. A small brush was placed into one of them, the frog sweat within just submerging the tip of its handle.

"Where is the Medusa, gentlemen?"

Having finished his preparations, Li Ziran looked up at the two young men.

In his own field of expertise, he was fairly confident.

His series of movements made the two look at him in a different light. Though they did not know much about Witch Doctors, they could tell from what they had just seen that Li Ziran had some real skill.

The Mage was still hesitant. Medusas were rare slaves, after all, and he could not help looking toward Karen.

Karen nodded without changing expression.

A moment later, fishmen and pigman laborers gathered around.

Organ transplantation was an ability they had only heard of and never witnessed. Now that a Grand Witch Doctor was displaying his skill before them, even if they were not experiencing it firsthand, merely seeing it would give them something to boast about later.

"If he can successfully transplant a Petrifying Eye, the Slave-Catching Group will strike it rich!"

"Is this young man really that capable? Why does it feel like he's spinning tall tales?"

"The captain's really gone all out. Medusas aren't easy to catch. If he ruins one, will they kill him? Last time, I..."

Their voices were low, but Li Ziran heard every word clearly. He ignored them, lowered his head, dipped his brush in frog sweat, and gently wrote Tadpole Script across the canvas.

"Li, can a dead Medusa work?" the blond Mage suddenly asked.

The question made Karen, standing beside him, furrow his brows. He seemed displeased by his subordinate acting on his own initiative, yet he still wore a smile and said nothing.

He was not a Witch Doctor, but he knew a little. Only the finest Witch Doctors could handle organs from someone on the brink of death, and that difficulty was at least ten times greater.

"How long has she been dead?" Li Ziran asked calmly.

"Not long. Half a day, maybe," the Mage answered readily.

"Half a day?" Li Ziran frowned slightly. "I can't be sure. I need to see the corpse."

"Here?" the blond Mage asked.

Li Ziran nodded. The view here was open, the lighting was perfect, and he also wanted to show off his abilities.

Ability brought status, and status brought trade.

Judging by the scale of their spending just now, this Slave-Catching Group was no small operation. They surely had plenty of corpses on hand. If he could build a deeper relationship with them, his source of goods would become much more abundant.

If he could buy some corpses, he might even earn back all forty silver coins Barbarona had taken from him. Then this Medusa would become his private slave.

He was certain that the Spirit World was connected to Medusa, but that would have to wait until she woke up.

If this Medusa could help him comprehend the Devouring Curse, she would be worth far more than a few dozen gold coins.

Besides, the Petrification Curse in his arm had been caused by this woman. Perhaps this woman would also have to be the one to resolve it, just like his Transformation Spell could only be undone by his own blood.

The blond Mage moved quickly. Within a few breaths, a brawny Fishman laborer dragged a nylon sack over from the camp behind them.

The nylon sack lay in a soft, shapeless heap. Blood occasionally seeped from its bottom, dragging a long red line across the grass.

The Fishman tossed the nylon sack directly onto the canvas. Li Ziran took the initiative and untied its slipknot. At once, a choking stench of blood hit him head-on. The blood smelled fresh.

This thing had probably not been dead long. The inside of the nylon sack was nothing but a mass of crimson, making it impossible to see what was in it.

Li Ziran gripped the bottom of the nylon sack and gave it a hard shake, dumping all the blood and watery gore inside onto the canvas in one roll.

Ugh!

A wave of retching broke out instantly. The watching fishmen and elves instinctively turned their heads away.

On the ground lay a muddy mass of blood and flesh. A snake tail could vaguely be seen within it, though it had been severed by some sharp weapon, blood still streaming from the clean-cut wound.

Mixed into the gore were patches of emerald green—some kind of large leaves. More precisely, clothing made from leaves.

Through the gaps between those leaves, one could see the full curves unique to a woman. A long, slender neck was caught among them, sticking up like a bamboo pole. At the end of that neck was a woman's face with half of one cheek sliced away.

"Can it still be used?" the blond Mage asked without changing expression.

Li Ziran crouched down and gently moved aside the half-face. The cut was sharp and carried a trace of wind-elemental aura. It had likely been pierced through by a massive wind blade.

Li Ziran only paused briefly before inserting his hand into her skull, moving it behind the eye, lifting slightly, and beginning a careful examination.

The neural network was intact!

The eyeball had not suffered fatal damage!

The retina was intact!

And there was still half a body amid the muddy flesh and blood. Judging from the face, it was not the same person.

He could see it clearly. Especially after opening the Spirit World, he could even detect the necrotic channels behind the neural network.

Clearly, this was a mixture of three corpses.

"It should work!" Li Ziran gave a definite answer. "Whose body are we transplanting this eye into?"

That abrupt question immediately stirred up a commotion in the crowd. The Fishman laborers instinctively stepped back, looking fearfully toward Karen at the center.

Karen casually swept his gaze over the Slave-Catching Group before it settled on a short Fishman. "Him."

The fishmen beside him recoiled reflexively. They were curious about witchcraft, but they did not want to become its test subjects.

As for the lucky Fishman chosen, he trembled uncontrollably where he stood. Once he learned that the process would involve digging out his right eye, he nearly went dumb with terror.

The other two fishmen practically had to carry him over to Li Ziran.

Li Ziran did not care how the Fishman felt. If it succeeded, the Fishman would possess a Petrifying Eye, and his status in the Slave-Catching Group would soar like a rocket. He would not even have time to thank Li Ziran.

Following the standard surgical procedure, he first turned the Fishman into a frog, then found a horizontal pole and hung him from it.

Afterward, he carefully cleaned Medusa's eye with disinfectant, then used a scalpel to cut along the boundary of the eye socket, slowly working inward toward the brow until he touched bone.

With the experience from last time, Li Ziran handled this one with practiced ease.

The blond Mage watched every movement Li Ziran made. He saw him draw fine threads from the flesh one by one, toss the eyeball into a bottle of dark green solution, then use the Transformation Spell to turn it into an eye unique to a frog...

His movements were extremely fast. Supported by his immense spiritual power, Li Ziran could even pull a few little tricks.

For example, he used one-third less Revival Potion at the neural junctions, or he used the sturdiest T-knot to connect the two neural networks.

"Hogg, you've seen an organ transplant before. Was it like this?" Karen asked, looking at her Mage, Hogg.

Hogg shook his head blankly. "It's not the same. I can't sense any witchcraft."

"Are you saying he's a fraud?" Karen's expression did not change, but his tone carried an interrogation, as though Hogg had already committed some grave mistake.

"I don't know either." Hogg the Mage's answer remained vague. Sensing the hostility in Karen's tone, he hurriedly added, "Though I can't sense witchcraft, I still feel that this man is capable."

"Why?"

"It should be the potions. Those potions have different effects, and his technique is very practiced. Clearly, this isn't his first time using witchcraft. I think the Goddess of Fortune has favored us. At this little pond, we happened to meet an extraordinary Witch Doctor. In the future..."

His words came to an abrupt stop. Karen's sharp gaze had frightened him silent.

Li Ziran worked quickly. He lightly ground something between his fingers, dipped them in a grayish-brown solution, and repeated the same motion over and over.

This step took the longest. Once it was done, he carefully brought out the Sacred Potion.

The blazing sacred radiance stimulated everyone's nerves. At that moment, even drawing a breath seemed capable of driving the pain from their bodies.

Sacred Potion!

The most special healing potion produced by humans. With the Sacred Potion's help, the cuts and bloody marks on the Fishman's face rapidly vanished. Along with them disappeared the black pupils unique to Fishmen, replaced by a triangular crimson-white pupil.

The frog vanished, and the Fishman gradually returned to his original form. Seeing that he was still lying on the ground unconscious, the impatient Mage had long since run out of patience.

With a flick of his finger, a nail-sized fireball landed directly on Fishman's backside. "Get up and show some respect to the captain!"