Eye Transplant

The surgical scissors advanced along the unique contours at the corner of the eye. The eyelids naturally parted to either side like sheets of paper, gradually exposing the frog's cornea.

It was red and tender, dotted with rice-grain-sized white specks. The specks formed an eerie pattern, tightly enclosing the triangular eyeball at the center.

Behind the eyeball lay a pale network of threadlike nerves.

The cornea, eyeball, and nerve network formed a complete eye structure.

Transplantation meant disassembling it intact like machine parts, then reassembling it onto another living creature.

It sounded simple and clear, yet it was one of the most baffling subjects on the entire Red Soil Continent.

Even among Witch Doctors, very few could flawlessly perform organ transplants.

Within the Witch Doctor system, organ transplantation required mastery of the Healing Spell, Transformation Spell, Organ Extraction Witchcraft, Sprite Grafting Spell, and Regeneration Spell. Only with all five spells could one perform the most basic organ transplant.

The Healing Spell was used to heal wounds. The Transformation Spell could turn different species into the same species. Organ Extraction Witchcraft was the core of the entire process. The Sprite Grafting Spell ensured successful implantation after organ removal. The Regeneration Spell had the same effect as the Healing Spell, but worked deeper, penetrating the epidermis and reaching beneath the dermis.

Only with all five spells could an organ transplant be guaranteed to proceed successfully.

Likewise, anyone who completely mastered organ transplantation was undoubtedly among the finest Witch Doctors on the Red Soil Continent.

For a Witch Doctor Apprentice like Li Ziran, who had only mastered the simple Frog Transformation, entering this field would have been laughable. But he had his own methods.

His methods even had a far higher success rate than those of Grand Witch Doctors, while the rate of post-operative complications was astonishingly low.

That was his skill.

When it came to modifying frogs, he had more experience than anyone else.

To date, he had completely dissected 17,283 frogs.

The operation before him was child's play.

Li Ziran steadied his breathing and carefully adjusted his strength. Even the slightest error could crush the eyeball.

Grip it!

Release!

Grip it again!

This was a necessary test, allowing him to sense the degree of attachment between the eyeball and the nerve network behind it.

"Stronger than an ordinary creature!"

Though its shape had changed, its biological nature had not.

He began applying more force. The eyeball rose out of its socket, while fine white nerves were drawn one by one from the tender red flesh.

Li Ziran stared intently at the pale triangular pupil without daring to breathe. He needed to lift it a little higher.

The tail end of the tweezers finally began to emerge. This meant the eyeball had officially detached from the eye socket, marking the success of the first step.

But the second step had to begin immediately: severing the nerve network.

The nerve network was extremely fine, dense as tangled threads. Li Ziran had to ensure every nerve remained intact. If even one failed to be extracted, the transplant would leave all kinds of aftereffects, such as blurred vision.

That was the last thing Li Ziran wanted to see, which made this detail even more crucial.

And precise identification of the nerve network depended entirely on experience.

123 strands!

After a brief observation, Li Ziran reached his answer. The surgical scissors were already in his hand.

He needed to use the eyeball to pull the nerve network from the flesh, sever it in an instant, and place it into the prepared nurturing solution.

Li Ziran slowly raised his right hand holding the tweezers. His other hand was like a cheetah lying in wait in the snow, ready to deliver a fatal strike at any moment.

There was not a sound in the empty room. Even Li Ziran's own breathing had been instinctively suppressed.

He was sweating.

Yet his eyes remained fixed on the spider-silk-like nerves, bright as stars.

Suddenly—

His left hand moved!

No one could have seen what happened. There was only a sharp snap, and the eyeball, trailing fine strands behind it, had already been stuffed into a sealed thumb-sized vial.

One cut!

123 nerve strands!

Within the murky solution, it looked like an eerie octopus floating continuously up and down.

Only then did Li Ziran finally let out a breath, though it was merely a brief rest.

The prepared nurturing solution could harden the nerve endings, making it easier to transplant the eyeball into the host. But it could not remain in the solution for too long. Given enough time, the eyeball might become necrotic.

Therefore, after this brief rest, he had to cut open the corner of Barbaro's eye.

Li Ziran opened Barbaro's blind eye. The old wound had long since fully scabbed over, forming new flesh tissue.

Healing this eye would not be easy.

He cut it open and began using the smallest tweezers to clean away the rotten flesh in the eye socket bit by bit.

It was troublesome and required immense patience.

Fortunately, Li Ziran did not lack patience. What worried him now was that Barbaro's eye, having been blind for so long, might have suffered complete necrosis of its terminal nerves.

If that were the case, he would have to use some Revival Potion.

It was expensive, and Li Ziran did not have much in reserve. The procedure was also quite troublesome, and the expenditure of energy would rise sharply.

Even then, the operation could not be guaranteed to succeed completely.

If it failed, he would have to terminate the operation and continue only after ensuring Barbaro's nerve network remained intact.

Chunks of rotten flesh were gradually cleared from the eye socket. The faintly wriggling nerves in that hollow socket gave Li Ziran the best possible news.

The nerve endings showed no obvious signs of necrosis.

Li Ziran smiled and relaxed slightly.

Now was not the best time.

Extracting the cornea was much simpler. Even the most ordinary ophthalmologist from his previous life could have done it.

"Time for the big project!"

Li Ziran encouraged himself. Nerve connection was absolutely a major undertaking. He needed to link minuscule neurons together like electrical wires.

This could not be done by hand. He had to use tiny tweezers to connect two nerves bit by bit, then fuse them with Revival Potion.

Second by second, time passed. Night fell over Gray Wolf Territory, and the streets filled with the cries of slave traders and the sounds of taverns opening.

Fortunately, the gallows stood at the outermost edge of the territory.

Before there was another execution, no one was willing to come to such a gloomy place for amusement.

If someone had barged in carelessly now, forget a person—even the cry of a small animal would have caused Li Ziran's operation to fail.

It had to be said that this was a fortunate night.

After Li Ziran connected the final nerve, nothing unexpected happened.

A triangular eyeball appeared in the right eye of the frog Barbaro had transformed into.

Li Ziran smiled. Nothing was more satisfying than completing an operation perfectly.

He had allowed a Wolf who had been blind for many years to see the light again.

He was tired now. The continuous high-intensity work had exhausted all his energy, but he knew he absolutely could not rest yet.

He bent down and pulled another thumb-sized vial from his pocket. It no longer contained a murky liquid, but a beam of brilliant golden light.

Sacred Potion.

A high-grade potion from the human empire, capable of instantly healing wounds.

Whenever Li Ziran saw the light in this bottle, he could not help admiring human alchemists.

The humans of the Sacred Empire had actually managed to refine a potion capable of instantly healing people from the Elemental Tide that swept across the entire Red Soil Continent.

It was incredible!

This tiny bottle of potion could restore a wound to its original state in an instant. It was an ability he had never even dared imagine before.

Unfortunately, like the costly anti-inflammatory medicine from his past, Sacred Potion was not cheap either.

7.3 silver coins!

He had spent his entire life saving up for just this thumb-sized bottle.

"Crooks!"

Li Ziran cursed inwardly, but still sprinkled the potion over Barbaro's right eye.

It truly lived up to its price of 7.3 silver coins.

This bottle of potion could completely replace the Healing Spell and Regeneration Spell.

The golden light instantly penetrated the pupil and entered the deeper nerve network. The transplanted cornea rapidly contracted, and the split wounds around the eye socket visibly closed.

In the blink of an eye, there was no trace that the right eye had ever been operated on.

He pulled open the frog's eyelid. A distinct pale glow gradually began to appear within the triangular pupil.

Petrifying Eye!

Li Ziran was filled with emotion. He had finally completed it.

But at the instant he healed Wolf, an eerie beam of white light shot outward from the blood-red pupil.

The white light was faint, yet especially conspicuous in the night.

The end of the white light was on his right hand. Looking along his arm, he saw a pale, viper-like curve extending forward along it.

Centered on that curve, marble-patterned stone patches spread toward both sides. In the blink of an eye, the skin of his entire arm seemed to have turned to stone.

This was...

A curse?