Spell Spirit Trading

Broken Lake Prison, treatment room.

"Do you just assume I'm still unconscious as long as I don't say anything?"

Ash opened his eyes and stared straight at the Healer, who was fiddling with his face.

The Healer wore an employee badge marked [222], clearly the same Healer from last time.

"If you don't want your face to rot, close your eyes!"

"Sure."

After the Healer worked on him for a few more minutes, she finally let go of his face. "All right, you can get up now. Here, the apples you asked for last time."

Ash hurriedly sat up and felt his face, breathing a sigh of relief. On the nightstand was a plate of apples cut into rabbit shapes, each with a toothpick stuck in it. Ash picked them up and ate them one by one.

"Good, good. Two eyes, one nose, one mouth. Not a single part missing. I thought I'd have to contribute to biodiversity."

"I was performing surgery on you. How could you doubt me?"

The Healer folded her arms, trying to look angry, but she wore a Raven Mask and her voice was filtered through it. Rather than being frightened, Ash even held out his hand.

"What?"

"Didn't you say that if I let you give me cosmetic surgery, you'd have to pay me?"

"Oh." The Healer obediently took out her wallet, but then she suddenly realized, "I did say that yesterday, but you never agreed!"

"So did you give me cosmetic surgery or not?"

"Cosmetic surgery is very complicated. It's not as simple as you imagine—"

"So you did?"

"Only a little. It was really just a tiny, tiny procedure... How much do you want?"

"One Silver Coin."

The Healer visibly relaxed. She rummaged through her wallet, then looked up and asked, "Can I give you a Gold Coin? I don't have any change."

Ash, who had been living off the state all this time, had no concept of this world's economic system. He was quietly surprised. Were Silver Coins really just loose change tossed to beggars in this world?

One actually dared to give, and the other actually dared to take. As Ash accepted the Gold Coin, a surge of delight welled up from the depths of his consciousness.

As his palm grew warm, Ash seemed to see a human toddler in pajamas pat its bulging belly before flopping backward and falling sound asleep.

He looked down at the Gold Coin and vaguely felt that it had shrunk a tiny bit. At this rate of consumption, it would probably last a year.

Well then, feeding a Spell Spirit was pretty easy.

Although Ash was the sort of person who would take a swing whenever he got the chance, he had a reason for asking for money this time.

After all, Sword Maiden had told him that Spell Spirits needed to be fed with money. Since he had no money, he could only think of a way to get some from people with relatively low intelligence for emergencies.

Ash happily put the Gold Coin into his bag and casually asked, "So what cosmetic procedure did you actually perform on me?"

"Dru's forehead skin-stretching wrinkle-removal Spell Formula. Simply put, I removed your forehead lines."

The Healer paused, slowly straightened up, and looked down at Ash through her raven beak. "Since I was willing to perform this procedure for you, you ought to be kowtowing in gratitude. You should know that forehead lines greatly affect someone's looks. Outside, a Dru Technique costs a great deal of money to—"

"What? You actually removed my most handsome and manly forehead lines?"

Ash flew into a rage. "A heartless Healer disfigured a patient while he was asleep and stole his most radiant, beautiful face! Is there no law left? No justice? This is a medical accident! This is robbery and murder!"

The Healer was utterly bewildered by Ash's counterattack. After standing there blankly for a moment, she opened her wallet again.

"How much do you want?"

"Hey, don't be like that. I'm not that kind of easy person." Ash righteously refused. "I'm not the sort of criminal who uses someone's weakness to threaten and entice them into serving me like a beast of burden."

The Healer pondered for a moment.

"Sit here for a while. I'll go look for some news reports about you..."

"In! Short!" Ash hurriedly pulled the Healer back. "I just want to ask you a few questions."

"You're not allowed to ask my name, take off my Mask, or touch my skin!"

The Healer jumped in alarm and quickly slapped Ash's hand away. She crossed her arms over her chest in strict defense, finally making Ash feel the dignity of being a death row inmate.

Still, Ash was a little curious. "Why not?"

"These are Broken Lake Prison's rules. Healers aren't allowed to communicate privately with inmates. If discovered, they'll be dismissed from their Healer position. In serious cases, they might even be imprisoned!"

"So... we'll soon become cellmates?"

"If you have questions, ask them quickly. Then leave quickly."

The Healer did not seem particularly concerned about that rule. Ash felt that she wanted to take an unpaid long vacation.

"That Elf I fought in the deathmatch, is he still alive?"

"His injuries were lighter than yours. He left long ago."

"Lighter?"

"His throat was merely slit. What kind of injury is that? Someone else spent a few minutes healing him. I spent over an hour making your flesh grow back."

The Healer spread her hands. She did not look like she was lying.

Ash looked at his intact thigh and shoulder, wondering if treatment here was priced by the pound.

The more flesh you lost, the harder it was to heal. But slit throats and blown-up heads were no big deal?

So the butt was considered a high-risk organ here? The butt was more important than the head?

"Any more questions? Hurry up."

"I also wanted to ask whether there's a place in the Prison where Spell Spirits can be traded. A man living alone gets lonely. I want to keep some pets..."

The Healer stared intently at Ash.

"I'm going to report you for plotting something improper and attempting a Prison Break."

"I'm already a death row inmate. Even if you report me, can they add more time to my sentence?"

"They can. After you die once, they can revive you and let you die again."

"What? You can do that!?"

"Of course not. That would waste taxpayers' money, and it's inhumane. Repeated executions were banned a hundred years ago."

"So Death Row Inmates a hundred years ago might have had to die many times..."

"Anyway, I won't answer that question." The Healer folded her arms. "Death Row Inmates like you should obediently become our medical materials. Once you're no longer useful, obediently go die."

"Your three views are unexpectedly upright..."

"How did you decide my three views weren't upright?"

"After all, you've talked with a death row inmate like me for so long. I thought you were the sort of child in a rebellious period who would be curious about criminals."

"I-I'm not curious at all. If I were curious, couldn't I just read the news reports?"

As she spoke, the Healer packed up her treatment equipment. Ash jumped down from the bed and moved his thigh and shoulder.

The surgery had been a success. Aside from one patch on his thigh and one patch on his shoulder being visibly a shade whiter than the surrounding skin, there was no real problem.

"If I said I was framed, would you believe me?"

"Don't think I'm that easy to fool." The Healer snorted. "Ever since the Memory Evidence System was introduced, there hasn't been a single wrongful conviction. The Sin Hunting Hall must have found evidence of your crime in your memories before convicting you—"

"No. The Sin Hunting Hall didn't take any memory evidence from my head."

"How is that possible—"

"You can check the reports, but the Sin Hunting Hall really didn't take my memories, and I really was framed."

Ash spoke with complete confidence. Leaving aside the fact that Hiss, not Ash, had been the criminal, the more important point was that he did not even have Hiss's memories. He felt no psychological burden whatsoever saying it.

The Healer looked at Ash suspiciously.

"You're not lying to me?"

"If I'm lying, may I never get overtime pay for all the overtime I work in this life."

"If you dare lie to me, you're dead! You'd better pray you don't get hurt again, or if you end up in my hands, I'll change even your race and sex!"

Those words dealt a tremendous blow to Ash's young heart—he had wanted to explore the healthcare industries of this other world's many races, but he had never expected this world's medical technology to be advanced enough to change even race and sex!

Could he still trust it when he saw a beautiful young girl on the street? Was there still any trust between people?

"But even if you say that, I can't answer your question."

The Healer spread her hands.

"You Death Row Inmates have your Spell Power restricted. The first step in trading Spell Spirits is for the seller to release the Spell Spirit with Spell Power, then for the buyer to reactivate it with Spell Power. If you can't use Spell Power, you can neither release Spell Spirits nor activate them."

Spell Power even had an effect similar to Key authentication. Ash increasingly felt that Spell Power was truly an all-purpose energy source. He would not even be surprised if he heard one day that Spell Power had Bluetooth capabilities.

No wonder the Prison did not seal their Spell Spirits. On one hand, perhaps Spell Spirits could not be bound. On the other, as long as their Spell Power was restricted, they could not stir up any trouble at all.

Ash still refused to give up. "Is there really no hope? Isn't there a place like the Deathmatch Club where we can have our Spell Power restrictions removed?"

After experiencing a round of Void Realm Exploration, Ash realized that finding all the Spell Spirits he needed in the Void Realm was no easier than finding a needle in a haystack. If he had enough time, he could search for that needle, but the problem was that Ash did not have much time left.

Although Ash did not dislike risk and was willing to gamble his hopes on probability, he did not want to have no hedge at all. It was like how companies made employees work 996 overtime while also buying them health insurance. Whether their employees dropped dead or not, the company won big. As an outstanding employee of the year, Ash had naturally absorbed such excellent corporate culture and always prepared a backup plan.

If he could find a Spell Spirit Trading Platform, then even if Ash picked up nothing but junk in the Void Realm, he would still have a chance to sell it off and recover some funds.

"There is. You don't know?"

The Healer's answer caught Ash by surprise. "Why would I know?"

"Because this is something every death row inmate experiences at least once... Oh, right. You've only been in Prison for a few days. You haven't had the chance yet."

Ash immediately understood what she meant.

"Blood Moon Judgment?"