"The effect of the medicine has worn off; it's about time to wake up."
A familiar voice suddenly spoke. Judging by the sound, it should be the Toad Witch Doctor, that oversized blue-skinned toad.
Durin slowly lifted his eyelids a crack. The incandescent light made him feel uncomfortable, and there was also a silver light source constantly swaying before his eyes.
Durin blinked with effort, adapting to the light for a moment, and discovered that the silver light swaying before him wasn't a lamp, but the reflection from the lenses of a pair of small round glasses worn on the Toad Witch Doctor's large, warty face.
"You're awake?" The Toad Witch Doctor took off his small round glasses and nodded at Durin. "I have to admit, your body's recovery from injuries exceeds my imagination."
Suddenly, a breeze blew in from outside the window, and Durin couldn't help but shiver. Only then did he realize that his upper body was actually bare.
He immediately looked down and saw that the black-red substance over his heart was still as hideous as ever, and the upper part of his left arm was still covered with a layer of dark red, hard armor-like material.
Furthermore, there was a surgical scar on his abdomen, with a layer of tender, new flesh around the scar.
"By the way, what's up with that thing on your chest?" The Toad Witch Doctor picked up his pipe, sat on a custom-made chair, and puffed away, blowing out clouds of smoke. "I've consulted many sources, but I can't reach a definitive conclusion. It must be a brand-new ailment. It's truly curious—what exactly has happened to you during this time?"
Uh...
Durin didn't know how to explain it and didn't want to explain it either, so he could only fall into silence.
"If you don't want to say, forget it." The Toad Witch Doctor lifted his heavy eyelids, glanced lazily at Durin, and said nonchalantly, "Although I would love to use your body for experiments to see what has happened to your internal organs, I have my own reputation. If you are ever really short on money before you die, I would be quite happy to pay you to become my test subject—if you're not willing, then forget it! Alright, enough nonsense. Non-negotiable price: this time I'm charging you 2.5 silver lun coins, not a penny less!"
"Um... I understand. What time is it now?"
Durin wanted to get off the operating table, but he felt his head was a bit dizzy and his whole body was weak. This feeling was like he had just emerged from a long, drawn-out dream and couldn't react quickly.
"One in the morning."
The Toad Witch Doctor glanced at the wall clock and replied.
Durin estimated in his heart that he had slept for nearly three hours.
The Toad Witch Doctor tapped his pipe against the edge of the ashtray twice and said calmly, "Don't move around. If you pull the wound and cause the stitches to burst, leading to another infection, I will charge extra for re-disinfecting and re-stitching. That said, to be run through the entire abdomen by a three-finger-wide blade—even if it didn't hit any organs—would have killed an ordinary person long ago. Yet not only are you not dead, but your wound is also constantly healing itself. It's simply a miracle!"
The wound healed itself?!
Durin glanced at the Toad Witch Doctor and saw that the other party looked serious, with no intention of joking. However, thinking about it carefully now, after being stabbed in the abdomen, he had actually been able to come to the Toad Witch Doctor's side alone to treat his injuries; this would have been fundamentally impossible in the past.
Perhaps this was one of the benefits of his body being modified when Stellatu possessed it?
"So, do you know any way to treat me?" Durin expressed his feelings and thoughts truthfully.
"For now, I have no way," the Toad Witch Doctor shook his head and replied. "But I've seen too many strange and eccentric people in Zaun. A while ago, I treated a Cyberpsycho who had replaced his entire body with Augments and then lost his mind, and there was a poor fellow who suffered from some unknown curse, though unfortunately, he's already dead. You, at most, count as a rather rare person. Hmm... perhaps I can ask a good friend of mine for you; that fellow's Medical Skill is much stronger than mine. We should be able to discuss a treatment method then, but the surgery fee definitely won't be cheap, so be prepared."
After receiving an answer that there might be a way, Durin's heart finally settled a little. He sat on the bed and rested for several minutes before fully clearing his head.
Suddenly, he noticed a task log prompt in the character card system. Opening it, he saw a prompt regarding a proficiency increase: [Medical Skill +2, Current Proficiency: 13/25]
As expected, once injured and recovering, his Medical Skill proficiency would increase. Previously, they were all minor injuries, so the proficiency only increased by one point, but a penetrating abdominal wound was clearly incomparable, directly increasing it by two points at once.
Next, Durin began to think about the dream he just had. Was I... dreaming of Stellatu's memories again?
Durin felt his head becoming swollen. The sensations this dream gave him were more like watching Stellatu's experiences during her youth from a third-person perspective. Moreover, he discovered an even stranger thing: regarding the events in the dream, some details had become very blurry, yet he remembered the recipe and production steps for making the potion with perfect clarity.
It's just that... Durin didn't know Ancient Shurima script at all!
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