Chapter 35
Shattered Lake Prison, medical room.
"Are you just going to pretend I'm still unconscious if I don't say anything?"
Ashe opened his eyes and stared straight at the medic who was fiddling with his face.
The medic's uniform had the employee number [222] on it, clearly the same medic as last time.
"If you don't want a messed up face then keep your eyes shut!"
"Sounds good."
After the medic tinkered for a few more minutes, she finally let go of his face: "Alright, you can get up now. Here, the apple you asked for last time."
Ashe hurriedly got up and felt his face, breathing a sigh of relief. Next to the bedside table was a plate of apple slices cut into rabbit shapes, with toothpicks stuck in them. Ashe picked one up and ate them one after another.
"Phew, still in one piece, two eyes, one nose, one mouth, I thought I was going to have to make a contribution to species diversity."
"I performed surgery to treat you, how could you doubt me?"
The medic tried to look angry with her arms crossed over her chest, but with the crow mask on and her voice distorted by the mask, Ashe was not scared at all. In fact, he even reached out a hand.
"What do you want?"
"Didn't you say if I let you do plastic surgery on me, you'd give me money?"
"Oh." The medic obediently took out her wallet, but she soon realized: "That's what I said yesterday, but you didn't agree to it!"
"But did you end up doing plastic surgery on me or not?"
"Plastic surgery is very complicated, not as simple as you imagine—"
"So you did it?"
"Just a little bit, really just a tiny minor procedure... How much do you want?"
"Give me one silver coin."
The medic was clearly relieved and lowered her head to rummage in her wallet, then looked up and asked: "Can I give a gold coin? I don't have change."
Ashe, who had been living off the state's money the whole time, had no concept of the economic system in this world. He was surprised that silver coins were considered spare change for beggars in this world?
One dared to give, the other dared to take, Ashe accepted the gold coin and immediately felt a surge of excitement in the depths of his consciousness.
As his palm grew hot, Ashe seemed to see a human child in pajamas patting his bulging belly, falling back and snoring away.
He looked down at the gold coin and vaguely felt it had shrunk a little. At this rate of consumption, it would probably last a year.
So feeding spirits is pretty simple huh.
Although Ashe would whack something at the slightest excuse, he had a reason for asking for money this time.
After all, the Swordswoman had told him that spirits needed to be fed with money, and since he had no money, he could only think of ways to fish some spare change from people of lower intelligence.
Ashe was satisfied as he put the gold coin in his bag, and casually asked: "So what kind of plastic surgery did you do on me exactly?"
"Dr. Drew's forehead skin stretching and wrinkle reduction technique, to put it simply, removal of forehead wrinkles."
The medic paused, then slowly straightened up and looked down at Ashe with her crow beak: "I was willing to perform this procedure for you, you should be thanking me on your knees. You should know forehead wrinkles greatly detract from one's looks, this Dr. Drew technique costs a lot of money to get done on the outside—"
"What, you actually removed my most handsome and masculine forehead wrinkles?"
Ashe was furious: "An unscrupulous medic taking advantage of an unconscious patient to disfigure him, robbing him of his most brilliant and beautiful looks. Is there no rule of law here, is there no reason anymore? This is malpractice, this is seeking wealth by murder!"
The medic was somehow tricked by Ashe's counterattack, stunned for a moment before opening her wallet again.
"How much do you want?"
"Hey, don't be like that, I'm not that kind of person." Ashe righteously refused: "I'm not the kind of criminal who would blackmail others to be my ox or horse using their weaknesses."
The medic thought for a moment.
"Stay here, let me go find some news reports about you..."
"The point is!" Ashe hurriedly pulled the medic back: "I just have a few questions to ask."
"Don't ask for my name, don't take off my mask, don't touch my skin!"
The medic was startled and quickly slapped Ashe's hand away, crossing her arms to defend herself sternly, finally making Ashe feel the dignity of being a death row inmate.
But Ashe was also somewhat curious: "Why not?"
"It's a rule of Shattered Lake Prison that medics are not allowed to communicate privately with inmates. Getting caught would get your medical license revoked, and in severe cases you could even be imprisoned!"
"So in other words... we'll become cellmates soon?"
"If you have questions then ask them quickly and leave quickly."
The medic didn't seem to care much about this rule. Ashe felt she was looking to take an unpaid long vacation.
"The elf I dueled with, is he still alive?"
"His injuries were lighter than yours, he left a long time ago."
"Lighter injuries?"
"He just had his throat slit open, what's that compared to other injuries, others healed him in a few minutes. I spent over an hour to regrow your flesh—"
The medic spread her hands, looking sincere.
Ashe looked at his intact thigh and shoulder, wondering if medical treatment here was charged by the pound.
The more flesh lost the harder to heal, slitting throats and blowing heads off doesn't count?
So butts are considered high-risk organs here? Butts are more important than brains?
"Any other questions, make it quick."
"I also wanted to ask, are there places in the prison for trading spirits, a single man gets a bit lonely, I want to raise some pets..."
The medic stared at Ashe.
"I'm going to report you for plotting prison escape."
"I'm already on death row, what more can you do if you report me, sentence me to death again?"
"That's possible, we can revive you after your first death and make you die again."
"What, you can do that!?"
"Of course not, that would be a waste of taxpayer money, and also inhumane. Repeat death penalties have been banned for over a hundred years now."
"So death row inmates from a hundred years ago might have died many times..."
"Anyway, I won't answer that question," the medic said with crossed arms. "Death row criminals like you should just obediently become medical materials for us. When you're no longer useful, you can just obediently die."
"Your values are unexpectedly upright..."
"What makes you think my values are not upright?"
"After all, you chatted with me, a death row criminal, for so long. I thought you were the kind of rebellious child who would be curious about criminals."
"I-I'm not curious at all. If I were really curious, I could just read the news reports."
The medic said while packing up the medical equipment. Ashe jumped down from the bed and shook his thighs and shoulders.
The surgery was very successful. Apart from the skin on parts of his thigh and shoulder being noticeably lighter by one shade than the surrounding area, there were no major issues.
"What if I told you I was wrongly accused?"
"Don't think you can fool me so easily." The medic snorted. "Ever since the memory evidence system was implemented, there have been no more cases of wrongful convictions. The Heresy Court must have discovered your criminal process from your memories before convicting you—"
"Nope, the Heresy Court didn't take any memory evidence from me."
"How is that possible—"
"You can check the reports, but the Heresy Court really didn't take any of my memories. I really am wrongly accused."
Ashe was justified and confident. Let's not mention the criminal was Heath instead of him Ashe, more importantly he didn't even have Heath's memories, so he had no psychological burden saying this.
The medic looked at Ashe suspiciously.
"You're not lying to me?"
"If I lied to you, I wouldn't get overtime pay for the rest of my life."
"If you dare lie to me, you're dead. You better pray you don't get injured again, or when you end up in my hands, see if I don't change your race and gender!"
The medic's words had a huge impact on Ashe's young heart - he wanted to see the healthcare industry of the different races in this other world, but didn't expect the medical technology here had reached the point where even race and gender could be changed!
Could you still believe it when you see a beauty on the street like this? Is there still trust between people?
"But even if you say that, I still can't answer you."
The medic spread his hands helplessly.
"Your death row inmates have restricted arcane abilities. The first step in trading spirits is the seller releasing the spirit with arcane energy, and the buyer reactivating the spirit with arcane energy. Without access to arcane abilities, you can neither release nor reactivate spirits."
So arcane abilities also function like authentication keys. Ashe increasingly felt that arcane energy was an omnipotent power source. He wouldn't be surprised to hear it has Bluetooth capabilities someday.
No wonder the prison doesn't restrict their spirits. On one hand spirits probably can't be restrained, on the other hand as long as their arcane abilities are limited, they can't make any waves.
Ashe still refused to give up: "Is there no hope at all? No place like the Deathmatch Society where we can unlock our arcane abilities?"
After one exploration of the virtual world, Ashe realized finding all the spirits he needed in there would be as hard as finding a needle in the ocean. It wouldn't be impossible if he had ample time, but the problem was he didn't have much time left.
Although Ashe didn't dislike taking risks, he was willing to stake his hopes on probability, but unwilling to do so without a contingency plan. Like how companies make their employees work overtime with 996 hours, but also buy health insurance for them, so whether the employees suddenly die or not the company still wins. As an outstanding employee of the year, Ashe naturally grasped this excellent corporate culture, always preparing a backup plan.
If he could find a spirit trading platform, even if all he found in the virtual world was junk, he'd still have a chance to cash out and recoup losses.
"There is," the medic replied, to Ashe's surprise. "You don't know about it?"
"Why would I know?"
"Because it's an experience all death row inmates go through at least once... oh right, you just got here a few days ago, haven't had the chance yet."
Ashe immediately realized what she meant.
"The Blood Moon Tribunal?"
Updated from fr𝒆ewebnov𝒆l.(c)om