Chapter 168: Surgery

Saul was very polite, but his attitude left no room for refusal.

Hayden hesitated for a long time, but eventually agreed.

Because Saul had added one more sentence outside the door.

“Senior Hayden, do you know why apprentices who haven’t advanced to the Third Rank by thirty are expelled from the Wizard Tower?”

Hayden’s hand, clenched around the doorframe, suddenly tightened. He stared fixedly at the nameplate bearing Saul’s name, and finally opened the door.

“Alright, come in. I’m not used to other places.”

Saul readily accepted and stepped into the second morgue—an area rarely open to outsiders.

The moment he entered, Saul was struck by the layout.

It was so tidy, so clean!

Unlike Saul’s messy lab bench and cabinets crammed to the brim, Hayden’s morgue was neat and pristine—like… an exhibition hall?

The innermost wall was lined from floor to ceiling with display cabinets.

Each display case had a glass door, allowing a clear view of the preserved contents inside.

From top to bottom, they were organized by body parts: hair, eyes, noses… all the way down to feet—of humans or other creatures.

And the color deepened gradually from left to right.

But Saul could tell at a glance that most of these body parts were normal—essentially useless materials.

Even Hayden’s workstation was impeccably orderly. The conveyor belt connecting the left and right sides was spotless, not a speck of dirt in sight.

“Senior Hayden, you’re really… good at organizing.”

Hayden had both hands clasped together, pinching the webs between his thumbs.

“I just like keeping things in order.”

Saul had never seen Hayden in any of the First Rank apprentices’ public classes—chances were, he spent all his time buried in the morgue.

“Saul, about what you said—that apprentices are expelled at thirty—isn’t it because the Tower Master thinks those with poor aptitude are just wasting the tower’s resources?”

“Maybe that’s part of it, I’m not sure. But the most important reason is…” Saul dragged out his words, then stopped abruptly when he saw Hayden looking at him anxiously.

Hayden waited for a while, but when Saul said nothing more, he understood the meaning behind the silence.

He didn’t press the matter further and instead turned to the main issue.

“Saul, you said you want to remove something from your eye. Can you describe its properties?”

Instead of answering, Saul pulled out several reagents from his robe.

“I’ve already planned the surgery. I carry the necessary materials with me. It’s just not convenient to operate on my own eye, so I came to bother you, Senior Hayden.”

Hayden froze. So he was just a tool. “Alright then, what do you need me to do?”

Saul patiently explained the entire surgical procedure to him.

As he listened, Hayden’s mouth gradually fell open, his mind racing with thoughts like, This is even possible? and Is this for real?

After laying out the procedure, Saul left the mentally overloaded Hayden behind and began preparing the reagents.

He’d been planning to extract the Nightmare Butterfly’s cocoon for a while now and had made plenty of preparations.

This time, Hayden would handle the extraction, while Saul was responsible for capturing and sealing the cocoon at the final moment.

Yes—even though Saul was technically the one undergoing the surgery, he had a critical role to play.

Whether it was his own experience of the cocoon suddenly entering his eye, or the tale he’d read of a butterfly escaping capture and killing a wizard in the end, Saul understood that this butterfly was not a tame creature.

The good news was, the Nightmare Butterfly was still in its cocoon stage. The future villain had not yet fully emerged, and the diary had not warned of it harming Saul.

At this point, he could still choose to destroy it or recondition it.

Both options carried risks, but for now, the priority was to get it out and stop the nightmares.

Soon, he had two test tubes ready.

One contained a clear, slightly viscous liquid that flowed well and didn’t cling to the glass.

The other held a purple fluid bubbling with tiny bubbles.

“Senior Hayden, are you ready? The reagent takes effect five minutes after ingestion, and the effect lasts for five minutes.”

“I’m ready,” Hayden said, taking a deep breath. “This is my first time operating on a living person. If it hurts… would you like a painkiller too?”

But Saul simply tilted his head back and downed the purple liquid.

He frowned slightly at the lingering taste and glanced at the hourglass.

“No need,” he said as he walked over and lay down on the conveyor platform originally used for corpses. “Painkillers would dull my judgment.”

Hayden knew Saul was the ruthless type and didn’t insist further. He moved to the tool station and picked up a fine needle, quickly disinfecting it as instructed.

“Disinfection?” Hayden thought to himself. “So this is the difference between operating on the living and the dead?”

Thus began a surgery performed by both doctor and patient.

Because the “doctor” was a complete novice at working with living subjects—this honest and low-key Hayden had never done a live operation—the “patient” had to occasionally guide him based on real-time sensations.

The surgery lasted exactly four minutes and thirty-five seconds.

Though there were moments of panic, they managed to finish just within the time limit of the reagent’s effect.

In the final twenty-five seconds, Hayden used the smallest pair of tweezers to extract the cocoon hidden in Saul’s pupil.

He lifted the tweezers to take a look at what had been inside Saul’s eye. But the moment his gaze landed on the small silver sphere, he was instantly captivated.

It was no bigger than a grain of rice, yet once exposed to air, it began to grow rapidly.

Its silver surface shimmered like starlight—deep, tranquil, as if one were gazing at the cosmos from a vast field.

Unknowingly, Hayden fell into a trance and began slowly lifting the tweezers toward his own eye, as though wanting to insert the cocoon into his eyeball.

Suddenly, a skeletal hand appeared before him.

The bone fingers brushed past Hayden’s cheek and snatched the silver sphere away.

“No!” Hayden cried out instinctively in anger.

But when he saw Saul’s appearance, the anger swelling in his brain was instantly doused with a bucket of cold water.

Saul had already sat up on the conveyor table. His left eye was still fitted with a speculum holding the eyelid open.

Blood trickled from the corner of his eye, trailing down to his chin.

His originally black left eye had turned a dull, dark gray.

And that was after Hayden’s rudimentary treatment.

But Saul didn’t seem to care at all about the blindness in his left eye. He quickly tossed the cocoon into the transparent reagent and sealed the vial with a wooden stopper.

A little of the clear liquid spilled out, but the rest filled the test tube entirely.

The silver sphere bobbed up and down in the solution, as though someone were teasing it with a thin string.

Once the sealing was complete, Saul tossed the test tube to Hayden.

Hayden hurried to catch it, heart pounding.

“Observing it like that was dangerous. Now you can look at it safely.”

But this time, Hayden only gave it a brief glance before quickly handing it back.

“No, no—this thing may be sealed, but it’s still dangerous for me. I’d rather not risk another look. I nearly lost my mind just now.”

His demeanor had become even more deferential.

In his heart, he was now certain—Saul had far surpassed him in many fields.

Seeing that Hayden had given up on further observation, Saul stored the test tube away.

“This thing really tests one’s willpower.” Saul thought of the girl, Penny. “But I suspect someone with a pure heart wouldn’t be affected as easily.”

Hayden’s expression darkened. He possessed neither trait.

If he had a strong will, he wouldn’t still be a First Rank apprentice at his age.

Saul took a roll of gauze from the workstation and wrapped it diagonally around his head, covering his left eye.

Hayden stood quietly by, wanting to speak but hesitating.

Saul knew what he was about to ask, so he answered the question he’d left hanging before entering.

“When a wizard stays at the same level too long, it attracts unknown contamination. The longer the stagnation, the greater the risk of contamination. The weaker the person, the faster the contamination arrive. To prevent apprentices from turning into contaminated entities, the Wizard Tower periodically expels older apprentices.”

“Compared to other factions that just turn failed apprentices into experimental material, the Wizard Tower is actually quite merciful.”

(End of Chapter)

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