“I need you to hold his eyelids open a little wider with that speculum.”
My hands keep shacking as I do this surgery. I've done similar surgery but this one just seems just be harder for me to do. I've been making tools specifically for this surgery ever since I got the eye of the beholder. Having an eye of the beholder most likely wouldn't have worked for Zephyrus because he has no optic nerve to tie it to. Most likely a doctor removed his eye along with the optic nerve so the smooth ball like eye of the beholder wouldn't work and it would just been a fancy decorative eye. With the upgraded version of the eye though it should work.
I take another deep breath as I cut some of the remaining optic nerves in the back of his eye socket so I have fresh connective tissue. Having Leaf hold the speculum keeping his eye lids from closing and also holding the false eye close enough for me to continue to work with both my hands was beyond a godsend. The only reason I'm still calm and not a complete mess right now is because of how calm she is. I've got the suture started on the pure stone which is going to be his eye. Getting them lined up is the hardest part of this operation since I can't see into the socket very well with the eye taking most of the space of the ocular socket.
I get it into place and start suturing the eyes optic tissue to Zephyrus' living optic tissue. Zephyrus refused any alcohol and is handling this pain through sheer willpower. Each stitch forces the eye to spasm almost turning my stomach at the same time. This isn't a normal eye, blood red comprises the majority of the color while the pupil is a dark black… It is very similar to how the demonkin eyes look. I can't tell if that makes it easier or harder for me to do surgery on to be honest.
As the final stitch is placed, I force his eye into the socket and we wrap his head in a bandage. This will let it recover before I let him know what he's going to have to deal with. Leaf motions to heal his eye now since the optic nerve was cut into it should still be causing him pain. I have to stop her and I explain it to Zephyrus that he might be in pain for a few more weeks.
“We're done now. It's going to be a few weeks before you can actually use your new eye and up to 2 months for your eyesight to fully recover. That's if your body doesn't reject your new eye. I'm sorry it couldn't be instantaneous but these things take time. That's why we can't use healing magic as it might force your body to reject your eye. This is all how normal implants would work though… I honestly have no idea how replacing your eye with a philosopher stone even works unfortunately. There could be unforseen consequences to doing this surgery. But now that we're done.”
I run to a corner of the room and throw up. Fucking shit that was the one of the hardest things I've ever done and I need to do it again several more times today. I ask for a few moments before we start the next surgery. Green is next and unlike Zephyrus she has thoroughly prepared herself for this by getting extremely drunk. She pulled her eye out of the socket when she was making her new eye and used it as part of the synthesis so it actually looks very similar to her previous eye. It honestly shouldn't have any of the problems Zephyrus is going to have since she has her original eye as a base to work from there shouldn't be any chance of regection.
Halfway through the operation I can hear her snoring and I let out a little chuckle as I finish up her eye. The second one wasn't nearly as bad as the first. Strong and Sock lift Green off the table and sit her down nearby. We're using Zephyrus' kitchen/dining room as an operation room. Next up is Strong, he like Zephyrus chose to not drink anything. Unlike Zephyrus who was mostly quiet he constantly makes noises of pain or just outright yells. If Green had to deal with the pain I have no doubt she would have cursed up a storm. Sock and Zephyrus have to hold him down so I wouldn't accidentally stab him with any of the tools by trying to get up in the middle of the operation.
One operation left for now and I feel far more tired than normal. The stress these operations have put on me makes me think of Hilda junior in a far different light. Even as a child she has preformed more operations than I have. The aftermath of the pirate war left her with many people who needed entire body parts reattached and she put in more work than any of the adults those few days of craziness.
Sock was slightly drunk to help reduce the pain. He wasn't completely wasted like Green though. About halfway through the operation the doors slam open and Nami enters carrying the unconscious frog over her shoulder. If I hadn't learned from Strong and made sure that Sock couldn't move his head he would have most likely looked instinctively and ripped the sutures out of his eye making it much harder to finish properly. I did notice something very odd… Even though only a small portion of his eye was actually sutured back his pupil instinctively looked towards the door because of the noise. I finish the rest of the surgery before I try my experiment out.
“Zephyrus can you remove your bandages real quick for me and see if you have sight.”
“But you just said.”
“I know but these aren't normal rules we're following right now. These eyes almost want to work by themselves not even being attached. You might already have some of your sight back.”
He slowly removes the bandages off his head. He looks around, I can see his pupil moving.
“No… Nothing. I can't see a th-. What a second… There is a black blob over there… And one over there.”
“Hmm… It seems that you can see shadows already. That should still have taken you days to be able to do. You should keep getting more and more eyesight as long as you don't strain your eye. For now I'd keep it wrapped up and when you replace the bandages in the morning see how much your vision improved.”
I go over to apply some healing magic to Glenn. Nami seriously beat him up, several cuts cover any skin that's showing. Apparently the outside is littered with chunks of iron from failed swords. Every time she would knock him down he would get cuts all over his body from hitting the ground. He wakes up screaming and looks around at all the people with bandages over their faces. Stopping on his master before he shouts.
“I knew they were trying to get me away from master so they could attack him!”
Nami punches him on the head before saying.
“You idiot, Kite implanted a new eye into your master. He should have sight sometime soon because of it.”
“W-w-w-what! How is that even possible! You're all lying, there is no way you cou-.”
His master cuts him off.
“Right now I can only see blurry shapes. But compared to perpetual darkness it is a promising outlook so far.”
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His eyes widen when he realizes that everything we've said so far has been the truth. It never gets old seeing the shocked faces of anyone who comes into contact with me. Well, I'll have to wait until his eye recovers more and he can draw an actual map I can use. WIth everyone else I can use healing magic on so their eyes are already back to working before they get off of the surgery table. Before we leave I prepare a big meal for him to make sure that he can't say no to teaching me later when I get some time to learn from him.
Just becoming an ally with me would increase the quality of life tenfold of what it is currently. I open the voidbag containing a lot of meat and vegetables they wouldn't normally be able to eat. I seem to be spending a big portion of my days making food for people. Since I've been training with Gray I've exclusively made food for every day in between work and training. I ask to borrow his cooking supplies and begin to make a giant feast to feed everyone when Zergnar comes back through the door. I know he'll want a replacement eye but that can wait until later. I finish up the meal when something amazing happens.
Rank up requirements met choose your rank up Master chef | Glutton Special requirements met to unlock secret job upgrade Gastronome
...What is that third job!? I had already planned on becoming a glutton for the stat boost from eating different types of monsters but… It's a secret job, meaning it might be special enough to makeup for that fact. Glutton is a strong job but gastronome is a wild card. It could potentially be far superior to glutton but… Gastronome could potentially be far weaker than either job making it very niche. The biggest drawback to glutton is you can't prepare food for other people anymore. You lose the core function of the chef class and that is the reason I'm going to choose gastronome.
New job unlocked Gastronome New passive skill gained Gourmet- Eating perfectly prepared food gives a temporary stat buff while eating perfectly prepared exotic food gives permanent stat boosts New passive skill gained Food science- Just by tasting food you can taste any ingredients and any imperfections of the food
Lets test it out right now. I've made a meat and vegetable stew with several different types of fruits prepared in different ways for everyone to eat. I also made some plain biscuits to dip into the soup. I take a big mouthful of the stew first… 41% water, 30% cooked beef, 10% tomato, 10% potato, 5% carrots, 3.5% spices, and 0.5% miscellaneous. Carrots partially undercooked. Meat was partially overcooked. The stew contains a very small portion of dirt and other non foods.
I guess I should have cleaned the dishes and cookery before using them but the amount of water around here is severely limited. Without the meal being perfect it didn't get a stat buff unfortunately so I couldn't tell how much it would give… Speaking of which the exotic food stat boost is very similar to the glutton. The difference being instead of it being the consumption of monsters it is exotic food.
But what exactly classifies as exotic? We do have some banana's from the lizardman island. We also have some snowfruit here from the viking isles. All of these are technically exotic but I have eaten them already. Perhaps if I prepare them in some way other than eating them plain would help me gain the stat boost. I have no idea how to prepare them. I mash the bananas into a paste and serve it on the biscuits. Then I liquify the snowfruit into a drink for everyone. Food I normally don't eat, prepared in a way I've never had it before.
The biscuits I made were both overcooked on the bottom while being undercooked in the center. The main problem I see with gaining buffs is the consistency of heat. I'll have to pay far closer attention to the food when I'm making it and develop ways to make the food properly. The snowfruit had nothing wrong with it and gave me permanent 40 strength and stamina and temporary 150 stat buff to all my stats for 6 hours… It seems smashing anything into a liquid might be the easiest way to pass the food test. That buff and boost to stats was far higher than I expected.
One of the chefs at the fortress decided to become a glutton and the stat boost from monsters was far smaller than what I just received. Maybe a single stat point in strength for eating a wolf and you don't gain any extra boosts for eating the same type of monster. I would need to eat many hundreds of different monsters to gain that stat boost while I may have never eaten enough creatures to get the temporary stat boost from eating perfectly prepared food.
We talk for a few more hours about everything. About the outside world, the upcoming war and things as small as food recipes and how I made the meal we just ate. Before we leave I replace Zergnar's eye. I think I've slowly become fine with doing eye surgery. From what I understand the more people you kill the stronger the eye of the beholder becomes. You can essentially level up your eyesight if you augment your body with these… I still don't think I could handle losing an eye. The risk isn't worth the reward to me.
Well I have to wait until Zephyrus' eye recovers. I'll come back and check on him tomorrow to see how his eye has improved. Until then I need to continue to prepare for the war. Sooner than anyone realizes it will be upon us. Until then I plan on improving anything possible to increase my armies chances of winning without any deaths. The most important is getting the black dragon operational. If I can get it working before the war it will cut the cost of lives drastically on our side.
I'll spend tomorrow exploring the surrounding area around Zephyrus' house. I stand up and it seems everyone else has taken this as a cue to also stand up.
“Well, we're going to take our leave. If you don't mind, I'd like to come back tomorrow to check your eye. Until then please try not to strain it.”
Nami speaks up now.
“If you don't mind Kite. I'd like to stay here and learn under Zephyrus.”
“I don't mind if Zephyrus doesn't.”
Glenn speaks now.
“Could you not! You're a very abrasive woman to be around for very long and I like how I am masters only student. Having you here would just be too much of a burden on the both of us.”
Zephyrus speaks directly after Glenn finishes his blunt speech.
“I don't mind but you should grab some things if you're going to be staying here. You should head back with them and prepare to stay here for awhile.”
Nami also stands up now and talks as she does.
“That's true.”
We head through the portal while Glenn tries to urge Zephyrus to reconsider. Tomorrow I hope his eyesight has improved enough to draw a map.
Zephyrus' point of view
Kite and his men go through the portal 1 by 1. Glenn continues to rub against me and complain the entire time as they exit. He continues to dwell over the same points over and over again. “She doesn't even need your training.” “We don't have the room for another person.” “She was probably sent here to spy on us.”
It takes some effort not to strike him for being so naive but he is still just a young child. I managed to save him from a pack of monsters once his village was overran... He was the only survivor from there. It took him years to finally open up to me about it. Honestly him being here is very comforting to me but even still he can be a bit foolish to what is actually going on. I give him a light tap on the head so that he stops speaking before I do myself.
“We can't turn her down. No matter what we do we must be a part of that group or we will slowly be taken over by the things that man is going to invent."
“What do you mean master?”
“That man… I've spent years searching for ways to beat the fire lord. Within our first meeting he breaks the sword I've spent years making but also offers a solution to the problem. One of his men cures the chronic eye pain I've had since I faced the fire lord and he even managed to give me some eyesight back… Do you realize how terrifying a person like that is? In a few moments he assessed the situation and figured it would be easier to make me an ally then try to defeat me. He switched all of his effort into that instead and has shown me so many things I would have never thought possible. Even the food he brought was far beyond things I've ever tasted before.”
What I just said is all true but it's even more than that. Each of the people he was leading could have been the leader of their own army if they wanted to. Each of them more unique than any of the people I've met in my years wandering this world. The speed at which the world is going to evolve because of him is going to be astronomical compared to how it has been for the past 1000 years. I've seen many come and go but none quite as unique as that man… It is truly terrifying at the same time.
If he were to choose, he would have no problem taking control of the world over in the next few years. If anything bad were to happen to him it could very easily turn out that way. I try to move my eye again. I feel a slight tinge of pain but nothing like the pain i felt during the surgery. It has only been a short time since I've regained some of my sight back but it continues to improve every time I try to use it. The blob that is Glenn is far more defined than it would have been if I looked at him an hour ago. It truly feels like a part of my body. I hold my hand close to my face and I can almost make out my hands shape. It's truly bizarre to think I may get my sight back. I grab a nearby broom and throw it at Glenn.
“Go clean up your room. You're going to have a new roommate soon.”