Chapter Seventy-Three: Amazing!

In a secret base outside Pompeii City, Chu Tian stared at Kuyaata’s mountainlike body, and his hands began to tremble of their own accord. Kuyaata was as large as an entire herd of cattle; Chu Tian had never even seen a bull this enormous. And yet, unmistakably, he was a cow.

“Your Highness, is something wrong?” Best noticed the odd expression on Chu Tian’s face and felt a chill run down his spine. Could it be that even a ninth-rank ancient high priest could not cure Kuyaata?

“Master, Mr. Kuyaata’s illness should be easy to treat!” Dio also looked at Chu Tian in puzzlement. Kuyaata’s condition was indeed awkward, but it could not possibly stump his master; after all, Master had once taught him how to treat this very disease, and even he should be able to cure it.

“Praise the Goddess of Life.” Chu Tian came back to himself and smiled faintly. “Heh, I was merely marveling at Mr. Kuyaata’s imposing bearing.”

Though the others believed him, it was obvious that Chu Tian was lying. Kuyaata’s illness was nothing serious at all; a small operation would solve it. What Chu Tian had not expected was that Kuyaata was actually a cow. On realizing this, Chu Tian instantly regretted it. Damn it all—if I’d known he was a cow, I would have treated him for free!

“Mr. Kuyaata, please lie down on the ground.” Chu Tian was ready to begin the operation. After taking out his instruments, he handed Dio several scrolls and said, “Disinfect Mr. Kuyaata.”

In truth, disinfection before surgery was unnecessary on the Continent of Magical Beasts. Chu Tian had only learned this while discussing the bone replacement procedure for the Thunder Eagle with Dio.

When he had operated on Apache amid the flames, Chu Tian had done so because he feared infection. But with Dio’s reminder afterward, he understood: if the Dragon Emperor could even suppress cancer cells, would a high-level magical beast fear ordinary viruses? The kinds of viruses that truly threatened magical beasts had long since vanished with the dark alchemists. Even if a beast were infected during surgery nowadays, any priest could deal with it. After all, this was not damage caused by advanced magic or battle aura.

“Yes, Master!” Though Dio did not understand why his teacher insisted on such a useless procedure, he still performed his duty as an assistant without hesitation. “Just the abdomen, then?”

After Chu Tian confirmed it, Dio took a few low-grade fire-element scrolls and hurled them at Kuyaata’s belly as if throwing bombs. Compared with humans, Kuyaata’s body was simply too huge. Even standing upright, Dio could only reach Kuyaata’s shins. So even though Kuyaata was lying on the ground with all four hooves in the air, Dio still had to use every bit of his strength just to throw the disinfecting scrolls to the right spot.

A few low-grade fire scrolls could not hurt Kuyaata. Scarlet flames burned over his abdomen, but not a trace of injury appeared.

Chu Tian chuckled inwardly, nearly laughing himself sick. He had almost made a fool of himself. In truth, he had not wanted to waste those scrolls on disinfection either, but after Kuyaata revealed his true form, Chu Tian had become so excited that he had forgotten just how enormous the beast really was. To perform surgery on a bull the size of a mountain, his little scalpel would take months to finish the job. And the part that needed surgery was now more than ten meters above his head.

So Chu Tian had Dio disinfect while he bought time, then quietly used his magical stone to summon NMD.

The flames died out, and NMD arrived as well. Standing on the head of the mixed-blood dragon, Chu Tian flew to Kuyaata’s abdomen. “Mr. Kuyaata, lower your defenses, and then I’ll cast the stupor scroll!” Kuyaata obediently followed Chu Tian’s instructions and, under the effect of the stupor spell, fell into a deep sleep.

“Lord Best, please stand farther away!”

Though Best did not understand Chu Tian’s meaning, he saw that Dio had already fled in terror to a spot dozens of meters away, so he ran off without hesitation as well.

“NMD, prepare your defenses!” Chu Tian gave his final order, then took out Dracula’s Fury, roared once, and split Kuyaata’s belly open with a single stroke.

Splurt—like a tidal wave, cow’s blood gushed out. Best and Dio, being far away, naturally escaped disaster, but the ground beside Kuyaata was battered into pits and hollows. The blood pressure within Kuyaata’s body was immense; under such force, a single blood arrow was no weaker than the great bow of the elven race.

Yet Chu Tian remained perfectly unharmed under the blood spray, because every drop of cow’s blood that burst toward NMD’s front seemed to strike an invisible shield and scatter to either side. Thus Chu Tian, standing atop him, was untouched as well. In terms of defense, NMD certainly lived up to his code name.

Watching the cow blood come rushing at him only to be driven back, Chu Tian calmly pulled out a stack of ice-element scrolls. When NMD moved close enough, Chu Tian flung the scrolls out hard. Instantly, Kuyaata’s wound froze over, and the blood stopped spraying.

Seeing the several-meter-long gash in Kuyaata’s stomach, Chu Tian ordered NMD’s dragon head to enter the wound. Then, with a dark laugh, he raised Dracula’s Fury once more.

So it went: cut open, freeze, advance, cut open again. At last, after pushing forward more than ten meters, Chu Tian found what he had been looking for—the gallbladder.

He gently touched the cow’s gallbladder, which was larger than a person, and felt the hard, steel-like texture beneath his fingers. Chu Tian narrowed his eyes and smiled. He had not guessed wrong after all. Kuyaata really had gallstones. In the terminology of this world’s priests, Kuyaata had been struck in the abdomen by a ninth-rank dragon’s magic, and the life potential of his gallbladder had been suppressed by that ninth-rank spell.

In Earth’s medical terms, it meant Kuyaata had suffered a heavy blow that caused stagnation of the gallbladder nerves, thickening the bile and forming stones.

Whether by priestly terminology or medical terminology, Chu Tian no longer cared. He knew only one thing now.

Damn it all—he was rich!

He took out the tiny scalpel and carefully cut open Kuyaata’s gallbladder. A dark yellow stone, half the height of a man, fell out.

“NMD, catch it!” The stone was too large for Chu Tian to handle himself, so he ordered his magical pet to take care of it.

With a sweep of his flowing dragon whiskers, NMD steadied the great rock in midair. “Boss, what do you want this for?” Having lived for hundreds of years, NMD had never seen such a thing before. Who would want something so filthy? And the person who wanted it was his own boss.

“Praise the Goddess of Life!” Chu Tian stroked the stone with trembling hands, so excited that his whole body shook. Even his voice quavered. “NMD, boss... when your boss gets rich in the next life...”

Kuyaata was indeed a bit too large, but he was unquestionably a cow. And Chu Tian, as a veterinarian, knew exactly what a cow’s gallstone was.

This enormous stone before his eyes was a natural ox bezoar—a bezoar worth more than gold on Earth. Praise the Goddess of Life! Kuyaata’s stone was so large that even if every cow on Earth were added together, they would produce no more than this much in a year. Damn it all—he had gotten such a huge piece in one go! He was going to make a fortune!

As for whether the people of the Continent of Magical Beasts recognized bezoars, or whether they were willing to pay for one, Chu Tian did not care in the slightest. If an ordinary cow’s bezoar could detoxify poisons, then what about the bezoar from a ninth-level magical beast like Kuyaata? Chu Tian believed that, with the adjustments made by the undead god of magic, Barbosa, together with his own refinements, this bezoar could become the most valuable medical drug on the entire Continent of Magical Beasts.

With the decline of the alchemist profession, the word medicine had nearly been forgotten by the people of the Continent of Magical Beasts. Aside from the dark mages who specialized in viruses and a few alchemists who still refused to give up, almost no one on the continent knew what medicine was. But the things dark mages researched were mostly meant to harm people, so a medical drug like this could easily sweep across the whole continent.

As a veterinarian, Chu Tian was not only skilled in surgery; his knowledge of drugs was also profound. Yet there had always been a troublesome obstacle limiting his progress in pharmaceutical work. The species on the Continent of Magical Beasts were similar to those on Earth, but only similar. Many plants and animals used for extracting medicines simply did not exist here.

A clever housewife cannot cook without rice. Without raw materials, no matter how deep Chu Tian’s pharmacological knowledge was, it was useless. Since arriving in Caesar, he had managed to extract a small amount of medicine from a few species shared with Earth, but the vast store of drugs in his mind still could not be manufactured. Now, however, with such a huge bezoar in hand, this great beast doctor could produce several ordinary medicines without any problem. And because of the bezoar’s powerful effects, the medicines made from it should work on humans as well.

Using bezoar as the main ingredient, supplemented with other materials to refine large quantities of elixirs, and then selling them—that was Chu Tian’s plan. Praise the Goddess of Life! It seemed he could not only open an animal hospital, but also set up a pharmaceutical factory. Damn it all, once Dio grew up, he would teach a few more students to become veterinarians, and then he would monopolize the entire medical and pharmaceutical industry of the Continent of Magical Beasts! Curse it—if that still did not make him rich, he might as well let the goddess sister strangle him to death...

With the aid of his magical pet, Chu Tian put away the bezoar and then stitched Kuyaata’s wound closed. At last, the operation was a perfect success.

A moment later, Kuyaata slowly woke. “Ah? My body...” Turning back into human form, he immediately discovered that his body had been completely healed. “Hahaha, thank you! Your Highness Fladino!”

“Praise the Goddess of Life.” Chu Tian looked pleased and wiped the nonexistent sweat from his brow. Smiling, he said, “Heh, Mr. Kuyaata may now rest assured and go to the battlefield. With your strength, Klins of the Reis Empire is no match for you at all!”

Everyone loved flattery, and Kuyaata was no exception. Though he knew he was not as formidable as Chu Tian claimed, a triumphant look still appeared on his fleshy face. “Haha, I hear that little Klins has caused Your Highness plenty of trouble on Aguila Mountain. Once the war begins, brother, I’ll help you take him out!”

“Heh, it would be best to capture him alive and then deliver him to Your Highness!” Best’s iron face had softened like molten steel. Since Kuyaata was fine, he himself was fine too. But he quickly found that he could no longer be happy, because the astronomical medical fee came to mind. “Your Highness, the fee you asked for is rather high. We’ll need some time to—”

“The fee? Praise the Goddess of Life!” Chu Tian squinted with a smile, his expression that of a pious swindler, solemn and righteous. “Do you really think I want that many gold coins? Heh, I was only joking just now...”

“A joke?” Kuyaata and Best were both stunned. Prince Fladino’s change of attitude had been far too abrupt. Only moments ago he had acted as though he would never treat them without payment, so how had it suddenly become a joke?

And so the surgery was finished.