Ding dong…
A clear and melodious sound emerged in Zheng Ren's mind as he was in the middle of an operation.
Huh? Mission accomplished?
Then, the System's cold, emotionless, robotic female voice resurfaced.
[Mission Hostility From Peers accomplished. Time remaining: 16 hours 23 minutes and 43 seconds. Outstanding performance. 2332 experience points acquired. Mission reward… Calculating…]
Zheng Ren's speculation was correct, which brightened up his mood.
However, what the hell were these experience points? There were only skill points for skill trees in the System's setting, right? Where did these experience points come from?
Suppressing the joy and excitement deep in his heart, Zheng Ren concentrated on the appendectomy at hand.
It was just a simple case of acute appendicitis, so the surgery would be completed in no time.
Two minutes and fifteen seconds later, the wound was closed with a running subcuticular suture and a dressing was applied to the wound. After that, he transferred the patient to the hospital bed with the help of the anesthesiologist and a doctor from the first general surgery department.
"I'm going to take a break. You'll anesthetize the next patient first," said Zheng Ren.
The anesthesiologist, who had just rotated his shift and was currently in an energetic state, nodded in response as he figured Zheng Ren would be worn out after performing almost forty surgeries without rest.
Zheng Ren went to a corner of the operating theater, took off his dark green sterile surgical gown, threw it directly onto the floor instead of the red biohazard bin, and slumped to the floor without tidying himself up.
This was a common phenomenon for medical personnel working night shifts, especially when dealing with emergency cases. The doctors and nurses of the operating theater were used to it and none of them considered it tragic or distressing.
It was a necessary means for survival. A fussy attitude would do no one any good.
Zheng Ren closed his eyes and dived into the System.
The mysterious world had regained its normal appearance after the completion of almost forty surgeries. In fact, the fox statue in front of the thatched cottage appeared more realistic, the pond seemed to have expanded, and the air… had the same purity as usual. Zheng Ren, whose respiratory system had acclimatized to polluted air in the city, coughed involuntarily upon inhaling such fresh and clean air.
[Calculation completed. Mission reward: System Shop unlocked. Rational purchases are advised. Mission Ten Perfect Surgeries accomplished. Mission reward: 150 skill points, free intensive training in the System's operating theater for twenty days.]
The robotic female voice disappeared immediately afterward, leaving its sound echoing throughout the mysterious world.
These rewards… were awesome.
Zheng Ren knew that he had been presented another golden opportunity, especially after the benefits of his intensive training in the System's operating theater last time.
It was better to learn surgery by practicing on the mannequins in the System than on the precious cadavers in medical institutions.
Moreover, the mission reward this time offered a longer timeframe for intensive training than what he had in the appendectomy training last time. What a generous System, indeed.
Instead of searching the source of the disappeared voice, Zheng Ren went to check on his skill trees first.
Almost forty surgeries in one night had accelerated the growth of the skill trees as if they had been fertilized by high-quality farmyard manure.
There was a gratifying increase in the general surgery skill tree from an initial 1005 to 1067 skill points, but what could he possibly do with 150 skill points from the mission reward when he still had a long way to go to reach the peak of the Expert rank at 5000 skill points?
His skill trees in other domains had developed as well but they were not as obvious as the general surgery skill tree.
A Shop? What the hell was that? After observing his skill trees and getting a rough idea of his current standard, he started searching for the Shop in the System.
A command was sent telepathically and the so-called "Shop"—which was basically a screen—emerged before his eyes.
"..." What kind of nonsense was this?
There were no decorations or fabulous designs to adorn the facade as if there was nothing else the System cared about other than surgery.
This was a practical and utilitarian System.
Zheng Ren started admiring the goods in the Shop. The first item that caught his eyes was a set of equipment for general surgery with a price tag of 15000 experience points under it.
Oh… The experience points were currency to buy items in the System. Well, could he not just use gold ingots for item purchases? Zheng Ren started sweating after misinterpreting the function of experience points in the System.
Below the price tag lay a brief introduction of the item.
There was a vast collection of general surgical instruments, many of which were unknown to Zheng Ren, and they had various functions such as automatic disinfection, mild repair of damaged structures after separation of the connective tissues, and so on.
Those were some good stuff, but they were currently beyond Zheng Ren's affordability.
The Shop not only offered instruments and equipment for general surgery, but also other specialties as well.
Their functions were almost similar, but there were subtle differences which Zheng Ren would learn and require only after his skills had improved further.
With the extra-long large curved forceps as an example, Zheng Ren had profound knowledge in its manipulation after his arduous training in the System, but the forceps available in Sea City General Hospital were atrocious and nearly cost him two perfect surgeries last time.
Well, all of these had to wait until he had saved up enough experience points. Besides, even if he did purchase instruments from the System, how was he going to bypass the rules and bring his own instruments into the operating theater?
However, this trouble was none of his concern at the moment.
The last mission's reward—intensive training in the System's operating theater for twenty days—was exactly what Zheng Ren yearned for the most.
He had no idea how to activate this reward, which seemed to have no real form; perhaps it was not a physical entity at all, despite searching in the System for a long time.
"System, how do I activate the reward for intensive training?" asked Zheng Ren, who had failed to locate the operating theater after exploring the tiny area in the mysterious world.
The System was cold and apathetic as usual as it responded to Zheng Ren's question with glacial silence.
Well, there was nothing he could do about it. After contemplating for some time, Zheng Ren decided not to add his 150 skill points into the general surgery skill tree.
What would he do if the System had a crazy energy spike again and assigned him another mission which would result in death upon failure? It was better to save up some skill points as they could prove useful later on.
After admiring the surgical instruments in the Shop again, Zheng Ren left the cold and deserted mysterious world, drooling.
"Hey, don't play dead. It's time for surgery." The anesthesiologist woke Zheng Ren up by kicking his thigh gently.
Zheng Ren woke up from a ten-minute rest and realized that time normally passed at the same rate in both reality and the System. If the System was trying to freeze and maintain static spacetime just like how it did in his previous intensive training, its energy reserve would be depleted as if it was some sort of emergency response.
Every cell in Zheng Ren's body was brimming with energy as he got up off the floor, presumably due to faster energy restoration in the System. He might need to experiment on that theory some other time.
"Alright, I'm getting up now," said Zheng Ren.
"Are you sure you can do it?" asked the anesthesiologist.
After all, Zheng Ren had performed almost forty surgeries in one night, which was something unheard of in the anesthesiologist's entire life. Logically speaking, Zheng Ren should be worn to bits by now.
"I can do it even if you can't. How can a man say that he can't do it in any situation?" replied Zheng Ren with a grin.
Making dirty jokes was one of the special cultures of the operating theater. There was no study or theory supporting this statement, but every operating theater around the globe seemed to share the same culture as well.
A surgical scrub was performed, the operative site disinfected, the surgical drapes placed, the surgical gowns worn, and another appendectomy surgery commenced.
The inflamed appendix, becoming obedient under Zheng Ren's sharp scalpel, was resected and thrown into a specimen container. Everything was done within minutes, short and sweet as usual.
A new day had begun, and more viewers started entering the livestream in Xinglin Garden.
A live broadcast of forty appendectomies without break was considered a first-time magnificent achievement in Xinglin Garden.
Xinglin Garden aside, even the doctors who watched the live broadcast at this instant had never experienced this sort of situation in their lives.
Approximately ten appendectomies within twenty-four hours? Most surgeons had achieved this.
Anyone who had gone through this situation would be able to boast about their experience—during such-and-such time, I had performed ten appendectomies in just one night—while they drank beer and ate at a roadside barbeque stall.
Ten appendectomies were more than enough to be anyone's bragging rights.
However, it was not worth mentioning at all compared to this livestream in Xinglin Garden.
The number of surgeries had reached forty-one but the surgeon continued to make that number bigger and more terrifying.