It took Yuki less than 10 seconds to restructure herself back into her loli version while Luck acknowledged the message from the PFED. Just like he thought, his escort was here.
Opening the door and greeting their guide the duo follow the guide to the infirmary. Shortly after arriving the escort left them and Doc came up to them. Doc walks up to Luck and hands him a pill.
"Lunch is on me" Doc says with a grin.
What he handed Luck was a nutrient tablet. Having actual solid food like the dinner with the colonel was a rare occasion unless you were spending your credits. If a soldier on board the ship wanted solid food there was a cafeteria where they could purchase it with their pay. Otherwise they were issued nutrient tablets for food.
Throwing the oversized pill in his mouth Luck swallows it whole without even bothering to chew it. From his memories he got from Yuki he knew the tablet was supposed to be flavored, but he didn't care to try it.
"I got two for you today, one has some head trauma and possible brain damage and the other one, we had to amputate his leg from the knee down. Which do you prefer to fix first?" Doc asks Luck
Another new idea occurs to Luck hearing about the brain damaged individual.
*Could I not simply grow extra brain cells for myself?*
[System - You could, but you might also give yourself brain damage in the attempt, the brain is a complicated organ and requires a fine balance between the gray and white matter to function effectively.]
*Good thing a test subject just got delivered to me then, I'm going to experiment a bit and if you could record the process and see what works and what doesn't we can then make a projection for what I should do in regards to myself.*
"Let's go with head trauma to start."
Doc led them to the head trauma patient who was actually a lot worse off than Luck had pictured.
The patient was a male in his early twenty's, half his head was wrapped up and there was blood seeping through the bandages. Beside the unconscious patient was the same type of machine as before. This time Doc showed Luck how to use the machine to pull up the patient data along with the images of the injured areas.
After that Doc slowly and carefully unwrapped the mans head showing the grievous injury. They had already operated on him and shaved his head to remove a piece of his skull to relieve the pressure. He wasn't currently in critical condition but he would have a long road of recovery ahead of him and that's if he didn't turn into a vegetable from the brain damage. Doc explained the situation casually before taking his leave.
First Luck fixed the ongoing brain bleed before starting his experiment. Adding extra brain cells proved to be a tricky process as the old ones would die once a certain number was reached in a process called apoptosis.
Luck theorized that a person innately could only hold so many brain cells, and that amount was determined by their genetics from the start. If he wanted to add more cells then he was going to have to alter their DNA sequence itself, to improve the persons innate potential.
For this he used Yuki's unique skill set, having her absorb some of the mans blood from the bandage to get his DNA and then running simulations for him to find out what exactly needed to be changed to get a proper result.
After that he tested different ratios of adding gray matter and white matter. Gray matter is what interested him the most because that's where the brains processing is done and white matter is how the brain communicates with the body.
At the start this man had a normal ratio of 40% gray matter and 60% white matter, and during Luck's experiment he adjusting it to a 50-50 ratio. He was also having to stimulate the central nervous system to produce more serotonin, epinephrine and dopamine etc, as these are the chemicals the body uses as neurotransmitters.
Feeling a big headache coming on as Yuki successfully identified the DNA that should be altered Luck made new stem cells according to her simulated data. Then he slowly added more brain cells till the old ones started to experience cell death again, then Yuki would come up with the next DNA sequence to be altered. The two of them repeated the process over and over again. While monitoring his patients neural activity on the machine in the room.
Feeling satisfied with the initial progress they made and all the information gained during the experiment Luck decided to end it now. Many hours had already passed and Doc had repeatedly poked his head in to check on them. Leaving the changes intact, Luck finished healing the man and he opened his eyes up shortly after.
As soon as he was awake Luck tried to make some small talk to him but the man didn't seem to understand anything. Which didn't surprise Luck much considering the vast number of old brain cells he killed during his testing. Looking at the machine the mans neural activity was off the charts literally and Luck had a bad premonition that he did something wrong.
As the man tried to stand up a formless pressure swept through the room and he was actually hovering a few inches off the ground.
[System - It appears you gave him telekinetic powers. You need to revert the changes now before anybody notices.]
Taking action immediately Luck tried to alter the mans DNA again, to revert it back to what it was before they tampered with it. Applying his energy to the task, he felt a massive amount of resistance and failed to push through it. Thinking quickly he visualized the mans brain was like before he messed with it and also felt a huge amount of resistance but not nearly as much as when he tried to change his DNA. This time he was able to force his way through it and the man collapsed on the spot.
He learned a few things from this. First he could take life away or make somebody's condition much worse if he wanted too. Which he felt should have been obvious, but he had never thought to use his power in that way before. Also that he could potentially modify himself to gain telekinetic powers.
Yuki swiftly moved the man back to the bed and wiped the last few hours of recorded data off the machine that was monitoring the man before reconnecting him to it. Then she reverse engineered the steps Luck needed to take to revert his DNA. Working together they were able to cover up the incident and heal the man in a short period of time.
On Doc's next visit the man had his eyes open and was sitting up, with his head healed. He was a blank slate however, and didn't respond to any questions and didn't know how to speak or anything. Beyond that he was perfectly healthy.
Feeling relieved to see that Luck's power to heal seemed to have some limitations after all. As it took Luck a long time to repair a damaged brain and he couldn't restore dead brain cells. Doc felt like he had found the extent of Luck's ability's and he would be able to report that back colonel Rico.
After performing a few simple tests Doc confirmed the man wasn't brain dead, he just had no memory.
"Good job, do you think you still got it in you to fix the fellow with a missing leg? As for this guy don't worry about him, he's not brain dead and he's just suffering from memory loss. As long as he's alive and well, he can learn again." Doc explains to Luck thinking he might be feeling a little discouraged.
"Sure Doc, lead the way." Luck made sure to sound tired as he replied, as he didn't want Doc to think he could just endlessly heal people without a break.
Following Doc again, this time he's lead to a normal looking soldier that's in uniform. The leg had been replaced with a prosthetic some time ago, and not wanting to replace the limb with a mechanical one this soldier had been on the waiting list to go for a swim for some time now.
Overall the process was simple for Luck, although it took a lot of energy to replace a missing leg as opposed to just healing small wounds. Still Luck managed to regrow the leg in about half a hour by slowly focusing on it and letting his energy regenerate a bit during the process as he didn't have the power to do it all at once.
It was now fairly late into the evening. After receiving the mans thanks, Doc dismissed him for the day. Heading back to his room with Yuki, Luck couldn't hardly wait to start his next experiment.