The Syndicate's Doctor

Zhan opened his eyes.

This action alone was enough for him to laugh out with joy. He was alive! He survived, he was able to continue living!

That fight against the centipede was too close, it was definitely up there with his closest brushes with death!

If that last move had failed, he most likely would have died.

"You crazy person, you wake up after nearly dying and the first thing you do is laugh!"

Zhan painfully turned his head towards the source of the melodic voice. It was the syndicate doctor, a beautiful woman around Zhan's age. She was a brunette, though her hair was on the lighter side, unlike her pure dark eyes. Her chest was bountiful and stretched her doctor's lab coat slightly, but her waist was also thin and her rear rather shapely.

Waking up in the syndicate's surgery was always a much better experience because of this woman.

Zhan painfully pushed himself up from the bed, grimacing and spinning himself slightly so that he was sitting on the edge.

The doctor, who was currently busy adjusting the tubing of the patient besides Zhan, heard some noise from behind her and turned around. She froze, hardly able to believe what she was seeing.

"You, what are you doing, lie back down!" She cried out with wide eyes. She dropped what she was doing and rushed to Zhan's side. He came into the surgery after his last fight, a fight that she watched from the television in this room. She was well acquainted with Zhan and was tense for the entire fight. Her heart really skipped a beat at the end when he dropped to the floor, but luckily, he was just about alive.

This was around 20 hours ago. Zhan slept all through this 20 hours so he didn't know, but he was in seriously critical condition at first. The doctor worked hard to keep him alive for the first two hours, but he strangely seemed to stabilise after that. Seeing that he was stable, she continued checking his vitals, slept, then woke up again just now.

Right, she stayed in the surgery over night to make sure that Zhan was alright. She only glanced at his vitals when she woke up before first sorting out the other man, the competitor who fought before him.

When she saw that Zhan woke up, then actually sat up, she was stunned. Based on his condition from the day before, this should definitely not be possible! She honestly expected him to be in a coma for at least a few days!

"I'm fine, I'm fine." Zhan waved his hand dismissively, then under her disbelieving eyes, he slowly stood up. Zhan expertly removed the tubing from his body, stretched slightly, then spoke.

"Thanks as always doc. Oh right, where's my spear? I need to get going."

"N-no!" She exclaimed. Zhan turned towards her in bewilderment and finally saw that she looked extremely pale.

"Uh, you ok?" He asked.

"Y-you, how are you standing up?! You were basically dead yesterday, no, lie back down, you, you must be in shock and unable to feel the pain!" She tried to gently guide him back to the bed, but Zhan caught her hand and gently pushed her away.

"I'm fine, Miu. I just got a bit stronger recently is all." Zhan smiled.

"This…ah! Did you gain an ability?!"

"Huh?" Seeing her excited expression, Zhan was dubious.

"Oh, I guess you haven't seen the news…but it was all they were talking about yesterday! Some of the mutated humans have developed special abilities, like superpowers!" Her eyes lit up as she spoke.

"Huh, weird."

Zhan didn't acknowledge that he had an ability, but seeing that he was so calm after learning about this ridiculous development, she assumed that it was the truth. At first, Zhan thought that these 'abilities' might be the other 99 people with the system, but after hearing her description, he scratched that idea.

Some of these ability users had real, certified superpowers, like flying, conjuring flames and so on. The system couldn't help a human to develop such powers, it only assisted the system users to boost their current abilities to a higher level.

Zhan noticed that after she calmed down, the doctor still seemed uneasy about something. As fellow associates of the syndicate, Zhan and Miu could be considered something like friends. Well, Zhan didn't really have any friends, but Miu was probably the person closest to fitting this label in his life.

"It's my sister." The doctor slumped and sighed. "My phone is dead and I haven't had the chance to get a new one. My little sister recently moved out from home and is living on her own, I need to call her. I spoke to her just after the incident, but I don't know if she's still alright…"

Zhan saw that she was really anxious about this and pondered. There was no phone line down here, but…

After Miu brought him his bag of clothes and spear, now cased, Zhan rummaged through his bag and found his mobile phone.

"Here, call her. It's able to call from down here and the line is always secure."

"Ah, thank you so much Zhan!" Miu exclaimed, nearly tearing up. She quickly took the phone and dialled the number. She turned away from Zhan and he walked away so as to not eavesdrop on her call. He changed back into his casual clothes as he waited, then after a few minutes, she was done and handed back his mobile.

"Thank you Zhan…" Miu sighed deeply, relief evident in her tone. "My little sister was already struggling even without this strange incident. Luckily it's all over now, so I hope she doesn't worry too much and can recover from the shock."

Zhan's expression became strange as she said this. He noticed this as he watched the news too…but people were being too complacent.

Why was it that the news over sensationalised every single tiny matter, until the actual end of days arrived and they decided that everything was fine?

Miu saw Zhan's expression and thought of something.

"Zhan…it is over, right?"

After thinking for a moment, he shook his head and sighed.

"No, not even close."

"Zhan, how do you know this, are you sure?" Miu hurriedly asked. Zhan saw the unease in her eyes, but didn't think he was wrong to tell her. If he even cared about Miu even just a little bit, then he should at least alert her to the coming disaster.

"It's complicated, but this is coming from a reliable source. Suspicious motivations, but reliable. The second wave will come thirty days after the end of the first wave. This time it will strike the entire world, and last for a month instead of a day."

Miu became silent. This 'source' of Zhan's sounded sketchy, but she knew that Zhan wouldn't lie to her about this. Besides…she somehow had a feeling that what he said was true.

"A full month…will humanity be alright? We, we need to tell someone, then we can-"

"No, Miu. Nobody will believe it. There's already a bunch of religious nuts screaming in the streets about the rapture, nobody will take us seriously. All we can do is prepare ourselves."

She nodded slowly.

"So…you came to this battle because…?"

"Training." Zhan answered honestly. She laughed despite herself.

"Maybe I should just stay besides you throughout this month, haha." She laughed. "Alright, we just need to make it through that one month. We can do this, you've got this Miu!"

Zhan thought she sounded cute speaking like this. He decided not to tell her that the second wave wasn't the end just yet…one month after the second wave, the third wave would arrive. At that point, the mutations of plants and animals would become endless, there would be no end to the chaos.

"I definitely need to find my little sister before then!" Miu muttered to herself.

As soon as the limousine was ready to take him home, Zhan departed from the syndicate's surgery, which was located in another underground room and connected directly to the arena for obvious reasons.

He found that he had indeed made a killing from this battle. A single fight earned him 86 million BW dollars!

This was an absolutely insane amount of money to make within one day. A BW dollar was worth about half a US dollar! Zhan bought his entire apartment complex for just a bit more than this.

After returning home, Shia was naturally there to interrogate him.

"Where have you been? What possible business could you have that's more important than dealing with matters back here?"

"Training." He replied again.

Shia paused.

"Really?"

"Yep. I advise that you prepare too. Society won't last long."

Perhaps the recent near death experience made Zhan more caring, or perhaps he just cared even less now and couldn't be bothered to hide the truth.

So what if people knew? They would find out soon enough anyway. So what if they didn't believe him? They would discover whether or not he was lying in less than a month.

Shia became silent as she pondered over things. She felt like Zhan wouldn't lie about something like this, and he sounded dead serious. She also felt that the recent disaster was simply too strange, there was no way it would just be left at that.

"What can I even do?" She finally asked. Zhan blinked and took a second glance at her. He could feel the helplessness in her voice, not something the ever strong Shia let slip often.

He realised that despite being the strict manager of this apartment complex, she was still a young girl, just 21 years old. She was afraid…she was a much weaker than him physically and didn't know how to fight in any form at all. Zhan pondered her question, but couldn't think of a simple answer.

Strength didn't just appear overnight. Eh, actually…

"I heard that people are developing super powers. Maybe drink some beast blood or something, you never know…"

"I know you're teasing me, but people have actually tried that you know." She replied with a sigh.

"Really?" Zhan blinked. "Did it work?"

"It's risky…some people lose their sanity. There's a chance that nothing will happen, a chance you'll mutate, a chance you'll mutate and lose your mind, and a chance to develop an ability."

"Huh…I might have to try that." Zhan muttered with a gleam in his eye.

"You're already strong enough." Shia rolled her eyes.

"No, I'm not." Zhan replied bitterly.

Shia looked up in surprise. She never expected him to say something like that. The way she saw it, Zhan was the person most likely to survive all of this insanity. He was able to stay calm during battle and he had the skills to go with this perfect mindset.

And yet, he thought that he was too weak? Just what was going to happen in a month's time?