24 Sections: Exercise After Meals

In the afternoon, Old Ferreiro, the Chief Doctor and Coroner of the Church in Carterburg, taught Malin anatomy.

This was a tall and thin old man, his silver hair firmly held in place with hair gel, giving him an appearance that, aside from being somewhat slender, showed little sign of old age, even though his file card stated he was sixty-nine.

In a world where the average lifespan was sixty, he was a standard example of longevity.

"Speaking of which, this is the first time I've seen such a large Red-Bellied Spider Mother in Carterburg. You did well this time, Colin." The old man examined the Spider Mother on the platform, then confidently praised Colin, who smiled and shook his head, pointing towards Malin: "No, it was his catch."

"His?" The old man glanced at Malin, then walked to the front of the Spider Mother, where he noticed the bullet entry wounds: "All seven shots fired here... small caliber bullets. Your gun, where is it?"

Malin lifted his Apprentice overcoat, revealing the gun holster under his arm.

"An Apprentice Revolver, I've never seen anyone kill a Spider Mother with this kind of toy before. The wound has corrosive traces; this was caused by holy rock salt bullets, wasn't it?" the old man asked Malin as he carefully prodded the Spider Mother's wound with his finger.

"Yes, Your Excellency," Malin nodded, also expressing respect for the old man's injury assessment skills.

"I remember such bullets are not issued to apprentices. Do you have some other source?"

"Miss Margaret gave them to me," Malin promptly named the princess, to prevent the Chief Doctor from being controlled by boundless curiosity.

"Oh, it seems you're the last disciple of Hoffman Schillingdale that has been the talk of the Church recently."

"Yes, Your Excellency, Colin is my senior apprentice," Malin replied with a smile.

"It appears you truly are a disciple of that old man Hoffman; otherwise, Colin would not have bothered to come assist me. Since that is the case, boy, today you'll get to relive the glorious moments of being my assistant." Having said this, the old man gestured for Malin to push the small cart next to him over.

Malin did as asked, and afterwards, he stood aside at a prepared observer's position—a small step stool, ample lighting, a perfect surgical field, and a face mask to block out odors.

Great, finally, I can say goodbye to the pervasive smell of formalin that filled my nostrils before.

Surgery was never a romantic task; Malin knew this all too well, for he had witnessed the head of his orphanage never walking off the operating table, merely due to an interventional wire piercing a major blood vessel.

It wasn't a tale; the doctors had made clear the risks, but the elder had felt such agony was truly unbearable.

Thus, an elderly person, a single accident—there hadn't been time for an open chest hemostasis.

The fragility of life made Malin respect the medical profession even more because he knew he too would grow old one day, and perhaps he might face such a day.

Of course, he never imagined that day would come so suddenly, nor did he expect to die from aging in his bed.

So when Old Ferreiro skillfully sliced open the Spider Mother's abdomen with a sharp scalpel and extracted its gland from the white tissue, Malin, young in body but old in mind, showed no reaction.

"Don't you feel anything, kid?" Old Ferreiro turned his head to glance at Malin.

"No, not even if the one on the operating table was human would I feel fear. I believe that all beings lying on this table are equal under the surgical knife," Malin replied solemnly.

The old man began to laugh, scraping Malin's nose with his left hand, the glove stained with tissue brushed across Malin's face.

The smile gradually faded from the old man's face: "Do you really not find it disgusting?"

"Yes, I still believe that in this room, all beings lying on this table are equal," Malin asserted, reaching to wipe the residual white tissue from his nose.

Old Ferreiro fell silent for a moment, then turned his head to Colin: "If possible, I hope your mentor never finds himself in a position where he needs me. In all my years, I have yet to come across a child with such temperament as his."

"Master Ferreiro, we all will have days when we will need you," Colin replied evasively.

To which, Old Ferreiro rolled his eyes: "Every single one of you Schillingdale lot, don't even think of me performing your autopsy if you die!"

"But if I were to study medicine with you, my mentor surely wouldn't object," Malin suddenly interjected.

This statement made both Colin and Old Ferreiro fall silent.

After a while, Colin nodded with some difficulty: "That's right, the mentor doesn't have any talents in the medical field, so your idea indeed isn't wrong."

"Yeah, how could I have not thought of that," Old Ferreiro then waved his hand to send Colin away: "Kid, come here and hold these two metal rods for me."

"Can he hold them?" Colin asked curiously.

"This little fellow has the blood of Frost Giants in him; I can smell it right through his skin," Old Ferreiro retorted with a roll of his eyes to Colin.

It was as if he was saying,

Heh, foolish humans.

Ah, right, I forgot to mention earlier, Old Ferreiro has half of High Elf ancestry.

The other half includes a quarter Wild Elf.

But he was still an old white-haired man.

A very stubborn one at that.

.........

With Old Ferreiro's guidance, Malin quickly learned some knowledge that he had not known before.

For instance, besides the few ranks of Spirits he was previously aware of, like the Danger rank and the Terror rank, there were four other levels of classification.

Arthropod Spirits, being the most contemptible existence among the four ranks, were placed at the bottom. Even if an Arthropod Spirit was more dangerous than a Giant Rat, it really couldn't match their lack of intelligence—Even a Giant Rat knew to avoid traps, whereas any person who could set traps could reliably exterminate a group of Arthropod Spirits using solid trapping tactics.

Above the Arthropod Spirits naturally were the Animal Spirits, which have body heat, natural armor in the form of tough skin, a certain level of intelligence, and know to seek benefits and avoid harm. Aside from becoming human killers, Animal Spirits can sometimes be controlled by Professionals specialized in manipulating Animal Spirits.

Although they were very dangerous, at least they understood that might makes right.

Some Spirits that used to be domestic animals and had friendly relationships with humans could even become closer to humans.

Above the Animal Spirits ranked the Humanoid Spirits—these were extremely dangerous, and The Cutter that Malin had previously encountered was one of them. They wield weapons, resemble humans more than animals, but are far more dangerous. For example, the Terror rank Bride of the Animated Corpse was an exceedingly rare type of Spirit. They should have had a happy life but were destroyed overnight. These Spirits, having a human appearance, are the ones that hate living beings the most, destroying every living person in sight.

Except for babies and young animals.

Surprisingly, they would not harm infants and children that appeared young, perhaps due to the last spark of maternal instinct remaining in their resentful souls.

Above the Humanoid Spirits were the Spiritual Body Spirits—usually, these are formless Spirits but also include corporeal Spirits like the resentful flying heads.

This is a large category, typically filled with varieties that would make a person drop their sanity just by taking a glance.

And each of them is as sly as they come, like the Spiritual Body that Malin had encountered before that would always choose a backstab over a frontal assault, completely different from the brash recklessness towards life and death of the Arthropod Spirits.

Like the row of heads in jars behind Old Ferreiro, which Malin had seen when he first came in, ranging from heads with spines to those with throats, and others with both or neither; and what made Malin sigh was that every single head... was bald.

Of course, this might have had something to do with the heads' ages before their demise... The woes of middle age indeed.

Old Ferreiro had excellent technique, and he could effortlessly remove parts from the Spider Mother while speaking.

Most of these parts could be equated to gold, like Carter on the Paper Money; some were used as tool-making materials, such as the previously mentioned spider silk gland, which contained silk that could be extracted for use as armor material, highly effective against piercing attacks, with the only weakness being they weren't fire resistant and were even somewhat flammable, requiring some flame-retardant materials for supplementary weaving.

Some were used as potion ingredients, such as the Arachnid Elixir, which required organs from the Spider Mother's abdomen. It could enable someone who drank the potion to walk on walls as if on flat ground for a limited time.

It might not sound hugely useful, but in reality, this stuff was in high demand within the Church. Demon Hunters and Proxies, who did things best kept in the dark, needed it for those critical moments when it might just save their lives.

"Come on, kiddo, you see this thing here?" Old Ferreiro pulled out an organ from the chest segment of the Spider Mother and handed it over to Malin.

Malin nodded, looking at the small thing, and thought for a moment, "An organ like a heart, right?"

"This is the most valuable material in the whole Spider Mother, take a guess at what it's used for." Old Ferreiro placed the organ into the silver box that Colin handed over.

"Is it used for brewing a potion of immortality?" Malin fully employed his acting skills.

The old half-High Elf laughed heartily and waved his hand.

"It's the core material for the basic potion for the 'Arachnomancer' Profession." He laughed like that and then looked at Malin, "But you're also not wrong, after all, becoming a Professional would let you live much longer."

Malin blinked and then looked at the Spider Mother still trapped in his magical field, then at the Ghoul on another dissection table, "Does the Ghoul have such an organ as well?"

"Yes, but that is a forbidden path." Old Ferreiro shook his head, "We will extract that organ and then destroy it."

"Why?" Malin asked.

"Because that is the core material for the base potion of the 'Animated Corpse' Profession," Colin explained to Malin this time, "That path is too sinister; it would make one less human, so it's forbidden. Believe me, Malin, your sister wouldn't like you to turn into such a monster because it would make you smell terrible."

Malin's eyes widened, and he pulled down his mask, "Worse than here?"

"Compared to that smell, this place would be like the sweet scent of the most luxurious hotel," Old Ferreiro laughed heartily as he answered the surprised Malin.

"Then forget it, I don't want Maya to hate me." Malin felt that although the word 'forbidden' sounded full of the flavor of a liberal new wave, turning into a foul-smelling Professional was worse than death.

The most important point: "Do Animated Corpses rot on the outside?"

"You know about that?" Old Ferreiro glanced at Colin.

"No, I just think that if it didn't rot a bit, it wouldn't smell so bad," Malin said with tongue in cheek, smiling.

If it's rotted, that's even worse than being bald—at least the latter could use a wig.