Chapter 17: Ultimate Healer
Zhang Shou lived in Apartment 601, Building 3 of Silver City's Fragrant River Garden. Right now, he was bolting toward the bathroom. Standing in front of the toilet, he closed his eyes and let out a long sigh of relief.
Suddenly, he heard a distinct splash. A look of confusion crossed his face. I wasn't dropping a deuce, so where did that sound come from?
He opened his eyes and looked around the bathroom. As he lowered his gaze into the toilet bowl, he noticed something and froze. Resting inside was a fruit that radiated a faint crimson glow.
A Forbidden Fruit? Zhang Shou's eyes widened further and further, and he quickly slapped himself across the face. It hurts! I'm not dreaming! This is real!
Without a single care for how disgusting it was, he bent over and fished the Forbidden Fruit right out of the toilet. He looked up at the ceiling, then glanced around the bathroom, unconsciously swallowing his spit.
Am I supposed to eat it, eat it, or eat it?Well, nobody will know I retrieved it from a toilet bowl anyway. Eating it is definitely the right move.
To prevent any unexpected complications, he quickly pulled up his pants, carried the Forbidden Fruit over to the sink, gave it a quick rinse under the tap, and swallowed it whole in one massive gulp. He even sensed a faint lingering taste of urine, which removed the last of his doubts about this being a dream.
"I'm not asking for much, just a system! That's all I want!"
Two days ago, Zhang Shou had heard Yu Xian mentioning that Forbidden Fruits were not omnipotent. The grander the wish, the heavier the price one had to pay.
Zhang Shou had no desire to end up in a vegetative state, let alone sleep for tens of thousands of years. His demands weren't high. If he could just get a system, he'd be eternally grateful.
[Ding!]
[Ultimate Healer System has been activated!]
Hearing the ding echo in his mind initially thrilled Zhang Shou, but the moment he heard the name of the system, he was dumbfounded. Wait, hold on a minute! This can't be right! I wanted a Sword Immortal System! How on earth did it turn into an Ultimate Healer System?
Zhang Shou's expression contorted between crying and laughing. "A healer? No, no, no—no way! Aaaahhh!"
After waiting a good while with no further changes from the system, he could only grimace and resign himself to his fate. "Attributes."
Immediately, a holographic screen manifested before his eyes, rapidly unfurling his character stats.
[Ultimate Healer System]
Name
- Zhang Shou
Gender
- Male
Age
- 17
Class
- Ultimate Healer
[Abilities]
Novice - Heal
- Consumes energy to condense a sphere of light that heals the target.
Novice - Healing Touch
- Consumes energy to summon tentacles endowed with healing, detoxifying, and disease-purging properties. Removes most abnormal status upon caressing the target.
Passive - A Healer Never Dies of Injury
- The first fatal hit each day causes instant death, followed by full recovery. The second fatal hit leaves the user at 1% HP. The third fatal hit causes death, with revival at the original location after 1 hour.
Zhang Shou grew increasingly ecstatic. Healers are great! Healers are wonderful! Long live healers! Three lives a day. What can possibly compete with that?
He couldn't help but throw his head back and laugh out loud. Then, a thought struck him. He whipped around and threw a punch straight into the wall. His face immediately flushed red, then turned a bruised purple, and finally went stark white.
Holy hell, it hurts!
He clutched his swollen fist and blew furiously on his knuckles. It took him a long while to recover. As he stared at his bruised, swollen fist, his mind was flooded with questions. Don't they say that consuming a Forbidden Fruit instantly puts you at the Eagle rank? How can someone at the Eagle rank be this weak?
He dashed into his bedroom, pulled his new smartphone from the head of his bed, and immediately dialed Yu Xian's number.
***
At this time, Yu Xian was in his home. Standing inverted on the ceiling, he was exploring further uses of his Blood Energy. Since he had no way of learning orthodox blood arts, he would just have to figure it out himself.
Having awakened Blood Energy, why should I worry about being unable to engineer my own?
It was just like owning an electrical generator. With electricity secured, was it really impossible to hand-craft an electric fan, an electric rice cooker, a scooter, or even an electromagnetic railgun?
For instance, Yu Xian had already developed several uses for his Blood Energy. First, by coating his skin with Blood Energy, he could scale walls and ceilings just like Spider-Man, remaining firmly attached even while upside down.
Second, by coating his silver threads with it, he could reinforce their toughness or even make them incredibly sticky, mimicking spider silk. He could achieve these effects by manipulating the Blood Energy to become adhesive.
Yu Xian could also will his Blood Energy to become corrosive. A single droplet was potent enough to burn a gaping hole right through the floorboards.
Could blood arts simply be the act of changing the inherent nature of Blood Energy to produce various effects? If so, would casting fire just mean using Blood Energy as fuel?
Yu Xian manipulated his Blood Energy, visualizing a roaring flame, trying to force the blood-red energy to ignite. Suddenly, his phone rang. Glancing at the Blood Energy dancing in his palm, he dropped from the ceiling back to the floor, picked up the phone from the table, and swiped to answer.
Zhang Shou's voice erupted from the other end of the line.
—Yu Xian, I ate a Forbidden Fruit!
Most of the time, Zhang Shou called him "Salted Fish." Zhang Shou only ever used Yu Xian's actual name when he was exceptionally nervous or dead serious.
Yu Xian frowned. "Are you sure it was a Forbidden Fruit? You aren't dreaming, are you?"
Zhang Shou immediately replied.
—I slapped myself across the face and felt pain, so I'm definitely not dreaming! I'm a supernatural being right now, but things seem to have gone a bit sideways.
Yu Xian pondered for a moment, then said, "Stay exactly where you are. Don't go anywhere. I'm coming over."
He hung up the phone. Yu Xian didn't quite believe that his friend had actually eaten a Forbidden Fruit. He suspected Zhang Shou had accidentally eaten some toxic wild mushrooms and was currently experiencing vivid hallucinations.
The situation was just like your best friend suddenly calling to tell you they won the lottery jackpot. It lacked any semblance of reality and felt entirely too surreal.
Still, Yu Xian changed his clothes and hurriedly left his residence. Five minutes later, he arrived at Zhang Shou's residential complex, dashed up to the sixth floor, and knocked on the door.
Opening the door, Zhang Shou glanced around furtively. "Salted Fish, quick, get in!"
The moment Yu Xian stepped inside, Zhang Shou hurriedly shut the door and bolted the deadbolt, as if doing so would grant him a greater sense of security.
Yu Xian settled onto the sofa and eyed his friend. "Alright, you claim you ate a Forbidden Fruit. What ability have you awakened?"
Zhang Shou slightly tweaked the location of where he had stumbled upon the Forbidden Fruit, rewriting the bathroom discovery into a bedroom find, but he laid out everything else to Yu Xian without reserving a single detail.
After hearing Zhang Shou's account, Yu Xian said, "Try using Healing Touch. Let me see it."
Zhang Shou nodded and immediately activated the skill toward the empty space beside them. A translucent, green tentacle materialized out of thin air. Looking exactly like an octopus tentacle, stripped of its suckers, it was swaying lazily in the air.
As Yu Xian watched the tentacle manifest out of thin air, his eyes snapped wide open. He was forced to accept the fact that Zhang Shou had genuinely struck fool's gold.
He stood up, walked over to the tentacle, and gently brushed it with his hand. However, he recoiled violently, realizing that his fingers had been singed and blistered. The tentacle seemed to possess an inherent, counteractive property against vampires.
Zhang Shou's face was practically glowing with smug satisfaction. "Heh, believe me now?"
Yu Xian nodded. "I believe you. But do you know why you were not in the Eagle rank?"
Zhang Shou asked, "Yeah, why is that?"
Yu Xian's face turned dead serious as he snapped. "Because you were too damn greedy! Do you have any idea how close you came to becoming a system rather than just a guy with a system?"
Earlier, he hadn't taken any of it seriously, treating what Zhang Shou had said over the phone as a joke. But now that he knew every word was true, Yu Xian could only feel a deep sense of dread. Zhang Shou believed what he wished for wasn't much, but in truth, it was boundless in scale.
The system he obtained carried virtually zero side effects, yet the skills were utterly preposterous, especially the passive ability, which simply defied the laws of nature. Yu Xian felt that Zhang Shou had undoubtedly depleted every single ounce of luck allotted to him for the rest of his natural life.
However, for the sake of his friend's safety, Yu Xian still decided to contact Jin Sheng. After all, discovering someone who consumed a Forbidden Fruit was something that required immediate reporting, and it would also perfectly allow them to arrange a comprehensive examination for Zhang Shou.