The cab smelled of stale coffee and rain, Feng Mo's streets blurring past – wet pavement, red lanterns swaying over stalls, drones zipping above.
Vice slouched in the back, his jacket warding off the cold, and called up the system with a thought. The interface flared in his mind, crisp and blue:
[1. Theoretical Skills]
[2. Application Skills]
[3. Titles (You have not unlocked this prestige)]
He focused on [1. Theoretical Skills], and the screen shifted:
[Surgical Theory (Recommended) – 150 Life Points]
[Traditional Herbology – 700 Life Points]
[Human Anatomy (Recommended) – 150 Life Points]
[Human Physiology (Recommended) – 150 Life Points]
[Pathology Recognition (Recommended) – 150 Life Points]
[Emergency Medicine (Recommended) – 150 Life Points]
[Hemostasis & Bleeding Control (Recommended) – 150 Life Points]
[Medical Pharmacology (Recommended) – 150 Life Points]
His Life Points hovered at 1265, earned from the week's chaos. He'd been saving, and now was the time.
He selected the recommended skills, one by one, confirming each purchase.
The system chimed softly, at first there was no sign that anything had changed, no addition to his being, but then, a rush like a dam breaking in his brain.
Knowledge flooded in, not like textbook pages but as if he'd lived it, witnessed it himself.
Human Anatomy mapped every bone, vessel, nerve in vivid detail, his mind tracing them like a surgeon's scalpel.
Human Physiology unveiled the body's rhythms: heartbeats under stress, lungs gasping in shock.
Pathology Recognition painted diseases in stark clarity, from cancer's creep to trauma's raw chaos.
Emergency Medicine drilled protocols into him: airways and pulses.
Hemostasis taught him to staunch a bleed with precision.
Surgical Technique laid in his mind the procedures of incisions, and Medical Pharmacology cataloged drugs and doses like a reflex.
It was disorienting, like waking mid-dream.
Vice gripped the cab's armrest, his trait [NeuroFlux Overdrive] kicking in, sorting the flood into order at lightning speed.
He blinked, testing his memory, textbook facts he'd slaved over paled against this.
He knew the body now, not as a student but as a master, every artery and drug as familiar as his own pulse.
His days of endless cramming were dead, and the shop still brimmed with multiple more theoretical skills: Chinese Herbology, Acupuncture Theory, Burn Management, Infectious Disease Theory, a dozen more waiting. He smirked, adrenaline spiking.
This was just the start.
The cab rolled toward Bao Hospital, its towers looming through the morning fog.
Vice leaned back, the system's glow fading, but a final message pinged, sharp and clear:
[Application Skills now available]
He stared at it, heart racing,
'what more could the system offer me.' Vice thought with trepidation.
But before he entered the Application Skills he called up the main system menu.
Name: Doctor Vice Xong
Titles: N/A
Traits: [Slow to Panic], [NeuroFlux Overdrive]
Life Points: 215
Skill Shop [Command "View" to open]
Skills
T:
[Surgical Theory: Learning the basic ideas behind surgery – like when it's needed, what tools to use, and how to safely perform procedures.]
[Human Anatomy: Studying all the parts of the human body – bones, muscles, organs, and where everything is located.]
[Human Physiology: Understanding how the body systems (like the heart, lungs, and brain) work together to keep us alive and healthy.]
[Pathology Recognition: Learning to spot signs and symptoms of diseases, injuries, or anything that isn't working right in the body.]
[Emergency Medicine: Training to handle life-threatening situations fast – like heart attacks, accidents, or severe bleeding – to save lives on the spot.]
[Hemostasis & Bleeding Control: Knowing how to stop bleeding using pressure, tools, or medicine, and prevent someone from losing too much blood.]
[Medical Pharmacology: Learning how different drugs affect the body, when to use them, how much to give, and what side effects to watch out for.]
Quest Menu: N/A
Vice knew all of these subjects after purchasing the skills so intimately, he felt he could never forget them, like they were etched into his very bones.
Yet his mind could not help but notice that the skills are broken into two parts, theoretical and application, he already had an idea about this but he wanted to check the application skills menu before concluding.
[1. Theoretical Skills]
[2. Application Skills]
[3. Titles (You have not unlocked this prestige)]
Entering the skill menu once again he focused this time around at the Application Skills.
Soon he was faced with a whole long list of skills
[Experienced On Body(Anatomy): "You've felt organs with your fingers, not just seen them in diagrams."
Gives anatomical instinct, letting you navigate the body with precision even blindfolded - 200 Life Points]
[Pattern Snap Recognition (Pathological Recognition):
You can immediately spot abnormal signs from sight, touch, or behavior - 575 Life Point's]
[Symptom-Link Recall (Pathological Recognition):
Improves speed of matching symptoms to known pathologies in high-stress situations - 200 Life point's]
[Crisis Motor Training (Emergency Medicine)
Boosts your physical execution under duress: fast CPR, airway clearing etc. - 500 Life Points]
[Shock Voice (Emergency Medicine)
Calms patients or bystanders, stabilizing the scene - 455 Life Points]
[Adrenal Clarity (Emergency Medicine)
Suppresses tunnel vision and panic to allow quick decisions - 500 Life Points]
[Improvised Field Setup (Emergency Medicine)
Create makeshift triage spaces under any condition - 1000 Life Points]
Like that a list of skills lined up before this eyes, each assigned to a theoretical skill, his guess had been correct. It was all in the name. Theoretical and Application.
He knew about human anatomy but he wasn't experienced in utilising that knowledge, meaning the application skills would clear up the cap between knowledge and experience, but there were also some theoretical skills that had no application skills since theory was all they required like: Human Physiology.
Vice resets his back against the cabs chair and let out a deep breath, just the amount of knowledge he was logging around at the moment was enough to take him places. He hadn't completely gone through the knowledge but he knew it was more detailed than anything currently archived on earth.
Then there where the application skills, going by how the system worked he wondered just how much proficient he'd become after acquiring some of the skills.
Vice smiled as he made the purchase for his first application skill.