The Strange Adventure of a Broke Mercenary C408 Revised Layout of the Recovery Instance

"It is rare for you to be that angry at a monster, especially a new one – wait why the sad face?!" Pei asked via the bracelet as she observed the attitude of her master.

"… That one time use of Fire Blast Inscription was worth at least 500 Yuan. … I just spent 500 Yuan trying to show off. Uhhooooo" Jin exclaimed while feeling terrible. He thought it would feel good showing off and boasting about the System's inscriptions to the new subcontracted monsters, but right now he felt regret.

"It is all User's fault for being so careless and choosing the wrong inscription." System stated as it knew that Jin had wanted to choose a cheaper inscription, the Burning Slash inscription.

"It is not my fault! I was too angry that I snapped my finger twice okay!" Jin understood where it went wrong after he released the Fire Blast inscription charm only to realise it was the wrong inscription. However, it was too late to stop, and he had to keep up the act to ensure that the monsters were terrified and understood their own standing.

"Hahahahah! At the very least, you made them acknowledge your seniority in this place. However. I still don't get why you haven't told her that you are the Master of this place? The System would have taken care of the Enforcement Loyalty Orders the moment they doubted you." Pei asked.

"Eh really?" Jin got embarrassed as he hadn't even considered that option. It could be that he was too immersed with the building of the recovery instance and got irritated when interrupted that he had forgotten about it.

"Don't give me that 'eh Really' reply!" Pei came out of her bracelet and knocked Jin's forehead with a large paper fan.

"Ouch! What?! Ow! Where did you get a Paper Fan out of nowhere? You think this is some slap comedy? Ow!" Jin said while feeling wronged as he tried to defend himself with his arms blocking the incoming attacks. Pei had initially wanted to only hit him once, but she suddenly felt it was therapeutic, even fun doing so and laughed along too.

"Anyways, those are deserved hits for being such a lousy designer when it comes to the recovery instance," Pei explained as she took another look at the current blueprint of the System Console in the Dungeon Maker which Jin had left halfway. "Imagine what would have happened if you used this to revamp the Recovery Instance…Oh wait, you might not know about the consequences since you do not have any experience in it. Anyways, the old System designed instance had a much better layout." Pei stated, and Jin noticed that she was in another traditional costume, a silky, neon blue Mongolian dress.

"What are you looking at?" Pei squinted her eyes when she casually looked back to see Jin scanning her entire body. She instinctively took the large paper fan and whacked Jin's head so fast that he did not see it coming.

"Urghh… Sorry, it's my first time seeing someone wearing a Mongolian costume. By any chance is your choice of weapon that large Paper Fan?" Jin commented, and the paper fan flew towards him and instantly hit the bullseye (his forehead).

"Just something a prop that I used on a daily basis when I was alive. That's all." Pei giggled and she observed the layout thoroughly once more. "I was a surgical doctor by trade. A real doctor, unlike that fraud Milk who uses magical spells to heal people. And if you are wondering, yes, I have been keeping myself updated with the latest knowledge. Peppers isn't the only one who has access to the hijacked data from your school's database. While I can't stand that fox guy, even I have to admit he's capable of keeping the database updated." Pei said with some annoyance, but promptly smiling to herself as she remembered the times she sneaked out to gather a few research articles in while Jin was busy creating his dungeon instances.

"Some of the information was quite appalling, to say the least, but they made much sense," Pei explained as she sat down with her legs crossed and swiped the digital console of the Dungeon Maker.

"You are a doctor? I thought you were just good at psychological defence?" Jin uttered as he was beckoned by Pei to sit beside her.

"Learnt that as part of my job. The System was kind enough to provide me with sufficient practice inside that blessing bracelet." Pei said while she placed her hand on the table to support her lazy chin.

"Wait…What?!" Jin accidentally shouted and Pei's eyes lazily looked at his direction.

"You heard me. The entire blessing bracelet is like a surgical room for me to practice my surgical skills. Granted it started out as nothing but a storage ring, but I told the System to renovate the contents inside. So I eventually got a space for myself to cut a few zombies up for practice." Pei said.

"Wait, what did you think I do in there? That I'd stare at you constantly for the entirety of your life? Waiting patiently for a moment to catch someone who tries to perform a psychological attack or use some mind magic? Dream on." Pei said as she took Jin's Creator Pen and circled the flaws of his new recovery instance design.

"Well…erm… No, I was thinking that you more of a hacker of sorts, something similar to Kraft?" Jin answered without thinking and he was given a violent (death) stare for mentioning that name, but that was better than being whacked on the head by her. (Since the paper fan was beside him and not her. His forehead still hurts.)

"Anyways, here. Here. And Here. This is bad floor designs. I know you want your patients *cough* I mean cultivators to be at the crux of the care flow but if you place your nurse station here. They will have to run from one end to the other to take care of your cultivators. Expending of portals to travel will only incur unnecessary costs." Pei pointed out as Jin kept quiet to listen.

"You should place your storage rooms at the centre since this is not a real hospital. That way, your panda nurses can restock if there is a need. Also, you need about two cleaners per level too. For one thing, it will be faster than assigning your Panda Nurses to do that whenever they are free. Besides, it would indirectly degrade the image of your Panda Nurses as well as their perception of nurses in the real world. They are lifesavers, not servants." Pei explained.

"At least it's great that you have planned to include one more surgical rooms. It seems the assassination incident made you wary. But your surgical theatres are ill equipped." Pei berated him and started to create a list of items that Jin needed to buy from the System Market. Things like gloves, masks, gowns, extra sterile apparatus including a sterilising oven etc.

"Oh my god…I didn't expect it to be THAT expensive. A surgical couch cost at least 340k Yuan (44K USD)?! You must be kidding me!" Jin browsed the System's market and could not believe it.

"Trust me, the items sold at the System's market are already waaay cheaper than those medical vendors out there ripping hospitals up." Pei added as she continued to ramble on that Jin also needed to add an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) for follow ups after extensive surgery. She did not recommend an intermediate care ward because the surgical room and the ICU were for extreme cases which should not happen too often in Jin's place.

"Oh eh and upgrade your Panda Nurses. Like how you did for certain other NPCs like the Sushi Chef Roro. That way, your Panda Nurses won't just be some idiot servers. That should come in handy if there is every a surgical procedure, you'll have nurses who will be able to deal with emergencies." Pei added and Jin's heart was about to break even more after seeing the total cost for going through Pei's revisions.

"System…do I need to follow Pei's recommend- Ouch!" Jin got whacked by Pei before he could finish his sentence.

"Do you really want to have a repeat of that Banned Emperor Assassination all over again? Do you think Milk's powers are limitless?" Pei rebutted as she folded her arms angrily.

"Huh? What do you mean? She can cure wounds and stuff, right?" Jin replied and Pei sighed at her hardest. It seemed as if she had enough of her stubborn master, for now. Seeing the frustration of Pei, the System instead took over, explaining why Pei was angry.

"Healing Magic is not the same as surgical procedures. While Bellator Milk had successfully managed to do that surgery, it was through the System's and Peppers help that it was possible. If all three possible Dantian sites had been affected, Milk would not have been able to remove it at all unlike Former Bellator Pei." System said and Jin nodded his head confused.

"You are not answering what he wants to hear, System." Pei sighed again, feeling the urge to show a large enough paper fan at the System if situation permits.

"Healing Magic fastens the process of recovery, such as wounds healing. It assists the body by removing insignificant foreign body objects like a small bullet with a cure wounds spell. But what do you think happens, when say…a spear is stuck in you? I hope you don't need for me to explain how a basic 'cure wounds' won't help much, right?" Pei asked and Jin nodded his head.

"It would only stop the bleeding, and more basic 'cure wounds' spells would need to be cast to close the wound even further. That is kind of how Chi Potions work too, right?" Jin remembered the time he had to chuck a potion to recover his chi so that the wound would stop hurting.

"Yes and no. Those chi potions made your chi generation more potent by unblocking clotted chi points, allowing you to create more chi and thus assist you to stop the bleeding. But can 'cure wounds' or chi potions able to help you with a chopped off hand?" Pei asked once again, and Jin shook his head, saying that he cannot grow a new hand out.

"Exactly, that is where surgery and medical skills come in. Healing magic prompts the growth of your cells to replicate faster or in a way, enhances your body's healing mechanism. You can say it is some sort of time acceleration magic or hell, a mixed bag of time acceleration and deceleration magic." Pei explained.

"Fine, maybe Milk has spells that allow shit tons of time acceleration for you to regrow your hand back but not every healer in the world had powers like her, and they would surely be downright expensive," Pei said her alternate thoughts for a second before returning to her exposition.

"Unlike true time acceleration magic, healing magic's time acceleration portion is only focused on one particular spot, the wound. The spell also aids in numbing the pain though that particular component is currently argued by many scientists that it could be the rush of adrenaline with the aid of time acceleration magic. Still, that is debatable." Pei said as she leaned backwards in Jin's chair.

"And I can guess what you are about to ask. What about those even higher level spells? Or even the rumoured almighty magical spell able to bring one back from the dead? You do know why it has to be cast almost instantly – okay at least a difference of five to ten minutes – or else it won't work? Two words." Pei asked as she pointed two fingers out.

"Time Reversal…?" Jin blurted out before Pei, and she smirked as if Jin had been listening and learning as she nodded her head in delight.

"Correct. That so called 'resurrection spell' literally brings a person back to a state before they died. But do not confuse that with the resurrection with the Dantian core since it must be within the time limit to work. The longest I read is about 30 minutes? And contrary to the Dantian method, there are no worries about anything going wrong in the process provided one has the knowledge as well as a shit load of mana required to cast it. Something limited to those high grade …very high grade spell users."

"…No wonder my professor said that the Dantian resurrection was something like a quantum jump made easy. Eh…Easy as in feasible and reproducible." Jin commented out loud though Pei was not well versed with the modern world's physics.

"Ehh..okay. Anyways, that is healing magic explained in simple science terms. Even though those mages always claim that magic could never be explained by science, hah. So yeah while healing magic does have its uses, it also suffers from limitations. It is possible to produce 'miracles' as proven by Milk, but would you rather hope to recreate a miracle, or be able to reproduce something 10/10 times through tried and proven methods?" Pei admitted with a bit of annoyance.

"Then how come you did not come to assist me when the assassination happened? Oh yea…I think the System and Kraft had not released you to me yet when it happened, no wonder Milk had to…Ow!" Jin got hit on the head again with that large fan which suddenly appeared in her hands again and he kept his silence.

"System deemed that the impromptu surgery with Milk and Peppers has a 98% confidence level it would succeed without the aid of Pei back then. Should the Head of Royal Zodiac Tiger die, the System had also determined that User have sufficient witness to prove his innocence. User had also attempted to aid the ailing Head of the Royal Zodiac Tiger which had already increased his chance of being judged innocent. Furthermore, if the Head dies, it aligned with the previous objective of revenge which the System had temporarily ceased for now." The System explained its rationale, and there was a slight pause in the conversation before Pei changed the topic.

"Anyways, I will write down more of those flaws of your recovery instance. You concentrate on settling the few things that I pointed out. I will prioritise what you need more urgently for the surgical theatre so you won't have to worry about your budget too much." Pei added as she continued to draw big red circles on the layout with Jin's creator pen as if a teacher correcting her student's mistakes.

"Don't worry User. System will compensate adequately when User completes the Recovery Instance objective." The System replied but Jin still did not believe the System when it comes to rewards.

"Please don't do that. Don't give me hope." Jin said as he took another spare Creator Pen provided by the System and started working on the pointers Pei gave him.

Chapter end