Days as a Spiritual Mentor in American Comics

Strange was examining Stark on the operating table. But this time, it wasn't to check for any diseases, but to inspect his physical characteristics. Shiller was recording the report in a medical record.

They couldn't leave now, but that didn't mean they couldn't send out a message. Even though the nurse looked fierce, he was obviously communicative. Making him carry the message out and splitting the reward in half would still count as a small profit.

Of course, the money on Stark had definitely been thoroughly plundered. The final loot included three gold coins, over twenty silver coins, and six or seven copper coins.

Shiller didn't know the conversion method of this world, but it didn't seem to be decimal. However, this was good news, meaning that copper coins might be more valuable than they thought.

Unfortunately, the gun in Stark's hand was conjured by magic, and they couldn't take it. Otherwise, this job would have been hugely profitable.

After plundering everything, Shiller directly injected Stark. Intravenous injection was very simple, basically you just needed a hand. After Strange explained the technical points, Shiller succeeded on his first try.

He sighed with a bit of regret, and then he and Strange stuffed Stark back into the passage. After the gate closed, the sound of heavy objects hitting the ground emerged, and when the passage opened again, the person had already disappeared.

"I think we should celebrate our first successful treatment," Shiller said as he stuffed all the gold coins into his pocket while pulling out a purple small crystal core found previously inside Mr. Raven from another pocket.

Strange glanced at it and then shook his head, saying, "It should be something like an energy crystal. The magic system here is completely different from ours, incomparable."

After researching and finding no results, the two prepared to leave. When they were ready and pulled the lever, what fell down was actually a bird man.

His body was a normal human body, covered with black patterns on his skin, and he was wearing a suit and a bow tie. However, his head was a huge raven's head, and his sharp bird beak resembled a sharp guillotine.

A guilty Shiller immediately gasped, quickly binding the still unconscious raven man to the bed.

"Damn, that raven couldn't have been his son or something, right?" Shiller grimaced, but then he froze and said, "Wait, does that mean his body might also have..."

Just then, the bird man's fingers moved. Shiller quickly used the intravenous injection technique he had just learned and gave him a mandrake anesthesia.

Mandrake wasn't on the raven's menu; he should be unable to immune to this poison. Sure enough, the raven man about to wake up passed out again.

"There are two possibilities now," Strange said, "Either he is that mysterious Mr. Raven, coming down to settle scores with us, or he is just an ordinary resident who just happens to have a bird's head."

"No matter who he is, we can't let him go alive," Shiller bared his teeth, revealing a sinister true face, and said, "Bad luck falling into our hands, let's do this, open his chest."

Strange had no objections, immediately picking up the scalpel. After unbuttoning the suit, they discovered that the opponent's chest was covered with black feathers. Shiller did not hesitate at all, directly plucking all the feathers.

Strange swiftly cut open the chest, but did not find any strange structures inside the chest. The body tissues were identical to those of the human race, fully functional heart and lungs, and no mysterious small crystals.

Unwilling to give up, Shiller looked up at Strange and said, "Can you perform cranial surgery on birds?"

Strange walked over, picked up a bloody clamp from the floor, and raised it saying, "As long as survival rate is not a concern, what's difficult about a craniotomy?"

"Bang! Bang bang!"

When the nurse's eyes appeared again at the observation window, Shiller very timely blocked his line of sight, then said: "Patient with mineral hyperplasia, unavoidably a bit noisy. By the way, madam, after sending that violent patient away, I only then noticed something amiss..."

Shiller started telling the nurse about Stark, he shook the report and then said, "I reckon I've contributed a bit to this matter, claiming half of the bounty isn't too much, right?"

"You want me to go to the police station to report?"

"Of course not, just find anyone to send the message," Shiller leaned against the door, "Money from the sky not earned is money wasted. What do you think?"

The nurse neither agreed nor disagreed, took the report Shiller wrote and left. Shiller didn't care too much whether it succeeded, turning back to check on Strange's situation.

Strange, covered in blood, picked up a much larger purple Crystal Core from the ground. The strange magic light shined on the black bird beak mask's glass eyepiece, appearing extraordinarily splendid and eye-catching.

Shiller took the Crystal Core, admiring it—this thing looked very valuable, but perhaps had some other functions. He did not put this thing with the gold coins but threw it in a jar instead.

"What to do with the corpse?"

"Pluck the feathers clean," Shiller said, "and then throw it into the furnace."

"You're not worried about complications?"

"I just want to see what complications might arise."

Both of them dismantled the raven man's corpse and stuffed it into the furnace. Shiller stared at the flames in the fireplace for a while, noticing the big mouth behind the wall beginning to speak something again.

"Trade..."

"What?"

"Give me food... I'll give you treasures..."

The room's candlelight flickered, seeming to remind Shiller not to trust the devil's words. But Shiller didn't care about that, he said, "What treasure can you give me?"

The evil big mouth disappeared. But Shiller heard a few "clangs" coming from the chimney pipe, as if something was falling down.

"Glug glug," something fell into the flames, then suddenly bounced, and rolled onto the floor.

Shiller walked closer for a look and discovered that it was a tooth, with some small spikes growing out of its center.

Shiller handed the tooth to Strange. Strange took off his mask, put on a monocle, and observed it carefully before saying, "This must be the tooth of a late-stage ore disease patient. The ore has grown out from the bones. There are some residues here, probably food he ate before his death."

After thinking for a while, Shiller said, "Maybe we could use the jellyfish fluorescent agent detection method to examine the nature of the residues."

"What's the use of this thing?" Strange asked.

Shiller shook his head, indicating that he didn't know. He took a jar and poured some jellyfish fluorescent agent into it, then soaked the tooth in it. The part with the residue showed a faint red color, resembling tissue cells.

Time here seemed to pass faster, and it quickly turned to evening. The Nurse visited again, and Shiller gave him a report. As the Nurse was leaving, Shiller heard some noise at the door. When he went out to check, he was confronted by several silver coins.

It seemed the Nurse had agreed to the bounty, but he didn't agree with the allocation plan and didn't give Shiller and his group half. Shiller cursed "stingy" in his mind, then closed the door.

He was tired last night; tonight he prepared to sleep well. So, he came to the chair by the fireplace, leaned on its soft back, yawned, and quickly fell into a dream.

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He, like Strange, quickly realized he was dreaming. But this time, he was tied to a chair, and a cold metal tool was stretching towards his mouth.

Shiller opened his eyes wide. Looking around, he noticed that it wasn't his own hands that were fixed to the chair's armrests, they looked thin and young, probably a child's.

The metal pliers suddenly clamped onto a tooth and then yanked it out fiercely.

Shiller gasped sharply. The real sensation of pain didn't wake him up; instead, his body began to tremble continuously.

Shiller instinctively looked at the hands holding the pliers, but saw nothing; the pliers seemed to be floating in mid-air, uncontrolled. Shiller looked further away.

The pain stimulated his brain, but the usual hazy illusions didn't appear; he only heard himself screaming in agony, tears streaming from his eyes. Clearly, this was not his response, but the child's.

Shiller couldn't help but curse in his mind: "Since there's no one operating it, why don't you run?"

Meanwhile, Strange also had an uneasy sleep. The strange dream from yesterday continued. The little girl was taken out of the cell, brought to a room with mysterious patterns on the floor, and then hoisted up.

He saw a blurry dark shadow kneeling at his feet. Strange was just about to look closely at this person's face when he felt a pain in his foot. A toenail was being pulled off.

Strange took a sharp breath. He could feel the pain, but couldn't fully control his body. The little girl struggled due to the pain, and all he could do was watch helplessly.

In a daze, he felt a beam of light. When he opened his eyes again, a faint light was coming from a small window above the room. It was already daylight.

Shiller woke up almost at the same time. He instinctively licked his teeth with his tongue, then froze in place.

He was missing a tooth!

Strange also instinctively checked his foot. He didn't feel pain, but when he took off his boots, he discovered that the nail on his right foot's big toe was gone.

Shiller got up from the chair, licking the spot where his tooth should have been. There was no bleeding, no remnants of tooth roots. The tooth seemed like it had never grown at all.

Strange also moved his toes; he didn't feel anything unusual, the nail on his big toe seemed to have never existed.

Both noticed each other's odd behavior, and at the same time, they stood up from their chairs. On the way to the operating table, Shiller paused. At that moment, the voice of the Bear Caregiver emerged outside the door.

"Want something good?"

Shiller quickly went to the door. Without waiting for the Bear Caregiver to speak, he immediately asked, "Can you sell stuff here?"

"Selling things? What do you have to sell?"

"Oh, quite a lot," Shiller took out the small crystal core he had previously kept, shook it in front of the observation window, then said, "How much is this worth?"

The Bear Caregiver behind the observation window immediately widened his eyes, lowered his voice, and said, "A Puppet Crystal? Where did you get this?"

"That's for me to know. I can only tell you, we have a steady supply and quality assurance here. Let us know what you need, and we can figure out how to get it. So, will you take it?"

The Bear Caregiver obviously struggled.

"This thing is dangerous," he said. "Not many dare sell it on the black market, yet you managed to get it..."

Shiller silently watched him.

"Okay," the Bear Caregiver clenched his teeth, "20 silver coins."

"You better not be scamming me."

"Selling this thing, I'm also taking a great risk, this price is fair."

After some haggling, they finally agreed on a price of 26 silver coins. Shiller also bought some other things.

After the Bear Caregiver left, Shiller saw the money bag he left on the ground, picked it up, and began counting the silver coins inside.

Just as Strange saw the light shining brighter than the silver coins behind Shiller's glass monocle, he knew, from that moment on, the nature of the game had changed.