Chapter Broken Bones
There are three rounds to the compet.i.tion.
First one is healing someone with ma.s.sive comminuted fractures. Both Sam and Saint has a volunteer of their own and they willingly had their legs broken just for the compet.i.tion.
Sam was pretty surprised by this. But this is the power of Saint"s reputation. Just the fact that he wanted to compete with someone to prove is credibility, made the citizens to go ahead and do something like this.
Both the volunteers are initial stage transcendent cultivators of Astral Plane.
Sam checked the legs of his patient and was surprised.
"How did you even agree with this? You know that your life would go to h.e.l.l if you don"t repair them properly right?"
Sam said in surprised as he use observation ability on the legs. Each leg has been broken at at least three spots and there are several bone fragments that are lodged into muscle tissue.
Some shards penetrated through the flesh and are visible outside with heavy bleeding.
Both legs are almost in a similar state.
Saint started performing his treatment, he is first using his wood elemental energy to set the bones back. In fact he is using some kind of special vine that extended from his fingers to collect and hold the bones together.
He gave the guy a shot of high dose of anesthasia.
He extended his palm and Light elemental energy gathered at it. He used the palm as a blade as he cut through the flesh and cut the leg open. He started bleeding but Sam used his water elemental energy to control the blood flow while using the other palm to fix the bones.
He is doing it a rapid pace and Saint who has been carefully using the vine just to remove the shards and place them all back together was a bit surprised.
If he wants to he could have just cut the leg and tried to regrow it. But he wouldn"t be able to do that anytime soon and it would take a lot of energy out of him. He also has to conserve energy for the other two rounds.
So, he used this intricate technique he came up by himself.
The beauty of this technique is that it can be used even in the middle of a battlefield, while running around.
Only he, the healer needs to have a clear understanding of the fracture and everything will be perfectly fine.
But he didn"t expect Sam to do it this fast, that too with a surgical method. He knows how hard it is to control the blood loss, handling anesthasia for the patients. It is almost impossible for a person to do it all alone. Even for him. But it seems like the opponent he looked down upon is doing it perfectly well.
He became a bit anxious and increased the pace of his treatment.
Meanwhile, Sam didn"t mind or pay any heed to Saint. He just focused on the surgery. It didn"t take long. He finished setting up one leg in just a few minutes, before he moved on the second.
Remove the shards, cut the leg open, control the blood flow, arrange the bone and heal. That is all Sam needed to do and within a few minutes he was done.
He thought he is fast, but then he looked at Saint who is also done exactly at the same moment.
Sam didn"t like it. Neither did Saint. They could feel the intensity of the compet.i.tion burning in their eyes.
Then came the judging time. Obviously they cannot have someone come and judge. Even if they asked someone to do that, there is no way they would just come there and judge Saint"s work.
That could just lead to making Saint an enemy for life. So, the only way they could find if it worked or not is to let the patients use their legs and see how they feel.
They also took Gandharva Oaths saying that they will only speak truth regarding the matter. It is to ensure fairness of the compet.i.tion.
The patients walked to the front of the stage and started battling. They are both warriors and they focused on the kicks. To see if there are any difference. But from the looks of it, there is none whatsoever.
They are both doing fine. So, it was a tie.
The two patients went off the stage to a resting area arranged specifically for them.
"Not bad, you managed to tie with me in this round. Seems like you have some substance after all."
Sam didn"t even bother to reply. He just sipped some wine to recover a bit and waited for his next patient.
The second round began soon enough and this time. The commutative fractures are on the ribs. The rib cages was broken at many spots and there are some severe lung piercings. On top of that, it seems like the person is subjected to some kind of curse.
Sam is really surprised that people let this happen to them voluntarily.
It is very dangerous. At least the first patients might fail to walk properly if the surgery ever failed, but this time, if things go sideways, they will literally die.
They will drown in their blood and die just like that.
Sam sighed and started the treatment. This time, he is a bit more careful. First he created a large barrier around them so that there is no interference from even the air in the surroundings.
The lungs are way too sensitive for him to let some variable to be involved.
He covered his palms with light elemental energy and started performing the surgery. The first thing he did is of course diffuse the curse. Even though he couldn"t identify the curse instantly, he could use some techniques that could cure a bunch of curses even if they are different.
He removed the curse in an instant and went on to cut open the chest of the patient after giving them some anesthasia.
This time, he used water and wind elements to stop the bleeding and also to supply oxygen to the blood through the damaged lungs while healing them simultaneously.
Saint saw Sam and frowned. He thought he was mistaken before when Sam used water element to control the bleeding on legs. But now he is sure. He is indeed using water element.
This surprised him because, even if someone is skilled in water element, they would never dare to use it in a surgery to control the bloodflow.
That is way too dangerous and even a slight disturbance will cause ma.s.sive loss.
To think that Sam not used the water element, but he is using it himself while simultaneously performing the surgery. This made Saint nervous. He couldn"t help but feel a bit small and anxious.
He shook his head to stop his brain from wandering in these thoughts and focused on the surgery.
The surgery this time is obviously way harder than the previous one. And coincidentally, they both finished at the same time again.
Once again, the patients who healed were given some medicine to recover their energy and physical strength to battle.
The battle went on for a few minutes and there are no side effects from the surgeries. Both of them went to the resting area while panting heavily.
Sam"s patient went back to normal after a few minutes, but Saint"s patient is still panting and it doesn"t seem like it would go away any time soon.
"What happened to you?"
"I think I went overboard. My breathing is a bit unstable. But I think I am getting better."
The attendant who heard this answer was stunned. He looked at Sam"s patient and asked.
"How are you feeling?"
"I am perfectly fine. It is almost like I didn"t even have this surgery in the first place. I feel like how I used to feel before the injuries."
This made the attendant dumbfounded. He ran to his superior and explained his findings who then went to meet the shopkeeper to explain this.
Shopkeeper was shocked and then the shock turned into sadness.
"It is good that we stopped them sooner. I wonder what would have happened if we let this discovery unfold in front of the audience."
He muttered to himself and told everyone to keep quiet about it. He looked at Sam and sighed.
This is unfair, luckily they didn"t mention anything related to this scenario in the oath, otherwise s.h.i.t would have gone sideways really fast.
He then looked at the third batch of patients. The final compet.i.tion.
"I just hope that this one also ends in a tie if it doesn"t end in our win. I don"t want to deal with the consequences if we lose."
"Boss, do you think we should…"
*PAK*
He slapped his subordinate on the head as he solemnly said.
"Don"t even think about it. Do you really want to stoop to that level? And Gandharva Oath is no joke. At least until now, we played within the rules, but if it goes past that, we will be dead as rocks."