I'm eye-catching, but I don't look alien in the market streets of the capital. People walk around in armor, robes, or bulletproof vests. It looks like a convention is being run around the corner. There are a few different market districts, but I'm in the free market district. Many blankets and stalls with various goods are laid out for the passerby to see. I rented a prime spot for six hours for 400 credits. Most stalls and the land they inhabit are owned by actual people, not the guild, but the best places have been bought out. I managed to persuade the guy from the merchants guild to give me a discount, but I think the mask intimidated him. That or he hates birds.

I want to, at least add an extra zero behind my current amount of credits. I have a sign that says [I can Heal ANYthing] right in front of me. It was five minutes before a kid walked up to my stand.

"Wow! Nice mask, mister! Are you a real healer?"

I tap the sign. Then I pull out another sign and place it next to the old one. It just says, [Prices are negotiable].

"I'll give you five credits if you can help my hamster, Carl. I found my hamster in the trash. Carl is my friend, but I dropped him a few times, and he isn't moving."

I use scientific insight on the "hamster."

[Dying Rat F lv2

This creature is dying from crushing-related injuries. The initial prognosis shows that a small child has stepped on it. It has a minor disease (contagious)]

Healing something for only five credits is basically free labor. I don't see why free publicity wouldn't hurt. I cup my gloved hands and hold them out for the child to put the "hamster" into my hands. The kid practically high-fives the thing into my hands. I heal the creature before it can go to rathalla. As a bonus, I get rid of the disease as well.

"You should take better care of your pets. They are more fragile than you think." My voice comes out muffled while wearing the mask. It makes conversation inconvenient.

"Okay, thanks. I'll come back when Carl gets hurt again. Here."

He takes Carl from me and transfers the credits at the same time. Carl vehemently tries to escape but ultimately fails. I realized that this kid seemed eight, but he had his system activated.

[Adolecent Animal Abuser lv15]

"Bye, mister doctor."

"Tell your friends and family about me. Unless they are enforcers."

The kid wanders away with his friend, still squirming in his hand. The old lady who set up shop next to me watched the interaction and spoke up once the kid left.

"Sonny, can you look at my arm? I don't have many credits, but I can direct my customers to you."

I look at the lady and the weird mass growing on her arm. She's selling fruit. I healed her arm, and I came to a realization. Rich people will go to a hospital instead of getting healed by a random guy in a bird mask. I have to be "that guy in a bird mask" as an alternative. I gotta play the long con if I want to make massive money.

I spend the rest of my day healing the vendors and integrating myself into the community of this place. Bad backs, arthritis, cataracts, scarring, etc. Most vendors are older and grateful that a "good person" is willing to go around and show real generosity. I'd say vague things like "putting it forward," "it's totally my religion," and "I'm licensed." Just covering my bases.

My healing skill is overpowered compared to other skills. It doesn't have a range beyond touch, but it can technically cure 99% of conditions. It does more than increase someone's health bar. Its very nature is philosophical. The system is no stranger to vague and confusing descriptions, but I haven't come across something I couldn't "heal," just things I didn't have enough mana for. I still don't know if I could heal "concepts" since how the fuck do I touch a concept. I want to find someone who just got out of a harsh breakup and see if I can heal a "broken heart."

I want to experiment, and since I'm doing most of this healing for free... The results were interesting.

I could heal male pattern baldness, but the mana consumption grew the more hair I restored. A happy wig maker is now willing to tell all his bald friends about me. It directly cuts into his business, but who am I to complain? Curing bad eyesight is infinitely better than curing blindness. I gave up halfway from healing a trader's "bad eye" because I'd run out of mana.

I wonder if healing someone who didn't need it or forcing the healing on one uninjured spot would cause issues like cancerous tumors, but nothing like that popped up. I could "heal" someone's greying hair back to black, but I couldn't "heal" it into a different color. Guess I'm not opening a salon. Being able to experiment freely with so many test subjects almost made me forget that I'm doing charity work at this point.

I stopped asking for money, but I still accepted tips. Forcing someone to pay me, so I could experiment on them felt wrong. But I won't turn down "free" money. [Broken Blood] has a cooldown of one hour, so I pace my one thousand or so mana to last roughly an hour. For ambitious experiments, like curing someone's obesity, I do the infinite mana glitch to "break barriers." The only downside is that I'm actively killing myself even if I keep my health bar high. Taxing my life force isn't fun.

I grew a crowd at this point. People are willing to approach the shady healer if everyone is doing it. I also noticed that the higher the level, or more likely, the higher the vigor stat, the harder it was to heal them. The mana cost for some of these injuries is ambiguous since I'm not raising a lowered number. I eventually told everyone, "I'm tired, but I'll return on the morrow."

I earned around 57,000 credits in donations/tips alone. I more than doubled my credits just by acting generous. I'm .03 credits away from 100,000. The capital is something else.

I want to sleep for a few hours before master Wang puts me through the meat grinder. We're going to start training for a skill that involves breaking all the bones in my body multiple times. Eventually, I'll be able to move my bones without needing my muscles, whatever that entails, and dislocate anything at will. Also, broken bones at this point wouldn't affect me as much in battle. Who needs to be flexible when you can break your bones instead? That's what master Wang said.

Rob came to watch the training, wincing every time something broke. I don't know whether it's empathy, care for his master, or if he sees something in his collection being broken. I once again asked master Wang why I needed to break my prothetic for this training, and he shut me up. At least my resistance is growing at an unhealthy rate.

[Resistance: Blunt 699 > 700 (800)]

[Resistance: Blunt 700 > 715 (815)]

Blunt is my highest resistance, and it finally broke through the bottleneck. It isn't growing as fast as I want it. It might be because it's getting high or that master Wang's blows are surgical in their impacts. He forbade healing and made me "remember" the sensation. I think I nailed it first try, but he didn't believe me. I left the training session fully healed and surprisingly limber.

I don't go straight back to the market district. I check on my beasts. Prometheus was also with me for my training but was more interested in eating the exercise equipment. I decided that calling Prometheus "it" was objectifying one of my beasts, so I'll call it he until I learn enough about ooze biology to make a distinction. Ships are female, so why can't a sentient molten sludge be a dude?

Duchess doesn't need me to lord over her while she works on her evolution requirements. She only needs materials once in a while, so I buy them for her. Before I knew what lording over a graveyard was, I had Rob read government books, but now that I know it's a battle thing, I don't have much for him to do. I gave him access to the internet when we were out of the mansion together so he could do some research, but he only watched cat videos and looked up pictures of different bones.

I decided to give him every book about, related to, or mentioning bones in the library, so he could be happy and learn while I found a way to get him his undead-filled graveyard. Flash Gordon and Khan are hard to train. Flash Gordon doesn't do anything unless I tell him to, so when he isn't playing doctor with me (I have him hidden on my person), he's soaking mana from one of my master's estates. It's no issue at master Wangs, but the beasts at master Giles contest for the best spot. I don't think they care that Flash Gordon is there, but not all the mana is going to him.

I spent another few hours healing people until a strange encounter with a weird man. He seems middle-aged, but his hair has gone white. His ears a slightly pointed, but nothing screams inhuman. He walks with a cane but doesn't need one. The weirdest thing was that he sniffed me. That and the fact he doesn't show up with [Scientific Insight+].

"Hello... Young man... Do you have a moment to spare... I see you are busy, but I have an interesting proposition for you... Please don't feel pressured, but it's quite urgent...."

"I'm not the kind of healer to do happy endings."

"Please, behave... It isn't remotely like that... it's more of a business proposition..."

He drags out the last syllable in every sentence he speaks. His voice is almost hypnotic. I feel compelled to do the opposite of what he says. Before I could refuse again, one of my "patients" said something.

"Mister healer, I'm sure what's ailing him is embarrassing, so he doesn't want treatment publicly. I'm sure we can wait a few minutes."

My mask hides my expressionless face.

"Sure... let's go with that... I have something that needs fixing..."

"..."

He whispers, "I'll pay you 100,000 credits to hear me out... Please,,,,"

He touches my shoulder, and a window appears to transfer credits. All 100,000 are there. I don't like this guy, but he doesn't seem to have malicious attempts. The money helps his case, but do I want to be alone with him? I have Flash Gordon with me, so I'm not alone. I accept his money.

I'm in an alleyway, just out of sight of everyone on the street. Something feels off about this guy besides the words he says... I can't put my finger on it. Speaking of fingers, this guy has a wicked manicure. Black nails sharpened to a point. It must be hard typing on a keyboard with those babies.

"What do you want?"

"I'll be quick... I promise... Are you willing to sell your blood...?"

"Strange request. Only if you aren't a vampire or someone who knows how to cast curses."

"..."

"Shit."

"...I can promise neither, but I can make it worth your while...?"