The Surgeon's Studio

[Emergency Mission: Pileup Crash completed. The emergency rescue of two patients was successful.

[Mission Reward: 200 skill points, 30000 experience points, 2 silver chests.

[Mission Duration: 9 hours and 23 minutes, totaling 52620 experience points.]

The cold, unfriendly voice of the System droned on.

The rewards from the emergency missions were uninteresting. Zheng Ren felt that the in-depth missions yielded better rewards.

Of course, the System could simply be a fickle machine that randomly rewarded him.

The two surgeries he did for this mission had been fast-paced but were not high-level procedures—both were third-grade procedures. Zheng Ren looked at the progression bar for the main mission. Nine of ten were done; one more was needed to complete the whole cycle. He would then gain some bonus experience points.

He had been busy the whole day. The time for rewards had come.

Zheng Ren sat down and checked his inventory.

His general surgery skill had gone from 3154 to 3161 points. The gain was due to the recent surgery and the book he read. He still had 1739 unused skill points.

His heart pumped faster as he neared the rank of Master in the general surgery skill tree.

The Expert rank had granted him so many skills that decided the outcome of difficult surgeries. He wondered what a Master rank would give him.

From the Master rank in interventional surgery bestowed upon him by the System, he knew there was a fundamental difference between the ranks.

During the placenta abruption case, Zheng Ren was just at Expert. Using incompatible instruments and materials, he had managed to complete the surgery without incident.

He was a Master when he performed the pelvic fracture arterial embolization surgery. Each superselective embolization of the external iliac arterial branches went smoothly as if the guide wire was a living thing that had found its own way to the damaged vessels.

It felt like the guide wire moved with his will.

Zheng Ren was eager to find out how a being Master rank in general surgery would feel.

General surgery was the start of his career and the first skill that he had invested in. Hence, he had a soft spot for the field.

It was only 100 skill points and one mission away. A smile graced his face.

Looking at his steadily growing skill tree, Zheng Ren thought he could see his future. The vast knowledge that he would gain from the Master rank spurred him forward.

Skill tree… That was weird. The highest skill tree Zheng Ren had was in interventional surgery, an area that had been strongly recommended by the System, followed by the general surgery skill tree.

His skills in other areas were too low to be counted, but there was one small sprout that had broken ground and risen to eye level.

This…

It was the cardiovascular surgery skill tree.

Zheng Ren realized that interventional radiology was applied in neurology, angiology and cardiology throughout the world. Angiology was probably one of the areas that heavily utilized it as iIt was useful in procedures like coronary bypass and stenting.

The boost in interventional surgery likely brought up his interventional cardiology skill and filled his cardiovascular surgery skill tree.

No; Zheng Ren checked the details again. The System had given him the Master rank and upgraded all the skill branches in the interventional surgery skill tree. He was now a Master in all types of interventional surgery, ranging from neurosurgery, peripheral vascular surgery, cardiovascular surgery and more.

It seemed that an emergency coronary bypass surgery might fall under the emergency department’s jurisdiction one day.

He chased away the thought.

If a normal surgeon’s stress level while operating was an eight out of ten, then a cardiovascular surgeon’s stress level would be at ten.

He remembered an encounter many years back when he was still a houseman. He was resting with his mentor in the on-call room on a quiet night when they heard a shriek. Zheng Ren’s drowsiness instantly vanished and he saw his mentor run outside without his shoes.

His mentor had managed to rescue the patient but hurt his foot in the process. The floor was smeared with his blood.

A cardiac arrest… The thought of it drained the energy from most doctors.

Most emergency rescues had a window of minutes before their success rate plummeted, but cardiovascular emergencies had seconds.

Even if Zheng Ren could perform such surgeries, he would need a specialized nurse to assist with the machines.

He thought about establishing a green channel for patients with chest pains, but it was a faraway dream. He would leave that to Old Chief Physician Pan. In the meantime, he should focus on leveling up his general surgery to the Master rank.

One step at a time.

Do not bite off more than you can chew.

Zheng Ren carefully put his special lead vest aside. Then, he went to look at the three shiny silver chests.

The two chests were from the latest mission while the other was from a previous one. He did not even bother opening it.

Zheng Ren was averse to the System’s gimmicky, luck-dependent reward.

He was from a lower-class family that was struggling. A year ago, he had treated an old patient.

The patient was a mentally disturbed and skinny man who was only 50 years old but looked 70.

Through their conversations, Zheng Ren found out that the patient had once been a big shot in the financial world.

When the first shopping mall popped up in the center of Sea City in the late eighties, this man had the foresight to monopolize the city’s shopping mall industry.

Back then, it was all about the money… It was an opportunity and he grabbed it.

He took three years to amass three million yuan worth of assets, which was equivalent to a few billion yuan now. Basically, he was the richest man in the city.

However, good things never last and in the early nineties, he developed an interest in slot machines.

Within a year, he had managed to burn through all his assets.

He quit at one point and got back into business, but the addiction returned.

The cycle repeated itself multiple times over ten years. In the end, he was destitute and ended up operating a minimart opposite the hospital, living the average life.

His wife was many years younger than him. Zheng Ren could tell she was a no-nonsense lady.

They had a normal relationship. Zheng Ren wondered why a smart, capable lady would stay with a man who lacked the strength to resist slot machines.

He never knew what became of them.

It had been a long time since Zheng Ren last saw the patient. The minimart had also disappeared following the rise of shopping malls.

All in all, it was not a happy story.

Zheng Ren had heard of pay-to-play in many online games these days. People paid to open treasure chests in hopes of rare items that would make their characters stronger.

He had never paid any mind to his luck, of whether he was a European King or an African Chieftain.

After all, one should be down to earth in life.

The silver chests were nothing compared to the skill points he earned through surgery.

He took one look at his skill trees and exited the System, satisfied. He did not look back at the chests.

Back in the changing room, he put on his usual scrubs and heard a voice from the operating room.

“The riders are no longer delivering. So, what are we eating?”