Chapter One Hundred and Forty-Three - Pre-Op

  When I got home that evening, I tossed off my shoes, then set a Save. The first thing I did was go to a trustworthy site and download the spell formation for Sap Strength. That required my ID and about three thousand dollars.

  Luna Corp had a version of the spell as well, but looking at it, I discovered that it was a three year old pattern and that that specific version of Sap Strength wasn't rated really well.

  Crazy that people had entire rating systems and reviews for different versions of the same spell, but I supposed it was a bit like anything else.

  Sap Strength had a weird rep for being almost... dark? Not quite. Like... every elemental spell branch could blow off someone's head, so who was going to sit there and moralize, right? But some spells still felt more icky in the way they worked.

  Nature spells that promoted bacterial growth were apparently hella illegal. Those that fucked with a person's immune system were the same.

  And yet, spells that lit people on fire were A-okay.

  I understood the people that pointed out the obvious hypocrisy, and yet I was firmly in the 'I'm a hypocrite too and don't care' camp, because I'd personally rather have a water mage drown me with a 'bubble around your head' spell rather than kill me with a 'dessicate you alive' spell. Even if the end result was more or less the same .

  Sap Strength was seen by those with a stronger moral trigger as the first stepping stone down the long path towards some rather messed up spells. At the same time, it was also an entirely non-lethal touched-based spell, so the same people kinda liked it, because non-lethal spells that could safely put a person down without physically harming them were rare.

  Sap Strength was well-studied, and there were several dozen variations on the main spell.

  The formation I picked was noted as being a bit weaker than some, but it was also simpler. That had the key advantage of being faster to cast. Not as efficient as some other version--notably the ones that people used in more medical settings for various reasons--but I figured that if I was in physical contact with an enemy, I didn't want a spell that took three seconds to cast. I wanted something instant.

  I could fire off a Shadow Bolt in about a second. Faster if I focused. I wanted Sap Strength on the same timeframe.

  So I started carving out the spell, and two hours later gave up with a pounding headache.

  So... simple didn't mean simple. It was a relative thing, and Sap Strength had a weird three-dimensional structure that had a sort of suction-cup end and then a long shaft-y bit with a lot of smaller spell parts built into it.

  I had a vague idea of what some of the individual parts did, but nothing concrete.

  Maybe I could take an online course or something on spell crafting 101? I felt like I was probably just not smart enough for that. It was a lot of math. Anything past a level two spell needed computer simulations to figure out, and anything past like, level six took years to craft and super computers to figure out.

  At best, I might be able to tinker up some minor, inefficient cantrips at home.

  Infinite time was nice, but it didn't make me infinitely talented.

  I spent the rest of the loop taking a nap. Then I Reloaded and did it all over again.

  It took four loops before I had a completely carved version of Sap Strength, and it wasn't a very clean one.

  Oh well. It was... what, four days of normal progress for a normal person, condensed into a single evening? That wasn't bad at all. I Reloaded, did a run through just playing the guitar for an hour or two, then I looped again and practiced my French a little. I was... maybe getting somewhere with that. Not fast, but it was going.

  I was gonna be conversational one of these days, dammit. At this point, I wasn't sure I even needed to, but learning a new language was like self-improvement 101 and I had lots of time to do just that.

  The next Reload I spent catching up to anime, but with French dubbing and English subtitles. It was headache-inducing, but I might've learned a word of two. Très sugoi.

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  Before calling it for the night I recarved Sap Strength one last time. I didn't have anyone to test it on, so I 'dry fired' the spell, and it seemed to work according to what I'd read. It was good enough for now.

  I slept surprisingly well, woke up, showered, then headed out to work.

  Today was a non-training day. We were on standby the entire day, in case one of the recurring portals activated. I knew there were some E-Ranker teams at each location, lingering around and waiting. I also knew that none of those portals were going to go off today.

  It made the fact that Eldur didn't want us casting anything, to preserve magic, even more annoying. Couldn't just work out, either, since we were 'on call,' so I did paperwork and looked at memes on company time.

  The free time was mostly just getting me stressed.

  I had an operation coming up. My appointment with Orchid Lux was just in a few hours. I was going to go in, follow their little identity-disguising thing, get my new cyberware installed, then I was planning on having all of it checked over by a third party before Reloading and doing it all over again.

  I wasn't too stressed. Like, there was no reason to be?

  Orchid Lux did good work. Their reviews were good. My guinea pig had gone through the same operation with no issue. The cyberware was fine.

  Hell, I'd gotten operations before without any fuss, so like, why worry. Last time it had been sub-dermals, and in that timeline I'd only been an E-ranker. As a D-ranker I probably had much better healing and I'd be a lot more likely to come out of things alright.

  Still left me feeling like I had a growing pit in my gut.

  Should I go in with an escort? Fran wouldn't find it amusing, but Becky might come. Only... no, Becky and operation rooms probably didn't fit in together well. Besides, things might still be a bit awkward between us, yeah?

  The day crawled. It felt like every hour took five, and it was worse when I considered going through the whole thing again, only I didn't want to just casually have my Save point too close to the operation. If something did go wrong, I wanted a point way earlier in the day, so that I'd have more time to track the culprit down.

  Eventually, five o'clock rolled around and I was out of the door and riding my bike over to a pre-determined meetup point. It was just a few blocks over, a discreet little parking garage where I sat down and waited. I'd changed from, from my workwear to something more casual. An old t-shirt and sweatpants, ballcap and shades. Clothes that I didn't care much about and which were painfully nondescript.

  A van came around, stopped, then opened up. It was unmanned. One of those fancy self-driving units.

  I sat in the back, buckled in, then gave the passphrase to the automated driving system. The doors shut, and we were off.

  It wasn't even far. Three or so blocks away from Luna Corp's HQ, a bit closer to city centre. The van came to a stop in an alleyway between two office buildings that were... kind of plain and boring and barely worthy of note.

  The door opened, and I stepped out, just in time to be greeted by a young woman with full-facial cyberization stepping out of a doorway on the side of one of the offices. "Miss X, welcome," she said. "Codeword for the day is Argent."

  "Uh, mine's Lily," I replied.

  "That checks," she said before smiling and gesturing within. "We have been waiting for you. The operation is set to begin as soon as you're ready. Did you want a moment?"

  "No," I said as I shook off the nerves. From what I'd learned, this young Orchid Lux lady, and all of the surgery team, had implants that would superimpose a false face over anyone they saw. It was all very secure and a little freaky. Probably made six figures a year just greeting people.

  Within was a small waiting area with a pair of very shiny drones, and then further in, the surgery. All clean, all nice, all easy.

  I felt like puking, but that was normal too. "Let's get this over with, yeah?"

  ***