Max stiffened.
Blowing up?
His brain hadn’t even considered that option.
He looked back at the body—still breathing. Chest rising. Very much alive.
’Oh god. If I ss this up—’
This wasn’t a failed spell. This wasn’t a cracked phone or a burnt rune.
This would be murder.
His hands started shaking again as he clutched the mana stone. Suddenly it felt much heavier than it should’ve been, like it had gained weight just to spite him.
"I—wait," Max blurted, panic leaking through. "Blowing up isn’t... normal, right? That doesn’t usually happen, does it?"
One of the doctors snorted. "Only if you screw up."
Diaza tilted her head, watching him closely. "Relax, Max. You’re smart." Her eyes flicked down to the runes he’d drawn, glowing faintly. "And you already did the hard part."
That didn’t help.
Not even a little.
Max took a shaky breath, forcing his fingers to steady.
"Now I need sothing to activate these runes..." Max said, pointing at the diaza’s phone with a blood-sared finger. "According to this, a mana stone about the size of a fingernail should work."
He didn’t bother ntioning that what he’d drawn wasn’t just a simple healing array.
These runes weren’t fix-it-and-go magic. So of them were ant to read biological data—pulling information straight from the target’s DNA to make sure the magic didn’t go rogue. Others handled reconstruction, stabilization, and energy flow. It was an entire system layered on top of itself.
Max understood it now. Way too clearly.
And honestly? He really wished his first experint with sothing this complex wasn’t happening while a living person lay there with their stomach split open like a failed anatomy project.
Back on Earth, mana stones would’ve been worth their weight in gold. Probably more. He half-expected Diaza to laugh in his face or tell him to improvise with vibes and prayer.
Instead, one of the doctors nodded.
"We’ve got so lying around," he said casually. "We use them as batteries for so of the equipnt down here."
Max blinked.
"...You just have mana stones?" he asked.
The doctor shrugged. "Hospital stuff."
’Well... they don’t seem that rare after all,’ Max thought as the doctor handed him the mana stone.
It was a small white crystal, no bigger than a fingernail—smooth, almost pretty. Like a polished pebble you’d casually toss into a river.
And yet.
The mont it touched his palm, Max felt it. Power—dense, compressed, coiled tight inside the crystal. Enough energy packed into sothing so small that, if mishandled, it could probably turn this entire basent into a cautionary tale.
Cool, he thought dryly. Nothing says "second chance at life" like holding a portable disaster.
Still, he’d already co this far.
With a bit of self-deprecating humor bubbling up to keep himself sane, Max carefully slotted the mana stone into the hollow at the center of the rune array. The whole thing looked less like magic and more like an abstract piece of geotric art—clean lines, interlocking shapes, precise symtry. If nothing else, he could die knowing his first illegal spell was at least aesthetically pleasing.
He lifted the blood-stained paper and placed it gently against the open stomach.
Too gently. Like he was tucking in a blanket.
"...this should do...right?" Max asked, voice tight.
No one answered.
Then the mana stone flared to life.
White light pulsed outward, sharp and sudden—and the runes followed, igniting one by one as if soone had flipped a switch. The symbols glowed brilliantly, humming with energy.
The room froze.
Doctors stared. Diaza’s smile faltered—just a fraction.
And Max?
Max stared too.
The light exploded.
Not taphorically. Not poetically.
Just—white.
It flooded the room so fast Max didn’t even have ti to flinch. One second he was standing there, holding his breath; the next, his entire world was a blinding wall of light that erased depth, color, and common sense.
’Oh.
So this is it.’
Max’s brain did what it always did under pressure—ran comntary.
’Wow. Vaporization. Classic.
Guess this is what happens when you fail a practical exam.’
His eyes burned. He couldn’t see his hands. Couldn’t feel the floor. For a horrifying half-second, he was genuinely convinced his atoms were about to scatter across the basent like badly optimized data.
"I—uh," Max blurted into the void, panic cracking through, "sorry? To... everyone? This one’s on —"
He squeezed his eyes shut.
’Please don’t let this hurt. Or at least make it quick. Preferably funny.’
Then—
The light dimd.
Not all at once. It faded, slowly pulling back like a curtain instead of detonating like a bomb. Shapes crept back in. Colors returned. The room reassembled itself piece by piece, stubbornly intact.
Max blinked.
He was still there.
Still solid. Still tragically alive.
The blood-stained paper was still pressed against the patient’s stomach—but it was changing. The runes etched in blood flickered, their glow softening as the symbols began to warp, edges blurring like ink dropped into water.
The paper darkened.
Curled.
And then—without smoke, ash, or even a sll—it burned away.
Not burned like fire.
Burned like it was being erased.
The last fragnt vanished into nothing, leaving the air empty and clean... and revealing what lay beneath.
The wide, brutal incision was gone.
Not stitched.
Not scarred.
Gone.
Smooth, unbroken skin stretched across the man’s abdon, warm and whole, rising and falling steadily with each breath.
Silence slamd into the room.
For one long second, nobody moved.
Then—
"What the hell..." one of the doctors muttered.
Another was already stepping forward, snapping out of it first. "Check him. Now."
Hands moved. Instrunts whirred to life. Scanners were pressed against the patient’s body, readings flashing rapidly across screens.
"Vitals stable."
"No internal bleeding."
"Hold on—"
The doctor frowned, adjusting the settings.
"...There’s sothing there."
A pause.
Then, quieter—almost reverent—
"The kidney’s back."
That did it.
Every head in the room turned.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
All eyes locked onto Max.
He stood there, frozen, hands still slightly raised like he wasn’t sure if it was safe to lower them yet.
"...So," Max said weakly, voice cracking the silence, "good news?"
Nobody answered him.
They were staring the way people stared at lottery tickets, gold veins in rock, or livestock that suddenly learned how to multiply itself.
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