An Omniscient Cultivator (LitRPG cultivation)

Human anatomy is indeed marvellous. It's the most beautiful thing God ever made. Every organ, tissue, and system works harmoniously to sustain life. Fall of any of these might destroy that harmony, which was not something as a doctor i wanted to see.

"Among all the organs, my favourite is the heart," I said to myself, slipping on a pair of sterilised gloves. The dim yellow glow from the lamp illuminated a bare chest.

"Don't you ask me why." My gaze fell on the terrified eyes of my patient. Cute. His wide, bulging eyes screamed for mercy, from them tears streamed down to the tape sealing his mouth.

"Oh, I forgot—you can't speak." I giggled, my fingers dancing over the container of tools before selecting a scalpel with a swift movement. The blade glinted, reflecting the panic etched on his face.

"The heart never stops working on it's own. And if it does, well, it doesn't need to work anymore," I murmured, dragging the scalpel down his chest in a precise incision.

"Mmph! Mmh!" Why that muffled cries? I glared at the terrified pair of eyes.

"Oh, are you trying to say something?"

"Mmhh! Mmph!"

"I heard that now. Loud and clear."

The sound of the scalpel slicing through skin and muscle was almost surreal. I had to resist the urge to lose myself in the sensation.

I'm a lifesaver, you know—not a life taker.

The incision deepened, exposing the sternum. My hands extended, and one of my boys handed me a retractor.

I blinked at it, then carefully applied pressure to spread the ribs apart. Ah, the sound. I doubted even moans during sex could bring this kind of euphoria.

The heart bounced inside the ribcage, a beautiful, defiant rhythm. My eyes trailed over the blocked coronary arteries. A smirk flickered across my lips before disappearing. I always became serious from this step.

"You're lucky, y'know. My success rate in this is 100%." My gaze shifted to one of my boys on the left.

I nodded, prompting him to connect the patient to the machine that would take over his heart's function until I cleared the blockage.

It was always a sight to see the heart suddenly stop beating. A rare moment for it to rest from its continuous work of pumping. The heart-lung machine took control, its rhythmic hum filling the tent. My gaze hardened.

Next came the crucial part—harvesting veins. I moved to the end of the bed, my palm brushing along his leg. Goosebumps appeared on his hairy skin.

Ah, disgustingly cute.

I began extracting the saphenous vein from his leg.

"Oh, wait. What's his name again?"

"Alex, Miss Doctor," one of my boys replied.

From Alex's leg, I prepared the vein to graft around the blocked coronary arteries. The process was physically tiring but mentally refreshing.

After what felt like an eternity, the moment of excitement arrived. I took the vein graft and expertly attached one end to the aorta and the other to a healthy artery below the blockage.

I repeated the procedure for the second and third blockages, clapping my hands together when I finished.

"It's a success!" My cheerful voice echoed in the makeshift operating theatre.

But my smile faded when I saw Alex's face. His eyes weren't filled with gratitude—just intense fear and pain.

Why?

Then it hit me like a wave of ocean. I arched my back and laughed.

"Oh no. We forgot the anesthesia." My gaze fell on Alex, his trembling form pitiful. I forced a few tears to spill, even though they burned like the entire bottle of water I'd downed earlier.

"That's fine, Miss. He looks like someone who doesn't need it," one of my boys said, thumping his chest.

Ah, my bad. How could I forget? I wiped my wasted tears and smiled.

"That's it," I locked eyes with Alex, said while imitating himself, "You said before, 'Even if I die, I'll never betray my master.'

How could I let such a loyal man die? This session is free, just for you. So noble of me, right, Alex?"

Right?

Before closing his chest, I gestured for the tape to be removed from his mouth.

"You beast…" he spat, the stench making me cringe.

"What an ungrateful fella. Miss, how about we re-block his arteries?" one of my boys suggested.

"That's a great idea." I tilted my head, fake surprised to see horror morphed into first primal expression of a human in Alex, "Eh, why are you nodding like that, Alex? So eager for round two?"

Eventually, Alex broke. He spilled everything—about his master, Silas Sinclair, heir to the Sinclair family, and their ties to an organ trafficking organization.

Smart of Silas to pin all the blame on me after he got caught. Not that I cared about a few more countries on my back, but it soured my mood to be blamed without compensation.

"Let's pay Silas a visit," I said, turning to my boys.

"And him?" one asked, gesturing to Alex.

"Oh, his heart needs air to avoid re-blocking."

We took a flight. Strange, the always-present escorting copters were not in sight. I knitted my brows, glancing at Rishab in the pilot's seat, who flinched at my gaze.

So, that's it.

"How much?" I leaned into my seat, watching his fists clenching on the cyclic stick.

"It's not money…"

"Then what? Women? You know that's easy. I never mind airplay…"

"Not that…" His knuckles turned white. I saw something I'd never seen in my boys: defiance.

But not against me. The frown that had disappeared on me reappeared again.

"Say that fuckin' reason!" All the illusions I had kept up for hiding my real feelings surged forth like a cyclone.

I was a hundred percent sure none of my boys would betray me; they had no reason to. Everything a person could dream of, I gave them.

On this entire Earth, no one but me was worth their loyalty. Then why?

Anger surged within me, not against them, but against that reason. Whatever it was, I would destroy it.

"So tell me, Rishab. Don't force me to pull this trigger." A metallic touch on his neck stiffened him. I put my finger on the trigger.

Sweat beads tickled down his neck, but he didn't speak. My patience was thinning, and the pressure on the trigger grew.

A sickening sound of a bullet piercing through skin rang out. But I hadn't pulled the trigger.

"For freedom…" That was what I heard from Rishab before my eyes went dark.

* *

Freedom… an absurd mirage of illusion we humans always thought we had. But in my opinion, this same illusion was what chained us all along. Was it truly freedom we always sought? No, it was something else entirely.

In my opinion, that 'something else' was power. And it always jolted me back to reality to realise that this power, too, was chained. It felt as though we humans were forced to have a limit—endless, illusionary, but still a real limit. What I always sought was to break that limit. Only then could one be truly free.

So I was angry. Not because of Rishab's betrayal, but because of the reason behind it. Did he actually think he had gained freedom at the cost of my life? Naive! I was certain that, when the time came, he would find himself trapped in that same illusion once more, again chasing a freedom that never existed in the first place.

I watched as the shapeless form of my soul shimmered with ethereal light, drifting across a multicoloured bridge toward a large door that materialised magically in the air. My senses extended beyond the bridge to a mirror mirroring rows of shapeless forms, waiting in line.

"So this is death," I thought. I had no idea what waited beyond that door for me, but the unsettled feelings washing over me from those ahead told me it was nothing pleasant. After what felt like an eternity, I stood before the door, staring at my reflection in the mirror with a dumbfounded expression.

Next to the mirror stood a skeletal figure holding a large scythe over its shoulder. But that wasn't the reason for my surprise. The reflection staring back at me wasn't my own. And the expression on that reflection was the exact opposite of mine.

"Tara Kingsley," the skeleton read aloud a name I'd never heard before.

Age: 15

Reason of death: Bitten by a venomous snake."

Was betrayal classified like this? Not really. I was sure there was some kind of error, so I tried to correct the skinless, naked figure before me.

"Oi, my name is—"

But I couldn't finish my sentence. My words abruptly choked in my throat, and to my horror, the reflection in the mirror finished it instead.

"…is Tara Kingsley."

The skeleton seemed frozen in its movement as the surroundings around me began to shatter. My gaze fixated on the reflection of a silver-haired girl in the mirror, her light blue irises contracting in terror. Wait, that's my current expression.

And then everything turned upside down. A canopy of green trees replaced my surroundings, followed by searing pain, and then my consciousness was plunged into darkness.

* *

A few bumps on my head awakened me. I fluttered open my eyes, and in the next instant, my nose twitched as an urge to throw up reached my mouth.

What's with this smell? I turned to my left, then to my right, before staring at the branches of trees racing past me.

Surrounding me were humans—unnaturally cold and blue. Dead bodies! The color of their skin told me all of them were poisoned, and the smell pointed to them being dead for at most half a day.

I was inside something that resembled an open carriage. It took a few more seconds for the electric signals from my sensory receptors to reach my brain, as I felt a hammering pain in my head.

Unknown memories flooded into my mind, my brain failing to group them while trying hard to store them without breaking apart.

"Ugh…" A suppressed cry escaped from my lips, halting the movement of the carriage.

Sensitive group, eh.

"Did you hear something from there?" asked a voice.

"There's no chance for someone to be alive in the corpse room," replied another voice, strained at the end.

A shadow covered my form, and I squinted at the bare-chested man outside the carriage.

My gaze lingered on his shrivelled chest for a few moments before falling on the large axe resting on his shoulder. The axe shimmered in my sight, and a name came to my tongue in an instant.

'Artefact- Weapons weaved with metallic elemental essence, possessing durability and strength far greater than ordinary weapons. Some powerful artefacts might have even engraved spells on them.'

My eyes widened at this information. Terms I had never heard of before began to surface, the memories stored in my brain unraveling with it.

The world I was currently in had something my previous world didn't—magic! I stared at the face of the man, his brows raised on his almost mummified face.

"I don't remember having you here…" he rubbed his chin.

Crap, they seem to have caught me. Hehe, now it's interesting.

~What are they gonna do to me?

I couldn't wait…