Chapter 304: Compliment
Kael mostly ignored the flirting after that, answering with grunts or short replies whenever necessary. To the man’s credit, he did good work. The wild length was cut down and shaped, the red hair cleaned and styled enough that Kael could look in the mirror without seeing a half-drowned survivor of three separate nightmares. He looked different. Still rough. Still too large. Still not the old Kael.
But human enough.
After that, he took a taxi to the hospital.
Sitting in the back seat felt strange. Too soft. Too normal. The driver kept glancing at him through the mirror, opened his mouth twice as if to ask something, then wisely chose silence. Kael watched the city slide past the window and kept one hand near his inventory out of habit. Every traffic light felt too slow. Every turn felt unnecessary. Every minute away from the hospital made the Elixir feel heavier.
When he arrived, he paid, stepped out, and entered the building.
The hospital smelled the same.
Disinfectant. Old air. Coffee. Fear. Hope. Death postponed by paperwork.
Kael hated how familiar it was.
He was soon met by the doctor, a tired-looking man who had been overseeing his mother’s treatment long enough to recognize Kael by voice before appearance. This time, he nearly walked past him. Then he stopped, turned back, and looked Kael up and down with open surprise.
"What happened to you in the last month?" the doctor asked. "How did you grow that big? I didn’t even recognize you at first."
"Got invited," Kael said.
The doctor’s expression changed immediately.
Not understanding everything, but understanding enough. The Tower explained too much and not enough at the same time.
"Ah," he said softly. "I see. Well, that should make things easier for you and your mother then."
"How is she?" Kael asked.
The doctor motioned for him to follow.
They walked through the corridor together, past rooms where machines beeped softly and families sat in chairs pretending not to be terrified. "So far, stable," the doctor said. "She hasn’t shown significant changes, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad. With her condition, no deterioration is already something we count carefully."
Kael’s jaw tightened. "But?"
The doctor exhaled. "But about the hospital bills..."
"I got a cure."
The doctor stopped walking.
"What?"
Kael turned to him. "I said I have a cure. I can take my mother out of this place."
The doctor stared at him for a long second.
Then his eyes sharpened, and his voice lowered. "You have an Elixir?"
"Yes."
"And you want to use it?"
Kael looked at him as if the question itself was strange. "Yes."
The doctor’s expression softened in a way Kael had not expected. "You’ve done well."
The words hit him harder than they should have.
Kael almost looked away.
Most would have said it was a waste. He knew that. Elixir was not merely expensive. It was absurd. A Legendary item with the ability to undo sickness, curses, hexes, and damaged bodies was the sort of thing guilds fought over, rich men killed over, and climbers carried like a second life. Using it on an old, unconscious woman in a hospital bed would sound insane to people who measured life in market value.
The doctor seemed to read part of that thought and sighed. "Most would think it a waste, using something that expensive this way."
Kael’s face hardened. "Who would ever think it a waste to cure their mother from a mortal disease?"
"Not everyone in the world is a good child," the doctor said. "And not everyone in the world is a good parent."
The hallway felt quieter for a second.
The doctor placed a hand briefly on Kael’s shoulder.
"You’ve done well. Really"
This time, Kael could not dodge the words.
For a brief second, it felt like something sharp slipped between his ribs. A compliment. A simple one. Nothing grand. Nothing poetic. Just approval, clean and direct, from someone who understood what he had brought and what he had chosen to do with it.
He had not heard something like that in a very, very long time.
When they entered his mother’s room, Kael stopped beside the bed.
She looked smaller than he remembered.
That thought was stupid because she had always looked small in this place, swallowed by white sheets, tubes, machines, and the slow cruelty of sickness. But after the Tower, after monsters and giants and training that turned his own body into something huge, the sight of her nearly broke something in him. His unconscious mother lay still, eyes closed, face lined with exhaustion she had never deserved. The machines beside her continued their soft rhythm, indifferent to miracles.
Kael pulled the Elixir from his inventory.
The vial appeared in his hand, crystalline and impossible.
The doctor inhaled quietly despite himself.
"Good," he said. "Let me administer it."
Kael handed it over carefully.
The doctor examined the vial, then frowned slightly. "Oh. This looks like it has two charges."
"It does."
The doctor looked at him for a moment, then nodded and moved to the bedside. He tilted Kael’s mother’s head with practiced gentleness and uncorked the vial. Normally, dripping liquid into an unconscious patient’s mouth like this would have been dangerous, idiotic even. People could choke. Bodies could reject. But Elixir was not normal liquid. It acted like water only until it touched living tissue. Then it soaked in, vanishing into the body as if flesh itself knew to accept it.
The doctor let half the contents fall, drop by drop, onto her tongue.
The Elixir disappeared.
No cough.
No choking.
No waste.
The remaining half glowed faintly inside the vial.
The doctor sealed it again and handed it back to Kael.
"Keep this half," he said. "I’d recommend you sell it, if you had no other need for it. It will catch a very good price. You could quit your job, your climb, and live with your parent well for the rest of your life. No bills. No work. No debt. This thing costs millions of dollars."
Kael accepted the vial and stared at the remaining charge.
"I wish I could do that."
The doctor studied his face. "Tower frenzy?"
"What’s that?"
The doctor frowned. "Most people who climb usually go back to the Tower, no matter how much money they make. We call it Tower frenzy. They earn enough to live like kings, yet still return." He gave a tired shake of his head. "Look at Asher Vylan, for example."
At the mention of that name, Kael’s face twisted.
Only for a second.
Then it returned to normal.
The doctor noticed, but did not comment.
"He’s rich," the doctor continued. "The strongest climber. Power, wealth, influence, everything a man could ask for. Yet he still goes back to the Tower. I call it foolish."
"I understand," Kael said. "But I have something compelling me to return."
The doctor’s frown deepened.
"I see."
Kael placed the remaining Elixir back into his inventory.
"Then keep it," the doctor said. "And do not tell others about it. They’ll crave it. They’ll want it. Some will come with offers of money. Others with steel. Be careful out there."
Kael nodded. "Thank you."
Then the machine beside the bed changed rhythm.
Only slightly.
A soft shift. A fragile difference.
Kael’s head snapped toward his mother.
Her fingers moved first.
Barely.
Then, after years of stillness, her eyelids began to flutter.
However, even after waiting for long, she didn’t open them.
"That’s a good reaction. The elixir is a soft cure," the doctor said.
"What does that mean?"
"It means it is slow acting, it will work, but it will take a bit of time. Having a body that’s saturated with mana simply losing all of it will cause it to collapse. The Elixir is slowly grinding away at it while recovering the body, it will finish its job in a couple of days. But I think you should go and rest."
"If it’s two days, I’ll wait here."
"Don’t be like that, that’s harmful to you, I still have your contact so I’ll call you when she wakes."
"I lost my phone..."
"Get new one then, you must keep yourself occupied, the more you think of this the more stressful it will become. Go out, go meet up with your girlfriend, go out for drinks, relax, let yourself and your mind rest from the Climb."
"I should do that shouldn’t I," Kael would sigh and nod, he took a look at his mother one last time and left the hospital. Stares followed him wherever he went, but he didn’t care much, he now had fulfilled one of his goals. Now it’s time for the rest.
He needed money.
A lot of money.
Selling the elixir would solve that issue immediately, but. It will also be like trading an extra life for immediate gain. Sure he can get more elixir in the tower, but that is if he is lucky to find it, and if he is lucky to survive long enough to find it.
He couldn’t sell it.
And among his gear...
A ring caught his attention. A simple ring, that recovers the wearer’s mana. An Epic Tier ring he got from beating a monstrous goblin.
"I wonder how much this would fetch..."
He stared at the ring in the palm of his hands.
[Ring of Returning Tides]