A storm of people rushed in, shouting as they checked the medical monitoring equipment.

  "We've got EEG spiking!"

  "Arrhythmia and desat!"

  "Stay calm! What could this be?"

  The neurosurgeon grabbed Luke. "What happened?"

  "I-I removed the tumor," Luke said.

  "And?"

  Luke looked at the many stern gazes surrounding the hospital bed. "Well, I sort of regrew the piece of missing brain."

  "Could be autonomic dysregulation!" another doctor shouted.

  "It fits!"

  So many people were shouting over each other, it was difficult to follow. Sweat poured down Alan's face despite him still being unconscious, and his breathing looked like it was slowing while the heart monitor was going crazy, rising far too high, then dropping before going up again.

  "Push Atropine!" someone shouted, and a nurse rushed up with a syringe, adding it to the IV line they'd set up.

  They all held their breath, but it wasn't working.

  "Flush him with Dopa!"

  The nurse hung a new bag and squeezed it. No improvement.

  "Dammit!"

  "What's next?" the anesthesiologist shouted.

  "Let me think," someone said. "We pace him, right? Get the heart steady!"

  "Everyone out of the way!"

  They all cleared back, and a different nurse threw open a defib container. With the pads on and the equipment set to pacing mode, she turned it on.

  "It isn't working! The heart isn't keeping up!"

  Someone in the corner muttered. "Shit. We're still getting paid, right?"

  "Someone get up on there! CPR! NOW!"

  Luke stepped up on the bed. Alan's body was shutting down, and the new brain tissue was the culprit, confusing the rest of the brain. This made all the autonomous systems go haywire. Tuning out the chaos around him, Luke closed his eyes and put a hand on Alan's shoulder.

  The anesthesiologist shoved Luke back. "Haven't you done enough?"

  "Alan is crashing and CPR isn't working," Luke said, raising his voice but remaining calm. "If you don't let me try again, he's done for."

  "You're not touching my patient again," another doctor said.

  Luke brought out the quarterstaff from his inventory and pulled it back, as if readying himself for a fight. "Alan is MY patient! Step back!"

  "A stick?" someone shouted. "You're going to fight us with a stick?"

  "You're doctors. None of you will want to fight an Integrated," Luke said. "Don't you know what we're capable of?"

  Their eyes shifted around, uncertain. Doctors command a lot of respect, but they're still just people. Luke stepped forward, and the anesthesiologist swallowed hard and moved back, then to the side.

  "We're losing him!" a nurse shouted.

  Again, Luke stepped up to the bed and closed his eyes to concentrate. Threads of Mana and Weaver's Eye told him Alan was a breath away from death. Activating Weaver's Mercy stabilized Alan’s poor condition, allowing Luke to get a better understanding of what was going on. With one thread in the patient's brain and two by his heart, the diagnosis was clear. While the resulting symptoms matched autonomic dysregulation, due to the new brain tissue in the physical realm, that wasn't all. The new piece of brain was cut off from Alan's mana channels. Thousands of tiny channels made the brain more complex than any other part of the human body, and many of those channels were now fizzling out.

  Alan's meta-heart was failing right alongside the physical heart. He must be running low on mana. Perhaps the mana channels in the brain consumed most of his mana when things went wrong. Like he'd done before, Luke attached a Thread of Mana to the meta-heart, draining his mana to keep Alan going.

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  Weaver's Mercy timed out.

  Luke used The Healer's Moment. He needed more time. Using a second thread around the physical heart to keep it going, Luke extended a third to massage the meta-heart as well. Mana must flow. This, however, was still just a way to keep the patient alive. A stalling procedure. To fix the issue, he needed to attempt something he hadn't tried before, creating new mana channels, and time was running out.

  Perhaps that skill that would allow him to pulse with the Threads of Mana would have been a good fit for this situation, if it was possible to use it without the intent to damage or destroy someone, but Luke figured it best not to worry about tools he didn't have and instead consider the ones available to him.

  With Healer's Moment running out, Luke shifted his focus to Alan's brain and the thread waiting just outside the new brain tissue. In that moment, the area looked like a black hole, with all the light from the mana channels pulsing around it.

  Luke poked at it first, but that did nothing. Then, ever so gently, he grabbed a mana channel running right next to the dark area, intending to divert it into the new tissue. Then he reconsidered and let go. Disturbing the channels already there was too risky. It might damage Alan's brain even more.

  The Healer's Moment timed out.

  Sound came crashing in again as the doctors' loud protests and complaining resumed. Luke's focus wobbled, but he held on, using willpower as a vise to keep his focus in check.

  System Message: Boon of Potential grants you an attribute point (+1 Willpower).

  "Heart rate stable," someone said.

  "Blood pressure holding," another one added.

  "Oxygen levels are dangerously low," one of the nurses said.

  The lungs. Luke had forgotten about the lungs. Without thinking, he extended another thread and wrapped it around the lungs.

  "CO? elevated," the nurse added. "He needs air."

  "Air," Luke mumbled. Speaking while working the Threads of Mana was difficult, to say the least. "Intubate him."

  "What?" the doctor asked.

  "Give him air. I'll squeeze it back out. Do it now," Luke said between gritted teeth.

  He saw in his inner eye how air began flowing into the lungs, and he matched the rhythm, squeezing it back out. In and out, in and out. It was getting difficult for Luke to breathe, too, and he drank a mana potion. It cleared his head a little, but his mana level was still too low. Luke had just bought himself a little more time.

  Luke went back to the problem with Alan's brain. Since he couldn't divert another mana channel, he had to create a new one. Pushing mana through the thread made it shine all the more brilliant. Luke willed mana to exit the thread at its tip, focusing it to a point, injecting it into the dark area. The area flashed, and mana channels sprang to life, if only for a brief moment.

  Luke felt light-headed. Focus. He needed to focus. The new channel fizzled into nothing without reaching across the empty area. A second thread. That would do the trick. Wouldn't it? Releasing mana from two threads on opposite sides would be enough to make the channels connect. That had to work. Then, if he just anchored those.

  Reaching out with yet another thread, a pang of pain surged through Luke's chest, and he grunted as the thread stopped, unable to reach farther. It wasn't even close to the brain. Luke pushed.

  System Message: Boon of Potential grants you an attribute point (+1 Focus).

  System Message: Boon of Potential grants you an attribute point (+1 Willpower).

  Luke strained for all he was worth, felt the brittleness of the many threads he was holding on to inside Alan. Still, he pushed.

  It all came crashing down.

  The five threads disintegrated, vanishing, and the machines’ beeping reverberated through Luke's skull as the room spun around him.

  "No!" he shouted. His mana was getting low. Far too low.

  Head throbbing, Luke struggled for breath. Focus, he just needed to focus. Giving up was not an option. Admitting defeat meant Alan's death. While he didn't know the man, not really, he hadn't become a healer just to stop because things got a little difficult.

  Two Threads of Mana. He could do two. Alan's heart, lungs, and even meta-heart would have to wait. The brain was the culprit. That was where Luke needed to focus. The two new Threads of Mana came unwillingly, almost failing, but Luke pushed, forcing them to stretch until both reached Alan's brain. The mana channels all around the dark area were dim. Alan's meta-heart was failing.

  Luke held the Threads of Mana at either end of the dark area and repeated the procedure from before. Mana spread through Alan's new brain tissue like lightning surging out into an impossible number of branches. Many of them connected... and held.

  Tying the new ones into existing mana channels allowed them to keep going, and Luke repeated the procedure, then again, adding more and more channels to create a web almost as intricate as what would've been there before the tumor.

  On the brink of collapse, Luke withdrew.

  He'd done it.

  Mana channels ran through the new tissue, connecting it with the rest of the brain. Still, Alan was so low on mana, without getting more, he wouldn't make it.

  With a single, brittle Thread of Mana, Luke, swaying on his feet, reached out to Alan's meta-heart. Checking his mana, he saw just how close to empty he was running himself. But there was a little left. He could offer up a tiny amount.

  He did so.

  When he did, his knees gave out and his legs doubled under him. Luke fell to the floor, his entire body trembling, cold. Thoughts came to him, sluggish, muddled.

  "He's stable," someone said.

  A shrill voice in Luke's ear stopped him from hearing. Or perhaps he did hear, but the words didn't register. Luke blinked and struggled for breath. Someone, the neurologist, Luke thought, turned him over and onto his back. Darkness crept in at the edges of his vision.

  The doctors kept shouting. Someone cut through his shirt and placed stickers on his chest. Heh, stickers. Luke didn't care. He stared up, ignoring the worried faces hovering over him. They weren't important. Not as important as what he saw up there. All around him, he saw Threads of Mana, so small he hadn't noticed them before. Wanting to reach out, he lifted his hand, but someone held it down against the floor. No, that wasn't it. The hand just wouldn't move.

  It was beautiful.

  It was the weave, the system itself laid bare before his eyes.

  "Pretty," he tried to say, but his lips wouldn't move either.

  Then he spotted something. A flicker of, not movement, but something. Intent, perhaps. That something hid in there, between the threads and beyond them. Far beyond.

  The void. Luke stared into the void.

  And it stared back at him.

  "Clear!" someone shouted.