Chapter 166
Chapter 166
Chapter 166
Garrett Nordmark looked at the goose cages with difficulty. He was the youngest among the group, having just turned 15 after the New Year. Despite his small stature and short arms, the geese in front of him were not small at all.
A whole wall, both upper and lower rows, contained a total of ten cages, each holding two or three geese. There were white, gray, and brown ones, flapping their wings, raising their heads, and loudly honking at him.
"Which one should I choose?"
This time, Corrine, who had just reached the second level, asked him with a mischievous smile. Garrett, full of resentment, gave him a glare.
"Who among us, growing up together, doesn’t know each other? I won’t choose. Can’t you do it yourself?"
"We’re all mages. Who has ever raised geese by hand? Who needs to pick when the geese at home need to be eaten? If you want goose liver, just go outside. Otherwise, instruct the cook at home, and you’ll have it that night."
"Garrett, hurry up!" Anthony chimed in, clapping his hands. The head chef had already gone back to work, and although the restaurant owner smiled and had a round belly, there was no sign of intervening. Garrett gritted his teeth, looking around.
"Did any of you bring processed leather?"
"Come on, Garrett. We’re just catching a goose. Do you need mage armor for this?"
The young mages burst into laughter. Processed leather was the material for mage armor, something they were all familiar with. However, did catching a goose require such a setup?
Garrett blushed, realizing he had to compromise. He cast a shield spell on himself. With the invisible shield in front of him, he approached a goose cage, opened the latch, and pulled the cage door slightly.
"Honk, honk, honk!"
Immediately, a large goose stuck its head out. With its snow-white long neck extending and retracting, and an orange beak, it grabbed Garrett’s hand with a honk.
The shield spell acted like a shield hanging in front of him, protecting the front but not the sides. The goose moved too quickly, and Garrett couldn’t react in time.
"Hoo!"
Garrett felt tears welling up. With a peck and a twist, the goose left a bruise on his hand. The white goose continued honking threateningly, flapping its wings. As it honked, dozens of geese in the cage joined in cheering, feathers flying everywhere, making a deafening noise. Even the chickens and ducks on the other walls started squawking in response.
Garrett couldn’t retract his hand in time. If it weren’t for the barbarian stepping forward and grabbing the goose by the neck near its head, he might have gotten bitten again.
Grinning from behind, Garrett thought, apart from him, everyone else should be eliminated.
"Phew... thank you, thank you!" Garrett escaped from the goose’s beak, repeatedly thanking both him and Garrett. The young mages, with a hint of envy, looked at the barbarian’s sturdy arms and requested Garrett:
"Let him pick for me?"
"I’ll do it myself." Garrett smiled and stepped forward. Miles widened his eyes, "You?"
His eyes widened, mouth agape, even his nostrils instinctively flared. He looked at the goose cage, then at Garrett, then lifted his head to look at his face, and lowered his head to look at his palm and shoes. Garrett didn’t need to release a "thought detection" to know what he was imagining.
Probably thinks he’s from the countryside, good at catching geese?
"I have a magic that might work. Let me try." Garrett walked to the front of the goose cage, bent down, and looked. He turned and directed Bernard:
"Bring that basket over."
"You catch the goose."
Concerning magic, two second-level mages and several first-level mages stood in a row, concentrating and holding their breath, afraid to disturb Garrett. The small, dark room had scattered goose and duck droppings on the floor, but these people didn’t care. Standing on tiptoe, stretching their necks, they struck a pose as if singing "Curved Necks Toward the Sky," watching Garrett perform his magic.
Garrett’s movements were much more leisurely than Mage Miles. After all, with the barbarian’s thick shield, one hand grabbed the white goose’s neck, and the other held its wing, presenting the goose’s chest to Garrett. Not only did Garrett not worry about being attacked, but if he felt uncomfortable with the casting angle, he could also instruct his follower to raise or lower it...
"So comfortable."
"Having a follower is really great."
"This guy is at least over level five, right? Can you afford to keep him?"
"Uh..."
The young mages whispered to each other, watching Garrett with one hand in the wicker basket and the other deeply immersed in the chest of the white goose, in a pool of bean oil. Moving, moving, with half-closed eyes, completely focused on meditation, after a while, he withdrew his finger:
"Change to another one."
"Change to another one."
"Change to another one."
"Well... this one is quite fat. Bernard, help me remember; I might take another look later."
"Change one more for me..."
The more Garrett looked, the faster he became. With a slight smile on his lips, he enjoyed the process. Unlike rabbits, which had all been treated with healing spells for magical experiments, and were all healthy, these geese had been deliberately fattened, each carrying a large fatty liver.
The first and second ones were not proficient, and it took a long time to find the location of the goose liver, and he wasn’t familiar with what a fatty liver looked like under magical ultrasound. Starting from the third one, he could easily tell whether the goose liver was abnormally enlarged...
Hmm, this goose liver is too small, definitely not fat.
This one, the irregular distribution of the liver is slightly hyperechoic, just focal fatty liver, unevenly fattened, probably not delicious.
This one... oh, the liver parenchyma echoes diffusely and intensively, with a clear attenuation of the far-field echoes! Diffuse fatty liver!
The fattest one he had seen so far, let me see its blood vessels, whether they are twisted or compressed...
Well, the blood vessel morphology is normal, just a decrease in clarity, indicating it’s not a liver tumor, just a fatty liver!
Garrett observed with great delight. Taking advantage of the opportunity to choose a fat goose, he examined fatty livers of different degrees, all in one go. How fortunate! How satisfying! If he didn’t seize this opportunity, he wouldn’t know how many patients he’d have to examine to gather enough cases to see so many fatty livers!
Garrett was ecstatic. Anthony stood on the side, seeing his genuine joy, couldn’t help but nudge Corrine, who was treating them today:
"Hey, why is he so happy?"
"I don’t know... maybe he likes eating goose liver? Is he happy to find a fat enough goose?"
"It doesn’t seem like it... just now when
the goose liver came up, I didn’t see him particularly interested..."
"Maybe that goose liver wasn’t fat enough?"
"That makes sense... when the goose liver comes up later, put it in front of him first!"
The two second-level mages whispered. Garrett thoroughly examined all the white geese, re-evaluating the fatter ones. He picked out two whose liver volumes were the largest, and under B-mode ultrasound, they showed the lowest echoes, indicating diffuse fatty livers:
"These two! The fattest goose liver!"
Twenty minutes later, Garrett looked at the pan of pan-fried goose liver in front of him, twice as oily as the previous one, and couldn’t help but doubt his life...
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