Chapter 363: Endocrine-Related Osteoporosis

After a straightforward and effective exchange, with Field recounting the full context and the middle-aged man Benny adding the latter details, Kraft finally grasped the general sequence of events.

“You’re saying Dominic went mad after reading some nonsense books, then inexplicably ran off to a mountain he’d never been to or even heard of, searching for something even locals couldn’t describe.”

According to knowledge brought by the otherworldly soul, an ancient sage had long ago summarized this phenomenon: learning without thinking leads to confusion; thinking without learning invites danger.

Learning too broadly while indulging in wild speculation easily combines both flaws, dragging one blindly into peril, nearing death.

The two hesitated a moment, then nodded. The description was a bit too brief, but it couldn’t be refuted.

“Then, when you tried to forcibly restrain him, the madness infected this… younger brother.”

He had intended to call him “child,” but the roughness of mountain life blurred age distinctions, forcing him to awkwardly choose another term.

Kraft’s gaze drifted between the patient and his family; the doctor’s instinct told him there was unspoken information still unshared, leaving the overall logic incomplete.

Either they didn’t realize the significance of those details, or there was a shameful secret, or some absurd, unbelievable reason too ridiculous to voice.

“My friend, thank you for lending a hand; may the Lord bear witness to this mercy and courage.”

He rose from the chairback, leaning slightly forward in a posture between friendly conversation and confession, drawing closer to the middle-aged man.

“Yet the Spirit of the Father has revealed to me that you still harbor unspoken words. Understand: the Lord’s light is everywhere, but only enters hearts willingly opened. If you cannot be honest, I cannot help.”

“Rest assured, lay your burdens before Him—no matter how absurd or profane they may seem. I am only the Father’s ear, His outstretched hand, never a judge of right or wrong.”

Standing nearby, Kup rubbed his eyes vigorously; for a fleeting instant, he had hallucinated the man before him as the earnest Brother Raymond.

The truth was, as long as necessity demanded it, nothing was truly beyond Kraft’s grasp. His clumsiness in missionary work was purely a matter of attitude, compounded by others sharing the burden and his own unwillingness to engage.

Of course, he wisely chose silence, playing the role of a nodding puppet in perfect cooperation.

Kraft’s sincere, earnest persuasion truly moved Benny—or perhaps some nonverbal persuasive force had acted—causing him to cautiously reveal a few local folk tales unsuitable for open discussion in a church setting.

These remarks, dismissed as nonsense by any sane person, filled the gaps in the earlier narrative logic.

Even Kup could find fragments within them that aligned with his own past experiences.

“Ah, that explains it,” Kraft said, gripping the man’s calloused hands. “Thank you for your trust—it helps immensely.”

“But I still have a question—it may sound strange—but does anyone know what exactly they were thinking or feeling when they went mad?”

“My father once tried to communicate with them; he might know something, but little, and he never brought it up, nor did we ever inquire.” Benny’s cautious avoidance made it easy to forget he came from a devout family.

It made sense: the Father’s protection was too distant, while the threats passed by word of mouth had long taken root here, embedded deep in collective memory.

Seeing Kraft dismiss it, he warned: “I advise against delving deeper. Even the most favored servants of the Father need not wade into unknown depths.”

“Thank you for your concern—I understand enough,” Kraft said, nearly certain Dominic’s experience mirrored his own that night: both had encountered some elusive, non-corporeal, deeply troubling entity.

It seemed anchored to some existence yet lacked any fixed material basis, even more ethereal than a spirit, its outline or boundary impossible to grasp.

Correspondingly, by experience, non-material influences typically remained confined to the mental plane and often resolved once removed from the specific environment.

But Dominic’s condition clearly wasn’t that simple.

“Let me examine the patient.”

Seeing Kraft rise again and stand beside the patient’s bed, Field exhaled silently, giving Benny a slight nod to reassure him to wait.

Since the doctor, not the priest, remained at the patient’s side, there might still be hope.

Strangely, Kup—who had been standing by throughout—not only failed to approach, but unconsciously stepped back, as if pushed away by something sudden, stumbling two steps before regaining his balance.

Before he could ponder further, Kraft’s startled exclamation snatched everyone’s attention.

The first part examined was neither the skull nor the multiple fractured fingers, but Dominic’s lower limbs.

Kraft cradled one leg, lifting and repositioning it with the reverent, almost ecstatic posture of a connoisseur discovering a lost masterpiece.

“Have you found anything?”

“Does Dominic like naming things after himself?” Kraft asked in return.

“Sorry, he never mentioned it—but is this related to his condition?”

“Very much so. If he does, we’ll call it ‘Dominic’s Empty Bone Syndrome’; if not, we’ll settle for ‘Priell Syndrome,’ named after the place.”

As some of the body’s longest bones, the lower limbs clearly showed classic bone changes—they were nearly hollowed out.

Thin cortical shells, sparse trabeculae, like the trunk of a tree infested by termites, their internal structure almost entirely eroded. But this wasn’t the end: within the empty marrow cavities, loose yet orderly new trabeculae were forming, gradually replacing the old bone.

“You carried him all this way—didn’t you notice his weight was off?”

Bones in the remodeling phase are unusually light and fragile, explaining the multiple finger fractures.

So the question arises: what minor change in one area could trigger such widespread skeletal transformation?

His mental senses swept over the skull, and at a depth of four finger-widths behind the brow, a mass roughly the size of a knuckle caught his attention.

This originally pea-sized object had swollen several times over, even causing slight deformation of the sella turcica.

Though insufficient on its own to raise intracranial pressure, its position at the skull base, near the midbrain, blocked the cerebrospinal fluid pathway; the ventricles swelled like a sink with a clogged drain.

[Pituitary tumor]

The primary lesion was indeed small, but tragically located at the endocrine control center.

Even with prior preparation, the reality was far worse than anticipated.

Treating this required surgery through the nasal cavity or upper jaw, reaching the sphenoid bone within the skull. It demanded a multidisciplinary team of seasoned neurosurgeons, ophthalmologists, and ENT specialists; ultra-precise endoscopic microsurgical instruments; and strict, continuous monitoring and evaluation.

Yet here, there was only a novice bone-chiseling shaman and his carpenter’s chisel.

Perhaps considering funeral arrangements and eulogies would be more practical than pondering surgical methods.

?? A grueling month _:(′□`」∠):_

? The author has finally completed the defense and graduation exams

? (End of Chapter)