Soul damage was impossible to heal in the liminal void.
Robert spent two years agonizing over the realization. That was the moment his talent became a curse. A healer, faced with a type of damage that took a hundred times longer to heal for himself. If not for the cartloads of books Professor Actus brought him, he'd be insane from boredom right now.
Yet, he endured. After this long recovery time, the only lingering effect he felt was this uncomfortable feeling of bloatedness, as if he had walked out of an all-you-can-eat buffet where he ate the entire buffet and stuffed his biomass absorption tempering technique to full. That was expected since his star was ready to ignite and ascend.
Whatever a body required to heal the soul, it didn't exist in the void. It made sense. The void took. The void devoured. The void nullified and obliterated.
But he might not even need to go that far. Just the fact his biological processes were halted was enough explanation. Biological processes, the act of living, those things nurture the soul. That's how pregnant women create new life. No matter the origin of the souls, the unborn baby needed time to grow and develop in both body and soul. It could be the essence. Souls might need essence as fuel or food to grow and recover. Since he couldn't recover essence in the liminal void, so couldn't the soul heal.
Regardless of the reasons, it was something he became wary of. Just the thought of incurring more of this damage made him shiver.
At least the lingering soul damage was the only drawback of all that Void cultist fiasco. He was only lightly questioned by Knight Graahaal. Robert showed him the memories he recorded, received his official thanks, and was left to heal. The official answer was that the culprits were all captured or killed, with no exception. Robert fought the leader but withdrew before his injuries became fatal. The teachers who attended the impostor meeting received stern sanctions for not paying attention to the academy rules and protocols.
*
*
Two days after he'd been discharged from the infirmary.
Robert sat in a small classroom with his two fellow students. Amanda sat on a chair on the other side of the room, while Freddy lay comfortably on a tall ottoman, his head poking above the table. At the front near a hologram projector that worked with Illusion magic, professor Actus explained his lecture plan for the semester.
A complicated, tridimensional representation of the interspace slowly rotated, colorful spheres with tiny animated biome pictures, labeled with the current identification for the realm, linked by faint transparent lines. On the top, planet Earth had hundreds of lines pointing at the second layer of spheres, which had even more pointing down, and so on. This geocentric representation of the interspace depicted the many realms by the number of passage jumps required to reach them. As Noah explained their route, the lines would get a shade darker. They wouldn't go straight down, instead moving through passages and realms on the layers in a spiral pattern.
The spiral was also an abstraction. The diagram was a convenient way to show the realms but their relative position was arbitrary. They could be way further apart, stacked on top of one another, or even overlapped as each dimension occupied the same space. The discussions and arguments surrounding the matter were as plentiful as grains of sand on a beach, and nobody wanted to admit their theory was wrong. Interspatialmetry, the science of measuring the space between realities in the interspace, was viewed by most as charlatanism.
Robert kept his sense recording spell as a way to keep from paying attention to the lecture and focused on a sphere on the lower layers of the diagram. Taulusia. Freddy's species homeworld – not his since he was born on Earth – and one of the furthest realms mankind had ever visited. This deep into the diagram, the animated spheres were linked like beads on a string, the path explorers took to get there.
These realms obviously had more passages as interspatialmetry theory stated that no realm had less than a hundred passages each. It could very well be that Taulusia would sit on the second or third layer of realms if humanity knew the right passages to take. Or that every realm could be reached in six degrees of separation, as one prevailing but unproven theory stated.
All this proved one point.
Robert was running out of books to read. He kept one notebook with a list of all the books he read and checking the titles was becoming as time-consuming as just reading the first few pages, seeing if he remembered reading the book, and making the decision to keep reading or stop then and there. That he was reading even those boring, droning, and ego-tripping books written by quack scientists was a matter of concern.
But what could he do, with all the time he had on his hands? Soon, the events of a year ago will be a century past for him.
*
*
He was brought back to reality with a startle.
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"Robert? Robert?" Professor Noah Actus' mask appeared inches away from his face.
"Oh. Yes?"
"Is everything alright?" Noah asked.
"Yes. I was just thinking of something else."
"What was the last thing I said?"
Robert used his talent. He replayed the lecture.
*
*
"...we will then go through the passage between CR-00874 and VY-00043. The objective in this new realm is to maximize your Druidic Attunement and probably evolve it, Amanda. Maybe we can collect seeds of new species. But even here, where Nature ether is most prominent, we will keep working on your other two affinities. Have you finished the essay I assigned to you? What does Earth and Water mean to you?"
Robert assumed Nature was left behind because Noah wanted her to focus on the neglected affinities first.
Amanda took her notebook from her storage and flipped it open. "Water nurtures. Water is ever-flowing. Water's subtle elegance in form and shape, is perfect, contained. Water is inexorable. It seeps into the tiniest cracks. Water once could cut the hardest steel man could manufacture. And, finally, Water corrodes all. No matter what the substance, Water will dissolve it."
He knew the nature of these assignments and studied them. It was to describe one's affinity in less than fifty words. The objective was in equal parts to find about the personal impressions about the Affinity and to learn about the person. It said more about Amanda than the affinity itself. Water held more qualities than those but the ones listed were what Amanda identified herself with. The psychological exercise was well reasoned and grounded in science but it failed to produce the desired results if the pupil knew of its intentions.
It was natural for people to become guarded when under scrutiny. Everybody valued their privacy.
"Good," Noah hummed with contentment. "What about Earth?"
She started to read again. "Earth survives the test of time. Earth shelters, nurtures, defends and protects. Earth hides its secrets deep inside. Earth attracts mass. Earth generates heat. Earth can become metal. Earth is sharp but also smooth."
Robert was impressed. The insights Amanda had into the Earth affinity were as detailed and deep as those she had on Water. He had to re-evaluate his assessment of neglect. She was keeping from using the tempering techniques that would make her dozens of times more resilient – and a few times heavier – than a normal person. But she had a deep understanding of her affinities. Robert wondered. Could he do the same with his affinities?
"That's amazing, Amanda," Noah said. "I can see you put thought into your assignment. Well done. I also know it came from deep inside you. Keep that in mind, and see if it changes as you grow."
"Thank you, professor," Amanda beamed.
"Did you know there are some Water-affinity Archs that can heal?" Noah asked.
The disappointment in Amanda's eyes told the answer. She knew it was possible, but she couldn't. With the resources Samson could provide and the hundreds of Archs they had, it was obvious they taught her as much about their affinities as they could. "I do," she finally spoke.
"How do you think they manage to mend flesh? Though Water can heal, the quality of the healing is restricted to first-aid healing. Yet, it is better than nothing. This is without the Blood affinity some Water Archs develop, of course."
Affinities could branch out during ascension. Archhumans could learn more affinities as they grew but some were easier than others. Water, for example, could commonly branch out into Blood or Ice. Ice was Water in its solid state, and Blood was basically made of Water but with Life characteristics.
Robert paused at that thought. That was not what the books said. That was what Robert thought of Blood when he pondered about the affinity.
But Water could also branch into Vapor, Mist, or even Illusion. These were rarer derivative affinities, though. The former two might seem similar at first glance but have radical differences in energy theory. While both deviated toward Air, Vapor was hot; while Mist was cold. And Illusion was an elusive affinity. Water branched into Illusion when you thought about how Light interacted with Water. Rainbows, mirages, and the diffraction that caused distortions when you looked at a river.
"Do you want to learn how to heal with Water?" Noah asked.
Amanda nodded profusely. "Yes! I do!"
She stole a glance at him, a defiant stare that told Robert she would soon heal better than him. Amanda had this competitive side but this was the first time Robert felt it pointed at him. He only cared that she was happy and motivated. It was good to see her grow, and even better to watch her do that. He felt proud as if he was watching his sister ace her ballet recital.
"Your next assignment regarding Water is to study the flow of rivers," Noah said. "It's good because it also has a minor influence on the Earth affinity. And this will be your only hint."
What did the flow of rivers have anything to do with healing with Water? Robert didn't get it. Amanda nodded, full of excitement and pride. She intended to dissect this beast until it squealed its last secret.
"You know the create water and create earth spells, right?" Noah earned a nod in reply. "Good, you need no extra materials then but if you want, grab a bag of river sand and the finest gravel you can find, water-washed. It will be easier on your essence if you don't have to create everything out of ether. Then you should create an inclined table, and fill it with river sand, and tiny gravel for this assignment. I want you to simulate a river and study it. You must understand the flow and nature of a river. You'll do that in our downtime during the expedition if you have the essence to spare. There's no time limit on this assignment. When you think you got the answer, report to me."
"Yes. I'll do that."
"Excellent. Back to your essay on Water, what did you say about Water cutting even the hardest steel?"
"Back before the rift cataclysm, we had these high-pressure water jets that could cut any material at close range," Amanda explained.
"Interesting. And has anyone replicated the effect with a spell?"
"Priestess Acqua of the Church of Pure Waters has. But the spell is not available to the public, and no ether scrolls were ever put for sale. People put requests with the ATA reaching millions, but they keep the secret of the spell for themselves."
It sounded like something very expensive. Or maybe it was the highly evolved form of a stupid student spell like squirt. The spell created a temporary squirt of water and was used to teach the basics of Water to neophytes. And then the squirt got upgraded with the right concepts to become this ridiculous cut-everything spell. But it didn't seem like something that a simple ether scroll could do.
"Yes, these single-affinity groups keep their secrets as close to their chests as they can," Noah said as he glanced toward an absent-minded Robert.
The recording cut off at that point.
Robert took an acoustic guitar and some songs to practice until his timepiece warned him it was time to return. He had a day and a half left.
*
*
"I think Acqua has plenty of room for secrets then," Robert replied with a smirk once he returned to the real world.
"That she does," Noah nodded back.
Fortunately for them, Amanda didn't get the joke.
"But I'd prefer it if you kept your musings and daydreaming to your jaunts into that place you go instead of wasting essence recording the lecture and watching it later," Noah chided.