Chapter 93

Theories, Theorems, and the Blighted

The ground shook violently for a second, then stopped. There was the warning, one telling us all that Yggdraspirit, the great tree that was dying slowly from the Blight had awakened. I couldn’t help but feel that there was a correlation between the tree awakening and my first curing of someone with the blight.

I could almost tell that there was a quest line in her somewhere, but I didn’t want to rush, especially not with so many easily healable people with the Blight standing right next to me.

We all stood there watching and waiting. Then finally after about half a minute passed and the world seemed to have stopped shaking, I shrugged then gestured for the next two people to come. This time I called out two more people with the Blight.

“You, and you.” I said, first pointing out an Orc with the Blight with my left hand, then a second elf with the Blight with my right hand.

There was a momentary pause, but then the two walked forward.

“There should be a slight improvement with your magical abilities.” I said to both the orc and the elf separately. I was speaking out loud, letting everyone around us hear what I was saying. “The Blight affects your magical system, meaning it can only really be targeted by Spirit magic. By the Blight being in your body, and expanding, it expands your meridians as it expands and tries to ultimately drain your body of its natural resources. By getting rid of the Blight, you should see an increased ability in your magical potential. As Mallory here can attest.” I say, then nod to Mallory.

“This true.” Mallory said, then after a long pause she added. “I had suffered from the Blight for years, and when I was ultimately healed my Tier rating in magic had gone up by two full Tiers, at least one per year I was infected. While I would not recommend doing that to increase your magical potential, it is a nice reward after the fact.”

And just like that, I felt the knowledge of both my Master’s Degree and my Doctoral thesis related to magic and how magic worked in this world expanding. The more I looked, the more I tested, the more evidence I seemed to gain that proved that one’s tier rating of their meridians was directly proportional to their meridian sizes. This was perfect as that was one of the facts that seemed to be proven time and time again. Also, I was now able to prove that the Blight was not just a disease that targeted the world’s magic, but by getting rid of it, even mundanes who never had a modicum of magical power would find themselves able to cast basic spells.

It also seemed to prove that Willpower was by far and away the most important Attribute when dealing both with magic, the Blight, but also trying to survive ailments like the Blight.

With that in mind, as another hypothesis to test, I decided to go with another theory.

“I am going to say this now once. For the next bit I want to cure people of the Blight. To do this, I will need your help. I want you to line up people who are infected with the Blight, starting with those who have the lowest Willpower. This is going to be crucial for me and my studies. I will also need someone to record the Willpower of people before they come in to be treated, then we will test their Blight level, and compare it with their rate of magical improvement after they are cured.”

I say all this as I receive two back-to-back notifications, letting me know these last two patients have been fully healed.

Hidden Quest Complete (Repeatable): Curing The Blighted: You have found a way to remove the blight from individuals infected with the curse of corruption. Cleanse everyone you can of the Blight and be rewarded: Rewards: Experience (100).

Experience Gained: 50/50.

Experience Gained: 50/50.

There was a momentary pause as I took a half step back from the two patients who were just standing there in amazement.

“Come on people, chop chop!” I say, clapping my hands together.

That is what did it, well that and Mallory shifting her posture slightly.

“While everyone starts getting everything ready to record, I will go ahead with you and you.” I say once again pointing at an orc and an elf. Then I do a shewing motion to the two I had just healed a moment ago. Not the best doctor decorum, but I was trying to heal people quickly, I mean Yggdraspirit just did have a minor earthquake from just waking up. I did not know exactly how long we had, nor how long I would be able to conduct this type of test.

The two fully healed warriors were pushed out of the way by two rather enthusiastic but still doing poorly Blight infected patients that I had identified. With the gentle reminder the two old healed patients were put out and quickly put to use by Mallory who along with her elven friend, were going around getting the previously healed patients to help maintain order and take down my information that I requested.

“So to be clear, what is it you want on this?”

While I had my mind focused on eradicating not one but two different patients of the Blight, I tried to split my consciousness once again and identify what I would actually need for this little experiment of mine.

“I will need a few things. First how long they were infected, that will come from them. Along with their Willpower attribute. Their magical rating before being healed, and after. Then a final reading that I will give out based on a severity of one to one hundred.”

“One to one hundred?” Mallory asked.

I nodded, “yes that way we can monitor how much growth was caused by which percent. Basically, how much of your body needs to be infected before you see a Tier rating increase.”

“So this is a percentage?”

“Yes, with one hundred percent you are completely covered and nearly dead from the Blight.” I admit.

Mallory nods, then after a moment she asks. “Out of curiosity, how bad would you say mine was?”

“You? I would say at least ninety-three percent.” I answer truthfully.

At that Mallory just nods, but then sighs. “It felt a lot worse.”

I just shake my head at that. “You were beyond amazing throughout it all. You were still able to move around on your own. The warrior guy who came in after you, the one who had no magical aptitude before he was Blighted, was just at eighty-seven percent. No, the only one worse than you was the one I also had to resurrect, and he was at ninety-seven percent, tops. I would be curious as to what happens to those completely succumb to the Blight, but I could never ethically allow that to happen.” I shudder at the idea of just letting someone suffer for the advancement of science. Even now, I feel bad having people line up like this, as if making it so they have to wait, and watch as others get healed while they suffer on. Still this is the best system I can offer at the moment.

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Chime.

I get the notification that I once again gained experience.

Experience Gained: 50/50.

Experience Gained: 50/50.

Realizing I am done with these two, I raise my hands from them, and then give a slight stretch, realizing this is going to be a while.

“Ohh.” The male orc and female elf that I just finished healing just stare at me.

“What?” I ask, suddenly shifting uncomfortably.

“I think you just proved to them that you are of age is all.” Mallory said, covering her smiling lips with her hands, but her expression of giddiness was all too clear.

I turn my head, but I don’t need to look, where the two were it was clear that my stretching had drawn more than a little attention. “Stupid high Personality, and Sociability scores.” I curse lightly.

“Not just that, remember you are gorgeous now. I will have to make sure everyone knows that you are my daughter and therefor off limits.” Mallory said, patting me on the back.

Shaking my head, I just point at the next two patients that have been set in orc and elven lines. “Next!”

With that Mallory nods, and is about to get out of my way, but then stops to ask. “Is there anything I can get you?”

I pause and about to say no, but then I realize this is likely going to take a while. “Can I get a chair?”

***

A throne, that is what they got me to sit on. A throne, one that had a foot stool to step up into said chair, poles to be carried around like I was some famous pharaoh of the Nile, and what I was most thankful for, arm rests.

Now this was the seventh or eighth chair that they finally got me. The first one was simple but made it so most people I healed needed to squat down slightly. Then I got a taller chair, without arm rests. Then came the fact that my patients would also need a chair to sit in. Then finally a throne that allowed others to see me from a distance healing people equally, while others sat on the higher chairs.

Also, this meant that there was a sort of waiting line set up. People would come in after standing up for so long and sitting in one of six waiting chairs. From there, they would go to the chair for their faction that opened up when it was their turn to be healed.

“Thirty-five percent.” I shouted out turning my head left, indicating the size of the infection that was covering the orc to my left. With that part taken care of, I began channeling healing energy into the orc. At which point, he visibly relaxed and almost seemed to pass out right there in the chair. This was the other reason why I was now sitting in a throne with arm rests. I had been using one of the chairs below with their own arm rests earlier, but the orcs and elves all started to pass out, or at the very least get super weak in the knees the more of the Blight that was healed from them. Looking back this made sense, as even Mallory was lying on a table at the time of her procedure, so this was not too hard to imagine, but it was clearly something we hadn’t planned for in this whole operation.

The best part was, once one person was healed, they not only kept their word of not going back into battle, but they also began helping. In fact, it was a gaggle of them that all went off to grab the chairs in the first place. The throne I was now using was Bronicus’s chair, he was the second orc I healed, the one that was missing his arm. The one who had stared on in disbelief at the elf I had originally healed at the same time as treating his wound. Well, he has been the most helpful of everyone healed. Or at least he was the one who held absolute authority over the orcs out here and had them in a line first. Only after Mallory made a few comments to the elves that the orcs were making the elves look like undisciplined savages did they start to straighten up their acts. There were a few murmurs of discontent, but all it took was Mallory throwing out one haughty elf stating, “you don’t need to be healed. If you want to be discourteous then you can leave until you eventually find your manners. Then and only then, can you get back in line, at the back.”

For a moment the entitled elf looked like he was going to say something to Mallory, that was when Mallory released stage two of her aura, and instantly the entitled elf and every elf around him suddenly cowered in fear. Her aura was so vast that it even bled over into the orc line as well.

Seeing the whole thing I shouted. “Please don’t release stage three of your aura. Do you know how hard it is to pick up diced soul fragments and seal them back together? I still have pieces left over from the last one.”

I didn’t of course, those extra pieces from the jerk duelist I just handed back to him and watched as they disappeared once they made contact with his body. But I hoped this would help alleviate tensions.

“Gwahh hah ha!” Bronicus, the orc chieftain who saw the entire display just laughed once Mallory finally retracted her aura at my request. “Look at those elves, they are so undisciplined they are about to lose their healing spots for their entire army and give them all to us. See I told you they were too arrogant to win this war.” Bronicus taunted.

“You!” Mallory said, and with that one word a tremor of fear rolled down the orc chieftain’s back. Turning around he locked gazes with Mallory, that is when Mallory held his gaze for a five count, then finally nodded. “Don’t escalate this, but yes, you are right. We don’t have to heal everyone. I don’t want to heal you all at all, but my friend here seems hell bent on this process. So, it is for her that I put up with this. But do not doubt for a moment that I won’t end you and the lives of everyone around you if it means protecting my friend.”

With that I nodded, once again thankful that Mallory was on my side.

From there it was a long time of healing.

“Thirty-seven percent, and forty-four percent.” I shouted as two more came up. This was good, as it meant that these two would both receive a magical tier increase from their encounter. My direct touch could give them two more, but fortunately I had my Apothecary gloves on throughout this whole process and did not have to worry about skewing the numbers of my direct results. There was the variable that I might be throwing these calculations off due to my Royal Bloodline to begin with, but since I was the only one who could perform this type of magic those details seemed a bit irrelevant at the time. What was undeniable was the fact that I was able to show the stress marks done to one’s meridians by the Blight and show that the stress marks directly impacted, in a good way, the overall magical ability of the previously infected user. This meant several things, first and foremost it meant that the Blight was a disease that stole magic from a user and feasted from it. The second major thing was thirty three percent for one tier, which meant sixty-six percent, or two thirds of a body would be required for a second Tier of increase.

We could also prove that people with lower Willpower attributes had the Blight spread in them faster, along with their time to death was a lot shorter than people with higher Willpower scores. This was used as further proof that the Blight was mana based and seemed to need a base amount of mana to begin with. We could also prove that the Blight was transferred by direct contact with people, thus the use of gloves, totally not because I didn’t want my Bloodline flaws to be used against me to make me a prisoner to everyone here, that was just a secondary effect of my bloodline. I knew that Mallory suspected something, but as she was currently the same Tier rating as me, my bloodline had no effect on her currently, though I guess I should point it out to her, particularly if her granddaughter is coming to this world just to have part of my bloodline active in her. Though I haven’t had a moment to really process that piece of information yet. I assume the granddaughter knows about all of this, but this might be one of those things where it is better to tell beforehand than to assume they are watching and know everything about me. I did know that for vast sums of money you could buy a dossier on people and have it state all their merits and flaws, but the game was great about stripping that information away from getting in the game, even via coded texts. When people were uploaded, details of such dossiers were also stripped away from people, unless they somehow added it to their long-term memory, which was a lot harder to orchestrate than just memorizing a few facts and figures. Still, my telling Mallory might go a long way, but that was a long time away. For now, I just wanted to focus on healing as many people as quickly and safely as possible. I really wanted the experience points. I knew that as soon as I rested, I would likely get a day or more’s worth of cleaning up trash quest line, but this one seemed more fulfilling to me. Here I was actually helping people, and helping myself at the same time, it was a win-win.

(Cumulative for the Elves) Experience Gained: 2100/2100.

(Cumulative for the Orcs) Experience Gained: 2100/2100.

Ding.

Level up.

Class Void Healer has increased to level 109.

After the first few rounds of healing, I just had the experience notifications turned off and just let them compile into one nice, neat list. I had done a lot of healing, over 42 warriors from each side were healed, resulting in over 8,400 experience points in total for the day. Again, nothing close to the experience that would be coming in, this was barely enough to level up one of my two classes. Still, it was something to be proud of.

I also felt that despite being nearly exhausted from constantly healing people, I felt that I was making good progress. The war had stopped, at least the fighting around me had stopped, and it did seem that ever since the great tree Yggdraspirit awoke, all fighting had ceased. That was why I knew the fast-moving forces that came from the far end of the battlefield and began racing down both lines of the battlefield were going to be trouble.

“Incoming!” I shouted.

Everyone stared at me for a moment, but then Mallory nodded and spawning her angelic wings into reality jumped high into the air. Once there, she looked down at the field around us and with a nod confirmed my earlier statement.

“What should we do?” The elf with the now useless prosthetic leg asked, this was the same one that was a major or something equivalent in the elven army. Her and Mallory had gone off to have a loud lunch break at one point, ever since then she seemed to be following Mallory around like a lost puppy. It was sort of cute.

“Let them through.” Then pausing, she turned to Bronicus and made a gesture for him to allow these people to come as well. “Make a hole.”

With that, the orders were repeated on both sides of the lines, as both elves and orcs alike took a moment to take two steps back to allow for quickly advancing forces from the front lines.

As they approached, I realized this was likely the game trying to force me to choose a side in this contest.

“They are probably going to be A-holes.” I state, looking at the oncoming forces that only seem to be picking up speed now that they have a clear lane to charge through.

Then as they show up, I let out a sigh as I realize I likely should be awarded a new skill of Dirtbag Identifier, or something similar.

“Whoa-ho. Do you see that battle. Someone has dared to set themselves up as a queen in our battlefield, and they appear to be a human no less…”

Okay, I can kind of see the throne being a bit much, but this wasn’t me.

Sigh.

And like that, I knew it was going to be a long day.