Saying goodbye to my parents had definitely been one of the harder moments so far of becoming an adult, many tears and hugs were shared, but all in despite not being able to give a good reason why they understood why I was going to the wilds. As a child stories of the wilds were all I asked for, and if I was ever missing the forest was the first place my father would search.
Making my way back to the guard grounds I realised how different the village looked now I knew I was going to leave, how detailed some of the home's eaves were carved with small totems and house gods, and how lovingly the front gardens had been grown even if it was mostly local wild flowers. Even the streets while dirt were well compacted and cleared.
Visiting the guard offices was fairly anti-climactic, after entering the squat stone building I confirmed my paperwork was in order, and the most stressful part was allowing one of the officers to use an enchanted stone to give me a tattoo of my ID containing my provisional rank and details. It only took a moment to be placed but the sudden pain was still intensive, although they did let me know it would update itself as my details changed so at least I wouldn’t have to go through that a second time.
Falling into my new bed I was surprised at the rooming, even though the beds were in a shared garrison they were thick and comfortable with hanging curtains for privacy. After packing my few clothes in my footlocker along with my new uniforms I laid down wondering what the next few weeks of training would be like.
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Juking down the fist passes so close as to move my hair, as I step inside the other combatants reach and quickly grab upward into their armpit arresting their motion. Striking the back of their leg with my shin I quickly flip them onto their stomach and into a submission hold “Right enough of that, your lucky Gem can’t use their class abilities or none of that would work Styx. Your overseer for the trip will be by tomorrow so get cleaned up and packed, your travel uniforms should already be in the laundry delivery. Don’t embarrass us, hey?” Raz had slowly warmed up over these few weeks of training with his guards, particularly when they realised I was clearly classed to be a survival focused healer and was happy to both train my fighting along with my healing in the training grounds each day.
Ignoring the stares I made my way over to the water barrel before heading inside to bath and pack. Since being able to merge with my class card and getting my passive it had been hard standing out, but it was also hard to blend in when after training smoke bleeds out of your skin and hair slowly until you've recovered. Although not having sore muscles anymore every morning more than made up for it.
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Heading into the baths I went into one of the cold baths, small stone baths just big enough for most of the large guardsmen that live here. There were hot baths but they were only at specific times and there was always a queue, and I wanted to finally get to see what my uniform would be like. They were usually customised for the village or town they were trying to found, and if successful my uniform would be the standard healer gear for future healers in the guard stationed there.
Throwing my training uniform into the laundry bucket I marveled at how in shape training had left me, my passive helped but I had worked for the changes. While I was never in bad shape I now could see the muscles defined from each other as I undressed and climbed in, and the days in the sun had finally seen my pale complexion warm a little as a soft tan developed.
Laying back on the wooden neck rest at the end of the bath I let the water take the day's heat from me. Pulling up my updated status I hoped it would be enough for wherever this next village had been approved to be built, and that I wouldn’t fail anyone as their healer on this trip. It would have to do, realistically level ten was about as high as you could get in most combat classes without actual adversity, and while I had been hunting as part of my training my trainers made it clear that this paled compared to real combat in the deep wilds.
Name: Styx Alforde Class: Apostle of the healing flame (Level 10) Core Card: Phoenix's flame (Level 10) Class Card: Wilds hunt Healer (Level 10) Level: 10 ( 350/10,000) Health: 120/120 Mana: 60/60 Skills:
- Phoenix immolation (Rank 1): Heals injury at a base cost of 10 mana. Cost increases due to both severity of injury and age of injury. Unable to restore lost body parts if bone is no longer present in the limb. Able to restore scar tissue, but cannot remove natural imperfections/marks. Only works on physical wounds.
-Apostles smoke (Rank 1): Over time excess health regenerated builds up as smoke, after taking harm fifteen seconds later smoke will be consumed to restore the body. This acts by rapidly increasing the natural healing process while consuming the smoke instead of bodily resources.
Apostles smoke had been a blessing, while I hadn’t leveled in the last week I had become a lot stronger thanks to it. While it wouldn’t set a bone or remove scar tissue like immolation could it did restore lost blood and naturally healed muscles rapidly allowing me to recover within minutes from training daily. This of course meant that Raz let the trainers know to rapidly increase my workload, but considering it might save lives later it was hard to complain.