Luke, avoiding stepping on his broken ankle, flew up to the door to Laura's office. He needed to learn the spell to mend bones today. Not in a few weeks, as he had with the spell that closed blood vessels, but today. He couldn't afford the time that would be wasted waiting on his ankle to mend on its own and could not afford a doctor. Even with magic making serious injuries significantly less serious thanks to the Saint, too many visits to the doctor in the US were too expensive for his budget. He'd rather save that money for something of higher priority, like of someone dropped a building on him.
As he opened the door, the sight before him shocked him still before causing him to vomit.
Laura sat behind her desk, topless. She had a typical model body, large boobs and all; however, her usually covered skin was capable of inducing a trypophobic response in any human being, even those who believed themselves immune to that fact. She lazily pointed with her left hand at her right, which had been peeled back like a banana into three sections, revealing the bone underneath. Blood flowed through the air, as if in invisible blood vessels.
The exposed bones were held in place telekinetically, preventing them from falling to the floor, and were similarly marked by an unsettling texture as small flakes of bones were shaved off and deposited on the desk in front of her.
At the sound of Luke vomiting, she looked toward the door and noticed him. "Oh, sorry, must have lost track of time. Let me fix myself up and we can start today's lesson," she said before lifting Luke telekinetically and placing him on his feet outside. Simultaneously, she caught the vomit before it landed on the floor, which Luke saw flying in the direction of a door he'd never entered before his vision was blocked by the closing door.
Luke considered leaving for a few seconds before Laura opened the door back up, now with one of her iconic, way too large shirts on, completely hiding all of the texture of her unexposed skin. "You learned the ability to mend blood vessels last week. That spell can actually work on almost any 'outside' tissue of the body. Blood vessels. Skin. Stomach lining. The insides of your lungs. Almost anything that's not muscle, fat, or connective tissue. We should move on to muscular tissue today, as I doubt you have a need to restore any significant amount of fat and connective tissue is less prevalent than muscles. Why have you not entered my office yet?"
"What was all that under your shirt?" Luke asked, not moving from the spot outside the door that Laura had placed him.
"Body enchantments. Permanent spells carved directly into my flesh and kept in place by improperly healing the self-inflicted wounds to make them stiff. The majority of my bones have already been converted to enchantments, as well. I can't enchant my skull without risking death, sadly, so I will be unable to enchant that. By the time I take my turn, not only will I be the most powerful mage of our lifetimes, but the most enchanted human, possibly ever," she responded.
"Aren't those illegal?" Luke asked. "I remember seeing a bunch of cases of people getting mangled from incorrectly applied enchantments before hearing about some laws being put in place against them."
"They are, in fact, illegal. This is a mistake, in my opinion. The likelihood of receiving harm from incorrectly applied body enchantments is lower than that of being harmed by a cigarette. Those are still legal. The primary problem is people claiming to be experts and applying them wrong. When you get infected after a tattoo from an unlicensed artist, you do not blame the tattoo. You blame the artist. It's not like they can stop me," Laura said.
"They already tried," she continued. "Three of their F22s now rest at the bottom of the ocean because of their arrogance of trying to prevent me from doing what I desire."
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"You're a criminal? I never heard of this," Luke said.
"I was never charged with anything. Nothing made it to the news. They kept the conflict silent, unable to accept that a lone mage is more powerful than the most powerful pre-magic, non-nuclear weapon. Their primary issue with me will be moot once the fraxions take me. Now get in here, we need to teach you how to mend your muscles," Laura said, motioning Luke in.
Luke glanced at her right hand, seeing no trace of the damage that had been done to it just a few seconds prior before hesitantly floating in to the chair in front of her desk. He said, "Actually, I need to learn to mend broken bones right now. Got in a fight. My opponent managed to break my ankle. I can't do quite a few exercises thanks to that. Well, I could, but I wouldn't be getting the full benefit from doing so."
"I didn't take you for a fighter," Laura said. "More of a protector, with your desire to learn medical magic while ignoring even the classics."
"Had to defend my potioneer from a few teens going rampant through the neighborhood. Honestly, I made it through that fight with only a few bruises, but let them go in exchange for sparring with me. Make me more used to using my magic in the middle of a semi-real combat scenario while giving them additional combat experience for when they have their turns in the arena. Preferably long after I've bought them years of extra time to train. It was in the first spar with them where one of them broke my ankle," Luke explained.
Laura nodded at that and said, "It will probably take you a few weeks to learn to mend your own bones. I can do it for you, if you desire."
"No, I will learn it today. Not next week, not five weeks from now, today," Luke said confidently.
"We shall see," Laura said before going into detail about the shape and feel of the spellform Luke desired. Detailing its barely-euclidean shape, almost seeming to escape into other dimensions, but able to fit into the three that humanity lives in. No small detail was unnecessary, taking over twenty minutes to fully describe even once.
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In the three hours Laura had extended their sessions to, Luke took two hours and fourty-eight minutes to learn how to mend his ankle, before spending almost all of his magic capacity to do so. His bones clacked and painfully tore through his skin as they snapped into place before having additional bone grown into the broken sections. He sucked in as the pain hit him, but, with it being expected, he did not let it make him drop his spell.
After it was fully mended, he asked, "How in the world could you just casually have your hand peeled like that while carving out your bones? Just healing my bones hurt to the point of almost making me lose concentration on my spell. You were actively damaging yourself while your flesh, and presumably nerves, were exposed to the air. Not only that, but you were keeping your blood flowing with telekinesis, weren't you?"
"I was," Laura said, nodding. "It is an ability you will learn as you continue your spars. The ability to ignore pain and focus on casting your spells. Obtaining this skill will not be easy. The pain will not disappear. Even as you break your bones and mend them hundreds of times, you may never obtain it. The pain is still there, after all. Not all are able to push through pain of that degree and perform mundane tasks. Fewer are able to keep up spells through that pain. Only a handful can ignore it as I can. With your dedication, I believe you will join our very small club."
"I'm not sure I want to," Luke responded, standing. His time may not be up, but he got what he wanted from today and wasn't sure he wanted to be in here with someone who did what Laura continues to do to her own body.
"If you want your plan to work, you will need to. Maybe not to the degree I can. Without the ability to ignore the pain, you will not survive a decapitation," Laura responded.
"That something you've experienced?" Luke asked, partially turning his body toward the door.
"No. I know, and knew, a few crazy people. Some of them decided to test their limits, to know what they are capable of before entering a live combat scenario. Only those who could enchant their bones were able to survive and craft a new body. Fewer of those were able to craft one fast enough, or had a high enough magic capacity to do so," Laura said. "Of those who went to those extremes, only four survived. Of those who survived, none had your magic capacity. Should you learn to ignore pain and all of the healing spells, you shall be nearly unstoppable."
As Luke left her office, Laura steeped her hands before finishing, "Should you become ignorant to pain and a master of healing, only I, or a surprise blow to your brain, would be able to take you out."
To Luke, the sound of the door closing behind him seemed louder than normal.