Mary attempted various approaches to connect with Debby, but unfortunately, none proved successful. Moreover, Debby lacked any noteworthy talents, aside from her tendency to behave like a brat.

Given his youth and vulnerability, Sir Reynold will succumb to temptation, bribery, or coercion, especially if he cannot heal on his own.

Mary’s heart sank even further. She realized she had only one remaining option to create paradise: deceiving the child.

— — — — — —

“ACHOO!” Ric sneezes sharply, cursing at whoever is thinking about him. “Not now, you—” he trails off in a slew of demonic curse words, envisioning the demon minister. “Wait until I’m out of this body; then I will meet you even if you’re not willing.” With a grunt, Ric pushes himself, extending his range by another ten meters.

He meticulously scanned each individual, dispatching wisps of his aura in all directions. Upon contact, he enveloped the person with the wisp, delving into their body to mend every injury.

As his energy reserves replenished more rapidly than he spent them, he struggled to expel the light within him, and only after a body’s natural light reserves are depleted does the dark or death affinity begin to accumulate.

Ric barely pushed out a fraction before his reserves filled right back up. Physically, he can go on indefinitely, but the mental strain forced him to deactivate the domain spell every ten minutes. During this brief respite, his body refilled its reserves. It appeared this body had a fail-safe embedded in its very core, preventing it from straying too far from the light.

In the past, all he had to do was smash like a battle-crazed beast, but now he controlled, scanned, regulated, boosted, and healed.

He also discovered that healers couldn’t expel their reserves without a focus point. They needed a patient to utilize their powers and couldn’t randomly expand their aura, healing someone they didn’t see as a patient.

This not only strained Ric’s mind but also prevented him from expelling all the stores of light. Thanks to the nun’s interference, he brute-forced the aura into others, healing them to deplete his reserves. These backwater lowlifes always seemed to come with a slew of life-threatening issues, and by brute-forcing, Ric wasted more aura.

By understanding the patient and the disease, healers can reduce their aura usage, but Ric neither wanted to save them nor the light. The nun might have grasped what he was doing, as she kept shifting people who walked close to him.

Ric thanked the nun and concentrated on driving the light away, but his bad luck somehow multiplied, persisting into the next life. Through brute-forcing the procedure, he discovered a way to alleviate the strain on his mind. This not only allowed him to release more aura but also enabled him to absorb more mana from the atmosphere simultaneously.

It was a fundamental function of the body to refill itself. The primary objective of light, life, and anything living is to survive, so he should have anticipated this outcome.

At his current level of control, he assumed he would need decades of training before this body would fully heed his mind’s commands.

Enraged, Ric frantically scanned the surroundings for more people to heal. Spotting the girl Debbie, who he mistook for a grumpy old man, he aimed the wisp of aura toward her. However, before it reached her, Mary swiftly slapped Debbie unconscious and continued moving forward without a care in the world.

‘I am beginning to like this nun,’ Ric remarked with a smile, then winced in pain due to the moment.

Ric’s brute-force technique ceased to work after a while as he successfully healed every last person in the group. This deepened his frown, and he soon discovered the reason for its failure.

It turns out that only normal wounds can be forced to heal. For conditions like diseases, infections, and complex healing, a more sophisticated approach is required.

‘I am going to fucking torture the minister for the rest of his miserable life if I have to start reading shit,’ Ric took a solemn vow.

He already knew he had to deal with this inconvenience, but for the time being, he expended energy by scanning everyone’s body while boosting their stamina.

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As he expected, within a few minutes, he struck a gold mine—every one of them had one foot in the grave. Curses afflicted some, others bore tumors of the most malignant nature. A few served as mere deacons to death, and the list went on... This group is a treasure trope of healers to level.

A full autopsy on just a few of them would likely drain him dry.

Once again, the nun discerned Ric’s subtle eye movements and gathered the patients with critical conditions.

‘She must have been the mother of demons in her previous life,’ Ric remarked with a gleam in his eye as he looked at Mary.

No one had ever understood him like her, not even when he tried to elaborate.

'Seriously! How hard is it to understand? I am going to kill you for the fun of it? I even shortened the sentence, yet they kept babbling—what... what? You die, me happy. Why is that so hard to understand?’ Ric exclaimed in frustration, gritting his teeth in pain.

He will never understand some people.

‘Oh, this is interesting.’ Ric’s focus shifts to the scrawny little boy, whom he mistook for a little girl. Before he could signal, Mary had already gestured for the boy named Henzo to walk closer to him.

She just gets him. Not a word is required.

‘She might be my long-lost mom or a mom from another life?’ Ric's thoughts wander off before refocusing on his new patient.

Scanning Henzo for the second time, shocked Ric. He was certain something hid from his presence. Like a negative energy running away in the presence of a healer. He was never a healer, but he assumed this is how healers find disease, or as the church of light would say; purge the negative forces.

Ric probed Henzo’s body further, but in his weakened state, a high tier of negative energy, and reaching an awful dump they called home, he lost track of the energy.

‘Why the fuck is everyone so happy to be here?’ Ric glared at everyone, hoping they would understand him like Mary. ‘Jump off a cliff. Jump off a fucking cliff. Your lives are miserable. Just give up.’

Sadly, none of them held the gift. Once he regains his voice, he will have to drill the words into their heads.

‘Hey, you there!’ Ric eyed Mary, indicating for her to approach. Mary spots his signal and moves closer.

Like the other times, Ric gestures with his eyes, asking her to convey his disgust about the people, their lives, and this location. Mary nodded along and gathered everyone’s attention.

‘My demon goddess.’ Ric could kiss her at this moment, but he settled for thanking the dark forces of the universe.

“Let us all leave for a while,” said Mary, gesturing toward the main door.

Ric was baffled by her betrayal. He didn’t suffer such a violation when the demon minister stabbed him to death. He desperately looked around to blame something else for her betrayal.

‘Is this dump some kind of artifact, treasure, or cursed?’ Ric peered through the muddy uneven walls. There weren’t any signs except for the obvious rudimentary skill of horrible labor wasting time in constructing a dump they called home.

The crowd protested to stay inside the dump, but when Mary gave them a stern look, all of them marched out without uttering a single word. Ric stopped scanning the house and instead scanned the nun.

What kind of power does she hold to command such a force? A force that is about to die soon, but a force nonetheless.

Ric cursed his bad luck for the umpteenth time today. He had never been shocked so many times in his entire life as he had been since his reincarnation. It felt like he was in a new reality that made no sense. Discovering that Mary wasn’t aligned with a single affinity pushed his sane mind into turmoil, making him question if reality was nothing more than an illusion.

Geniuses attune themselves either with a very strong affinity or a bunch of complimenting affinities, while the gifted can use opposite affinities to their maximum potential and more. A normal person is still attuned with a minimum amount of energy and the weakest at the bare minimum—just enough to survive a pathetic existence.

There are other factors that come into play, such as luck, intellect, species, and inheritance. For example, in his previous life, Ric had the worst luck, stuck as a fool, with a race that had a constant target on their back.

In addition to these, he was as poor as poor can be, maybe even more so. But rage fuelled his progress as he conquered the disadvantage first, then the darkness, and later the world.

Now he understood why he connected with Mary so fast. She reminded him of his infant days.

People might never believe it, but in those days, Ric was naïve. He required a good stab in the back from his mom to wake up to reality.

Poor Mary might have never received such a lucky stab, and the worst part is she falls below the weakest tier. It’s amazing that she is still alive, let alone moving around.

The difference between an animate and an inanimate object is the ability to cycle the energy.

The bottom tier or the cursed tier are failed experiments of the universe. A smidgen of energy somehow ignited their being to life and then forgot to form paths ways which help a living being to cultivate or absorb energy to survive.

These creatures are born with a small flame and utilize the flame to survive. They depend on the limited flame to move, eat, or think. Any and every action consumes a part of the flame, and unable to kindle or expand the flames, they usually die within the day.

Ric heard of Defyers surviving for a year at the max, but no one has gone past that record yet, and she looks to be in her late seventies. Her flames, if kinder with care, can last her for another month or two.

‘I will have to rip her open before that!’ Ric plotted a devious scheme.

Many secrets lie behind those old wary bones and who didn’t want the power to defy their fates. He might be immortal, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t higher levels inside immortality.

Ric climbed the peak of invincibility to claim the world. Now he will climb the peak of immortality to claim the universe.

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