Arthur wasn’t sure if his upgraded healing required touch to work or not, but he didn’t want to take any chances. Thankfully, Ashley Rhye didn’t raise a fuss when he placed a hand on her shoulder. The woman's flesh was disgusting to touch, a rotted mess of red muscle and pulsating veins that looked like knotted worms wiggling through filthy mud. More often than not, healing was an unpleasant experience and Arthur had learned to deal with it. At least he'd thought he'd had. This was still getting under his skin a little.
“Why are you so willing to help this woman?” Arthur asked Iris. “I’m not trying to be callous, but you're sacrificing so much for someone you don’t even know. How long till you’ll be able to drink a potion again? A month? Two?”
“Try half a year,” Iris replied dryly. “And it’ll take another three before I’ll be able to take so many potions at once again. As for why I’m so willing to do this… it’s for you.” Her skin rapidly flushed as she realised what she’d said. “What I meant to say,” Iris quickly scrambled for words, “Is that right now, you're the best healer on the planet. Legendary healing can take years to level up. This patient here, though, will probably give you a level or two even if you fail. In light of the upcoming battles we’ll face, it’s in our best interests that your healing is as strong as possible. That's what I'm hoping to accomplish here.”
It was a weak explanation and Arthur was certain she wasn’t telling him everything. He was the one who’d benefit the most here, however, so he’d let the secrecy fly. Maybe she’s just a really nice person. Whatever the case, he was ready to get the job done. Iris briefly explained how things would proceed, though she’d be the one responsible for all the complicated ether transfer stuff. All he had to do was manage the healing.
Iris placed a hand on the back of his neck, and Arthur had to ignore how cold her skin was to touch. It was like ice. A second later, he felt energy pour into him, first a trickle that rapidly grew to a veritable flood.
“I’ll keep the energy output around here for now and adjust accordingly as we go along.”
Focusing on his legendary skill's matrix, Arthur began to cast his skill. To date, it was by far the most complex ether construct he’d seen, his best attempts at describing it being a four-story pagoda crossed with an ever-evolving maze. It was a structural impossibility, at least when observed through his untrained eye and he felt a headache come on the longer he looked at it. Arthur focused his ether on the skill's fourth floor, the one he intuitively recognised as responsible for the quaternary effect. He needed to get rid of this energy quickly before he reached full capacity.
Fortunately, or perhaps, unfortunately, the skill ate ether like nothing he’d ever seen before but he should have expected nothing less when it had a minimum cost of 100,00 ether. The energy drained out of him like someone had pulled the drain on a bathtub and he felt Iris adjust her energy transference to match the rate he was using ether. The pace he was using it would have been impossible for anyone with less than 750 constitution, his output so high it would have burned ether channels and destroyed weaker flesh. Still, it made Arthur wonder how the seer was able to manage handling so much raw energy. Was it because of the buff he’d granted her via Source of Vitality, or did it have something to do with her fae heritage? Arthur suspected it was the latter.
Unfortunately, Ashley Rhye, who’d been content to simply sit until now, started screeching the second the healing energy poured into her. I can hardly call it healing energy, though, Arthur mused. It was unlike any magic he’d ever used before, as if he was pouring the entirety of his being, his very soul into the skill. Arthur suspected this was why the ability came with such a massive cooldown and steep penalty to his healthpool, he was utilising far more than mere ether to fuel this skill.
The failed blood beast tried to pull away from him, but golden chains wrapped around her and held her in place. Failed product as she was, Ashley Rhye didn’t possess the requisite strength to pose a problem. If anything, her struggles only served to hurt herself. Undeterred, Ashley continued to scream, doing everything she could to pull away from him and stop the healing. Arthur dearly wished he could do something to ease her pain but he was caught in the pull of his skill, there was no way to divert any attention away from it.
Already, over ten thousand ether had been poured into the ability and it showed no signs of slowing down. Iris had yet to take a potion and she didn’t look strained at all, which told Arthur her ether pool was at least thrice the size of his own. It was only after he’d poured 22,000 ether into the skill that she drank one. Taking into consideration how much energy she’d spent on rituals during the fight, Arthur suspected her total pool was somewhere north of 40,000, significantly larger than he’d expected.
Ashley Rhye had mercifully fallen silent and it looked like her unborn child had fallen asleep. Arthur didn’t know how his magic would affect the monstrous offspring, if it was even counted as a living entity, but he hoped his magic would give the baby a chance at life. His patient still looked exactly the same, and Arthur was starting to worry that he’d need to pay the maximum cost of one million to heal her, a number that was currently impossible, even with Iris’s assistance. It was only after passing the thirty-thousand mark that things changed.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Ashley Rhy’s skin started to glow, first a dull red to match her skin tone that steadily brightened to a ruby glow. From there, it progressed to gain a slightly yellowish tinge and rapidly brightened. Arthur would bet all his finances that she’d end up bright gold. True to his predictions, within a few seconds, Ashley Rhye was shining like a golden flame. It wasn’t so bad at first, but Arthur was pretty sure an ordinary human wouldn’t be able to look at her anymore. When even Ayesha had to avert her gaze, he realised they might have a problem.
The failed blood beast was so bright now it was like a second sun had appeared on Earth. It reminded Arthur of footage he’d seen of a rocket taking off; like dawn had come early for the planet. The territory of blood could do little to contain the light she was emitting and he was sure it was visible for dozens of miles. “Focus, Arthur,” Iris warned. “Ignore the light. You’ll probably never get a chance to treat a patient like this ever again. Learn all you can from it.”
The words were like a splash of cold water down his back and he cursed himself for getting distracted. The seer was right. Who cared if Ashley glowed like a lighthouse? This was an opportunity he’d never get again, the circumstances that led to Ashley’s predicament so impossibly unlikely they’d never happen again in this sector of the universe. Closing his eyes, Arthur focused on what his skill was doing. He’d recognised already that he was pouring far more than mere ether into it, but a closer look revealed that he’d barely scratched the surface. The skill matrix was absorbing his energy, merging and evolving it in a process that would take him years of study to even begin to grasp until the output released was a substance that defied everything he knew about ether.
For starters, it almost seemed alive, processing a limited sort of intelligence that allowed it to move in ways he didn’t understand but recognised as the correct course of action. Most alarming of all, however, was the bonafide concept that was intrinsically woven into the energy.
Congratulations! Your ether manipulation (Rare) has reached level 5
That was the first time he’d levelled the skill in recent memory and it was from observing a process he couldn’t mentally grasp. Not for the first time, Arthur wished he had a skill that allowed him to record the things he observed with his inner eye for later perusal. Who knew how many grand secrets he was missing out on simply because he was too inexperienced to understand? Let’s not cry over things out of my control now, Arthur chided himself. Focusing on what you couldn’t have was a sure way to lose out on what you could gain.
With his mental stats as high as they were, only three seconds had passed since he began his observations. In that time, A Homanculi’s Healing had guzzled another 25,000 ether, and it showed no signs of slowing down. Once Arthur was certain he’d plucked all the low-hanging fruit from analysing his skill matrix in action, he followed the energy output to his target, Ashley Rhye. The best way to learn about medication was to see how it interacted with a patient, and whilst the failed blood beast was now shining too brightly for even him to directly look at, it didn’t prevent him from following the path his energy took into her body.
The closest thing he could compare it to, was the primordial ether present in the dragon's core he’d eaten, though he wasn’t sure if the similarities he was seeing were only because the energies were equally potent. Once the energy entered Ashley's body, it suffused her each and every cell in a process he’d best describe as osmosis, though once again, it was different enough that he might only be comparing them due to his ignorance. Arthur's arm was steaming hot, the amount of energy he’d powered through it a truly staggering value considering his level. Sweat was pouring off him, remaining for less than a second before rapidly evaporating. Anyone else would have severely harmed themselves in his place, but his durability kept him going strong.
Iris wasn’t facing the same problem as she wasn’t channelling the ether to fuel a skill, only transferring it over to him, but Arthur could tell she was fast approaching her limits. The healing energy poured into Ashley's cells, saturating them to the point he’d expect them to burst. Nothing of the sort happened. If anything, they started to absorb it faster, stealing energy from him as fast as he could provide it. Changes were taking place on a microscopic scale, but the composition of a blood beast's cells was too alien for him to make heads or tails of. He tried anyway and was able to identify a component that seemed like an evolved mitochondria, except it seemed to have been adapted horizontally to fulfil a new purpose altogether instead of vertically to improve its ability to generate energy.
Things were happening too fast, millions of changes every second, one moment, he’d think he’d finally grasped something and the next it was gone forever. Despite all this, it was only after Arthur poured 100,000 ether into the skill that the real magic started to happen. Iris was panting for breath and even he was starting to feel fatigued. It happened suddenly, one second the cells that had been greedily devouring his energy just… stopped. Arthur kept trying to use his skill for a few moments longer, but similar to Ashley Rhye, it simply rejected all the energy he poured into it. That’s when Arthur realised the skill had entered its cooldown phase, whatever he’d done with it could no longer be changed and it was unusable for the next 60 days. He could only pray the skill had worked.
A Homunculi’s Healing (Legendary+) has reached level 2…
A Homunculus healing (Legendary+) has reached level 3…
Congratulations you have gained the (Tier 4 ) Title Miracle worker (Heal the unhealable ??? ???)- Magic and Techniques used in recovery will have an increased likelihood of bringing someone back from beyond death’s door.
Arthur grinned. Judging by his notification, it looked like he’d been successful.