Arthur looked at the system notification clamouring for his attention. It didn't disappoint.
Overwhelming Regeneration (Rare) Level 3- Use healing Ether to regenerate your body at 1.6% of max health total per minute of usage. Efficiency drops by 40% when used on another individual. Can be supercharged to target foreign energy and poisons present in wounds.
Cost of usage on host: 25 Ether/minute
Cost of usage on another: 35 Ether/minute
Secondary Effect: 160 healing affinity Ether may be stored as OVERHEALTH in the target of this ability to be used for recovery when the individual is injured. This stored Ether works under Host-Use efficiency levels. Overhealth can be stored in host but undergoes a degradation process. Current time limit: 24 hours
Host's stored overhealth can be used as a single-use attack that will greatly slow down the target's natural regeneration rates as well as destroy ether at a 2:1 ratio. Current ether destruction: 80
Rare skills cap at level 30
In all honesty, not much had changed. The percentage increase for healing had gone from 1.4% to 1.6%. It didn't seem like much at first glance, but it meant that his skill now increased by .3% per level up instead of the previous .2%.
With the level cap of the Rare skill rising from the uncommon 20 to 30, it meant his final skill would equal out to a whopping 9.7% regeneration of his total health per minute compared to the previous cap of 4.8%. Those totals were of course only estimates he'd made dependent on the assumption the skill would level linearly instead of exponentially. It was honestly a lowball and it was already great enough.
The other change that had been made to its primary effect was a decrease in ineffectiveness from 50% to 40% when he used it on another individual. As a skill dependent on his own max health pool and not his patients, this skill was honestly perfect for someone like Arthur who had so many titles boosting his vitality to absurd levels.
The main change to the skill, however, had to go to his newfound ability to store overhealth in himself and weaponise it as some sort of insidious attack. And of course, the primary reason he had managed to rank up his skill, was his inability to properly target the poison affecting Artemo which had unassumingly resulted in only a single line being added to his skill description.
Can be supercharged to target foreign energy and poisons present in wounds.
It was quite vague and Arthur could only hope it'd be enough to deal with the job. His gut told him it would.
In his excitement, he'd almost forgotten the audience he had with him. Judging by the looks he was receiving, especially from Professor Jhonson, they seemed to realise Arthur had progressed somehow. He didn't let it bother him. Nothing but his patient mattered now.
In the end, his sudden upgrade to the skill had come from a small experiment he had run. It stemmed from a momentary bout of inspiration and he was honestly a little surprised it had worked out.
Maybe he didn't really have to fight off the poisonous ether, after all, it was nigh impossible to do at his current strength, or at least it had been before his skill had evolved. No, it would be so much easier to use the energy already present inside his patient to combat the insidious power afflicting the kid.
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After all, Artemo’s body had been trying to fight off the poison for so long already, albeit with the assistance of some miraculous magitech, and all he’d have to do was offer him a helping hand.
Then Artemo's supercharged ether would do all the work and he would just have to watch and see the miracle in action. He didn't know how or why it would work, only that it would. Arthur intuitively knew somehow that after the skill had ranked up, it would take around a sixth of the ether required prior to its evolution to heal the young dimensional traveller. That translated to an estimated 700 units of energy instead of the absurd value it should have been. It would have been beyond his total reserves and he was sure the poisonous energy would have recovered somewhat in the time it would have taken him to recuperate, thus resulting in a tiring loop of healing that may or may not have been successful.
Arthur was glad that the rank-up had come at such an opportune time as despite his 3rd level in the regeneration skill, he was not comfortable in running 4200 ether through it. Because of the poison's almost living nature, Arthur was also sure that he’d have to deal with the foreign ether in a single decisive blow. He took a deep breath, and drew on his ether reserves, not wanting to delay his medical operation any longer than he already had. He was now aware of the numerous eyes on him, most filled with scepticism and some even with disgust. He made sure not to look at Alyssia, unsure as to how she was reacting to his apparent lack of ability.
He wasn't ready to face eyes filled with hopelessness, afraid that he would see his past desperate self within them. Besides, he’d work his miracle yet, and prove everyone wrong. Placing both his palms on Artemo's chest, Arthur used his considerable 190 points of willpower to direct his ether through the regeneration skill and into the boy's chest. He braced himself, for what he expected would be his most difficult use of magic since the system's arrival and wasn't disappointed.
Artemo’s ether seemed to reject his own administrations as if the two couldn't mix like they were oil and water. Arthur didn't care. He pushed forward, forcing the ambient ether in the young Alverins body to go into a volatile state. This could go very, very wrong now and so Arthur breathed out and calmed his racing heart, directing the boys now violent ether to the foreign energy infecting his body. The results were as expected, the toxic poison disappeared at a visible rate as if it was a tiny lake being drowned in an ocean's worth of water.
From there, Arthur found it very easy to regrow the Alverin's chest, taking careful attention to make sure that the boy’s damaged lung was healed as an exact replica of his whole one. For all the seemingly similar anatomies between humans and Alverins, Arthur did not want to give the boy a defective lung due to his haste.
The hard part was done and he didn't want to mess up the easiest part of the procedure. Though it had felt much longer to Arthur, his healing when he had finally gotten down to it had taken all of 50 seconds, and the excited murmurings of individuals watching the miraculous healing taking place right before their eyes were like music to Arthur's ears.
Though the entire operation was over in less than a minute, Arthur was drenched in sweat and felt more tired than he had since fighting the Draconic Liverthion. Despite his ether reserves barely being diminished, Arthur just wanted to sleep. Sadly, as he would come to learn in the next few moments, it would be a long time before he could get rest. So subtly, that even he with his inflated stats couldn't feel it, someone cast a spell in the room. No one could see what the spell did and even Arthur only saw it as a warping of the natural order of the world. He blinked and suddenly Alyssia was in front of him, one hand outstretched to grab her recently healed younger brother.
He’d almost forgotten about the alverin woman in his euphoric moment of success but it looked like she remembered every slight that had been committed to her by those present in this room, judging by the way she glared at everyone around her save Arthur.
Looks like patience was never her strong point.
She couldn't even wait till her brother woke up to start taking some revenge, and the frightening look on her face showed that she'd be collecting interest. Alyssia released her aura, and Arthur felt it wash over him, chilling him to the bone with the malice and rage he could feel in it. Others weren't so lucky, some even passing out from the incredible pressure.
Karma always found a way of finding its target and this time it had found the perfect agent to carry out its work. Alyssia smiled and Arthur just sighed wearily.
It seemed like the day was far from over.