I was not prepared for how brutal the fight actually got, their absolute refusal to stop fighting until they were rendered incapable of continuing was kinda creepy. Then afterwards they all just lined up to be healed and there was a complete lack of animosity even though they just had their asses kicked. On a lighter note, my little celestial gained a level while healing all these smashed limbs, it didn't make her capable of being self sustaining with her light but she gained a new spell, Purifying light. It altered the composition of her light somehow to be extra effective against dark aligned magic, which sounded like removing curses or unnatural darkness, but it loses all physical healing ability while active.

Last in line was Christian, since she was the least injured, who happily reported success, she gained two special traits from the battle. One was the normal trait soldiers got to evolve their class while the other one was similar but clearly much harder to earn and so hopefully meant it would give a better one. Once she was healed she went off to see Victoria, apparently ants didn't use a class shrine to change class like the other races, instead their mother was like a living shrine, in addition to all her other powers so far. While she went off to do that I asked the celestial if now that she gained a level if she knew what exactly gave her experience, and she felt that it was when she healed wounds with her magic.

That meant she had a two part system for exp gain since plenty of celestials have healed tons of wounds but they never appeared to level up. She had to cast a spell and the spell had to be effective, a no target spell that did nothing gained nothing. There was a way to test it easily enough, I held her over my hand and had her drip on it for a while to see if she could feel any gains from that. After about ten minutes I had her stop and asked if she got anything and nope, nothing. Since she needed a wound that meant I needed a wound, I pulled out a dagger and after a few breaths to steady myself I stabbed my arm. It hurt like a bitch but it was surprisingly not nearly as bad as I thought a stab should feel like, once again dealing with horrendous pain from overloading magic was helpful.

It only took a few drops to heal it since it was a clean cut, but that was the problem, turned out an easy wound didn't offer much exp, but I had no jagged knives to make a ragged wound and I didn't want to use a stone one because I didn't want to risk foreign matter in the wound. Now what would make a wound that is horrible but clean... burns! A burn would be sterile but also be a big glob of damage that would take a bit to heal, I asked her about her limits so I didn't end up crippled by pushing too hard. She felt confident that she could heal anything that didn't involve missing hard parts, so no regrowing a missing hand, but she could maybe reattach one if you managed to hold on to it.

I went to my small makeshift furnace and got a fire lit in it, then settled my dry but unfired crucible into the top and reclosed the lid, multitasking! After it got going I closed the hatch for a bit to let it heat up and once it was nice and hot I opened it, threw in some more wood and then jammed my hand into the coals. That was actually painful enough for me to rate it higher than a brain blast, but only by a bit, and also only for a second as the nerve endings got seared off. When I pulled it out I was left with a charred mess on the end of my arm, third degree burns and I think some counted as fourth degree? Regardless I moved the healer into position and watched as drops of light flowed into the holes in my flesh and pulled the bits back together.

Since it healed from the inside out, it caused the burnt parts to flake off as living flesh flowed back into position. Magic sense could detect a tingle as the drops hit me since they had a tiny mana component but the majority of the energy was invisible. I kinda wished I had Detection like a certain overpowered spider but without max level feedback resist my head would probably explode if I did. As the skin was healing there was an itching sensation, that I would ascribe to the nerves growing back, that passed through my hand but dissipated rapidly. Once fully healed I asked her how the gains were, this time she confirmed she got a fair amount, but she didn't know how close she was to another level just that she earned exp at a good rate from that injury.

Before starting another round of that I refilled the fuel chamber, close the door, then sealed two of the three air pipes with a hardened dirt plug. Over the third pipe I made a big bubble of dirt and squeezed it down to force the air in the bubble through the pipe and into the fire. As I did that I easily heard the soft roar of the fire gaining extra air like using a normal bellows and the smoke coming from the top went faster as the air became pressurized. Reinflating was easy, just a wiggle caused the dirt to go over the hole and another caused the ball to be covered in holes to let air through. After a few pumps I released the ball and reopened the hatch, it was even hotter as I expected, I threw in some more wood and once more took the plunge.

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It hurt more but the pain lasted even less time then the previous one, I pulled my hand out a little early this time but let her heal it anyway before going back for more. Before you ask, I was not being a masochist, it hurt like fuck but it was something I had to do to help my little girl become better. If she became strong enough she wouldn't need to parasitize my magic to stay awake, but from how her output changed between levels one and two I doubt level four will be good enough to overcome the energy requirement. Still, magic output seems to be a function of level and Int, no idea what the math could be since there are no hard numbers on my mana, but I know having more of ether one gives you more power to work with so once I am sure it is stable I will see about making a copper ring of magic power in her size, perhaps as a tiny crown instead of a ring.

As I settled into a routine of burning and healing I realized something else this could do, like how punching rocks eventually made me more resistant to cracking a finger,  this could lead to be resistant to being burned. I could easily imagine no one getting that unless it's a class skill because who the hell would burn themselves repeatedly on purpose just for a chance at a skill, well, besides me. There came a point where I suddenly became incredibly hungry so I finished up the healing and felt myself get hungrier as I was healed. As I stood I noticed Christina was staring at me so I walked over and saw she looked a lot different, I asked how it went but I could only imagine it went well.

She blinked a few times before responding, turned out her class was more complex since it had Int and Wis bonuses instead of the extra physical stats that a normal soldier class up gave. She questioned my self mutilation and I explained how celestial leveling worked as well as how I could gain another skill. With that handled she asked if I could handle the cooking fire as well so she could get started trying to train her sister in more advanced methods of combat. I supposed I could since I was sure that the crucible was done baking but now it needed to cool, I was sure going slow would be better than fast so leaving it in the furnace until the whole thing cooled would work just fine.

I agreed with her idea and traded places with the soldier and kept watch over the food, I had to eat some of it but there was plenty to throw on afterwards. The fact I got hungry as I healed meant healing wasn't free despite being magic, it still needed my body to provide the resources for reconstructing the missing flesh. As I poked at the bits of meat on the hot top of the clay stove I wondered how I could up efficiency for healing. I would need more soldiers so that a bunch could sit around and break each others arms over and over while still having enough out hunting that no one would starve. Not sure how long it took between eating something and the material being available for use, probably a day, though it could be instant, but I didn't want to risk that kind of injury.

I relaxed and watched Christina do her best to teach her sister how to fight while keeping an eye on the meat, moving it to a sterilized plate of hardened dirt as the bits finished. The soldier was clearly trying to learn but her ability to internalize whatever Christina was telling her was hampered, and so was slow going. Another soldier came back with more meat so I let her take over while I headed inside, without the ability to grind healing at the moment the celestial didn't have much to do. I met with Victoria and told her what we had done and asked exactly how class up worked from her end. When Christina held her hand she was able to bring up a new blue box that listed available classes and when selected a black box action occurred, a stream of energy entered her from somewhere before flowing into her daughter, it was slightly uncomfortable but otherwise she had no idea what happened.

It was interesting, but then I asked about her changing classes, like if there was a greatest queen class, she wasn't sure how it would work but probably it would be like her level four growth spurt and the energy would enter her but not leave somewhere else. Hopefully I can change class using her as well otherwise it will be a pain in the ass getting into a city to use the altar, unless there is a way to make one. After that we say good night to the celestial and I slowly turn down the energy injection until she goes back to sleep, then brought her over to the work zone where the workers were already three meters down through the solid rock. Even with one level I could see that the one I trained with was a bit brighter since now she had more energy to feed into her converter.

With two celestials they didn't need one worker to carry her back and forth to keep both sets of stairs clear which should let them work even faster. Asking about what the plan is with the stairs, it will go down so there is ten meters of stone between the floor of the upper area and the roof of the next floor. Regular applications of hardening will ensure there is no risk of collapse, and then they will start branch mining a little but not too much, before they start adding more chambers. That sounded like a good enough plan for now so I let them get back to it and went back to have some more food with Victoria and relax with her a bit.