Nathan woke up from the best sleep he had since he arrived at Vixen. The soft and fluffy bed was exactly what his back needed. Luckily his body was young and fresh here. He shuddered at the thought of doing everything he has so far as an old man.
When he woke up a little bird was looking at him from the frame of his bed. “Oh hello, which of my roommates do you belong to?”
The birds' beak opened up. “Oh thank god you woke up. Thought you were dead. Nathan Shultz, you are requested at the Receptionist Desk due to the large amount of mail you have.”
The bird poofed into smoke leaving Nathan slightly confused. He got out of bed and put on his day clothes. He planned to clean himself up after some practice this morning, but first whatever is needed by the front desk.
He headed to the Front Hall where he glanced at the clock showing it nearly 11AM. When he walked into the receptionist area, one of the receptionists locked eyes with him and seemed relieved. “Oh thank god, Nathan, come on back here, I’ll take you to all of it.”
“All of it? How much is there?” He asked, following down a hallway.
“See for yourself.” The door opened to hundreds of letters stacked up on a table. “We tried to organize them the best we could. They are in order of rank of the requester, then in order of receiving the letter.”
He pointed to a lone stack that started from the floor and was up to Nathan’s waist. “Those are transfer requests to other Guild locations so you can join the parties located elsewhere. This...this is one of the highest request rates we've ever seen, what are you?”
Nathan was just as shocked. “I’m just a Healer.”
“That explains it, Healers are rare, and from your Badge this is the only Guild you are in correct?”
Nathan nodded to confirm.
“Oh dear, want us to bring in any new ones?”
“No, go head and deny any of those unless there is a signing bonus.” Nathan sat down with a heavy sigh. “I actually wanted to go for a run today.”
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Nathan had barely made a dent after the three hours of coming through invites. He started by reading each one, but soon started to throw them out if they were missing certain details.
“No assurance of a permanent slot? No thanks.”
Nathan grabbed the next one and scoffed as they spelt his name wrong, throwing it too in a pile of ‘No’.
“Dear Mr. Shultz, I am Jermy Sknuff. I am leader of a Steel Ranked Party-”
“Too strong for me, I will be used as a healer on the return trip more than likely. I can’t grow at all that way.”
One of Nathan’s first letters was from a Diamond Rank party. Inviting him with lots of benefits. Yet, after thinking about what he really wanted in a group that wasn’t it. He compared it to his months of finding a hospital to join.
It came down to where he was most useful, along with where he could help the most. People at that skill level couldn’t benefit from his low skills. Their Health is in the thousands, and he can only heal for twenty at a single time.
He peaked at any letters from Silver or Steel ranks, in hopes it was a high level leader, but had lower level members. Yet only ten letters so far interested him.
One was from a Bronze Rank party that recently ranked up. The missions they encounter involve deadlier situations and now cause for the need of a proper Healer. Along with a contract upon joining that would ensure a spot for two years at a minimum.
The second best choice was an Iron Rank group that was fresh, but monetarily backed. Nathan needed money, but he suspected the Leader was pompous and never really worked a day in his life.
At the end of everything, he established eight meetings with people. The earliest was set for later that night, so had plenty of time to work out and practice his skills. El gave him a list of workouts to practice, so he could increase his cardio along with healing spells.
The Guild was great at setting people up with the tools they needed to train. When he offered to heal people to train his skills at no cost, people were lined up around him waiting their turn after getting beaten into pulp.
Once his mana was at 20% he apologized to everyone who he never got to. The voices of disappointment were small, since the chance of free healing was well worth the wait. Nathan then proceeded to go for a run around the training lot, following in rhythm with a few other runners. He wished he could have music, but this at least allowed him to think freely while his body focused on the task at hand.
His mind wandered to different tasks he had for the next few days. The topics in his books, as well as some theory crafting.
Magic was still new and something he wanted to know more about. Especially how it interacted with the bodies of not only humans, but the other races. He started with the basis of all things. The transfer of energy.
Mana was an energy, and he was able to shape it to his will to create an effect. So what effect was exactly healing magic? Did it increase the speed of recovery? Did it just physically create and add flesh back to the body like building blocks? Could it be something much simpler and explained with the phrase ‘because magic’?
Nathan threw the last idea out, as it made zero sense. If he was a child or uneducated person, he would buy it. As a man of medicine he would discover all he could. He focused on how his magic healed those who lined up for him to be cured. Most of them were just bruised, but a few had actual cuts on their arms or legs.
He thought about how the magic left his body and moved to their body. What he did notice was that the closer his hands were to the wound, the faster it healed. This led Nathan to believe the magic did something to the wound directly.
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He would need test subjects, which means people getting hurt. Unless...Nathan proceeded to fall flat on his face as his body quit moving.
Gurgling noises were the only thing that came out of his mouth as a few people came over to him laughing. “Boy, pay attention to your Stamina. You just hit zero. Were you that focused on something you didn’t notice?”
“Urrrrrr” Nathan responded, losing even more dignity.
A couple of people carried him over to a bench so he could lay down for an hour to rest. Once Nathan had recovered a couple Stamina he could start to move. He felt like absolute shit. His entire body was on fire, and he was covered in sweat.
“I can’t believe I got so distracted I didn’t notice I hit zero Stamina.” Nathan scolded himself. “Note to self, don’t start thinking about healing magic while running.”
Nathan couldn’t walk until he hit 5 Stamina, which was several more minutes. He was already seeing the downside to a low recovery speed to not only Stamina but other stats. If this was Mana, his mind would be cooked for almost an hour.
A long shower and clean clothes made everything better. Nathan noticed his Recovery for everything had a minor bump after the shower. Making another mental note that taking care of yourself could improve Recovery speed, even if only by a fraction of an amount.
Once he was changed he slapped his head and remembered he had the spell [Cleanse]. “I need to remember that one, I can skip showers and save so much time for studying!”
He headed to get food at the Mess Hall, he saw nobody he knew, and wanted to study more on the Gemstone book while eating anyways. He ate a pasta salad, which apparently here was just salad with noodles and chicken broth. “Do they not know what Ramen is called?”
Slurping down a few bites of noodles, Nathan continued his studies. After eating he moved back to his room to continue resting until his first meeting for a party to join started.
Four hours later, Nathan walked over to one of the several meeting rooms. Luckily for him, everyone would come to him to introduce themselves. However, he did have them set up in time blocks, and would need to manage his time better.
Glancing around the room, he didn’t see a clock and grumbled in annoyance. “I am so going to go over the time limit.”
A few minutes later his first meeting started. Benjy was a Human and leader of a party of four. Iron Rank. “Hello, are you Nathan?” He asked. He was wearing a red tunic and normal clothing. He did have a satchel around his shoulder, which seemed odd to Nathan as he didn’t walk around with his bag.
“I am, come take a seat.”
“You have no idea how thankful I am for this opportunity. A Healer of your prestige is unheard of. If you join my party, you can bet you will rise to the top in no time!” His forwardness made Nathan like him a bit more.
“Hold on, let’s back it up. What do you mean as a ‘Healer of my prestige’? I thought Healers joined this Guild all the time.”
Benjy sat back in his chair. “Of course, but you are already Level 4, and have no ties with any other guild. That means you can put all your focus on being an Adventurer with no obligations or rules if you were in another Guild.”
Nathan didn’t even think about that. El mentioned all the time Guilds make it’s members sign contracts, forcing what they could or couldn’t do. Here he was free to do as he wished, which essentially made him a wild card in the deck.
“I see, well is that the only reason you want me to join? Just because I have no obligations to anyone else, and only am required to put focus on you or the others in your party?”
Benjy flinched. “No not at all! I mean, it’s a great benefit, but we are all around Level 5-8 in the group. We are starting to do more dangerous fights, or missions that involve multiple creatures that need killing or even far travels. Healers are great for such things. We have a Dwarf who is our tank. He is the Juggernaut Class within his guild. Little offensive power, but he barely takes any damage in a fight. His two shields makes him an impenetrable wall. With you supporting him, nothing can stop us!”
Nathan nodded along while listening. “That does seem interesting.” He thought to himself. “Tell me, what are your other members including yourself?”
“Oh, I am Summoner specializing in Elementals. It’s expensive with materials, but versatile if I don’t focus on a single type. Our other two members are a Bowman and an unspecialized Mage.”
Nathan winced. “No front liners?”
“My elementals take care of it all. Plus Go’da puts walls to protect us. We funnel them to Druggon who keeps them taunted while we pick them off one by one. The occasional ranged attack gets by, but that’s where you come in to keep us topped off.” Benjy explained.
Nathan assumed it was a good strategy, but he had no idea of proper fighting formations. Something about being stuck until all the enemies around you are dead didn’t sit well with him.
“Okay, anything else you have to offer before I talk to other possible parties. This is not me saying no, but I rather hear all my options first before giving a solid answer of any sort.”
“We can get you signed into the group for a year, and for loot we follow basic Guild procedures. Coins are split evenly, items go up for gamble among the party. We have an honor system if someone can benefit from it greatly enough to aid the party as a whole, they get it regardless. An example of this would be if we found a staff that increases healing magic. It would be useless to not give that to you, unless you can’t use it or you have a better one. In which case we would sell it and split the coin.”
Nathan liked that and made note to ask for similar reward systems if other parties had none in place. “Good deal, thank you Benjy, you will hear from me soon.”
Benjy left taking a quick glance as if he wanted to say more, but didn’t want to upset Nathan by overstaying.