Over the next week, Liam channeled his healing magic, repairing his mother from the inside in extremely specific ways. His infant body quickly exhausted its healing affinity, causing him to sleep often, blending the world of conscious thought with unconsciousness. Without sunlight or access to the external world, time passed. A blur of sleep and healing and growing. Thankfully, his mana expanded with every cast, slowly recovering and deepening the depths of his magical well until he could cast healing six times between rests. Throughout it all, the acquisitions of his previous life’s levels gathered inside his mind.

[Lightning] level 20

[Darkness] level 10

[Fire] level 5

[Healing] level 5

What levels honestly were, was a mystery to Liam. He’d meant to ask Taloc when they met, but for some reason the god had rushed him into this body. Doubly confounding since he knew ‘gods’ existed, and that one was trapped aboard what appeared to be a silver spaceship. But he needed to be born before he could worry about that.

First he repaired mother’s broken ankles, then cleaned up her blisters with the extra mana, draining the puss and swelling while leaving extra layers of skin, creating callouses so she could walk without pain. Then he turned to her other ligaments, reconnecting her iliac crest to the vertebrae so she could sit and stand once more. Her threats diminished as he worked, seemingly appeasing her wrath in linear correlation to her mobility.

[Healing] increased to level 6

The levelup notification made Liam laugh. Or try to. If you’ve ever tried to vomit and laugh at the same time, it would be a similar sensation of fluid in the mouth and lungs. But nothing could crush his spirits now! Levels granted greater efficiency and increased ability within the category, giving his spells more punch for less mana. His six casts of healing were now eight. Additionally, if he could find a magician’s college when he got out, the levelup would enable him to learn new chants, but Liam had always circumvented this world’s understanding of magic. As it seemed more neumonic than applied. Like an oral tradition that had altered the ancient stories of Homer over time, unintentionally losing certain meanings.

Eventually Mother was fit enough to walk and move, motions he thought would make him seasick, instead it felt comforting, like being cradled in Nyota’s arms. Most likely some form of adaptation of his infant biology made the flying roller coaster comfortable. Still, he didn’t want to alter her body while she was in motion, so he waited until she laid down for her nightly sleep to activate his magic.

With his greater level came greater control, healing magic, more appropriately termed life affinity, wasn’t simply the ability to heal, it was the ability to craft flesh, to alter living tissues while adhering to said tissue’s intrinsic rules and demands. Bones could not be moved without adjusting the way muscles, ligaments, and tendons connected to them. Nor could you expand a bone without increasing the marrow and osteocytes that supported the increased biological demands of that bone. To seal a stab wound you would first have to expunge any debris, then seal the arteries before repairing the skin, otherwise you could bleed out internally or succumb to infections. Conditions that life magic was aware of and automagically accounted for.

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—Details concerning the reality of birth have been removed by the editor. Twice. So the following prose has some gaps to reduce grossness.—

Whether it was weeks or months or days later, Liam couldn’t know, all he knew was [Healing] level 7. Mom’s body was now repaired, and he was long overdue. Weaving his medical knowledge together with [mana manipulation] he created –for lack of any more appropriate term– a slip-and-slide of life. Finally liberating himself from the prison he called ‘Mom’. She seemed equally relieved to be rid of him, and relaxed, though her right hand still held a foot long shard of silver.

Liam coughed, emptying his lungs of the amniotic fluid and taking his first breath of fresh air. It was dry, stale, and tasted of sand and sweat. His limbs flailed, not truly under his control and spasming as neural connections fired of their own volition, specialized cells figuring out –via millions of trial and error cycles– how to function within the greater whole.

But Liam wasn’t finished. He still had three casts of healing remaining and used every one of them to maximum effect. The first he channeled into his mother, reshaping her hips and belly to the athletic figure she had maintained in the time before him. A sort of ‘thank you, now please take care of me’. The second cast caused the placenta to be reabsorbed by mother, neatly severing the umbilical cord as well. While the third spared her an unpleasantry.

On Earth there was a long tradition of mammals consuming the placenta to regain the nutrients and energy it cost to create, and his mother was clearly starving. So Liam saved them both that potential trauma and magically facilitated the reabsorption of her own cells, immediately boosting her vigor. The shard of silver flashed, falling through the air to clatter on the bedside table.

“I’ve never felt better than when you left me…” Whispered Mother, speaking in the language of Baron William Ethan Green, albeit with an almost indecipherable accent of the distant south. Like Portugese and Spanish, the languages shared a common root, but had diverged at some point, leading to two uniquely overlapping and distinct languages.

The Baron had only heard it spoken in the winter court of King Aldric, when the Duke of Kheresh conversed with his own vassals. He was technically the first duke in line for the Royal throne, but Kheresh paled in comparison to Duke Hamilton’s wealth and armies. Largely due to the Kheresh desert… Hundreds, maybe even thousands of miles away from Nyota. A land that had once been fertile forests, until a cataclysm had turned the duchy into a desert of glass dust.

Hmmm… That’ll be a surprise, hey mom, I know you just gave birth, but i’d really prefer to go home… Want to meet my wife? Thought Liam.

Mother touched her stomach, clearly seeking stretchmarks and finding none. Her hands wandered over her hips, tactilly investigating what should have been damaged.

“That’s… unnatural… A healing baby?” Said Mom, looking down at Liam with a raised eyebrow. Her fingers found the pinched umbilical cord, seeing the same style of crimp they used in hospitals. “Magic isn’t allowed to awaken until puberty…” She muttered, giving Liam a puzzled look. “Fine, I’ll keep you.” Said Mom.

Wow, how… uhm… generous of you… Thought Liam, wondering exactly what he was in for, and never guessing the trauma his life was about to become.

Or the joy he would find after.