“Yes please.” Toby was eager to learn more about healing.

Nanna kept her gentle smile as she went into the closed room. When she came out, she had a book in her hands. It was a thick book - at least five hundred pages or even more.

The woman put the book on the table in front of Toby.

“Um.” He hesitated, not wanting his guess to be true. “What’s this, Granny?”

“This is a cyclopedia that contains knowledge that every Healer should know. Including how to use Healing and what kind of Items our Skills need to use.”

Toby flipped through the pages with his flipper. The book was written in a strange language that looked like a combination of Latin alphabet and Cyrillic script. Some characters that looked like A, B, O, and other letters in the Latin alphabet but with dashes, arrows, and curved lines. Some letters looked like R, W, and Z but tilted or flipped at different angles. The space between letters indicated each group of letters formed different words.

Surprisingly enough, Toby could understand this strange language.

Hey System, I can understand this because of the Dark Lord thing, right?

[Yes. That is correct]

Then how come I can’t understand what is written in my senior’s notebook? What language is that?

[Dark Lord No.12’s notebook was written in one of the languages from Earth, English]

Toby looked up at the sky and facepalmed.

“What’s wrong, sweetie? Is it too much for you?” Nanna sat down on the chair behind Toby.

“It’s nothing, Granny. I’m just excited because there's so much to learn.”

“That’s great. Then shall we begin?”

“Yes please.”

“Let’s start with the basics. Healing is the art of extracting specific properties from the Elements and using them to enhance the body’s ability to recover or to replace what is beyond recovery.”

“Huh? It’s not about using Skills to heal, Granny?”

Nanna smiled. “What are Skills, Toby?”

Toby opened his mouth to answer, but he realized he didn’t know what Skills were. Skills were just there, like the air they breathe. None took notice of it until someone dug deeper to understand it.

“I don’t know.” Toby shook his head.

“Then do you know what Status is?”

“Status are amplifiers to enhance our body and mind. Even if two people have the same number in stat, there will still be differences because their bodies are different and the way they train is different.”

“That’s right. Similar to Status, Skills are manifestations of our experience in life. It amplifies what we have learned and makes it easier for us to use them. For example, when we heal people with Water Element enough times, there is a small chance to gain a healing Skill related to using Water Element. But it isn't that common since there are difficult conditions to fulfill. That’s why we come to the Temples after we Rank Up to gain more Skills.”

She stood up. “I forgot. Would you like some tea, sweetie?”

“Yes please.”

Nanna walked toward the Items shell and took a handful of leaves. She took a Burning Grass Seed and did something Toby thought was insanely cool.

When Nanna pointed at the seed, a bright red-orange light came out of the seed, then turned into a small flame as the seed crumbled into ash in her palm. She calmly put the ash into a small jar on the small table next to the shell, then put the leaves into a teapot with water already inside. With a flick of her wrist, the flame surrounded the pot’s bottom. Seconds later, the water boiled and steam came out of the teapot - just like that. She took the teapot and two cups back and sat down again.

“That’s so cool. Can I learn to do that too?”

“Of course you can.” Nanna sipped her tea. “We Healer are most proficient in dealing with the true nature of the Elements, even more so than Elementalist, after all.”

“True nature of the Elements? Also, if we can gain Skills naturally, why do we need the Temples?”

“To answer your questions, you need to understand the Elements. What do you know about the Elements, sweetie?”

“Well, so far, I know there are Water, Fire, Air, Wood, Earth, Light, and Darkness. There's something related to gravity too.”

“You understand that all on your own. That’s good.”

“I still don’t know about gravity and the true nature of the Elements.”

“Gravity comes from combining all elements, except Light and Darkness, together. We, as Healers, don’t use it, so I lack understanding on that part. I’m sorry.”

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“You don’t have to apologize, Granny. You’re already teaching me a lot.”

“Let’s come back to the true nature of the Elements. What do you think those are?”

“I don’t know.” Toby shrugged. “Taking wild guesses without knowing anything is just dangerous.”

“A safety-first kind of mindset. That’s good to have as a Healer.” Nanna smiled. “We call it the true nature of Elements because, at the core of every Skills, there’s always something related to the concept that lies within the Elements. After thousands of years of research, we found out the true nature of the three Elements and the concept embedded in them.” She paused.

"Yes, yes, and.” Toby’s eyes were glittering.

Nanna smiled. “Water Element true nature is the concept of Purity, Fire Element true nature is the concept of Rebirth, and Wood Element true nature is either the concept of Life or Growth.”

“Either?”

“We aren’t completely sure after all.”

“Ok, I kind of get it. But that still didn’t answer the question, Granny.”

“Be patient. We are getting there.” She took another sip of her tea. “To gain a Skill, we must fulfill conditions. One of the conditions is to understand and interpret the true nature of the Element of the Skill. For example, if you want to gain a Fire related Skill then you need to have your own understanding of the concept of Rebirth first. It might sound easy, but it’s one of the hardest things to do.”

“What about Skills that don’t have Element?”

“Those are even rarer since you will have to understand the nature of Mana itself.”

Ok, I have a way bigger cheat than I thought. Toby cheered.

“Then why do we have to go to the Temples to get Skills when we Rank Up, Granny?”

“The Celestial Temples have a ritual that can only be done for those who recently ranked up. Ideally, within twenty-eight days after Rank Up. But since Anthrals Rank Up at the Temples too, that won’t be a problem, as the ritual itself serves as the Rank Up condition for Anthrals. During that ritual, you can gain one or more Skills. I don’t understand how it works, but that’s how it is. As for Primalis, I'm sorry but I don't know much.”

“I see. Thanks for explaining it to me, Granny.”

“You’re welcome, sweetie. Then, shall we learn about healing?”

“Bring it on.” Toby raised his flipper.

Time went by. On the eighth day since he arrived in Eldium, Toby brought Lily to Nanna’s house.

“Good evening, Madam. It’s nice to meet you.” Lily bowed with her hands, gently picking up her skirt’s hem.

“Nice to meet you too, young lady. My name is Nanna. I’m a Healer.” The old woman bowed slightly.

When Lily heard Nanna was a Healer, she looked at Toby, who was on her lap.

“Granny might be able to help. She's a much better Healer than me.”

“Come inside, you two. Don’t stand there and get rain all over you. You might get sick.”

“Thank you,” Lily said as she floated inside the house.

“Take a seat, sweetie. No need to be shy.” Nanna closed the door and sat on one of the chairs at the table in the middle of the room.

Lily sat down on one too and put Toby on the table.

“Would you mind if I take a look at your life force, sweetie?” Nanna offered her hand.

Lily reached out and placed her hand on top of Nanna’s. Nanna closed her eyes and dropped her head slightly like she was falling asleep. But Toby knew she wasn’t. This happened every time Nanna needed to focus on something.

“This is trickier than I thought,” Nanna said as she opened her eyes.

“What’s wrong, Granny? What’s the problem?” Toby asked.

“Here,” Nanna took one of Toby’s flippers and placed it on Lily’s hand. “Would you mind, sweetie?”

“No, Madam.” Lilly shook her head.

Nanna nodded. “Take a look for yourself, Toby.”

Following Nanna’s instruction, Toby scanned Lily’s life force. Life force was like building blocks of the bodies. To Toby’s, it was like Lily’s life force was a giant, hundred of thousand pieces of a jigsaw puzzle; each piece perfectly aligned and connected to form a perfectly harmonized, healthy body.

Or it should have. The jigsaw pieces that made up her legs had cracks all over; some were even missing, leaving behind an empty void that disrupted the flow and circulation between the pieces. Toby looked at the pieces, unable to look away as the rhythm between them sounded like a mix of screams between the clear bell-like ringing.

“Do you have a dream, young lady?” Nana’s voice snapped Toby out of his daze.

“…Yes, I have something I must accomplish.” Lily closed her eyes and said.

Nanna nodded. “I might not have a solution now, but I’ll try my best to help you fix your life force. Please come by once in a while so I can study it further.”

“I will. Thank you.” Lily bowed.

“Thank you, Granny.” And so did Toby.

Nanna stretched, “All that heavy stuff is making me hungry. Would you two like some cookies?”

Just like that, Toby's new daily life was established.

Every day, he trained to build his fundamentals before dawn with Elaria. In the morning, he did commissions with Lukas after Grillion said they didn’t need the goblin to show them the ropes anymore. By evening, he dropped by Nanna’s place to learn about healing. Sometimes he met Lily and ate cookies together. Life was good.

Three weeks later, Toby and Lukas saw obvious improvement from their training with how Toby could drift six laps and Lukas could sprint four laps around the training ground. It wasn’t the only thing they achieved. Toby could move half as freely as he was when he had the tutorial cheat, and Lukas could actively use that vibration slash of his.

It wasn’t perfect, but it was still an improvement. But during one of the training sessions, Elaria suddenly said.

“You two are going to take a test to increase your Adventurer’s Rank to Silver.”

“That fast?” Toby exclaimed. “What do we have to do, Master Elaria?”

“Kill ten Rank 2 monsters.”

“Um…” Toby hesitated.

“I can do it for you, big bro Toby,” Lukas said as he stopped swinging his greatsword.

“Who told you to stop? Keep swinging. Three hundred eighty-two more to go. Now swing.”

“Yes, master,” Lukas shouted as he swung his sword.

“I know you have been dodging commissions related to hunting monsters. I also know you are not a coward that would back out of a fight. So why are you so hesitating about killing?” Elaria turned back toward Toby.

“…Can I not talk about it? It makes me want to hurl.”

Elaria raised one of her eyebrows as she stared at the turtle.

“No.” She said clearly. “If you want to be an Adventurer then killing is a must. I can’t back out of it. Whether it’s killing monsters or enemies coming your way.”

She raised her index and middle fingers. “You have two options. One, get over your fear and fight to protect what you hold dear. Or two, give up and stay in your house. You are a Healer, you have that option. You can open a clinic or something.”

Elaria folded her arms. “Just know this. One day, you will regret such a thing when you eventually watch your comrades die in your arms because you didn’t want to fight and risk losing the peace you gained. You might think your fight ended, but I can assure you, it won’t end with just that. So, if you can’t kill, then give up and get out. I don’t need a useless disciple.”

Toby didn’t answer. He just hung his head and stared at the ground.

“Master, that’s…” Lukas stopped swinging and looked at the two.

“SWING.” Elaria roared, causing Lukas to flinch and continue his training. He was swinging the sword, but he still peeked at them constantly.

Toby looked up at Elaria. His eyes and voice shook. “I’ll fight.”

The elf nodded. “Good.”

“What kind of monster do I have to… kill?”

“Rank 2 monster, Wave Walker,” Elaria answered.