Ixalia started on the mapping, which gave her information on the position and shape of things in the body. It was a hefty spell expensive in mana and hard on her concentration and control. Such a spell wouldn't be generally used because the previous set would give her all the information on a patient's health she needed. It came into use to prepare for operations and that only rarely, as technological methods could match or, if the spell wasn't carried by a rare expert, more often than not surpass it. But she was asked to reveal everything she was capable of, and she had no intention of holding back once she was given permission to show off to a professional medico.

Shortly after starting, she halted and frowned. If a practitioner wanted to record his findings, they usually employed either another mage to funnel and process the information or magitech tools to do it for them. Both methods required the diagnostician to hold up two spells concurrently, something the girl wasn't capable of as of now. At least not two spells of such complexity, not to mention she lacked the depth of core for a feat like that.

“Is something the matter?” the man she was examining asked.

"Nope, not at all. Just thinking of something," she replied as she hurried to her bag to fetch a pen and some paper. She cast a scribe's memory spell and resumed her work, pausing every so often to record her findings. It wasn't a perfect solution and it clearly showed but it was workable enough.

Blood vessels, bones, ligaments, and muscles were laid bare before her spell. Fifteen minutes later she scribbled the last connections and capillaries and looked it over once before passing the paper over.

Kert took it to appraise. “Not bad but you clearly lack experience with this kind of magic. But that can be remediated. The skill is there though, but if you want me to speak honestly,” he looked her way and at her nod continued, “I wouldn’t bother with this. There are people who dedicate themselves just for this purpose and I wouldn’t recommend you follow in their footsteps. It is a narrow field and much too boring for my taste. Now let’s see the other two you talked about.”

She took out a new piece of paper and traced around his hand to create an outline. Ixa took his hand in hers and turned it palm up and looked him in the eyes. "For this one, I will need to do mana injection. It will never leave my control and will be left to spread but will not be forced into your channels. If it goes correctly you should never know it happened and if the mana slips out of my grasp completely, with the amounts I will be working with, you should at worst feel a slight tingling in your extremities. May I proceed?”

As she spoke, he narrowed his eyes and searched her face for something. She held his gaze the entire time until he gave her the go-ahead. Ixa then placed her index and middle finger on the inside of his elbow close to where she found an artery earlier.

She focused inside herself and ushered out a small strand of mana and guided it into the blood vessel, where she held it and let the blood carry tiny amounts off. The young woman held her control over those flakes the whole time, not letting them run wild or dissipate into the surrounding mana channels. Not ten seconds later, she had her mana throughout the veins in his whole arm and had near perfect understanding of the main layout with fewer details of smaller veins and little to no about capillaries.

Ixa began sketching it out, using a different color for some of the parts. She pointed to those once she was done. "These here have slightly restricted blood flow, only the tiniest of amounts but noticeable. Cholesterol build-up I'd wager, nothing to worry about, probably ever, but good to keep an eye on just in case. This one," the girls pointed to one vein that just stopped on her drawing as if cut. "I'll have to look at with the other thing, don’t know what happened there,” she was frowning now, racking her brain for answers.

"Interesting, that was fast, accurate, and painless, I did not notice a thing just like you said. Lacking greater detail, sure, but its speed makes up for that. Would you mind sharing the method?" Kert gave her a baffled look.

“I’d be happy to, I’ll explain once I am done, if you don’t mind,” the girl replied and started on her managraphy, this time holding the man’s arm with her detector hand to eliminate one of the sources of wobble in her drawings of mana channels, which she again made piecemeal. She was getting better at holding her hands steady and her ‘map’ looked much better than the first one she made of Sidy.

Jack sat through all her previous ministrations patiently with a small genial smile or nodding to himself. Now, as she began charting his channels his brow rose high up his forehead. When she began sketching tertiaries and quaternaries even his eyes widened. She had it done in forty minutes, but the middle finger with the ‘blocked’ vein was still blank and Ixalia was scowling at the offending appendage. She left it for last and she did not like what she found at its root.

She went over it twice just to be sure but both times found the same thing. At the point she discovered earlier, there was a sort of pinched-off secondary channel. Part of it was twisted in such a peculiar way that mana could enter but never leave. It even sucked all of the magical energies from the vein it started to intrude upon. After sketching the rest of the finger, the girl turned to Kert and pointed out the small spot she purposefully left blank. "Before I finish this, what is here? Actually, don't tell me. I wouldn't want to leave a record of something I am not supposed to," she said with all seriousness, thinking she stumbled upon something she shouldn't have.

"I don't understand, there's nothing there." Kert seemed a bit confused.

That threw the girl off balance and she pondered for a moment. Not coming up with the answer she was looking for, she scratched the back of her head and asked the man himself. “I am sorry, I do not know if you are trying to imply there is nothing there, as in I should not see anything, or if you truly do not know.”

His confusion only got bigger. "I truly, honestly, do not know what you are talking about, Ixalia. If you found something, go ahead and say it."

"I don't know how to properly describe it," she said as she began drawing again. "It is like a balloon that is leaching the air from around itself, not letting any out. It's sort of a blind arm of a river. Like, if you built a dam on only half a river and it still somehow worked and created half a lake, but with mana. It’s just weird as hell,” she complained. If I was doing something wrong, I wouldn’t be getting such a consistent return. Everything else seems right, just this… whatever this is.

Stupefaction gave way to bewilderment which retreated before a wave of alarm, all of it playing on the medico's face as if on a projection screen in a matter of seconds. "Are you sure, this is not some sort of a joke, right?" He asked the now even more confused girl, who just shook her head. "Where exactly is it?"

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As she described it he posed another question. “However you’re doing whatever it is you’re actually doing, can you discern if I flood a channel with mana?” Receiving a nod from her, Jack continued. “I am going to create a buildup in my palm and I want you to tell me if and how clearly you can discern it. Ok?” Again he got a bob of the head from Ixa.

Before he had a chance to say anything more, she pointed to a part of her diagram. "It starts here and ends here. The edges are a bit blurry but I think if you strengthen it a bit more I could probably differentiate it almost perfectly… yes, a little more… there, perfect."

"Ok, I need you to guide me just to the edge of the blockage but not let me come in contact with it." He said and she'd done as he asked. She could tell he was trying to do something to the boundary, but could not tell what. After a moment he let his mana flow away and went for the door. "Stay here, I'll be right back.

Two minutes later he returned with Lorney and another man carrying a bulky case. Kert addressed the lecturer first. "Thomas, I had Ixalia here showing me what she was capable of, on myself and on my responsibility. That's why we were taking so long." He was obviously trying to stave off any reproach for her practicing on people. "I think we are ready to proceed with your exam and go ahead with the first patient. If we are right, he needs treatment as soon as possible, that’s why Henry is here.” The medico said the last part to Ixa while pointing to the new person.

“Nice to meet you, sir.” She greeted the man.

“Likewise, this here is a drainer. Ehm… an MSDS, which stands for… something. We’ll get this sorted out soon enough.” Henry responded with a wink.

Uninformed, Lorney was looking from one person to the next before he rounded on the elderly medico. "You had her what? Without me present? And where is this patient of yours? I would truly appreciate it if you kept me in the loop here, Jack."

"I had her run diagnostics on me and yes without you. Because I know how you'd react. It's what she's here to do anyway and I will be the one holding her hand, only fair for me to get her measure. And I am the patient, looks like she found an early-stage mage's abscess." The other man replied just as harshly.

"What is an abscess? I know the normal ones, pus and all, but I don't think those need whatever that… box over there is." Asked Ixalia, who was getting increasingly restless.

Henry was setting up the device in the meanwhile. He was the one to answer her. "A mage's abscess is an uncommon but not unknown malady affecting mages, hence the name." He pulled a set of probes from the case and set them on a nearby table. "We don't know why it happens or how, really. From what head medico Kert told me, you described it rather well. It is a sort of dam for mana. That wouldn't be all that bad on its own, but for some reason it… what was the term for it again?" He looked to the head medico.

Wait, he’s the head of magical medicine for the hospital? And he’s attending my exam? What is happening? Ixalia’s head was spinning and her thoughts fragmented at that revelation. When she pondered it a bit after she pulled herself together, it did make sense. Here she was, a fourth-year student, who shouldn't have been allowed near a patient. Of course, someone would have to keep an eye on her and this man had the ultimate responsibility. But she somehow managed to impress him!

As she returned to the present Ixalia realized she missed a heated debate between the three men about nomenclature.

Henry was just about to speak to her again. "Let's just say it festers there. And if the blockage breaks open, it can cause mana poisoning. Just like with injection from another person, it acts as foreignly aspected mana. Depending on its size, it can be fatal, in most other cases it causes burnout." The technician said with a worried look at the medico.

Kert patted the girl on the head in a grandfatherly fashion when he saw her wide eyes and shocked expression. “And that’s what we’re here to stop, you caught it early, and we should be able to drain the excess before I deal with the channels myself.” He tried to reassure her.

"Sir, I don't think you can. You did not feel it at all and it was sucking all the mana carried by your blood. I don't think you will be capable of collapsing the abscess itself and sooner or later, it'll refill. And who knows from where else it might get its mana."

“I’ll deal with that later, nothing for you to worry about. I am a medico after all. Now, we'll do exactly what we did earlier. Once we have an outline, Henry will do his thing and get rid of it. Identifying an abscess is hard and finding its position nigh impossible, until now at least. I'm lucky you're here," he smiled to once again try to settle her nerves.

As he said, they did. Ixalia guided him in building up the pressure to get sufficient clarity and shepherded him to the abscess' boundaries. The assistant then poked several needle-thin probes around it before jabbing a thicker one right in the middle. A soft hum sounded from the machine and she watched the excess mana drain away.

"It is mostly gone now, only dregs that aren't moving anymore." The girl reported.

***

The rest of the day passed in a blur. When they finished treating the medico, they took a short break and went over things again, with Lorney present this time. Then they brought several people before her to examine. Kert was by her side the whole time, standing watch, looking satisfied.

She got all the diagnoses correct and passed with flying colors. A surprise came after, when the head medico offered her a temporary part-time job as an assistant for the duration of her summer holidays, which she had to politely refuse as she already had other plans. He took it with a smile and made it a standing offer.

Then they picked her brain about the managraphy and her own derivate. In the end, she referred them to the article upon which she based her practice and explained her modifications of the spells described within.

She left school satisfied but completely drained. The emotional rollercoaster took a toll on her. She found Sidy waiting for her at a bus stop and was practically abducted by her joyful friend. She took Ixa to various places, but the girl blanked most of them out. She did tell her friend all about her exam, which made her companion even more cheerful, if that was even possible.

"So you can take the job, right?" Sidysvalda asked before they separated in the evening. She was trying to corral her into coming to a summer camp as their medic. "You have the qualifications now, Diagnostics I is considered as a diagnostics course by the officials, right?”

“Yep,” Ixa replied.

"Awesome, and you collect medical courses like squirrels do nuts, you know all the aids, first aid through to last aid." Her friend loved telling that particular morbid joke all the time for some reason. "We can go there together, yay!"

"Fine, I'll look at it, just don't say that joke again. Asha forbid it comes through," she caved to her friend's insistence, invoking the Survivor’s name in the process.

“Oooh! That reminds me, mom’s taking me to a mass on Sunday. Will you come with me? I’ll be bored out of my mind without you.”

"Fine. Can I go home now? I'm beat." The scholar poked her friend in the ribs, eliciting a soft yelp.

"Be that way, you grump," said friend jumped away from her, and shadow-boxed in her direction. "But don't forget, now you have to show up.” She threw two more punches before she hopped onto Ixalia, embracing her tightly. Just as suddenly, she let her go and started running off. “Congratulations again and see you on Sunday!” She shouted as she waved goodbye.

"I'll be there." The girl grumbled as she only now realized what she signed up for. There was something about Sidysvalda that made it impossible not to give in to her demands. Or maybe Ixa was usually just too tired to think things through to their conclusion.

Nothing to do about it now. I still have Advanced basics of magic to crunch through for tomorrow. No rest for the wicked, I guess. Ixalia thought as she dragged herself home.

Her plans fell apart the moment she rested her eyes after getting home and eating. Somewhere between thinking about her friend and going to study, she fell asleep. Not only that, she overslept. Her bus was due to arrive in twenty minutes and she was still wearing yesterday’s clothes, now drooled upon.