Path to Transcendence

Chapter 410: Learning Some Healing Magic On the Side

Julius gingerly walked out to the courtyard. His entire body was on fire. Soreness flared across every limb. Even places like his neck were sore.

Freya and Cain had given him rules to follow. First off, he wasn’t allowed to use [Phoenix Renewal] to heal himself without them being present. He also wasn’t allowed to use his body enhancement skill. Much like he had restricted himself to in the past, he was only permitted to use kinetic energy to fuel his movements.

His mastery over mana and aura was utterly useless for the time being. Furthermore, he was only allowed to use a small fraction of his kinetic energy stores. Cain had been impressed by his capability to use massive amounts of kinetic energy, but wanted Julius to learn how to use it while only having the amount that normal people did.

Of course, to enforce that he abided by these rules, they shackled him with an item that would prevent him from going against them. As much as he wanted to heal himself at the moment, he knew that this exercise would help him greatly.

In the past two days, he had already seen some progress.

The biggest annoyance wasn’t this. It was the other students who were training alongside him. There wasn’t a specific age of each person; they ranged from young to even a little older. Most of them were Tier 3s with a smaller number of Tier 2s mixed in.

However, this was a less advanced course. Cain told him that he would stay in this course until he showed significant improvement. He was also told that he was limited so heavily because Cain didn’t trust Julius not to hurt the other students by accident while training.

Julius didn’t think of this as a big deal. That lasted until the end of the first day. By then, he was ready to punch the lights out of a few of the other students. He shouldnʼt be surprised, though; it was the typical reaction of being a new student.

It wasn’t everyone, but several people enjoyed making fun of his ‘mediocre’ kinetic abilities.

Speaking of that, he sensed a group of those same people making their way toward him. He had to hold back the sigh that threatened to come out of him.

“Still not quitting yet?” One of the boys yelled out when they got closer. Julius didn’t bother to remember all of their names, but this was one of the more vocal bullies. He believed that this one was named something like Bilbo, he couldn’t quite remember for sure.

“He is probably just too dumb to realize that he should just give up yet, Barath,” a thin black haired boy said with disdain to the first boy who spoke.

Julius barely recognized what he said because he was too busy scratching his head. Huh, I was really off. How did I get Bilbo then?

He shrugged it off and continued making his way through the courtyard. He had to meet Freya in a little bit, and she had already told him that she didn’t like people who were tardy.

Unlike Cain, Freya seemed much more inclined to teach him personally, at least in the beginning. Apparently, it was because he had a Phoenix Concept, and there weren’t many other people on the continent who would be able to teach him.

Furthermore, she didn’t interact as much with the students and other members like Cain often did. She still did some lessons here and there, but she had explained to Julius that she was busy doing her own things.

She said this, but he had caught her slacking off yesterday. He had a feeling that she was just lazy and couldn’t be bothered to teach all day.

The group of boys continued to harass him, but he had already shut them out of his mind. He didn’t know it was because he bore a healer’s badge, or if they just didn’t like the look of his face, but they seemed more antagonistic to him than they were to others.

“You should just stick to healing and leave the fighting to people who can actually fight. How the hell did you get to Tier 3 without learning how to use kinetic energy properly? Aren’t you embarrassed?” Bilbo yelled out to him.

“He probably had Daddy pay for him to advance. I wouldn’t be surprised if all he did was eat sacks full of treasures and never fought a monster in his life,” another boy added.

Is that what they think? He thought to himself. Did they believe that he was only there because his parents paid Cain a lot of money? That would make more sense as to why they were being so rude to him. Perhaps, they believed him to be some spoiled child who only got in due to nepotism and money.

Still, that didn’t mean they needed to act this way. But coming to this realization took most of his annoyance out of his sails.

“Why must you always be such an ass, Barath?” A loud voice called out.

They all simultaneously turned to look at the girl who was with another large group of girls. Julius remembered her from the class they had just left. Her name was Kora, and she was actually quite nice. She hadn’t really been all that talkative with Julius, but she had already defended him the day before when Bilbo and his buddies were harassing Julius.

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That already put her in his good graces. He also paid attention to her because she had a healer badge on her uniform as well. She had very delicate features and soft silver hair.

“Mind your own business, Kora. Nobody is talking to you,” the boy said dismissively to the girl.

“Yeah, why are you defending him? You know him or something?” Another boy asked.

“No, but you are embarrassing the Shattered Winter School’s name as well as Masters Cain and Freya,” she said scathingly.

Julius watched as the group of boysʼ entire focus turned toward the girl, and he took this chance to get out of there. It was the perfect distraction, and nobody even noticed when Julius tiptoed away. He was already long gone by the time they realized he wasn’t around anymore.

***

“No. You can’t just shove it in like that. You need to be more mindful,” Freya scolded him.

Julius had been using Freya as a test dummy for his healing magic. She had lowered all of her natural defenses to allow this. However, he was still having some troubles. He was able to give some life mana, but there was a severe issue with how much he could channel at once; it was either not enough or way too much. The potency of the healing was quite hard to manage as well.

She was currently helping him draw inspiration from [Phoenix Renewal] to heal others. According to Freya, this was more than possible, and since he had a Phoenix Concept, he could lean on it to get it started. His mana manipulation was also quite impressive, even by her standards. A remarkable feat, she emphasized. This would allow him to shape the life mana manually for the time being until his skill adapted to the new usage, or better yet, not have to rely on the skill at all.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t going as well as either of them hoped.

“Why? What happens if I don’t?” He asked her curiously.

“With life mana as potent as this yours, you might accidentally heal them the wrong way,” she said with a shake of her head.

“What do you mean ‘wrong way’?” he asked her.

“Instead of regenerating one of their fingers, you might accidentally mutate it. I have seen plenty of healers try to heal an arm, only for it to be completely mangled after it is done. When you are healing yourself, your soul already has a subconscious structure of what your body is supposed to look like. But when you are healing other people, you need to be more mindful. Let the patient’s soul help you with that part,” she tried to explain to him.

“What happens if I accidentally regenerate a mutated arm?”

“Then you have to remove it before it permanently damages the patient,” Freya told him with a shrug.

“Now let’s try again, this time be more gentle, feel the way my mana moves, and let your mana go along with it. Use this time to practice, you’re not always going to have me around to prevent your mistakes from hurting others,” she instructed him. He nodded and started to infuse his mana into her arm once more. He focused on letting his life mana slowly drip into her, but it was like his mana wanted to flood his target.

His healing skill was so used to channeling mana as fast as possible that it was very hard to slow it down while maintaining control deliberately. One false move or a minor adjustment, and his mana exploded like a violent storm.

He was doing quite well until he suddenly felt an aura signature on the other side of the room.

He didn’t mean to, but this causes his focus to lapse for just a moment. It was unfortunate, but his mana sped up without his say-so, and Freya waved her hand, signalling the end of the exercise.

“That was better, but you can’t lose control just because you sensed another presence nearby,” she said to him.

“Was that you?” He asked. The aura felt different, but there was nothing there once he extended his perception.

“Yes, it was something I did to test your focus. Your perception skill is powerful, but there are some downsides. I have already noticed that you are constantly on alert, no matter what is going on. You need to calm down and relax when you heal someone,” she informed him.

“Do you think I should just turn it off?” he asked.

She shook her head. “No, it is an important skill to stay aware in all situations. I often have to teach healers to be more aware when they heal. You won’t believe how many people get killed from behind because they were paying attention while they healed someone.”

“Got it,” he said with a firm nod.

“Good, now let’s go again. I just wanted to note that your recent lapse in focus would have significantly hurt a Tier 2 if they were the target you were healing. You are way too used to just blasting your mana through your body without a limiter. Not everyone has channels or bodies built up to withstand such pressure, especially with your Phoenix Concept enhancing it. Remember, you are trying to heal people, not kill them with life mana,” she said with a slight grin and an amused sigh.

He couldn’t help but give one back in return. “I’ll try to remember that,” he said with a sarcastic quip.

She extended out her hand to him again and for the dozenth time, he carefully flooded his mana into her. The problem wasn’t necessarily his mana, it was his mana that was infused with his Phoenix Concept.

He had exceptional control of his mana. It was something he was very proud of, and Freya had noticed it right away, not being shy about praising him.

However, the addition of his concept made things ten times harder. His Phoenix Concept was just that powerful, and it had only gotten stronger as he got closer to Tier 4. His Emblem had already made more progress in the recent weeks than it had for the past several months, which meant his concepts had more power behind them.

His Phoenix Concept was a fantastic healing ability, but the connection to death made the skill very dangerous if not handled properly. She had explained that it was this very reason why she had agreed to help him. If left to his own devices, he might have hurt someone too weak to withstand the power.

According to Freya, he would actually have an easier time healing someone at Tier 4 than someone at Tier 3 and below. Which she made sure to stress to him, was a very ridiculous thing and should never be the case. It was just a simple fact that a Tier 4ʼs sturdy body would be able to handle his power with more ease.

He left the room they had been training in with a mixture of elation and disappointment. He had certainly made some progress, but he was still having issues with controlling his Concept to safe levels of output.

However, he put those thoughts to the side. His day wasn’t done yet; there was still much left to do. He wasnʼt going to give up that easily. When his friends had been attacked, he realized how important it was to be able to protect them. Healing magic was just another way to accomplish this.