Path to Transcendence

Chapter 417: His First Patient

After his morning class, he headed off to Freya, where he was met with a surprise.

“Okay, I think you are ready to start healing people,” she said to him as he walked in.

He smiled brightly. “Finally! So you don’t think I am a danger to patients?”

She shut down his enthusiasm straight away. “Not a chance. However, you have sufficient control that waiting would only waste both our time. If you end up messing someone up, either Galten or I will help you.”

“Thanks for your confidence,” he said in a deadpan voice.

“No worries, just try not to kill anyone and mutate them into a chimera, alright?”

He didn’t even bother to deign her a response. Instead, he acted as if he hadn’t heard and went over to pick one of the training tools she had him practicing for the last few days.

The tool was quite a fascinating item. It was a simple rod about the size of his arm. However, unlike its plain appearance, there was quite a complex array of enchantments inscribed into its base.

It would only react to his life mana, and the goal was to take apart the rod in one continuous motion. While the rod appeared to be a single piece of solid metal, it was actually composed of ten smaller cylinders, all of which were attached to form the rod.

There were no seams on the surface that might indicate such a thing, but she had shown him firsthand how to do it. Freya had taken less than a couple of seconds to finish the puzzle. In contrast, he hadn’t managed to remove more than two cylinders in the same attempt.

The trick was knowing how to adapt his life mana to sudden and complicated changes. The first layer was simple enough. The rod required him to inject a perfectly balanced amount of life mana and let it flow throughout the appropriate channels. Much like a keyhole, it would unlock once all of the channels were full.

The second layer was twice as difficult. It introduced a counteractive force to his life mana. It was almost like someone was constantly attempting to disrupt his mana the entire time. It was more annoying than one would expect, and what made it more difficult was that he wasn’t able to use any of his willpower to fight against it. Since it was a specially created tool, there wasn’t an opposing willpower to resist. It was simply the design of the puzzle itself and required mana control to withstand it.

“You don’t seem that excited,” Freya stated curiously as she stood next to him, inspecting his ongoing attempt with careful eyes.

He shrugged his shoulders. “I knew it would happen eventually. I just hope I don’t actually hurt anyone.” He was being honest as well. He was more than okay with hurting himself all in the name of improving, but the thought of hurting others in that pursuit did not sit well with him. He had standards and rules for himself.

Freya must have sensed his unease and patted him reassuringly on the back. “Don’t worry, Galten will make sure that nothing happens. If it does, then either he or I will handle it.”

He messed up the second layer of the puzzle when she touched him and turned his attention toward her. “I appreciate it. Although I am a little shocked you are taking responsibility. I have been getting the impression that you are a very sloppy person,” he said, the last part very quietly under his breath, but that didn’t stop her from overhearing.

A sheet of ice suddenly slapped him on the back of his head. Once she had realized his penchant for withstanding pain and his healing ability, she wasnʼt shy about scolding him in more physical ways. “If that’s how you truly feel, then I don’t mind keeping you on a leash for another couple of weeks,” she said flatly.

He chuckled and rubbed his sore head. “Sorry, sorry,” he said to her.

“Good, now if you are done fooling around, be sure to make your mana fluid but not fragile. The puzzle will fall apart if there isn’t enough structure. You are too worried about following the channels that your mana isn’t condensed enough,” she instructed him.

“But if I condense it, then it becomes too stiff to move,” he pointed out.

She stared at him blankly. “Use more force then.”

He was going to say something, but right before he could, he realized that she had a point. The resistance he got wasn’t so great that he wasn’t able to bend the ropes of mana he controlled. It was like the condensed mana had become a very heavy-duty rubber gasket. In comparison, he was used to a regular one.

He needed to use a bit more power to form it to his wishes.

Interestingly, it worked immediately. He had condensed a new rope of mana to travel through the channels, making sure that it was appropriately condensed. Only this time, instead of softening the parts he needed to bend, he just enforced his own will to make it do what he wanted.

It was pretty challenging because he wasn’t accustomed to the newfound pressure, and it was fighting him the entire time; however, there was an immediate difference. It didn’t feel like the connection was being interrupted anymore. The only issue was that he could feel the dangerous buildup of power.

If he lost control, he knew right away that it would be quite explosive. Thankfully, it was a simple solution to avoid that issue. He just needed to stay in control.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

And so he did. With a tight grinding of his teeth, he held on as he navigated his way through the channels, keeping a firm control over the condensed mana. Each new bend and addition stressed his focus, but he relied on his skills and Will Concept to aid him.

Before he knew it, he had already passed the third layer and was working on the fourth. However, that was where he ran into some problems. The disruptions of the item were more potent than ever, forcing him to maintain absolute focus.

Despite that, the bigger issue was that the structure of the channels suddenly changed during his attempt. They had never changed before, and this new feature caught him off guard. His control slipped for a moment, and he felt the carefully created rope of mana fall apart.

He did his best to keep it together and not let it get out of hand. But there was only so much he could do to mitigate the damage. He grunted as the rest of the mana blew up.

Thankfully, it was life mana, so the blast wasn’t too bad, but he still felt his soul shake from the recoil. It wasn’t very comfortable, but he had experienced much worse, so he didn’t let it bother him too much.

Instead, he took a deep breath, and once he was ready, he began his next attempt.

***

“Any advice?” He asked Galten.

“Don’t be afraid of taking it slow. Make sure you don’t get lazy and don’t kill anyone,” the older man said with a pointed look.

“Seriously?”

“Just a reminder.”

He shook his head in disbelief but still went over to the man lying on the table in front of him. His first patient was a Tier 3 adventurer who had gotten a nasty cut on his leg. It had already gotten infected, and healing potions didn’t help at this point.

It was pretty clear that the man was in some pain. He was constantly clenching his jaw at the slightest movement. His pants had already been cut away, and his wound was relatively clean except for the infected bits.

Freya and Galten had likely chosen this person because his injury was relatively simple, and if something went wrong, they could simply remove it. Speaking of Freya, she was nearby just in case something did happen.

That made him feel better, and before he could start to doubt himself, he walked over and went through the steps that Galten had been jamming into his brain these past couple of weeks.

He first used his perception skill to examine the patient and gently examined his aura. The man didn’t resist him and let Julius poke around. There was nothing out of the ordinary, and there weren’t any other wounds other than the one on his leg.

Then he examined the wound more closely. He was able to see, based on the laceration, that whatever had cut him must have had serrated teeth or jagged claws. The flesh had been torn apart and wasn’t clean like one would see from a sharp blade. It was also likely the reason why it had become infected. There was also the possibility of this being some kind of skill or poison, but it was hard to tell for sure.

Once he got a gauge for the wound, he began the process with calm and steady movements. First, he wrapped the infected area with life mana. This prevented it from infecting any more flesh that it already had, but thanks to a trick that Freya showed him. The pain the man would feel in the next several minutes would be severely inhibited.

He gave the wound an experimental nudge with his mana to see if the man was still feeling much pain. When the man didn’t groan out and Julius didn’t sense any flinching in his aura, he started to burn pieces of infected flesh with his fire mana.

He could have likely just healed the man with life mana, but he had learned from Galten and Freya that it was good habits to use all means at his disposal. It would also help him heal twice as many people with the mana he would save.

Furthermore, he was very comfortable using fire mana. He was able to control the temperature and intensity of the flame with immaculate accuracy and precision. He ensured that he only targeted the infected segments, leaving the healthy parts intact. There was no need to waste life mana healing flesh that was perfectly fine.

Despite his best efforts, the man groaned as Julius turned the infected flesh to ash. The smell was a bit harsh, but he endured it.

In a matter of a couple of minutes, Julius was confident that he had removed all of the infected flesh and even used some of his aura to destroy the small remnants beneath the surface gently. He thought of it much like isopropyl alcohol, and it worked amazingly. Something that Freya implored him to take advantage of.

He actually could have removed the infected flesh this way as well, but he also didn’t want to reveal too much of his aura to the unknown man. After all, his aura was quite a unique one.

He gave the wound one last inspection before he started the process he was most worried about. He gently began to swirl life mana into the wound. Freya had described the process to him as if one were trying to build a snow fort out of really fluffy snow. Except he wasn’t able to compress it into hard packs of ice and had to use pure willpower to keep the structure intact.

He kept this vision in his mind as he worked. He made sure that his healing skill didn’t take over the process. He had learned the hard way that the skill was way too powerful to use on other people with any sort of confidence.

Thus, he just used some manual manipulation to create a complex net of life mana throughout the wound. It was only when he had made the structure that he began to send more mana into the wound.

Freya had taught him this method because of the difficulty he had been having with keeping it gentle. This way, the structure would take most of the excessive power if something went wrong. It also had a nice side effect of making the healing process much more straightforward and swifter once the structure was in place.

He slowly increased the rate at which life mana was flowing through the wound. A soft green glow emanated from the raw flesh, and he could see the flesh knitting itself back together. He was mesmerized by this process.

He had seen himself heal various limbs and organs many times, but seeing another person was totally different. There was something amazing about healing someone else, and he could see himself getting addicted to this feeling.

He maintained focus, though, and didn’t stop until he saw the flesh completely heal over. It was only then that he finally took a deep breath, not realizing that he had been holding his breath the entire time.

The pained expression on the man’s face was completely gone, and he looked up at Julius with gentle gratitude before sitting up and bowing his head.

“Thank you so much, honored healer,” he said to Julius.

Julius simply nodded and looked down at the wound he had just healed. This was the first time he had actually healed someone beyond just a simple infusion of life mana, and he realized that the feeling was incredible.

He looked up at Galten, who had the smallest of smirks on his face. Julius knew he wouldn’t say anything outwardly, but there was a hint of pride hidden beneath the surface, and that was enough for Julius.