Chương 132: Chapter 115 (B2-ch9) – The Mechanics of Healing Magic

Amanda nodded, then pushed herself up from her chair and walked over to Kyle. Cade followed close behind her, already focusing on his [Essence Sight]. Green life essence pulsed through Amanda, but Cade ignored it. Instead, he focused on the small silver sphere in the center of her abdomen. Her System Core. It looked almost exactly like Richard's had. A perfectly round, smooth silver orb.

And just like Richard's, faint blue Mana and orange Stamina trickled from the Core and into channels that spread throughout her body. Cade frowned. Were all System Cores silver, or was this just a coincidence? He should really check more people, but he didn't want to be the creepy guy staring intently at everyone's abdomen. At the same time, a sample size of two wasn't enough to draw a proper conclusion. Amanda reached Kyle's chair and placed a gentle hand against his chest.

"I'm going to try healing one of the deeper wounds," she said. Kyle gave her a tired nod.

"Go ahead." Amanda murmured something under her breath, but Cade barely paid attention to the words. Instead, he watched the Mana pour from her Core. It moved through her channels in a concentrated stream, brighter and faster than the circulation he had seen just a moment ago. The flow ran up through her torso, down her arm, and into her hand. Then, as it reached her palm and fingers, it changed. Cade's brow furrowed.

The blue Mana shifted into green life essence as it left Amanda's body and entered Kyle where she touched him. That's interesting. Cade didn't have numbers for what he was seeing, but the difference in brightness and density was obvious in his [Essence Sight]. Amanda pushed a heavy flow of Mana through the spell, but only a thin trickle of life essence came out the other side. And even then, some of the life essence didn't enter Kyle at all.

It leaked into the air around Amanda's hand, spilling outward in a faint green glow. Is that why her hands glowed when she healed? But he had seen that glow before he ever had [Essence Sight]. Which meant the wasted energy was visible to normal eyes too, not just his altered perception. Weird. Another thing I'll have to look into later. The small trickle that did enter Kyle's body moved in a way Cade hadn't expected. He assumed that it would merge with Kyle's own life essence and rush directly to his wounds.

But instead, it traveled inward, following his channels toward his own Core. Cade's attention sharpened as the life essence reached a small silver sphere in Kyle's abdomen. Three silver spheres were not likely to be a coincidence. He pushed the thought aside and focused on the spell. Kyle's Core absorbed the foreign life essence, held it for a brief moment, and then released a faint pulse of green through his channels.

The pulse spread outward and dispersed evenly through his body, targeting every injury at once instead of focusing on any single one. Cade watched the process closely as he tried to figure out what the System was doing beneath the surface. Amanda wasn't healing Kyle directly. No, she was feeding converted life essence into his Core, and his Core was distributing it from there. As he studied the exchange, something pulsed deep inside his own soul. Cade went still as the sensation passed through him.

He immediately knew that it came from his Law Seed of Renewal. Why now? Was it because it resonated with what Amanda was doing? The question lingered for half a second before Cade shoved it aside. He could examine that later. Amanda's spell was still active and he didn't want to miss a thing. The healing continued for a few more seconds before Amanda cut the flow of Mana. The green light around her hand faded and the last traces of life essence sank into Kyle's Core.

Cade looked from Kyle's channels back to Amanda's face. Sweat beaded across her forehead and her breathing had grown heavier, as if that small bit of healing had taken considerable effort. He stayed quiet for a few moments after Amanda removed her hand from Kyle's chest. Her spell had clearly done something. A few of the damaged areas on Kyle's body had brightened slightly, and some inflammation around his wounds had eased.

But for the amount of Mana Cade had seen flow through Amanda's channels, the result was underwhelming. Amanda lowered herself back into a crouch beside Kyle's chair and wiped sweat from her forehead. She looked at Cade expectantly, though there was a hint of nervousness in her expression. Cade scratched his cheek as he gathered his thoughts.

"That was interesting," he said after a few moments of silence.

"Tell me, how do you heal?" This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. Amanda blinked.

"What do you mean?"

"When you use your healing magic, what are you actually doing?"

"I just think about activating the spell," Amanda said slowly.

"And then it works." She glanced down at her hands.

"At first it was all automatic and the spell used a fixed amount of Mana. But the more I practiced, the more Mana I was able to push through at once. It seemed to help. The more Mana I use at once, the stronger and faster the healing seems to be. But I only have so much Mana."

"Right," Cade said.

"Well, I saw a few things you might be able to work on. No promises they'll help though. I'm mostly guessing based on what I observed. But I think there are places where you're losing efficiency." Amanda straightened a little.

"Okay. What did you see?"

"First, you might be pushing too much Mana into the spell at once." She frowned.

"Too much?"

"Yeah. When you cast, it looked like only so much Mana could convert to… uh… healing. Anything beyond that didn't seem to help as much as you'd expect. More Mana may have helped at first, but I think you're now at the point of diminishing returns."

"So use less Mana?" Amanda asked.

"I'd start by practicing with the minimum amount of Mana needed to activate the spell," Cade said.

"Then try holding it for longer. Instead of forcing as much Mana into it as possible, maintain a steady flow for as long as you can." Amanda nodded slowly.

"I thought about trying that before, but most of the healing I've done has been in emergencies. Someone gets hurt, they're bleeding, and I need to fix it right away. So I figured more Mana meant more healing."

"That makes sense," Cade said.

"And maybe there are times when brute-forcing it helps. But if you're trying to improve, controlled practice is probably better than just flooding your channels." Amanda gave a weak laugh.

"That sounds obvious when you say it."

"Sometimes you're just too close to the problem to see a different solution. I'm also not saying that will work, but it doesn't hurt to try. Cade paused, then continued.

"The second thing I want you to do is to try and focus your healing. From what I saw it didn't seem to go directly into Kyle's wounds." Amanda's brow furrowed.

"It didn't?"

"No. It entered his body and went straight to his Core, then his Core sort of redistributed the healing magic over his entire body. It wasn't aimed at anything specific." Amanda studied him for a moment, confusion clear on her face.

"I think that's why you're having a hard time healing deeper wounds," Cade said.

"For some reason the healing is going to the Core and not the wound itself."

"I thought the spell just… knew what to do. It's healing magic, it should just heal what is most needed, shouldn't it?" Amanda questioned.

"Magic still needs to be directed," Cade said.

"Your will and intent matter. Actually, if there's any one thing you take from this, it's that intent matters. Maybe as much as the Mana itself." Amanda looked down at Kyle's bandaged leg.

"Next time," Cade said, "don't just think 'heal'. Pick one wound. Picture that wound closing. Focus on healing that exact spot and nothing else. Don't let the magic disperse if you can help it."

"That sounds… difficult."

"It probably will be." Cade shrugged.

"But that's usually a good sign you're actually learning something. Learning new things is difficult and uncomfortable, but you have to push through that if you want to grow." Amanda was quiet for a moment, then nodded.

"Okay. Minimum Mana, longer duration, and focused intent."

"That's where I'd start."

"Was there anything else?" Cade hesitated. There was, but phrasing it would be tricky. He couldn't tell her exactly what he had seen: life essence leaking from her hands. Not with the System listening in and blocking any attempts to explain essence.

"Well, I can't explain it exactly, but that glow is wasted healing." Amanda stared at him.

"What do you mean? I thought that was just what the spell looked like."

"That's what I would have thought as well but trust me. That green glow indicates some of your healing magic is leaking into the air instead of entering the person you're trying to heal," Cade said.

"Grace had the same green glow when she healed," Amanda said.

"How do I fix that?"

"More focus and control might help. Think of it like transferring energy. Your Mana is supposed to become Health for the other person. Anything that comes out as light, heat, sound, or whatever else is energy that didn't become healing." Amanda's eyes narrowed in thought.

"It's like chemiluminescence," Cade said, but he waved the word off as he saw her confused expression.

"The word isn't important. My point is, light can be an unwanted byproduct of a reaction. In this case, every bit of green glow you produce is healing that is actually costing you Mana but not doing anything for the other person." Amanda looked at her hands again, this time with far more intensity.

"I never would have thought of that." She let out a quiet breath, then looked back up at him.

"Thank you. Really. You've given me a lot to think about." Cade nodded, then he noticed Amanda's gaze focus on Kyle's missing leg.

"There's one more thing," she said.

"Do you know how I can restore his leg?" Kyle, who had been quiet through most of the conversation, let out a rough breath.

"I second that question. Even at full Health, I'm damn near useless without my leg." He dragged in a rasping breath.

"Fixing the wounds from that fucking shadow monstrosity would be nice, but my leg is a bigger concern." Amanda winced at his words. Cade looked toward him. Kyle sat back in the wooden chair, pale and exhausted, with one leg stretched out in front of him and the other ending in a thick wrap of bandages below the thigh. His hands rested on the arms of the chair, fingers flexing against the wood like he wanted to push himself up.

"Do you know how hard it is to shoot a bow in this condition?" Kyle asked.

"I can't get full range on my draw from a seated position. I can't move fast enough to avoid anything. I can't reposition for a better shot. I can't climb, can't run, can't even take watch duty properly." His jaw tightened and his eyes were wet with tears he refused to let fall.

"It sucks. It just… really fucking sucks." Cade understood that feeling better than anyone else here. Back when he had been the Coreless guy in the group, he had felt just as useless as Kyle was feeling now. He knew what it was like to feel like he couldn't contribute while everyone else progressed around him. He knew Kyle wasn't being dramatic. He was an archer trapped in a body that couldn't do what he needed. And in this Tutorial, that was more than enough to get him killed. Kyle looked up and met Cade's eyes.

"Cade," he said, voice lower now.

"Is there anything you can do before you leave? Amanda's a great healer, but who knows when, or if, she'll be able to regrow my leg." Cade held his gaze. Kyle had never been cruel to him during the first few days of the Tutorial. Distant, maybe, but Cade could hardly blame him for that. They had just met in a swamp full of creatures that wanted to kill them. Kyle also hadn't judged him for not having a Core. He had simply said Cade's situation sucked and left it at that.

He looked down at the bandaged stump, then back to Kyle.

"There might be something I can do." Kyle's expression lit up as hope cut through the exhaustion.

"I don't think I can restore your leg to what it was," Cade said.

"But I might be able to grow something you can stand on." Kyle's eyes gleamed with determination.

"Do it."