CHAPTER 95: HEALING MAGIC

Aldriana studies the open gash on Maeve’s arm and knows this one will sting like hell.

I need to distract her, so she doesn’t feel the pain too much.

"Hey, what’s your name? I never caught your name." Aldriana looks at Maeve.

"Huh? Really? Oh, I’m sorry. I’m Maeve Collins. I— argh!"

Maeve gasps as pain shoots up her arm. Her face scrunches and contorts.

Julian instinctively grabs her other hand. She squeezes it tight.

Arthur notices and looks both amused and helpless.

Liam, who has been watching the cave entrance to avoid surprise attacks, snaps his head back at Maeve’s cry.

And he sees something incredible.

The open wound slowly closes itself. He can see the healing process in real time, as if someone pressed a fast-forward button on her arm.

The wound was deep. It had bled a lot, though most of the blood soaked into her blazer. But now, the bleeding stops. The skin pulls together, tightening, smoothing, and finally sealing until not a single trace of the injury remains.

Aldriana grins at Maeve. "Done."

"And may I suggest cleaning and mending your blazer before you wear it again?" She lifts the blazer, which now looks more like a dirty rag than office wear.

Maeve still frowns from the lingering sting of healing. She looks at her perfect arm, then the ruined blazer... then realizes what Aldriana is implying.

"You... you want me to do it?"

Aldriana nods. "Yes. It should be simple for you."

She can’t escape her old habit: teach magic whenever she can. And she sees something in Maeve she hasn’t seen in other mages or magi in a long time. Sincerity. Loyalty. Integrity.

Someone worth teaching.

These traits are the right foundation for a mage. Or magus.

Aldriana rolls her eyes inwardly. As if that terminology actually matters. Hilarious.

But there’s another reason Aldriana wants Maeve to try it herself.

She wants to test her skill. Not her talent. Her skill and her understanding of magic.

Because none of this matches the world Aldriana woke up in.

She arrived in a world empty of mana.

Yet within four months she has discovered: this world does have mana, just very little, the dungeons are overflowing with it, and she has now met two mages back-to-back.

These facts do not align.

She needs to recalibrate her understanding of this world, match the truth to the evidence around her.

She hates not knowing.

And that recalibration starts with Maeve.

Maeve gulps. Her mind frantically searches through every lesson she’s received so far.

To clean... wait. To wash, I need water. Then to clean, I need... what do I need? I can’t. Too many elements. Too many steps.

She’s stressed. She feels like she’s being put on the spot.

She looks up at Aldriana with the saddest, most pitiful expression.

Aldriana laughs. "If you can’t, don’t worry. I’ll do it for you. It was my fault for putting you on the spot like that."

She places the blazer on Maeve’s lap.

"Done."

"What?! That fast?!" Maeve blurts. "Which elements did you use? I didn’t hear any incantations! Actually, I never hear any of your incantations. Except that fire one. Were you whispering it?"

She fires off her questions like she’s shooting at haelions.

Aldriana looks at her. Blinking.

The three men stare at the two women, completely lost about what they’re talking about. It feels alien to them and yet strangely fascinating.

Arthur gets up. "Hey, talk later. Right now, please treat Julian’s wound first. Then we decide whether we move forward or leave the dungeon."

Aldriana snaps out of her blinking and nods. "You’re right. Sorry, I got distracted. Julian, let me see."

Julian moves slowly. He lifts his T-shirt on his right side.

When the injury is visible, all of them gasp. Especially Arthur and Aldriana.

"And you said you’re fine?!" Arthur is seconds from losing his temper.

A large, ugly bruise covers Julian’s right ribs.

Aldriana places her palm just above the skin and closes her eyes.

"Are you healing it now? Will it hurt? Should I—"

"Shh. Be quiet. I need to concentrate. You don’t need to do anything. Just stay still." Her eyes stay closed.

Aldriana hadn’t been trying to sound cryptic earlier when she explained healing magic.

Like Maeve said, healing magic is a high-level magic.

It requires the world’s permission.

Magic, in Caelthorn, is the ultimate form of communicating with nature.

Since mana is everywhere, mages must communicate with nature and ask for permission to use the life force behind each element.

For example, to call forth fire, a mage must communicate with nature and ask it to lend the fire element, then allow the mage to bend and shape it according to the mage’s will.

That is why incantations exist.

An incantation is essentially the language nature understands. And it is usually not the spoken language.

So when Aldriana heard Maeve’s earlier incantation, she was dumbfounded and almost crackling with disbelief.

She corrected Maeve’s incantation only because she needed Maeve and Julian alive until help arrived.

But something about Maeve’s magic bothers her.

Why do Caelthorn’s incantations work so well in Altheon? That shouldn’t be the case.

Each world should have its own language of nature.

Aldriana gave Caelthorn’s incantations because she didn’t know any other.

Yet they worked.

Perfectly.

Now, healing magic is a lot trickier. Like she said earlier, it deals with life. A being’s existence.

Nature, or what Aldriana likes to call Mother Nature, respects life. It constantly creates life.

Any disrespect toward life from a mage will result in rejection from Mother Nature.

That rejection can come as backlash toward the mage, the wound becoming worse for the injured... or in the worst case, instant death for both.

Rejection can take many forms.

And healing magic has consequences. The mage needs to pay a price.

The worse the injury is, the more expensive that price becomes.

A mage does not play with life for this one rule.

It can literally require your own life to bring someone back from the dead.