Chương 125: Chapter 115: Healing Spell

Lira had finally reached the point where she could stop researching and start spellcrafting. She still had countless unanswered questions, but she had learned enough to form a working model, and that was all she needed. Magic did not require her to understand every detail of the world before she could create a spell, even if it helped considerably. It took her hours to imprint an elemental spell, minutes to imprint a divination spell, and seconds to imprint an ink spell.

So yes, more research could always be useful. But if she kept searching for the perfect understanding of life, she would probably spend the rest of her days reading medical books without ever creating a healing spell. Besides, she was hitting the limit of what one could learn from books alone, and only practical experience in healing could help her at this point. So she decided it was time for another attempt. Yorad. Kalaba. Cipos. Body. Life. Amplification. Those were the exact words Deren used for his own spell.

She stared at the three words for a while before entering meditation.

"Pika. Selan. Tureth." The idea behind this was simple. She could amplify the mind's ability to see as well as hear, so why not amplify the body's ability to heal? She focused on the concept of the human body as a living fortress. She imagined every cell working together: the white knights hunting invaders, the red peasants carrying whatever the fortress needed, and their smaller counterparts repairing damaged walls.

Then she imagined all of them becoming more active, more numerous, and more capable of performing their functions. She visualized the workers rushing over to close wounds, the knights fighting invaders, and the body becoming stronger after recovering from disease. She meditated on her experience recovering from illness and how her body had become stronger after a period of weakness.

She added the partial knowledge she had learned about healing: how setting bones was needed for them to heal, how bandages and tourniquets stopped the body from bleeding, how needles and thread could help the body close off wounds, and why amputation was necessary, since a septic body part could infect the rest of the body as blood traveled everywhere.

She finally considered everything else she knew about health, from general anatomy to esoteric ideas like people feeling healthier when they were happy, and how she could fit it into her understanding of the body and the amplification of life. Yorad. Kalaba. Cipos. Body. Life. Amplification. Finally, after two hours of going through all her knowledge, she felt the familiar click as the spell settled into her mind. Lira opened her eyes.

She picked up a small knife and hesitated for a moment before cutting the skin of her palm. The cut was shallow, barely more than a scratch, but enough to draw a small bead of blood. Lira immediately activated Small Life Watch.

"Pika. Cipos. Syneth. Picos. Kalaba." Her vision shifted, and the hidden world inside her blood appeared before her. She watched the blood gathering around the wound as the tiny cells began clustering together. Then she activated the new spell. If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"Yorad. Kalaba. Cipos." The effect was immediate. A strange warmth spread through her body, followed by a sensation that was difficult to describe. It felt as though every part of her body had suddenly become more active. Her heart began beating harder, her breathing deepened, and even her muscles seemed to tense without her consciously moving them. Despite the late hour, Lira started to feel wide awake. She looked through Small Life Watch again, and the change was obvious.

One of the white knights split into two and then four, while several more were doing the same. The white knights were multiplying at an incredible rate, while the red peasants seemed to be moving twice as quickly as before. The entire area around the wound had become a frenzy of activity, with cells rushing toward the damaged tissue, carrying materials, sealing gaps, and rebuilding what had been damaged. The process that had taken minutes to unfold naturally was now happening too quickly for her to follow.

Lira watched in fascination as the wound began closing. The edges pulled together, the bleeding stopped, and the tiny creatures clustered around the damaged area rapidly formed new layers over the opening. Barely five seconds later, the wound was completely closed. Lira released both Small Life Watch and the healing spell, but her heart was still beating rapidly. She stared at her hand for several seconds before grabbing a napkin and wiping away the remaining blood.

Beneath it was the tiny wound, or rather, what had been a wound. It was perfectly scabbed over.

"The spell worked." She should have been excited, but instead she felt a growing sense of unease. Maybe it had worked too well. She had intended to accelerate the body's natural ability to heal, and that was exactly what the spell had done. But unlike her manipulation spells, she had no active control over the process. The body was the target, Life was the thing being amplified, and that was essentially it.

There was no instruction telling the spell which part of the body needed healing or how much healing was appropriate, so the entire body had been subjected to the same amplification. She should have expected it. It was similar to what had happened with the self cleaning spell. The spell activated and cleaned everything, and she couldn't limit it to just her hand or hair. She should have added more limitations, maybe Velar: Clarity, or Pika: Mind, or Frushum: Manipulation.

But no, her first healing spell needed to be a cantrip. She couldn't start directly with a Tier One spell. The mistake was testing it on herself. Lira looked down at her hands as her heart continued pounding. She could feel an almost unnatural clarity in her thoughts, as if someone had poured cold water directly over her mind. Every sound seemed sharper, and every thought felt unusually distinct. She was not tired in the slightest, despite the fact that it was the middle of the night. She didn't like it.

Was that simply the result of having her body accelerated, or had she just pushed something that was already functioning normally far beyond what it was supposed to do? Could excessive healing damage otherwise healthy tissue? Could forcing the heart to work harder hurt it? Could accelerating the growth and repair of healthy cells cause problems that she didn't understand? She didn't know, and that was the problem.

She had technically created a workable healing spell; she had seen it close the wound, and that much was undeniable. Still, she wasn't entirely convinced it was safe. Testing it on herself had been incredibly reckless. She could have killed herself. The thought made her stomach tighten. Lira looked at the tiny scab on her finger, wondering what she had been thinking.

She had spent days carefully researching medicine because she was afraid of making a mistake, and then the moment she created a working spell, she had immediately done something reckless. That was stupid... very stupid of her. This was not a paper manipulation spell where damaging the target was inconsequential, nor was it a divination spell dealing in ephemeral knowledge. Her body was on the line here. Lira sat quietly for a while as her heartbeat slowly returned to normal.

Even her hyperactive thoughts slowed down, giving her a feeling of lethargy. A yawn escaped her mouth, and she decided that she had done enough for one night. She was still unsure whether she had caused any lasting effects. She would sleep, wake up in the morning, and check whether she felt normal. If nothing was wrong with her, she could consider her next steps and a safe way to test things moving forward. She extinguished the candle before slipping away from her alcove.

The dark library calmed her fears, but by the time she made it back to bed, she was so sleepy that she couldn't be bothered to slip under the covers.