Sixth Realm

by Michael Chatfield

  The fight continued on with no clear winner.

  Derrick escaped her range and the two of them stared at one another. The stage was covered in scars from their imbued attacks striking the ground instead of one another.

  Derrick straightened up and his serious expression turned into a smile. As he stepped forward, her spear shot out again. He used a technique with his blades, increasing the strength of his blows and using his body to unleash all of his power, forced the spear to the side.

  The spear-wielding fighter increased their speed and continued to attack, but Derrick’s defense turned from soft to hard and they were unable to land an attack. Derrick’s blades forced the spear away, making them have to grunt and counteract the rebounding momentum to strike again.

  As Derrick advanced, they had to continue to step backwards.

  With a yell they activated a technique, increasing the speed of their spear and reinforcing it with greater strength.

  The swords and spear clashed with one another.

  “That spear must be a High-Journeyman level weapon, if Derrick didn’t have mid-Journeyman blades then they would have broken under those attacks,” Niemm said.

  “Using weapons as clubs seems to be a bit of a waste,” Domonos muttered.

  Derrick cast an illusion spell. The spear user recoiled, shaking their head to try and clear it. Derrick dashed forward, his swords blurring. The spear user was pushed back, trying to make enough distance to use her spear effectively.

  “She’s good.”

  Derrick’s attack struck her mask leaving a bloody line.

  She turned and thrust out with her spear.

  Derrick was hit in the side, sending him to the ground. He used his momentum and his legs to spin around and get back on his feet.

  The spear user adjusted her stance and attacked as he was rising.

  Derrick turned, the spear ran along his back as he bent, stabbing his two swords out.

  Wind spread across the stage.

  The woman’s spear was by Derrick’s leg while his bladesshone right next to her throat and stomach.

  “Huh, well that’s a coincidence,” Domonos said looking at the woman.

  “You know her?” Elan asked.

  “She fought against Mercy, came from the Iron Spear Sect. She was down in the First Realm, part of the group that went to the Beast Mountain Range trial. What was her name, Julia, Julia Oui. Didn’t think that the next time I would see her, I would be an officer.”

  The referee called the match in Derrick’s favor.

  “Well she’s got stronger. All but the Adventurer branch heads will probably be eliminated this round,” Roska said.

  On the third day, all of the special team members had been eliminated and there were just five of the Adventurer guild branch leaders left, Emilia had been knocked out of the fight with Yi Yin.

  Outside the top 100 it was pure elimination. Allowing some people to easily progress and others had to fight with everything they had and still couldn’t make it. It was in a bid to shorten the game time down so it didn’t go on for months.

  Roska gathered all of the ‘losers’ in the secret training rooms under Vuzgal’s military compound.

  The trainees were all hanging their heads low.

  “So now you know how it feels to lose. All of you have made it through to the next round of training. It doesn’t matter how badly you fail, it matters how you react to that failure and what you do with it. You fought in there with your power restrained, you kept your identities and your strength hidden in a stressful situation.”

  She looked at them all as they perked up. “You will be broken down into teams to take on real missions across the Ten Realms. We need to understand the tactical situation around Vuzgal. We will be scouting the surrounding areas and infiltrating the different cities around us. We will have operatives trained by Elan that will show us how to blend in and gather information. While other groups will be striking out against the Willful Institute, attacking their convoys, taking out their links to one another, you will be used as strike teams to weaken the enemy through guerilla tactics. Upon completion of your missions, it will be up to the Special team leaders to pick out those among you who they wish to be part of their team. In the missions you will not be treated as recruits but as Special team members, do not fail our assessment of you. We do not need children in our ranks.”

  They were all sitting up, coming from the pits of despair to the focused soldiers they were.

  Well, I might not be able to watch the rest of the competition but I get to get back out into the field and work. Been too long since I went on a mission. Things are changing quickly with the Willful Institute. Glosil will have plenty for us to do. Roska’s mouth lifted in a smile.

  Chapter: Unexpected Breakthrough

  It was the third day that Erik had been inside of Kuldir.

  The healing stall was popular day and night. Rugrat had been helping out, and the special team members, allowing them to get two stalls.

  Erik was reminded of Chonglu where people had started to pour in once they found out that there were healers in the area.

  They triaged people and worked through them.

  There were a number of difficult cases, people that had been lamed or those that lost limbs.

  Even adventurers were rushed in from fighting for emergency healing after they encountered a powerful beast that had caught them unaware.

  The Special teams, like Erik, had a lot of knowledge on healing but they had been unable to put it to good use as they were stuck with other tasks. The Alva healing house was filled with people from the school; the hospitals in Alva were never at capacity as people could be healed so quickly. Vuzgal had so many students that there were few openings there as well.

  So now, they were experiencing an explosive growth in their healing skills. Skills were related not just to how many times a person carried it out, it was also how skilled they were in the craft. Most of them had jumped up to the Journeyman level rapidly.

  Erik was working on a young girl that had gone out as a fighter, only to be hit by a shadow beast, she was suffering from a powerful poison and immobility.

  “Okay, so we used poison to neutralize the poison in her veins, that will make sure that her heart doesn’t stop beating, now we just need to clean up the wound and heal her passively, Her body will temper with time, and becoming immune to the two poisons that we added to her body and her wounds will heal normally.” Erik said to Storbon who was assisting him.

  I used to think of health as one system, then as different groups or parts of the system that relate to one another, but really they’re all overlapping systems. If you have the power to isolate them or empower one, then it can affect the others and cause them to grow or wither in the Ten Realms. People are much more resilient and magic allows us to fly in the face of modern medicine. Using the combination of knowledge of the different systems, the healing spells can repair without being invasive or leaving behind any damage. Medicine as I learned it and healing magic aren’t two different systems, they’re just components of the same system. Physical healing, magical healing, and alchemy healing; all are tools for the same job.

  Erik’s mind matched it all together.

  Storbon nodded as Erik looked at the woman. His organic scan saw everything that was happening in her body. He raised his hand and items fell from his storage ring, captured by the mana in his domain. The tools and spells darted around. It looked like a futuristic healing bay. Minimal healing spells were used in combination with Erik using a clean spell to clear the wounds, a stamina potion, using his Earth mana control to push wounds together, and then having the flames cauterize the wounds so that there wasn’t a scar left behind.

  These actions happened not one after another, but simultaneously and in just a few seconds, all the items returned to Erik’s storage ring.

  The woman breathed easier.He had stabilized her completely; he had used his tools, working with her body instead of
against it.

  “She has spent a lot of stamina with the poison, but the cauterized wounds will start to repair naturally. She has some breaks but they will heal shortly. I focused on healing her so that her regeneration abilities will take over.”

  The young girl let out a gasp as her body started to accelerate the healing process.

  “She has a Body of Stone, so she will recover in a few hours with enough food. I am just facilitating the change in her body from sick to cured.

  He checked her body again with his domain and then sent in a few surges of healing to her body.

  “Even if she doesn’t come to me, she’ll be healed now. Using different tools I was able to stabilize her body. A poison can be a vaccine, a spell a scalpel, and harm can be a bandage. My mind was too closed in.“

  Time for me to test my true healer abilities.

  Erik used his organic scan on the man, reaching to the Sixth Realm he had a powerful body. He had been hit in the side which had shattered his arm and broken his ribs. While he was in a weakened state he was hit with an infection that ravaged his body. Within his body there was a raging war, his bones had fused together, making them painful and leaving him crippled keeping him in a wounded state as his body had to expend more energy in his current situation just day to day. His body’s natural immune system was dealing with the infection and the flu that had dug itself deep into his body, weakening and wearing him down.

  He has a strong body, while the situation is bad, it is not critical.

  “Looks like you had a nasty hit,” Erik said.

  “I was a guard for one of the academics. We were ambushed by Krohon, they hide themselves by looking like plants and hiding within them. They have long limbs that hit like a damn war hammer. Got me, a broken guard isn’t much use, they got me back to this outpost and here I remained,” The man’s hollow eyes showed a flash of frustration before switching to apathy. He started coughing, it shook his body as he gritted his teeth against the pain while the coughing got worse.

  Erik moved him onto his side and into the recovery position.

  And that is the liquid in his lungs acting up.

  Erik circulated a part of his power. He focused his healing spells on the man’s overtaxed lymph nodes and in his bone marrow.

  White blood cells were quickly produced, pushing into the man’s body. Erik watched the man’s body, searching for signs of stamina fatigue.

  He used healing spells on the man’s lungs, the coughing died down as Erik dialed back his healing spells the older man was tough, but with so much stress on his body his stamina recovery was compromised, being used to support all of the different ailments upon his body.

  Erik slowed his heals to a standstill as he got as close to stamina deprivation as he wanted to.

  The man was fighting to keep his eyes open and the wheeze from his breathing, while not gone had decreased. Erik ran another organic scan.

  I haven’t done anything about those broken bones yet. First I’ll deal with the infection, that will increase the stamina recovery, then I can deal with the broken bones, torn ligaments and tendons and help him to recover that lost muscle mass.

  Erik wrote up his treatment plan on a clipboard and then attached it to the string above the man’s bed.

  Erik checked his skills.

  ==========

  Skill: Healer

  ==========

  Level: 73 (Journeyman)

  ==========

  You have become familiar with the body and the arts of repairing it. Healing spells now cost 5% less Mana and Stamina.

  ==========

  Still no change, we’ll see what happens once he is healed.

  Each day Erik worked he would secretly used supplies on different patients, that if he hadn't, he would have otherwise caused more suffering.

  For most he was able to just use his healing spells. It took much longer because he needed to wait for the patient’s body to naturally recover their stamina. He would heal a few people, leave them to rest, move to other patients and keep on rotating, clearing patients and bringing in new ones.

  Four days passed and the older guard was looking a lot better. His immune system was in fighting form and the infections were in remission.

  “Alright, with this we should deal with all of your internal problems and then we can focus on your ribs and that arm,” Erik said.

  The older man who had not had much hope before when he arrived stood up as Erik walked in.

  “Thank you Healer Erik,” The man winced as he bowed.

  “There is no need to do that Gerek, you’ll hurt yourself more!” Erik complained but the man kept his bow. Dragging out his bad arm with his good.

  “I have little to my name, I was just a lowly guard pushed to the side with a serious injury. There is little that I can offer you in compensation but you have helped me without question or asking for anything. Your contract does not aid you or your people in anyway, but will help countless people that are injured in this outpost. I can only do this for you.”

  “Me and my companions, while we do want to help people, we are also doing this to increase our healing skills,” Erik said.

  “I have seen healers in the academies above. They will take one or two patients with certain ailments they know how to heal and use them to increase their overall skill. You are healing people with not just one ailment to fool the Ten Realms system. You could have just taken one patient but you and your people have healed tens of people and are treating tens of other people. If you increase your skills I can see that you will not keep those skills to yourself for money. At first I thought that you were a scam because who offers healing with such low conditions. I would have felt safer if you offered a contract that turned me into your slave instead than the flimsy contract you proposed.”

  “We are both helping one another, so don’t worry about it too much,” Erik said he felt touched as he helped the old guard up.

  “Come on, time to get rid of that nasty infection and cold.”

  Gerek nodded and let Erik help him back to the cot.

  Erik checked the man’s body, the infection and cold were on the losing side, with repeated treatments Gerek’s body was recovering quickly.

  Erik started using his healing spells and monitoring.

  He got rid of the signs of infection first, Erik felt a flood of experience entering his body as his notifications pinged.

  Quiet down will you. He paid them no attention as he worked to defeat the signs of the cold. More experience flooded him as Gerek recovered from the cold.

  Erik examined Gerek’s ribs again. Using Wraith’s Touch he numbed the area.

  “Alright Gerek, how are you feeling?” Erik asked.

  “A bit tired, but better than our last sessions,” He said on his side.

  “Just going to move your arm here and work on a few things on your side, hold your arm will you?” Erik moved Gerek’s arm and had him hold it out of the way.

  Erik summoned a mana blade, in his eyes he melded the information of his touch and what he was seeing together.

  He flicked Gerek’s side but he didn’t react.

  The numbing salve working Erik cut through the man’s skin the mana blade cut through the muscle and into the bone that had fused in the wrong way.

  Erik finished his cut and pulled out a clamp, he pushed them through the incision, grabbing onto the rib and lining up the rib in the right place.

  A fuse bone spell later and the rib was back in the right place.

  Erik pulled the clamp out and used different healing spells to seal the incision. With a clean spell the blood was removed and the indent in the skin had disappeared, showing a healthy side that didn’t have any deformations.

  Erik checked on Gerek, he was barely keeping his eyes open, the healing spells had taken a lot of stamina from him.

  This Ten Realms style of healing is much slower and dangerous.

  “Alright Gerek you get some sleep, we’ll start working on your
side and arm next,” Erik said.

  Gerek grunted, and closed his eyes.

  Erik wrote new notes on his clipboard and left it above Gerek.

  He remembered the rush of experience and looked at the blinking notifications. He made sure no one was around as he checked the notification.

  ==========

  Skill: Healer

  ==========

  Level: 81 (Expert)

  ==========

  You are an expert on the human body and the arts of repairing it. Healing spells now cost 10% less Mana and Stamina. Patients stamina is used an additional 15% less.

  ==========

  ==========

  Upon advancing into the Expert level of Healer, you have been rewarded with one randomly selected item related to this skill.

  ==========

  You have received the tool: Healer’s hands

  +1,000,000 EXP

  ==========

  ==========

  45,948,136/56,900,000 EXP till you reach Level 58

  ==========

  A light flashed in front of Erik and a pair of gloves appeared in front of him, he reached out and grabbed them.

  They were white with golden runes on the back of the hand and tracing over his fingers.

  Erik checked their stats.

  ==========

  Healer’s hands

  ==========

  Weight: 0.3 kg

  Health: 100/100

  Charge: 100/100

  Innate Effect:

  Increase mana spell’s effect by 5%

  Enchantment:

  Assisted Recovery—patient’s stamina recovery increases by 5%

  Requirements:

  Mana 40

  Mana Regeneration 50

  ==========

  Damn I thought of Ivs and other gear to assist healers, but I never thought of gear to directly aid in healing. This is a highly specific kind of mage’s equipment, like how there are staffs to increase a mage’s natural attacks. Fire mages get fire staffs to increase their overall effects. Kind of a dumb oversight.

  Erik put the gloves on, they adhered to his hand he moved his hands finding they weren’t limiting his movement or his sensitivity.