“What idiot thought it was a good idea to give him a high level alchemical product!” I heard shouting. My head felt like it was about to explode.
“That was the decision of his mother, the Supreme Warlady, you were there,” I heard Squire Sabin reply nervously.
“And she is an idiot, just like I suspected. Yes, it won’t kill him on its own, but you muscle headed idiots didn’t even think about what it actually does. It strengthens physical stats. His brain was shutting down!”
“Is that even possible?”
“It is possible because I say it is! A treasure from the 18th layer of the dungeon and alchemically treated for ease of consumption and absorption. A human body can only improve so much at once. While his soul is malleable at his age, that just makes it worse, since his soul began cutting things off to his brain due to how malleable it is. Idiots, all of you are idiots!”
“Well, is he going to be okay?”
“He is already awake, but probably has a massive headache, isn’t that right?”
“Yes,” I said, since my brain felt like it was trying to escape my skull.
“By the System, I haven’t seen such foolishness in decades. It is always you strong fighters that seem to get these outlandish ideas and us Healers cleaning up the mess. And don’t think I won’t give the Supreme Warlady a piece of my mind. Now child, keep the wet cloth over your eyes and rest today. You should be better by tomorrow,” he said.
“Good, that is good,” Squire Sabin said with relief.
“Any other Healer without my skills, and he wouldn’t be alive right now. No more Alchemical products or treasures from the depth without my approval. Has he had anything else?”
“A soul fruit, um, three months ago. But that is it. Nothing else, unless Squire Jessica did something.”
“I was there, and it was foolish in my opinion. A green soul fruit, at his age? It is lucky his soul didn’t completely liquefy and drain out of his body!”
“It has been tested on other low level individuals,” Squire Sabin countered.
“Oh, by those idiots in the College of Advancement? In a controlled setting? So, they could publish another paper and sell it to all you adventurers to fund their idiocy? Is that who tested it?” Healer Castelle was on a complete rampage. It made me wonder who would win in an argument, him or my mother.
“Um, well, it was all peer reviewed,” Squire Sabin said hesitantly.
“You people just reading the summary and don’t look at all the details. Then you are like, ‘oh, this is a great idea’. ‘Why don’t we shove these things into a child without listening to an expert first, nothing can go wrong.’ System save me from idiots who think they actually know something,” Healer Castelle said, and Squire Sabin remained silent, having been verbally beaten into submission.
“Is there lasting damage?” I asked hesitantly.
“No thankfully. Since I got to you in time and stabilized your soul. It was just an imbalance from the natural processes of everything you consumed,” he said kindly. Clearly Healer Castelle had completely different attitudes based on whether a person was a patient or not.
“As for your training, half a day of that madness starting tomorrow. The rest needs to be focused on mental activities. I will also do daily checkups, just in case. Ideally, he should rest for a full week, but it is fine starting tomorrow.”
“Is there some kind of skill I might get?” I asked.
“Child, listen to me. Messing with your soul is foolish. While I understand training, it is too easy to break something that can’t be fixed. You are very lucky, I can’t say this enough, that I was here to save your life. Otherwise, your brain would have completely shut down as your soul fueled the growth of your physical stats. Trying to get a skill by pushing your body to the limit can be done for other things, but not your soul.” Healer Castelle took a deep breath before continuing.
“I only have one main skill related to the soul that doesn’t even heal, Stabilize Soul. That’s it. I can’t tell how close someone is to the point of no return. While there probably are more soul skills, the people who try to reach them, don’t meet good ends.”
“He is right. Damage and resistance training has to be done very, very carefully, since the risk is so high. Soul damage is far more dangerous since it bypasses the natural aversion of one’s soul to danger,” Squire Sabin said.
“The first bit of common sense that has come out of your mouth so far. Now let’s let the child rest. If you need something call a servant. If you are in pain, have the servant watching you call for me immediately. Don’t hesitate at all,” the Healer said.
“Yes,” I gave an affirmative and just lay in bed with a cool damp cloth over my eyes.
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I was fed stew in bed by a servant and rested all day. The following morning, my headache was gone, and I felt a lot better. After getting changed into my armor, I made my way out to the training grounds.
Squire Sabin and Healer Castelle looked up at me and Squire Sabin gave me a big smile. “I see you are feeling better, that is good,” he declared loudly.
“Come here, child.” I walked over to Healer Castelle and he placed his hand on my head.
“Stabilize Soul. There, that should help things. We will do that at the start and end of your training every day. Only half a day, until lunch,” he said and pointed at Squire Sabin at the last part.
“Of course, of course! That just means we need to work harder than ever,” Squire Sabin declared loudly. As I made my way onto the training area, I thought I heard Healer Castelle mutter something, but I couldn’t make out what he said. Probably something disparaging about Squire Sabin.
After half a day of hard physical training, I went back over to Healer Castelle where he used his skill on me once more. “You should be fine. If you have a headache, or any pain, stop what you are doing and come get me,” he said, and I nodded at this.
“I am still confused by what exactly happened,” I said, and he let out a sigh.
“Your soul provides growth and stability. Think of it like the furnishings in a house, which is your body. The Alchemical product you took and the soul fruit from before, combined with your low level, was putting all the furniture on wheels and then rolling it all into a single room. It threatened to break through the floor due to the weight. That is what happened, there was too much focus put onto your physical skills, creating a huge stress point on your soul and body. Thankfully the issue was corrected, souls are quite durable. But there is still some risk,” he explained. The metaphor helped me to understand what was happening.
“If the furniture is like my stat growth, then I just need to be careful in the future?” I asked.
“Child, Alchemical products are dangerous, even the tested ones. Each person is unique, especially you. The flexibility of your soul due to your age might have saved you, or you could have been moments away from death. It is hard to say for sure. Now you are wondering about boosting stats even more?” he stared intently at me.
“Um, well, I just wanted to ask,” I replied.
“Foolishness. I don’t dislike Alchemical products since they compete with actual Healers who know what they are doing. I dislike them since anyone can take them without understanding complicated interactions that might happen. If your mother brings something back, you should not take anything without an approval from a Healer like myself or a Healer of similar skill. Your soul is being pushed to the absolute limit and past that. If I didn’t know your mother personally, I would think she was some foolish idiot from the College of Advancement.” Healer Castelle let out a long sigh, like all this personally pained him.
“As for training. If there is pain that shouldn’t be there, let me know,” he said.
“Got it,” I replied. Squire Sabin was listening in but didn’t say anything since he didn’t want another verbal beatdown.
The afternoon was spent with Tutor Damian working on more mental skills. This time I was a lot more focused. I paused from copying the dictionary to look up. I had a question, that I couldn’t think of an answer for.
“Tutor Damian, why are certain skills, listed as skills in my status?” I asked. It had been annoying me for a while.
“Oh, that is an interesting question. The answer is that the word skill we use comes from this label, not the other way around. That is why skills are called skills. In tier two this is called focus and then empowerment as a general description. After that things become more specialized in their naming schema. There are some skills that are have their own names, like Teacher, then Tutor, and then Empowered Tutor.”
“Why?” I asked.
“People have been asking that forever, ever since the dawn of the System ages ago. There are many guesses, but no answers, at least none that have been publicly shared,” he explained.
“Personally I think it references how the System works. Skills refers to a collective of actions. Like Sword Skills covers a range of swords. Curved ones, two handed ones, magical swords. The skill covers them all. Focus implies one has mastered the basics. Empowerment implies that some mana is being used into the skill passively at tier 3. Which then transitions into named skills in tier 4, similar to spells,” he explained.
“What is the highest tier?” I asked. I thought it was tier 6, but I wanted to confirm this.
“Highest known one is tier 6, but people say there is higher, but there has been no proof or official confirmation from any researchers. Many relate the tiers to monster cores, of which there are supposedly seven colors. But who knows what might come next? Unless someone becomes strong enough and shares their accomplishment with the world it is impossible to know for sure,” Tutor Damian explained. I nodded at this.
I went back to copying the Eldarin dictionary and saying words out loud. After another hour I was getting bored, so I decided to ask another question. “Is runic script helpful?”
“For enchantments and exploring the dungeon, yes. Eldarin is the most common runic archetype in the dungeon, well around here. Can’t say anything about the other races with how insular they are and the dungeon. I am not an adventurer and focused on other things. You can even make magic scrolls for one use spells to preserve mana. So don’t underestimate runes,” he explained.
“Will that help me as a spellblade?” I asked.
“It won’t leave you ignorant at the very least,” he replied, which meant that it wouldn’t help me directly as far as he knew. It was hard to constantly focus and train. While I had taken a break and then another one due to the health scare, I felt myself mentally drained.
As dinner approached, I began to get a slight headache. I excused myself and found Healer Castelle in the guest wing of the mansion. “A headache?” he asked me, and I explained what I had been doing.
“Your soul is fighting the influence of the Alchemical product when it tries to upgrade your mental stats. This is what is creating the headache. Stabilize Soul.” Healer Castelle put his hand on my head and used his skill for a third time today.
“No training mental skills after dinner. Just go to sleep early. Sleep helps your body and soul come togeather and should lessen the strain,” he said.
“Oh, I will let Tutor Damian know,” I replied.
“Good job, reporting to me right away. While it might have built up into a serious issue, you are charting new territory with what you are doing.”
“You aren’t going to tell me to stop?” I asked.
“I know better than that. You wouldn’t listen or could go behind my back. I am also not your mother. I am a Healer. If you want to do foolish things, I will warn you, but I won’t stop you,” he replied.
“Thank you, Healer Castelle.”
“Hmmpf, with what your mother is paying me and the debt I owe her, I don’t need thanks,” he replied and went back into his apartment that had been set aside for him in the mansion.