Chapter 43
After she finished drinking, Xerath took the empty cup from her hand and placed it aside, saying, "Lie down."
Sylas slowly turned around, and Xerath lifted the blanket covering her, slowly pressing on her thin back.
Sylas suddenly flinched, and Xerath quickly pulled back their hand, but eventually pressed down again. "Does it hurt?"
"Yes, it hurts. It feels like getting bumped."
Xerath didn't know what they used to make a mark on her, and it felt cool.
Warm fingertips slowly traced behind her back, occasionally pressing down with force. Sylas felt pain and quietly called out, while Xerath made marks.
After checking her upper body, Xerath uncovered the blanket around her waist. The young girl's underdeveloped body looked very immature, with narrow hips and a waist that lacked both fat and muscle. Xerath pressed on the obvious bruise near her tailbone, causing Sylas to scream and jump up.
Xerath placed her palm against Sylas's back, gently pushing her back down and making a mark there.
As it warmed up, a bit of color began to appear on Sylas's previously frozen and pale skin. However, her bruises were also clearly visible, with various degrees of damage on her limbs. Xerath slowly examined her thighs and calves, using a primitive method to mark each injury.
Tearfully, Sylas turned her head and asked, "Teacher, is it not over yet?"
Xerath grabbed her arm and slowly squeezed it, realizing that her arm was relatively intact except for a bruise on her elbow from protecting her body.
"Sylas."
"Teacher... sob..."
Xerath rarely smiled and said, "Don't cry, I'm not a doctor or a priest, I can only offer you some simple treatment."
Sylas looked at her pitifully, but Xerath remained unmoved, picking up a stone from Hyectra's hand.
"Have you seen this before?"
Sylas frowned in confusion. Xerath then explained, "I think you might have come across the information I'm going to tell you today somewhere, but you just haven't made the connection yet."
She held the dense, gray-white stone in her hand and quietly recited a spell. Without using any incantations, a golden glow overflowed from her hand, as if the stone itself was being heated by the light.
The warm stone was placed on her injury, and the pain slowly disappeared.
But this spell was definitely difficult for Xerath. Not only did she have to recite a complex incantation, but she could only tend to a small area of bruising at a time.
After taking care of the injuries on Sylas's torso, Xerath sighed and said, "Even with an ice barrier, you ended up getting hurt like this. You should know what can happen if you fall from the tower without any protection, right?"
"I understand..."
"Mages have frail bodies. Today, you will probably only feel the pain from mechanical injuries, but tomorrow you'll feel sore all over."
Upon hearing that it would be painful, Sylas widened her eyes in alarm, "W-what? T-then what should I do?"
Xerath thought for a moment and replied, "I don't know either, but I have some beginner's books about close combat professions. If you want to find answers, these books should be helpful for you." She shrugged her shoulders and said, "But I only skimmed through them after buying, so I can't tell you right away."
Watching Sylas's troubled face, Xerath added, "But most people choose to endure it, after all, it's only painful for a day or two."
She picked up the stone again and treated the wounds on Sylas's limbs, most of which were located around the joints. After completing it all, Xerath raised her hand to wipe the sweat off her nose and asked, "Are you still feeling cold?"
"It's a little warmer now."
Xerath dragged a chair over and sat down in front of the bed, saying, "Just lie down for a little longer."
Sylas obediently snuggled under the blanket, wrapping her whole face in it, leaving only her mouth visible to speak to Xerath. She said, "Teacher, what was that stone just now and that... unseen spell?"
Xerath didn't answer immediately, instead asking, "Little wild beast, what did you discover?"
Sylas meekly replied, "Well... because its effect is to alleviate pain, I guess it's a kind of healing spell... The incantation said... 'activate', 'light', 'gather', 'shine', 'heal'... and some other words... I'm not too sure if I heard them correctly."
"Say it out loud."
"'Borrow,' is it? Why would there be such a word?"
Xerath looked into her emerald green eyes, smiled gently, and said, "Very well, I have always liked your... your sharp observation. It is 'borrow.'"
Sylas's gaze was involuntarily drawn to her hand and she asked, "Teacher, are there patterns on the stone?"
"Yes."
"I want to take a look, can I see it?"
"Of course." Xerath leaned forward and placed the round stone in Sylas's hesitant hand.
Sylas thought for a moment and suddenly said confidently, "I know!"
Xerath made a gesture of "please" and gave Sylas permission. Sylas cleared her throat and sat up in bed, while Xerath draped the nearby shirt over her.
"This is a Sunstone, so that's why you asked if I have seen it, right? There are these stones everywhere in the 'hole'!"
Xerath smiled and nodded.
"I should have known, because the Illumination Spell also starts like this, but the difference is that you never use the word 'borrow.' I think maybe it's because this healing spell is a much more advanced spell than the Illumination Spell, right?"
"Your judgment is correct."
Although Xerath said this, her long explanation had not yet begun. It was apparent that she was waiting for her student to make more discoveries. This was her habit, and Sylas understood it well. There must still be some key questions that she hadn't discovered, which made it impossible for her teacher to continue with the things she needed to understand.
She didn't want to disappoint her teacher, so she wrinkled her little face and thought for a moment.
"Did you notice anything else unusual?"
"Ah, why did it shine so brightly just now?"
Finally, a relieved expression appeared on Xerath's face, and Sylas knew that she had guessed correctly again.
"In this spell, there's a word 'borrow' that I have never seen in the spells I learned before. And here's a Sunstone... and also the unusual shimmer just now. Does this indicate that casting Healing Spells like this one requires some special characteristic of borrowing from the Sunstone?"
"Very right, very good, exceptionally talented," Xerath smiled, approvingly looking at her sharp student. "Elemental mages usually have very low sensitivity to Holy Light. In the eyes of Holy Light, we are like non-existent. Similarly, in the presence of shadows, spirits, and other 'darkness,' elemental mages appear transparent. But this doesn't mean that elemental mages cannot cast Holy Light or shadow spells."
"For example, borrowing the power through some kind of medium?"
"Exactly, very right," Xerath held the delicate gray-white stone in her slender hand. "Sunstone is a great amplification tool for Holy Light spells. I think you should know this. By using a Sunstone from an underground temple, Raphael was able to sustain an elemental banishment spell for three years, maintaining a very low level of elemental concentration in a sealed space."
Sylas looked at her hands and murmured, "So that's how it is..."
"Therefore, in spell syntax, we must add words like 'borrow' to utilize amplification items like Sunstone and activate Holy Light, which cannot be directly activated by elemental mages."
"Then what is that strange light?"
"It is the scattered light caused by the difference in magical pressure." She placed the stone in the palm of her hand and extended her other hand.
Sylas thought she was going to perform magic, but Xerath instead brought her hand towards Sylas's face and adjusted her collar, partially obscuring the delicate fair skin on her chest. Her fingertips accidentally brushed against Sylas's chest, and Sylas couldn't help but focus her attention on Xerath's hand.
The pale white index finger wrote a line of golden letters in the air, and the Sunstone shimmered.
"The magic I can use is very powerful. I can easily control four elements, there is no doubt about it. However, not many spells can respond to my Holy Light. The imbalance between casting and receiving spells causes a lot of magic to dissipate, which is the light you see."
"So how do we control them? Since Holy Light hardly responds..."
Xerath smiled and said, "You can try it yourself."
Slowly, word by word, she recited the incantation for the Healing Spell. Sylas stared at her lips and followed along, reading word by word.
The grammar and elemental spells of the Holy Light art are not much different. They all come from the ancient Saiti language. But the activation word is different and it requires adding a strange word, "借". Holding the Sunstone, she tried to focus her attention on the cut on the corner of her mouth and then slowly recited the incantation. Then she faintly felt that the Holy Light was patiently waiting for her request and eagerly responded to it.
However, the effect was still very weak. The wound slowly wriggled and healed, rubbing against the tip of the tongue that was touching it, but the surface of the skin was still torn.
Xerath asked, "Do you feel it? Holy Light is a very controllable 'resource'. It always instinctively helps any injured life. If you were a clergy, you could quickly use advanced Holy Light spells with just a little practice."
"But you are an elemental mage. Basically, the Holy Light spells you can use with various magical tools in your life are only this small 'Activation' Healing Spell, the Illumination Spell, and the Light Mirror Technique. We'll learn more about them later."
Sylas perked up, "Will we learn spells from the Holy Light category?"
Xerath smiled and touched her head, saying, "Of course, I will come up with a topic next weekend. Besides teaching you some basic sentences of Holy Light spells, I will also teach you how to identify some related magical tools and gemstones."
"All of these are very necessary," Sylas whispered, following Xerath's words. This is the archmage's catchphrase, in her mind, almost all knowledge is considered "absolutely necessary."
