Chapter 5 - Healing Magic (Patreon)

What did he want? And what would earn him the most ranking points?

Those two questions consumed him, and he pondered them as he moved the train back and forth.

How to execute the plan?

That was another question that kept swimming to the surface, but Tom wasn’t too worried about that answer.

Execution would not be an issue. He was confident in his abilities, his willingness to train and the way he could find even the smallest of loopholes to exploit. He suspected he was close to the perfect person for DEUS to reincarnate. And it wasn’t all arrogance, either. He had the results to support that confidence. After all, in his last life, he had received a title that acknowledged his advanced understanding of fate and, since he had achieved so many titles, he knew how they worked. That was a larger advantage than most people understood, because the best method to stop someone from getting a title was telling them how to get it. The GODs disliked people cheating like that, and so the fact that he already knew the pre-requisites for multiple titles meant he could work through the list the list without triggering the GOD’s ire.

How did he know that? Tom shrugged at the thought. There was no true answer. Mostly it was about intuition, but there was more to it than that. He was certain he was right, and he had learnt to trust that feeling. When he knew something this absolutely, he always turned out to be correct, no matter how outlandish the position initially seemed to be.

If those two advantages - his fate and title knowledge – would work in tandem, they would propel him ahead of even the other reincarnated humans, no matter how impressive their resume.

As he played with the train, he focused on the first two questions. The memory of the fight  where he had died, kept playing in his head, unbidden. Not just those last moments where the cat-like person had strained with everything it had to kill him, either. There was also the power of both the giant and the dragon.

Then the memory reset to the wador.

Tom shivered. Its claws tearing his stomach open while it strained to bite his face off, and then the spear slipping…

He shook his head, disguising the action by following it up with an inquisitive neck tilt while staring at the train, implying that it had done something unexpected.

Those last moments had been a mistake, and a costly one - all because of his own arrogance. The wador had prepared to fight him, taking skills directly to counter him, and Tom, to his own detriment, hadn’t even considered that to be possible.

As a result, he had been easily slaughtered in a battle he entered willingly, believing he had the upper hand.

However, that wasn’t why he was dwelling on the memory. He focused instead on the true threats they had faced in the trial - the devastating power of both the dragon and the giant.

Tom shuddered when he remembered them.

The dragon had been the size of a small hill, but despite that it was incredibly quick and agile. She would have been unbeatable, if it was not for their surprise attack that exploited her weakness. One that now she would be very conscious of. Best case scenario, she would defend the vulnerable area on her neck more proactively. Worst case scenario, there would be a magically-tailored artefact protecting that weak spot.

Tom knew she would not do the former. That opportunity was gone for eternity.

He laughed at the thought process he had used to reach the final decision. It boiled down to see a big monster, me tough, me want to beat it. It was, of course, a more nuanced decision than that, but only slightly. What was the point of being able to defeat a swarm of monsters when something like that was around?

It made his choice simple.

He would become a single target specialist. Thoughts regarding stealth and rapid attack methods occurred to him, but he dismissed them. Those abilities did not belong to his strengths. To grow into the most powerful being he could be, it would be best if he leaned into what he was great at.  His best features were hitting hard while sustaining high mobility. There was no point in complicating things.

Spear skills were a requirement, as it was always fun stabbing monsters. As for magic, Lightning and Earth were a given, both because of his prior experience and his affinities.

Even as he thought about it, an extra item was added to his ‘to do’ list. He had to confirm that affinity did not change with reincarnation.

What else? He wondered. Chaos-related skills had to be a part of the build because of their link to fate. Any human that did not have a core component of their skillset focused on random outcome attacks was failing as far as Tom was concerned. The memory of what Selena and Jane had done to the giant was still fresh in his mind. The power that the tier two spell Chaos Bolts had reached had been extraordinary. They had almost imprinted themselves on reality as they had shot toward the giant. They had been that powerful - and then the bolts had hurt it when other attacks had just bounced off.

All that, along with teleportation and precognition for defense, would be the core of his built.

Tom smiled to himself. This was a development plan that would work.

But what now? He asked himself. He had fate, and presumably some time in the dark, before he fell asleep. How did he want to use that resource?

Healing, Tom decided after only a moment’s thought. It was not a part of his core build, but it was something everyone should possess to a limited extent. Plus, lacking the ability to fix himself up was making his skin crawl. It made him feel fragile. That a minor cut, at least by his standards, could kill him because he lacked the magic to stem the bleeding was horrifying. 

Tonight, he would fix that, and it would be proof of the concept of everything else he wanted to achieve.

Above, the lights flickered, five rapid flashes. With mock reluctance, Tom pushed the train away and then joined the line that was winding through the cleaning loop. The layered spells struck him one after the other. First, his outfit rippled as the first couple of spells struck. Little Ta recognised them as the ones that would clean and mend his clothes. A fresh minty taste spread through his mouth as his teeth tingled. He felt his hair shift subtly and then a general prickling ran over his skin. It was not unpleasant, just notable.

He exited the small loop and, as he passed the mirror, he discreetly admired the power of the spell. His clothes were now pristine, the small rip in his trousers had been mended, and the spaghetti stain on his T-shirt had vanished. When he smiled, his white polished teeth flashed in the mirror even though he had never physically brushed them once in his life.

Marveling privately at the invention, Tom climbed into bed and pulled the blankets over him. The lights had not switched off yet, and he was pleased that the bedcovers were of sufficient quality to block all the light from outside.

Hiding on his bed under the covers was not as safe as staying in the isolation rooms, but he had read the sign as he had entered the room.

This room is a protected space and prevents scrying.

Note: Secrets are not safeguarded from physical observation.

The sign had been modest, a polished piece of metal embedded in the wood, but to Tom it was equivalent to a flashing neon advertisement. They were as good as inviting reincarnated children to practice their magic here. That sign, the oversized blankets that acted as convenient blackout curtains, even the positioning of the beds in their own alcove supported that hypothesis. Outside, the lights went out, and he smiled and pulled out the knife he kept under his pillow.

As far as he knew, everyone in the room had one. They were being prepared for the cutthroat world out of the orphanage, and having a weapon handy when sleeping was an easy lesson to teach.

Silence is vital, he reminded himself as his hand ran over the sheathed blade. Physical observation included hearing, so the sound of him drawing his blade could easily be noted by everyone still awake… which, as far as he could judge from the surrounding noises, were most of them.

If it had been his own dagger, Tom would have no issue unsheathing it silently. But this was a weapon maintained by a four-year-old. It was lacking in most respects, but he was not helpless. Without panicking, he marshaled his mind and focused on the need to unsheathe the weapon without a sound. Then he released a single point of fate to bias the probabilities in his favour. That was all that was needed, as he really wasn’t asking it to do much. With one hand on the sheath and the other on the hilt, he pulled it out and twisted the knife as he did so to allow it to come out smoothly.

It made no noise.

Tom was only inches away, and he didn’t hear a thing. A professional, even an assassin, would have been comfortable with the precision of the attempt. With more haste than necessary, while maintaining the focus of reducing unnecessary noise, he rolled up his left sleeve to expose the flesh of his arm.

It was time to take his first real step in his new life.

It was time to create his first spell.

He clutched his weapon, if it could be called that. It was, after all, a blade designed for four-year-olds to play with. It was, in other words, effectively a toy; on the other hand, the powers of the place did have to balance safety with creating survival habits somehow. The knife was constructed of metal; it had a heft to it, even if it was hollow, so, instead of being paper-thin, the blade was more like cardboard. This safety feature, along with the blunting of the blade, made it safe for young children to use. Only the tip was sharp enough to cut, and the way it immediately thickened meant a kid would be incapable of inflicting a deep cut on anything. It felt like a knife, but, unless you had Skills, you could only use it to inflict bludgeoning-type damage. Piercing and slashing strikes were beyond it.

A mock-weapon for a four-year-old. 

It was carefully designed to give the appearance of being real and dangerous while being impossible to do serious damage with. It was, Tom hoped, sufficient for his purposes.

He positioned that tip on the fleshy part of his lower arm, close to the elbow so that his sleeve could cover it if the healing failed.

Then he pressed down.

The soft skin parted surprisingly easily, and he was certain blood welled up.

He ignored the pain.

The room was pitch black, and briefly he had an image of the wound dripping and leaving signs that he had cut himself. Very conscious of his precarious position and the need to hide evidence, he licked the spot, his mouth closing on the injury to capture any leaking blood.

Copper taste flooded his tastebuds, and he grimaced in disgust. The taste was unpleasant in battle on the occasions when it dripped down into his open mouth, but actively licking it up made it worse. However, the intensity dropped rapidly. When he licked it again, there was no additional blood to taste. The injury was not significant.

Mentally cursing the situation, he stabbed himself again. Once more, the wound was pathetic. The knife was too much of a toy and not enough of a weapon.

Another thrust. This time, he pulled his arm back and struck down as fast as his weak body could manage.

The pain this time approached the one the purple ball had inflicted. It was throbbing, which told him he had probably done sufficient damage to test his magic.

All that was left was to cast the spell.

The natives of Existentia would undoubtedly have considered what he was attempting to be crazy. Tom only had a rough concept of the numbers involved, but most people have never created an ability and the majority of those who were successful did it via an achievement and not perfection like he was aiming to do. Basically, they were rewarded for achieving numerous, and usually dangerous and life-threatening, pre-requisites.

What he was attempting was something very few natives managed, because duplicating a skill perfectly based on trial and error was almost impossible. In his last life, Tom had done it with evolutions, but the same principle was involved here, and he was sure he could replicate his earlier success. 

Both the achievement and perfection pathways for spell acquisition were considered almost a myth by the natives. For most people, spells and skills were gifted from classes, trial drops or master trainers.

Self-discovery was nearly impossible, almost certainly by design.

Tom was pretty sure he had read once that only one in a hundred natives ever developed an ability outside those three sources, and that increased to one in a thousand when you were discussing the perfection method.

Tom knew that, in some ways, he was arrogant in assuming he could recreate not just one, but many of his skills that way, but he had significant advantages that others lacked. For one, he had possessed the spell, and had cast it thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of times in his previous life. That allowed him to understand how the spell form worked intimately, and not just theoretically from books.

Mentally, he rehearsed the process, recalling how his previous healing spell had been formed and then the tweaks he did to improve its efficiency.

The cut he had created was superficial.

Tom pictured the likely pattern of damage that the last blow represented, the split skin and the burst capillaries because of the blunt force trauma.

Then he envisaged the spell. Usually, the spell form managed by the system would accept the mana he sent into it and do the work on his behalf. This time, he would need to do it manually, to summon the unstructured mana and then fold and spin it into the pattern he had viewed so many times before. He would do that outside his body, and then, when it was complete, he would pull it down onto the wound just like he did with Touch Heal.

Theoretically, it was difficult, but not beyond the realms of possibility, especially since Tom had often taken the basic spell form, then stretched and distorted it to drive efficiency. He was used to manipulating the base form of the spell on the lowest level it had; extending that experience to creating it from scratch was definitely feasible.

The idea was simple.

What he was attempting was not impossible, just highly unlikely. It might have been a remote possibility, but fate could make the near impossible likely.

With that desire crystal-clear in his mind, Tom released all the fate he possessed and bent it to that single purpose. Fate swirled out of him, and it was denser than he was expecting - not necessarily more potent, but there was more of it than a four-year-old should have had.

More than he had brought to Existentia in his first life.

That was an oddity. One more thing to follow up but hardly critical right now. 

He refocused on what was important.

The wound ached, and he missed the diagnosis capability of his previous spell, but this was a self-inflicted damage, so he had a clear picture of what had been done, and therefore knew how to fix it.

Be perfect, he reminded his fate, and then started the spell.

First, he summoned his magic. He was not surprised to find out that his reserves were tiny. He only had eight mana, which was next to nothing, but then, the wound he was fixing was equally small. The magic gathered, and he forced it into the spell form he needed, twisting and attempting to combine it into the exact pattern he remembered.

His magical control was poor, and his memory was patchier than he had hoped. As he was working, he could feel fate tweaking the weaves he had tied together. The almost unknowable substance directed the strings he formed, shifting them subtly to a new position, and made it so that when his control slipped, the weaves fell into stable positions instead of tearing everything apart.

Tom suppressed his disappointment at the ugly construction. It had none of the elegance and crispness of the system framework. Hopefully it would work, despite its clear inadequacies. He pushed it onto the damaged area of skin and visualized the physical changes that were required to close the cuts and heal the bruises. The spell weave would settle into the wound, and then, with a mixture of matter expulsion, movement, and cell growth the damage would be overwritten.

It was a process he had observed thousands of times.

Tom watched in horror as the magic he had created partially worked, but mostly evaporated away without doing anything. He had been hoping to feel the wound become unbearably itchy to signify that it was healing, but the spell did not provoke that sensation. The last of the magic faded, and his arm still throbbed.

It had not healed completely, and it should have. Eight mana with the proper spell would have been a massive overkill.

Lying there in the blackness, he chuckled to himself, soft enough that he wouldn’t be overheard.

Had he really been expecting that to work? Was he truly that arrogant? Fate was powerful, but the material he had given it to direct had been defective. He had expected his natural talent to be sufficient to get the spell form close to what he remembered, but the process was far harder than his memories had suggested. His magical manipulation ability was woefully inadequate.

He flexed his arm cautiously and tried to assess if the spell had worked even slightly.

A frown crossed his face.

Apparently, fate had done a good job. It had turned his failure into a minor success. The wound throbbed less than it should have, and moving his arm did not affect the injury like it would have if it was fresh.

Given how bad his spell form had been, perfection had been impossible, but the experiment was a success. He had cast a completely unassisted heal. His grin broadened.

It was a minor triumph. It had not worked well, but it had worked. Practice, practice and more practice, and he would master this. It might take a month, but Tom was confident his approach was going to work.

Happy with that outcome, he fell asleep.

The next morning, he woke, and with the aid of light he examined his wound. All that was left were two faint lines on the skin of his arms. There wasn’t enough data to verify the effectiveness of his healing spell; unfortunately, he didn’t know how much natural healing would fix him overnight. The minor wounds from last night being healed by morning was not beyond the realm of possibility, but Tom was suspicious. With his likely terrible vitality, his guess was that the injury should have looked worse and his magic had helped out.

Well, he would do a controlled test tonight. Make two wounds and heal one to confirm scientifically how effective the spell was. For now, he needed an injury to continue practicing his healing, so he promptly used his knife to open the wound up once more. The cut was nastier than he had expected, clearly worse than last night, and it bled profusely. With a frown of distaste, he got rid of the leaking blood. Then he repeated the healing attempt of the previous night, but used only half his fate. Keeping some available for emergency use during the day was for the best. The spell form was frustratingly difficult to create, and the end result looked like what he had achieved with his first attempt – in other words, so ugly and malformed that it would be a minor miracle if it worked.

It settled on the cut, and the magic activated itself. The bleeding scabbed over, and in mere moments the recent wound looked like it was a two-day-old one instead of fresh. Even the color of the bruise was reduced to a dull yellow. 

He didn’t get ahead of himself. The cut that he had closed was minor and the efficiency of the spell was terrible, but it was progress nonetheless, and that was all that mattered. Tom considered opening the cut further, but decided against it. He would continue trying to duplicate the magic during the rest of the day, but without fate boosting his skill level he doubted he would be able to achieve even the partial success he had to date.

He emerged from his personal blanket fort and saw that, as usual, Bir was already gone and Pa was sleeping. Following his normal routine, he went through the cleaning loop, then toileted and walked briskly down to breakfast. His stomach grumbled as he got closer, but it wasn’t ready. There were still twenty minutes until eight when the proper food got served. Until then, there was only fruit and dry bread available. Tom would have liked to be able to sample the fruit, but little Ta would not have considered it, so nor did he.

Bir was with a mixed group of four and five-year-olds, so he joined in. They were playing bubble tag, a game where both sides had to avoid popping the bubbles. After only twenty minutes of running through the bubbles, the automations activated, swarmed the tables, and deposited breakfast.

There wasn’t a single adult in sight, and once more he skipped the fancy food options and had his sausages like Little Ta would normally do. After he had eaten, he saw pastries getting delivered and hurriedly got back in line. When he reached the front, there were only two chocolate ones left, and he grabbed both, the maximum allowable quota, and ran over to Bir to share.

Excited by their luck, they departed, intending to go to the magic television room.

As they left, Tom made a point of duplicating little Ta’s usual approach of staying next to the door frame, and it caused him to almost run into an older girl with brunette hair and a white streak going the other way.

She was around ten.

The collision was minor, but it felt like static electricity snapped between them.

He backed away with wide eyes. The girl must have experienced it too because she glared at him and then her eyes flickered between him and Bir. A small smirk appeared on her face as she stared first at the half-eaten pastry in his hand and the full one in Bir’s.

“Dragons.” She cursed with obvious, false annoyance. “The morning pastries have been distributed. I guess it’s bad timing on my part. But…” She pointed at Bir, aggressively. “You give me that.”

Bir backed away eyes wide and put the pastry instinctively behind her back, as though hiding it would make a difference. Privately, Tom thought she would have been better off licking it, but as young as she was, she wouldn’t have even considered that.

The older girl scoffed at the reaction:

“If you don’t give it, I’ll take it.” She strode over, pushed Bir firmly against the wall and forcefully grabbed the pastry from her.

There was nothing that he could do. It was so unfair. They were outside the main hall, so there were no automatic protections. Usually there would be an adult around who might or might not intercede. But because of the ritual, none of the usual volunteers were allowed in.

She was going to get away with it.

The older girl she, ruffled Bir’s hair. “Don’t cry, little baby. I’ll make sure I enjoy it.”

Bir was introverted around older people at the best of times, but when being bullied, Tom knew that she had just shut down. She was almost comatose. The bully took a big bite of the pastry and smirked at him.

Fury coursed through him.

The entire thing was unacceptable. She couldn’t do that without consequences. He wouldn’t stand for it.

With an angry snarl, he charged at her. Different techniques and approaches flashed through his mind, but weaponless and with this weak body, there was not much he could do. Bereft of options, he lowered his head and tried to skull charge her.

With contemptuous ease, she sidestepped him, and he ran past her. Then she lightly kicked him in the backside, making him overbalance and go sliding along the floor.

Roaring, he got up and charged her a second time. This time, he held himself back slightly so she couldn’t dodge around him. She didn’t bother - a single long arm arrested his momentum. He tried to kick her, swing his fists, but her length let her avoid the blows. Effortlessly, she restrained him, laughing.

“I’ll kill you,” he screamed.

The girl, because that was what she was, remained amused. Then abruptly, she got bored and moved at full pace for the first time.

The world tilted and spun. He found himself with his arm behind his back and his head down below waist level being pushed into the wall. She was not gentle, and it hurt significantly more than anything he had done to himself in this life. He attempted to wiggle, and it only made it worse. Agonizing pain radiated from his shoulder. He twisted. Tried to kick her with his heels and attempted to bite her hand when it got too close.

It was futile. He had lost.

The fury fell away.

He blinked, confused at suddenly being able to think. Tears were running down his face. His arm felt like it had almost been pulled off and his jaw felt dislocated, but most of his attention went internally. He had no idea why he had reacted so aggressively.

“What the dragon was that.” The older girl demanded. “You went psycho.”

Tom relinquished control and put little Ta in charge:

“It was Bir’s pastry. You weren’t allowed to take it.” Little Ta screamed. The unnatural rage was gone, but enough of the underlying anger remained as fuel for the younger him to channel. “You mean. You’re mean, mean.”

With a laugh, she released him:

“Piss off, kid. You did good, but no one wants to hear your blubbering.”

Table of Contents

Chapter 6 ------- Chapter 6 (AUDIO)

Chapter 4