Chapter 411: Specialized Therapy

Richard frowned and waited another half-minute.

He activated Spirit Vision to examine the old injury.

The grayish ring of ether deposits at the edge of the stagnation was dissolving bit by bit.

The speed of dissolution was roughly equivalent to brushing Healing over the same spot a dozen times.

The difference was that he had only pushed the energy once.

The well was seeping on its own, requiring no second action on his part.

It went deeper and was more thorough than Healing.

Richard deactivated his Spirit Vision and rested his hands on his knees.

He now had a tangible sense of the idiom: "moistening things silently."

He thought of his mother and Clara.

Channeling energy to heal others—he had looked forward to this for a long time.

Richard drew that small puddle of life breath back into the Seat of the Sun.

He still didn't know exactly how far this ability to heal others could go.

Whether it could touch his mother's ruined circuit or mend the hidden injuries in his senior's lungs—all of this needed to be tested.

As for exactly how to test it, to what extent, and whether it would succeed...

Outside the window, the sky had turned completely dark.

He stood up, took his nameplate off the shelf, and pushed open the iron door embedded with seals.

Richard popped his coat collar and walked toward the dormitories.

...

His grandfather was recovering nicely.

After the day of mourning, Gerard's spirit and vitality had improved day by day.

He no longer dozed off in his chair every evening and had even picked up his hunting knife again to practice basic drills in the backyard.

The butler watched with trepidation, too afraid to stop him.

By mid-March, at 13 Chelsea Road.

Several unfamiliar faces stood beside the training post in the backyard today.

"These are all children from the family," Gerard pointed out.

"Vincent and Baldwin are still on the frontlines and haven't returned. These few stayed behind."

Richard looked at them one by one.

The tall young man at the very front was Rockwell, in his early twenties.

He had taken a hit to his right shoulder during a field mission last month. The wound had healed, but the ether circuit in that area had felt suppressed and heavy ever since.

The two beside him were younger, a pair of cousins—one named Percy, the other Carey.

Both had only recently reached Signature. The hidden injuries they had accumulated during training lingered in their bodies with nowhere to go.

Another man stood at the very back, noticeably older.

"Uncle," Richard greeted, recognizing him.

Holloway nodded at him.

His aunt's husband was getting on in years; his circuits were layered with old injuries, leaving him aching all over whenever it rained.

Richard had seen him once at the last family gathering; he had been coughing severely back then.

"Grandpa Gerard told us," Rockwell spoke up first. He had a straightforward temperament.

"You can heal injuries?"

"I can try." Richard didn't make any absolute promises.

"I heard about the Moon Nail." Rockwell rolled up his sleeve.

"Just stick us with a needle. We all want to try it."

"It's not that." Richard shook his head.

"The Moon Nail comes with a period of weakness, and it hurts. This is different."

"How is it different?"

"This doesn't hurt."

Rockwell frowned. "It doesn't hurt? Then how can it be useful?"

Indeed, in the Path of Blood Ignition, painless was practically synonymous with useless.

They had endured ice baths, beatings, and hyperventilation since their early teens; they had long since equated pain with effectiveness.

Richard answered with a question of his own.

"You've experienced the treatments of the Solar Tradition, haven't you?"

The expressions of the men flickered.

The healing methods of the Solar Tradition were actually quite violent.

Light would be poured into the wound, burning away the necrotic and stagnant tissue all at once; severe injuries simply couldn't withstand the process.

Take Rockwell's shoulder injury from last month—the family had originally wanted to invite someone from the Solar Tradition to look at it.

Upon asking about the price and considering the treatment process, he had immediately shaken his head in refusal.

"Mine is the exact opposite of the Solar Tradition. It won't burn you."

Richard didn't explain further. He walked up to Rockwell.

"Expose the wound."

Rockwell pulled the clothing off his right shoulder.

The flesh of his shoulder blade looked completely healed, but as soon as Richard applied his Spirit Vision, he saw that the underlying circuit was dull and grayish.

Richard raised his hand, aiming his palm at the shoulder blade, and guided the accumulated life breath from his Seat of the Sun down his right arm and into his palm.

Rockwell stared at his hand, waiting to feel something.

He waited for a long time but felt absolutely nothing.

"...That's it?" He tilted his head to look at his shoulder.

"That's it," Richard nodded.

"Why don't I feel anything at all?"

"It's seeping in. It's seeping very slowly, so you can't feel it right now."

This seeping lasted for a full fifteen minutes.

The other young men in the backyard had been craning their necks to watch, but after seeing no movement for fifteen minutes, they all lost interest.

Percy leaned in close to Carey's ear and muttered in a hushed voice, "This is just standing around sunbathing, right?"

Carey whispered back.

"Sunbathing would at least make you a little warmer."

Gerard sat on a stone bench on the back porch, holding a cup of tea without saying a word.

His Spirit Vision was much more refined than the younger men's; he could see it clearly.

That dull, grayish segment of circuit in Rockwell's shoulder blade was inching its way back to a translucent clarity.

Half an hour passed, and Richard withdrew his hand.

"Done."

Rockwell rolled his right shoulder, stopping halfway.

"..."

"How is it?" Carey leaned over.

Rockwell rolled it two more times and pressed down on his shoulder.

"That heavy suppression... it's faded."

"Faded by how much?"

"I can't really say," Rockwell answered honestly.

"It's definitely not completely healed, but it has lightened."

Percy's earlier amusement vanished in an instant.

"Brother Rockwell, you aren't lying to us, are you?"

"Why would I lie to you?" Rockwell rolled his shoulder again. "It really has faded."

Richard explained from the side:

"Its effects are slow. When you go back today, it will continue to loosen up little by little tomorrow and the day after."

"Then can it be cured completely?" Percy asked anxiously.

"For the hidden injuries you got from this kind of training, just go back and wait a few days; they'll heal completely."

"The lighter the injury, the faster the recovery."

Suddenly wide awake, the young men lined up, eager to try.

Richard treated them one by one.

Percy and Carey's hidden injuries were already very minor; soaking in the energy once eliminated most of them.

As they moved their arms, the lingering skepticism on their faces transformed into genuine delight.

Finally, it was Holloway's turn.

This uncle's injuries were completely different from the young men's.

His were born from decades of blood ignition training; they had long since fused with his very body.

For the young men's injuries, Moon Nail: Reflection would actually have yielded faster results. Having them try this was purely to observe different samples.

Treating these ancient, deeply rooted injuries was Richard's true goal for this test.

Richard applied his Spirit Vision and scrutinized it for a long time.

"Uncle, for yours... a single session probably won't do much."

Holloway nodded, not surprised in the least.

He had invited the Solar Tradition to look at these injuries before. They had told him it would require burning them several times, and knowing he couldn't withstand it, he had long since given up hope.

"Even if it just loosens up a bit, that's still good," he said.

Richard raised his hand, aiming it at the most heavily injured area on Holloway's lower back.

Holloway closed his eyes. At first, he felt nothing.

But later, that section of his lower back—which always felt heavy during rainy days—slowly developed an indescribable warmth.

"...Comfortable." Holloway let out a long breath. "I haven't felt this comfortable in years."

Richard withdrew his hand. "Uncle, you have to take this slowly. Each session will loosen it a bit more; we can't rush it."

"I'm in no rush." Holloway waved a hand. "Every bit of relief is a gain."

The young men in the backyard surrounded Richard, bombarding him with a flurry of questions.

"Richard, where did you get this ability?" Rockwell asked.

This question was well within Richard's expectations.

"My signature artifact underwent a transformation."

"After it transformed, I switched to the advanced breathing method of the Mirror Tradition, which derived this ability."

His public excuse for any unexplainable ability was now that it was brought about by "artifact transformation."

Artifact Signatures and transformations were inherently bizarre and unpredictable anyway.

Combined with the influence of choosing advanced breathing methods from different traditions, the sheer variety and complexity of resulting abilities became endless.

No one could say for sure, and there was no way to verify it.

"An artifact plus a breathing method?" Percy looked completely envious. "Can we get that too?"

"You would first need to walk the Scholar path, and then find a highly compatible supernatural item."

Richard smiled. "And finally, you'd have to follow the Mirror Tradition."

Percy instantly deflated.

Gerard listened from the back porch, holding his tea without making a sound.

When his grandson lied, he always did so without changing his expression.

The few guinea pigs dispersed with profound gratitude, leaving only Gerard and Richard in the backyard.

"This ability of yours is even more precious than that Moon Nail."

"You noticed, Grandpa."

"The Moon Nail brings pain and a period of weakness. It comes with a price."

"But this one... I stared at it for ages and couldn't see you paying any price at all."

"It's slow," Richard said. "That is its price."

"Slow?" Gerard shook his head.

"How is being slow a price? The Solar Tradition's methods aren't much better than medieval bloodletting."

"Grandpa," Richard began. "I want to talk to you about Mother."

Gerard's hand, holding the teacup, paused.

"You want to use this to heal your mother's circuit?"

"I want to try."

Gerard fell silent for a long time.

"Margaret's circuit has been ruined for over ten years."

Richard had long since researched this.

"Mother's main circuit is ruined, but she still has a large section of residual circuits that aren't completely destroyed. They're just idling.

"Idling for all these years has dragged her body down significantly."

"The chronic damage to her lungs, the dull ache that flares up whenever it rains—they're all the result of those residual circuits idling."

Gerard furrowed his brows.

"You mean..."

"I can't heal the ruined main circuit," Richard said honestly.

"That would require a Major Adept. But I want to try steadily soaking those idling residual circuits little by little to stabilize them and make them stop."

"Once the residual circuits stop, the burden on her body will lighten.

"That dull ache in her lungs might slowly fade away."

The back porch fell quiet for a moment.

Gerard asked the most critical question:

"You are in the Imperial Capital, while your mother is in Briston.

"You yourself said it needs to soak slowly, to soak repeatedly."

"Do you expect your mother to follow you to Imperial Capital University to be with you?"

Following him to the university wasn't impossible, but it would definitely be quite troublesome.

This was precisely what Richard had been thinking about over the past few days.

"Grandpa, this energy can be hoarded."

"Hoarded?"

"It is generated little by little through my Breathing. I can keep hoarding it without letting it dissipate."

"I plan to hoard it for a few months, and once I've accumulated enough, I'll use it on Mother all at once."

"Hoard it for a few months?"

"Three months. Around June."

Richard began to explain his plan:

"I've calculated it all. Evelyn will be graduating around June anyway."

"When the time comes, it will be the perfect opportunity for the whole family to make another trip to the Imperial Capital. We can also handle Evelyn's enrollment into the Royal Culinary College."

The old man cradled the long-cold cup of tea in his palms.

"Are you certain that three months of hoarded energy can heal her?"

"I'm not," Richard said with complete honesty. "I can only say it's worth a try."

"If it can make her feel even a little better, it's worth it."

Gerard downed the cup of tea in one gulp.

"Alright." He stood up. "In June, have them come."

He took two steps toward the house, then stopped.

"Richard."

"Yes?"

"If Margaret knows that you spent three months hoarding this for her, going through all this trouble specifically for her..."

"Her heart is going to ache for you."