Chapter 9: Light Magic and Life Mana

Maela did not give Zishan enough time to complain about his reassignment again before taking him to the medical station.

It stood behind the rear command tents, close enough to the main road that casualty wagons could reach it without crossing the supply yard. Three long canvas structures had been joined beneath a timber frame, with narrow covered walkways between them and shallow drainage channels cut into the mud.

The air smelled of boiled cloth, blood, smoke, and something sharp that reminded Zishan of antiseptic until he saw a healer pour the pale blue liquid directly over a pair of metal forceps and make them steam.

Inside, the station was busy without being chaotic. The nearest tent held rows of cots for soldiers who could afford to wait, while the second had fewer beds and considerably more healers. Someone was groaning behind a hanging partition as a young auxiliary carried a basin past Zishan with both hands.

On the far side, bundles of clean cloth had been stacked beside jars of powders, stoppered bottles, rolls of splinting material, and small crystals that gave off a steady white glow.

A pale auxiliary sitting on the edge of a cot turned his head, saw Maela, and tried to stand too quickly. He managed one step before vomiting directly onto Zishan’s left boot.

Zishan looked down.

The young man stared at the boot in horror. "I’m sorry."

"It’s fine." Zishan remained very still. "Just don’t aim for the other one. I currently own only one pair. I don’t wanna risk ruining the other one, like how ruined I felt right now. I was just a student before, and now I suddenly became employed! What a life!"

Maela looked faintly amused by his reaction, but she reached past him and caught the auxiliary by the shoulder before he could fall. "Sit."

The man obeyed immediately. His face had gone pale beneath the dust covering his cheeks, but his breathing remained steady, and there was no blood in what he had brought up. Zishan crouched beside him while Maela checked his eyes.

"What happened?" he asked.

"A... A blast of fire hit the wagon," the auxiliary replied. "I wasn’t hit directly, b-but the side caught fire while I was inside."

"How long ago?"

"About h-half an hour..."

Zishan resisted the urge to use Appraisal. His Mana had recovered somewhat since the earlier treatment, but his previous Appraisal spree had drained most of them. So instead, he asked about dizziness, breathing, chest pain, nausea, and whether the man had lost consciousness.

Maela listened without interrupting, then pressed two fingers against the man’s chest. Pale green light spread beneath his shirt for several seconds before fading.

"His lungs aren’t badly damaged," she said. "Mostly smoke inhalation and heat exhaustion. Give him water slowly and keep checking his breathing."

Zishan nodded. "Got it."

The auxiliary looked between them. "Are you another healer?"

"No, just a mere employee working for a healer, apparently," Zishan replied.

"Medical support," Maela corrected as she handed Zishan a cloth.

He looked at her, but he said nothing.

She pointed toward his boot. "Clean that before you spread it all over the floor."

Zishan looked down at the mess. "Right."

For the next hour, he learned what being short-handed actually meant.

Nobody cared that he had arrived less than a day ago. If he could carry water, he carried water. If Maela needed clean cloth, he got it for her.

When a soldier came in with a shallow blade cut across his forearm, Zishan cleaned the wound while Maela used Healing Magic on the more serious damage underneath.

Until now, magic was still a new concept to him. It fascinated him so much that he wanted to learn more about it already. However, employment was hindering him from learning more. It was unfortunate.

Another man had taken the edge of a shield to the head and could not remember which unit had brought him in. Zishan kept him talking while Maela checked whether the confusion was getting worse before telling one of the assistants to remain with him.

What surprised Zishan was how much of the work still made sense.

Magic could close wounds and dull pain, but nobody used it as an excuse to ignore the basics. Maela still checked breathing before treating anything else. Dirty cloth was discarded. Wounds were cleaned before being closed. Even with Mana and alchemical medicine everywhere, infection was apparently still infection, and a blow to the head was still something worth watching.

"Don’t healers, like, just heal people normally? Like, they just shout, ’HEAL!’ and voila! The patient’s healed. Isn’t that the case?"

"What are you talking about?" Maela was confused. "Of course, we can do that. However, healing doesn’t mean we remove every impurity from wounds or bruises. We need to clean them up. Unless you’re a healer from a church or something, normally, Healing Magic just seals wounds and heals up bruises, but it doesn’t erase the fact that there might be underlying problems left behind."

"So church healers and healers like you are different?" Zishan was curious. "What’s the difference?"

Maela showed her hand, producing thin green threads swirling around her index finger. "Mine’s green, right? That’s normal Healing Affinity. The Church’s Saints and Saintesses, especially, have something completely different. They have Light Magic. Light Magic heals everything and removes anything that might cause unnecessary problems afterward. Healing for me is like closing up a wound without taking away the poison that has spread inside the human body. For those with Light Affinity, healing basically removes that poison as well."

Zishan nodded and understood immediately. "That’s quite interesting. I wonder if Light Magic could also purify or turn ruined food back to its original state? I wanna learn it, too!"

"You don’t say, kid. You have to have Light Affinity to be able to do that," Maela said. "You should get your affinities tested soon. Did you already have your affinities tested? It doesn’t say in your records, but you did say you had learned a Skill, right?"

Zishan scratched the back of his head and said, "Right... hehe..."

"Haaa!" Maela just sighed. "You can dream big, kid, but if it’s impossible, just leave it as your imagination."

Zishan, through that conversation, found out that Mana Affinities might be something a being was born with. However, with his system, could he not learn everything with no limitations at all?

’Am I that overpowered? Damn! I should suck up to the System later!’

[The System could perfectly hear your thoughts, Dumb Host. Be careful you would not say anything inappropriate.]

’What do you mean by that?!’

The System did not reply, and he just left it at that. It would bring him more stress to argue with it. It was also useless because he was going to be insulted no matter the circumstance anyway.