Chapter 272: Chapter 256 – To Preach the Good Word

“The so-called Renaissance of the healing arts we now enjoy was widely believed to have started roughly half a millennium ago, simultaneously in the Kingdom of Posuin in Alcidea and the Elmaiya Empire on Ur-Teros. Many public records stated of the beginning of public lectures done by senior healers to their juniors, and the beginnings of the belief that those blessed with healing ought to not hoard their power for base reasons.

 

Why and how this could happen at roughly the same period of time at two places separated by such a vast distance across the ocean, nobody knew for certain. Folk legends spoke of two legendary figures, the Silver Maiden and the White Empress, who supposedly helped the movement to gain momentum, until it became the widespread belief of most healers nowadays. The veracity of these tales, as with most documents from so long ago, are sadly rather dubious, difficult to prove or disprove. Nobody had mustered the courage to ask the Silver Maiden herself either.” - Anduina Keshtelow, Leader of the Healer’s Guild of Alcidea, circa 106 FP.

Grand Lecture Hall,

Duchy of Jonkver,

Kingdom of Posuin, Western Alcidea,

7th day of the 4th week, 9th month of the year 218 VA.

 

“An analogy I like to use for healing is to compare it with drawing a complex picture, while using nothing but straight lines,” lectured Aideen in the hall, with well over two hundred people, old and young, male and female, listening enraptured to her every word. “Think of the parchment as the body of your patient, the drawing as their proper health, and the ink as your mana.”

 

Every single one of the seated audience in the hall were healers, both ones who had made a name for themselves over the years, to young fledglings who had barely stepped onto magehood, with some being ones who were not even that, but were born with the affinity for healing anyway, and had a desire to learn. Many took notes, while others focused on her every word as she spoke.

 

“Imagine drawing something like this with neither proper tools other than your hand and artistic sense nor a reference to draw it with,” she said as she casually drew a complex shape using straight lines on the large blackboard behind her. “The common belief is that the only way you could be better at healing is to either have more mana, or to gain practical experience.”

 

A few of the listeners nodded, while others frowned at the implications of her words. The common belief was one that had held for centuries, and the only one pretty much every one of the listeners knew of. That Aideen’s words implied that it was wrong had not sat well with some.

 

“It is not exactly incorrect, but neither does it capture the whole picture,” she said as she continued her lecture unbothered. “I personally believe that other than mana quantity and experience, knowledge and familiarity also comes into play.”

 

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“Imagine this, using the analogy once more. Would drawing such a complex shape using only straight lines not be easier if you had a picture to use as reference? Or a ruler to measure and ensure that your lines are perfectly straight?” she added. “It is the same with healing. If the Ink is your mana and the parchment your patient, your hand with the quill would be the skills you had earned through practice and experience. On the other hand, familiarity and knowledge would be the reference picture and the ruler which made the drawing easier.”

 

As she spoke the sentence, Asclepius and a few other younger healers - his own apprentices - led or pushed a group of people to the stage. The group of people were all of advanced age, many of them showing old signs of injuries and missing a limb or two, with a couple confined to wheelchairs. They were veteran soldiers from Jonkver who had volunteered to serve as display subjects for the lecture.

 

“When you know the shape you need to draw by heart, with the tools and the skills to draw them cleanly, it only comes naturally that you would be able to do it faster, more effectively and efficiently,” said Aideen as she walked through the row of disabled veterans, her hand touching them for a few moments each as old injuries vanished as if they never existed, and limbs regrew at shockingly rapid speed. “You would waste less mana, with every bit of mana you use being employed with greater efficiency, which meant you could heal more with less, faster and better, as long as you took the time to study properly.”

 

Her display of skills alone had made most of the audience stare agape with shock. Healing lost limbs - even old injuries - was not unheard of or even uncommon, but to do so in seconds was something else altogether, something not even exaggerated bard’s tales would even dream of singing about. Yet they had witnessed just that before their eyes.

 

The crowd was in awe, and in many, a fanatical glint sparked alight in their eyes, and they envisioned the way to further the path they had trodden so far in life to greater heights they had never dreamed of before. When Aideen listed a couple dozen books she considered good references to start from, every single one of the audience members took notes.

 

When the lecture ended after what the audience felt was far too short a time - but in reality was a good two hours - they were surprised once more, when Asclepius and his students returned while pushing several carts loaded with books. Several of the very books Aideen had just named in her lecture as references and study material.

 

Then they distributed the books to each person present, with each audience member receiving two to three of the six books present. The Duke’s library happened to have them, and he had kindly made his scribes copy them in bulk for Aideen’s perusal. Even so, the greater than expected interest in the lecture meant they did not have enough for everyone to receive a copy.

 

But that was fine too, since in this way it encouraged them to meet up and study together with others, to exchange their opinions on what they had learned and advance their knowledge together. It was something Aideen greatly encouraged, as her own studies had be far more efficient when she had others to trade opinions with, way back during her younger days.

 

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