Chapter 274: Chapter 258 – The Vagaries of Healing

“Long ago, like, a thousand years or more ago, only people of Life affinity got considered or called healers. Nowadays the term is far more encompassing, and anyone skilled in the art of healing, be it mundane or magical, regardless of method or affinity, are called one. It does however sometimes lead to situations where the wrong people got called to deal with issues though. Kinda embarrassing when you bring a disease specialist to deal with a broken bone.” - Rodrick Geodmont, Miner and Prospector from the Kingdom Down Under, circa 642 FP.

After two and a half years of lectures and preaching - and a couple assassination attempts that managed to sneak through the security of the borders - Aideen felt that Asclepius, some of his students, and several other old, veteran healers had learned enough from her to take over the lectures. She had also pretty much healed every single crippled veteran in the three Duchies in the process, with those who had not yet had a turn to serve as “volunteers” for her live demonstrations choosing to allow Asclepius and others to use their bodies as examples the way she did.

 

Despite how nearly two centuries had passed since the Mortality affinity came to be, most people still associate the term “healer” with those of the Life affinity. It was not really a misconception, as indeed those of the Life affinity were the best suited to heal others, their inborn affinity allowing them the flexibility to deal with most ailments with greater ease than other healing-capable affinities could.

 

Aideen herself was all too familiar with how healers of Life affinity did their work. In many ways, the process was far easier and more efficient than those of other affinities, which was why the reputation of Life affinity being healers existed in the first place.

 

Those of the Life affinity simply nudged the patient’s body to return to the state that matched the template that was their soul. As a result, it was easy for them to heal any sort of wound or disease, with the only limiting factor being their mana. Healing this way was either a complete success or a complete failure, with no in-between. She had not realized just how easy those of the Life affinity had it until her own affinity morphed.

 

In contrast, working with the Mortality affinity was not unlike knitting. Except that rather than woolen threads, what she knit together were tendons and bones, nerves and blood vessels. It was far more focused, finicky work over the far simpler approach Life affinity maged commonly used, though even for Life affinity mages, knowing what was wrong and how to deal with it could allow them to use their mana more efficiently and effectively.

 

While Life affinity healers had it easier however, they also had less room to grow. Knowledge and familiarity, together with experience all helped, but to a lesser degree, as their primary form of improvement was still their mana capacity. Very strong Life affinity healers, like the late Khaer Ul and Lucea, the current Empress of Elmaiya, could heal everything wrong on a person in a flash, as they had ample mana to spend on it. Lesser healers of the affinity took much longer because their bodies could not handle moving such great masses of mana all at once.

 

Mana quantity played less role for Mortality affinity healers like Aideen, as they could do things more gradually. With knowledge and experience however, they could heal far more effectively and efficiently, and much faster as well, which was one reason why the Mortality affinity healers amongst the lecture attendees showed the most improvement the soonest.

 

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For other affinities that could heal people or speed up their recovery in some manner, the knowledge still helped. Death affinity healers were in many ways the antithesis of Mortality ones, as where Mortality healers like Aideen specialize in bodily injuries, Death affinity healers are the expert of handling diseases.

 

Death affinity healers were the first one to discover the multitude of infinitely small lifeforms that lived on and within every person’s body, and it had not taken long before one of them came to the realization that some of these lifeforms were the source of certain illnesses. A Death affinity healer was simply a very skilled death mage, who could pinpoint his magic with such accuracy that he would only affect these disease-causing lifeforms - or diseased parts of a patient - and no other. As such, learning about the various lifeforms that caused illnesses was practically a mandatory part of their training.

 

As for the other affinities that could speed up recovery, they did so through more natural means. Nature affinity healers technically did not “heal” a person, and more just increased their body’s ability to heal and regenerate itself, with the strongest of them being capable of even recovering limbs by overcharging this natural ability of the body to heal itself.

 

Blood mages had a far more exaggerated variant of the same regeneration, but it was confined to their own bodies, so they were very rarely considered healers. Some amongst them could “share” the ability to a much lesser extent with others, but generally it served more to staunch a wound temporarily than to fully heal it.

 

Light affinity mages that branched into healing were of the other extreme, where they simultaneously improved the body’s ability to recover itself, while also staunching injuries using temporary constructs made from magic. Their main drawback was how unlike most other affinities, the patients would still suffer from the pain and discomfort of their injuries as normal throughout the healing process.

 

A Water affinity healer could do most of what the others could, but only to lesser extents. They were jack of all trades and masters of none, with even the strongest healers amongst them unable to match most more specialized healers in their field. Still, their versatility was valued by many regardless.

 

With the goal of her lectures mostly accomplished and her successors ready to take them over, Aideen decided to set out towards the Forest of Despair come the new year. There was still half a year to spare, so she would visit around and say her goodbyes to those she had befriended - or more - during her stay, as she had no idea when she would return.

 

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