Reborn Healer Chapter 8

After three years of only seeing my mother, my father, and Iryn with the occasional addition of a distant sighting of one of the other people in the village through one of the windows, seeing another living, breathing human being in the house felt wrong.

“Thank you for the drink,” Locke said politely, taking a sip of the steaming sweet-tea-like beverage made from boiling one of the local roots that my father favored. “As Master V—as your father said earlier, Ren, I have been his apprentice for the last two years.”

From around my third birthday, then. That had been around when Vallis had discovered I was capable of casting magic. Was there a correlation there? 

Come to think of it, how old was Locke? He didn’t look like he could be much older than maybe middle school age. Then again, I was pretty sure there wasn’t really formal schooling in this area.

“Nice to meet you, Locke,” I said cautiously.

I wasn’t sure what to make of the boy. His expression was unreadable, his skin so pale that I was half-convinced that he had applied a ghastly amount of makeup. Pale blue eyes met mine. There was no judgment in that gaze—there wasn’t anything.

“Locke is a particularly promising student,” Vallis said. “He learns quickly, and he likes learning. I am the third mage he has studied under in five years.”

“Unfortunately, also the one I have been unable to match, as my affinities are in offensive magic,” Locke explained. “Defensive and healing spells are useful, and as your father says, I like learning, but I am not talented in that respect. I cannot cast healing spells without incantations, nor can I cast Master-tier defensive spells, though I am familiar with the basics of its practical usage.”

“He undersells himself.” Vallis waved a hand. “My apprentice has saved lives. Locke, this is my baby boy, Ren.”

“I’ve heard much about you,” Locke said. “Is it true that you fought and defeated a hunter wolf before you could walk?”

So that was what they were called.

“I was able to walk already,” I replied, “but yes, a couple years ago.”

“Impressive.” Locke leaned forward ever so slightly, a light seeming to ignite in his eyes. It was honestly discomforting how his eyes seemed to literally glow with interest. “With only defensive magic, as well? You will have to show me.”

“In exchange for two years of apprenticeship, he has agreed to tutor you for the next year,” Vallis explained. “My grasp on the more violent fields of magic are questionable at best. Locke already far surpasses me in those respects.”

“Violent fields?” I asked.

“Offensive magic,” Locke replied in lieu of my father. “I have particular specialties in the lightning and death elements as well as the distinct field of summoning magic.”

Elements? I hadn’t encountered any discussion of that in the textbooks I’d gone through. It was possible some of the more advanced textbooks Vallis had locked away would have some mention of that, but I hadn’t gotten far through many of them.

“Do you have books?” I asked.

Locke shook his head. “I prefer to learn through practice. Also, I cannot read.”

I frowned. “Wait, you can’t read? I thought you had to in order to be a mage.”

“You only need to know magic in order to be a mage,” Vallis said. “Most powerful mages can read, but many are not. Avery, the Sky Saint of Leyeril, has never bothered learning.”

“I feel the magic,” Locke said. “Can you?”

I hid my grimace. I’d grown very used to learning magic from books. While I wasn’t entirely opposed to learning it a different way, I struggled to imagine a world where I could visualize the complex, labeled diagrams and explanations that had helped me understand magic the most from verbal instructions alone.

“I can try.”

#

That day, the Rebind Soul ritual took almost no time. After years of experience, Vallis had developed a sense of when the effects of my dual core would start to take, and he used the spell on me before it even started to hurt.

“Your casting of that spell is much more elegant than the usual, as always,” Locke complimented him. “Unsurprising, naturally, but impressive nonetheless.”

What kind of kid talks like that? I mean, I wasn’t one to say anything—I definitely spoke a little maturely for my age, but this guy talked like he was an advisor to the king or something. There was a formal stiffness to the way he spoke that made me think that he must have grown up in very, very different circumstances from me.

Also, when would Locke have ever been exposed to the Rebind Soul spell outside of this? He couldn’t be more than twelve or maybe thirteen years old. Was this a spell his other masters had practiced? Had he come from the demon islands?

I told myself that I’d keep the questions to a minimum, but by the time we had our first lesson the next day, they poured out like a dam had broken.

Locke was frustratingly mysterious with his answers. Even though I practically interrogated him for an hour, all I got from him was that he was twelve years old—seven older than me, just about—that he had come from “the south,” which would have meant a lot more if not for the fact that the few world maps I’d seen included at least a dozen rather culturally distinct countries on the southern end of Tarn, and that he was extraordinarily talented at offensive magic.

His own private life seemed to be something he preferred to be quiet about, which I could understand. While I had nothing in this life that I wanted not to talk about, I had plenty of secrets myself. That said, it didn’t stop me from being suspicious of him, but pushing him wasn’t going to accomplish anything.

My new tutor was much more open to talking when it came to magic and other parts of the world. He’d traveled through a number of countries now, and he had more detailed explanations for the tiers of magic as well as what he himself was capable of. He had a body count to his name, though he assured me they were all wild beasts and monsters.

“My core is Master-tier,” Locke said, forming a ball of blinding electricity in his hand before closing his fist, extinguishing it. “This allows me to cast up to Grandmaster spells, though I am only aware of one that I can cast. Yours is still Beginner, correct?”

“It is,” I replied. “How are you supposed to evolve them?”

“That is significantly more difficult to explain than you might think.”

As it turned out, core evolutions had some rules to them at the higher tiers, but low-level ones mostly just relied on mastery and a certain trigger event. The details of those events varied wildly between people. They weren’t even consistent between tiers.

“I became an Initiate through meditation and an Adept by killing the a boss in one of the upper levels of the World Dungeon,” Locke said. “Your process will like as not differ from mine.”

Apart from history and knowledge about the world, Locke’s primary purpose was obviously magic. Without a spellbook, though, I found picking up the spells he tried to teach me frustratingly difficult. 

Even in the earliest days of learning magic, I had been quick to understand what I needed to do after reading the instructions. After I’d built a strong foundation by doing the base exercises hundreds upon hundreds of times, even new material had come pretty easily. I’d still practiced a ton of times without finishing casting for those spells, though, which made trying to just follow the “feeling” difficult.

It was strange, because the instinctive feeling Locke insisted was what he relied on to cast was something I’d felt before—just not for magic. When I’d nearly been mauled by that hunter wolf, it had been the loudest, but I had fallen into that trance a few times later when I was deep in meditation or training really heavily. Raw instinct was a sensation I associated almost solely with my warrior core. Magic was a logical process, while physical combat was intuitive.

By the end of the first day, all I could manage was a basic mana manifestation. I wasn’t sure if it was the way that Locke’s teaching operated that was tripping me up or if I was just worse at offensive magic. It was probably both. When I tried to move my mana through my body in new ways for healing spells I hadn’t learned yet, it came much more naturally than the movements necessary for attack ones.

Days melted into weeks and then months. I wasn’t only taking lessons with Locke during that time, obviously. That took up around two to four hours a day, while the rest usually went towards training my defensive spells and body. Locke, who looked like he’d blow over in a strong wind and lacked his typical freakish aptitude for magic when it came to healing and defensive spells, would sometimes watch without comment.

Mend Wound lvl 9 -> 10

Basic Heal lvl 3 -> 5

Cure Minor Infection lvl 3 -> 4

Barrier lvl 3 -> 4

Fortify lvl 1 -> 2

Body Scan lvl 5 -> 6

That last spell still remained something I was only using on myself. I’d asked Locke if I could try it on him a couple of times, and the answer had been a firmer no each time.

Despite my 

It took me a full two months to get my first spell to the point where I could cast it without assistance.

Spell learned: Firebolt [Beginner]

“Yes!” I shouted, watching the afterimage of the bolt fade out.

It wasn’t a perfect spell—its namesake bolt reached maybe twenty or thirty feet before fizzling out, and it was just a single burst of flame. The fire also acted more as a rapid delivery of force and heat than actual flame, so it wasn’t great at igniting a larger chunk of area.

On the other hand, I had pointed up at the sky and shot out fire from my hands. Was that not fucking awesome?

“You’re slow,” Locke said impassively. “The spell formation is clean, but it took you too long to learn it?”

I had not grown any fonder of the boy in our time together. Anything but.

“I have no idea how Vallis puts up with you,” I replied. “You don’t even teach with a spellbook.”

“I did not learn from one, either. No true mage should need one.”

We’d had this conversation a dozen times before, and it never resulted in either of us being any happier. It was clear that Locke had learned magic in a fundamentally different way from me, and it just wasn’t working out.

“You still do not rely on instinct enough,” Locke said. “Perhaps a change of teaching method is in order.”

“Oh, really?” I asked. “What made you think that?”

“Come with me. We’re changing locations.”

We’d done the entirety of our practice in the yard Iryn and my mother (but mostly Iryn) tended to, so this was pretty new.

Today was one of the rare days that both of the aforementioned women were at home. They were chatting about some troop movements, though they were talking in a dialect I’d only heard my mother use occasionally and as such couldn’t grasp as intuitively yet so I didn’t get all the details.

“Lady Aria,” Locke said.

My mother paused, then looked over at my tutor with a warm smile. “How many times must I tell you that formalities are unnecessary around me? Is there something you need today, young master?”

“I have done nothing to earn that title,” Locke said stiffly. “I was hoping to take Ren to the outskirts of the Ayasi forest for some practical training. It will take no more than two hours.”

“The forest?” Iryn cut in. “That’s…”

“If it’s the edge, it’ll be okay,” my mother said. “You’ll watch over him, I trust?”

“Naturally.”

#

This motherfucker, I thought, glancing at Locke’s retreating back in the distance.

The edge of the Ayasi forest was about half a mile’s walk from my house, during which I realized that Locke knew the village here better than I did. He greeted a few of the people around town, and they responded like he’d lived here his whole life.

By the time we’d gotten to the forest itself, though, the village had thinned to nothing. There were grassy hills upon grassy hills that eventually led towards thickening woods, the sunlight dimming as tree cover increased.

It was here that I’d learned what Locke’s plan was.

The Ayasi forest was home to a number of magic beasts—in fact, about a mile from where we were currently standing was an officially recorded entrance to the World Dungeon. The beasts around the edge tended to be weaker and less hostile, but they were still plenty capable of ripping someone’s throat out.

Case in point: the bear in front of me that Locke had somehow attracted this way with a spell he’d never shown me.

“If you can get out of this yourself,” he’d told me, “Maybe there’ll be a point in continuing to teach you. As it stands, you won’t be enough.”

Over in the distance, sitting peacefully on a hill far from the forest, he waved.

So you do have a sense of humor, asshole.

In front of me, the bear growled hungrily. Or maybe angrily. I couldn’t tell bear emotions apart.

“Well,” I said, looking up to meet its eyes—it was taller than me even on all four legs. “This isn’t going to be fun for either of us.”

The bear advanced.