"Zero magic?", the chiefs repeated in unison.

  Meanwhile, Cale began to bounce a small amount of mana back and forth between his mana cycle and his blood cycle. Once you got the hang of it, it wasn't that difficult. It felt as if he had ignored the fact that there was blood in his body all these years and only paid attention to the mana. This was probably because he had been trained as a mage and had drawn his knowledge from a wide variety of sources.

  Zero magic was no exception.

  He had read about it and tried for months to understand the basic principle when, suddenly, it worked as if someone had turned on a light. Cale did not know that zero magic was an innate ability. The same was true of his shape-shifting, which had unwittingly unfolded in an emergency situation and had worked for so long that he no longer even had to concentrate on maintaining it. It was there and he could feel it, but it was like a separate entity that could work independently.

  "I think that's how I learned it. You use it to create a small mana sphere that can absorb objects and make them disappear", Cale tried to explain, letting his zero magic work in front of him before Karekama appeared in his hand. You could clearly feel that there was mana in the air, but only for a fraction of a second.

  "What in the world", Chief Merensen muttered, shaking his head in disbelief. "Are you sure you aren’t interested in becoming a magician?"

  Cale just laughed at the statement and made Karekama disappear. He did not answer the question and deliberately let the two men believe that he had consciously chosen the path of a swordmaster. Cale did not want to reveal any more of his identity, but he was amused that other people recognized his potential as a mage.

  He leaned back with both hands for support and looked out the window. The sun was setting in the west, bathing the landscape in an orange-red hue that reflected off the snow. It would have been a beautiful sight if Cale didn't associate it with the bloodshed of his past. He abruptly lost his smile and put on his usual neutral expression as he turned to the chiefs.

  "What would be the next step?"

  "The next step would be to use mana to control the blood and accelerate the natural healing process by filling the wound with your mana", Chief Merensen commented, reaching for his axe, which lay next to him. Without warning, he slid his hand over the sharp blade and immediately began to bleed, then held his bloody hand out to Cale and looked at him wordlessly. Cale could see and feel mana gathering in his hand and a small cloth emerging from his wound. Fascinated, Cale watched as seconds later the skin regenerated and the wound slowly closed. "Take my hand and try it yourself."

  He was still in the middle of the healing process when Cale reached for his fingers and hesitantly added his mana, always careful not to lose control. Seeing it this way was completely different from seeing it with his eyes. Cale realized how the chiefs used his mana to take small drops of blood and mix them with the mana before transporting them to the surface and adding them to the healing wound. It looked a little like air bubbles rising to the surface of water, except that this air formed a protective film over the wound.

  "You don't need much mana, just good mana control and precise work. The rest comes naturally."

  "The rest comes naturally", Cale repeated ironically. "Very accurate description."

  At that moment, he had to think of Palaios and sighed. Strangely enough, it was precisely such an inaccurate description that had helped him distinguish between mana sources back then. A feeling, if he remembered correctly. The mana works all by itself if you just give it to the right person.

  "I'd like to try, if I may", he began confidently, so Chief Merensen ended his demonstration and let Cale step up. Cale carefully let his mana appear at the site of the wound before Chief Merensen grimaced. "Too much?"

  "A little, you really don’t need that much mana, and if you do, then distribute it evenly", Chief Merensen explained patiently, so Cale nodded and began to scatter his mana a little.

  When Cale felt he had reached the desired size, he divided his mana into many smaller sources and began to merge them with individual drops of blood - a task that proved to be much more difficult than expected. Therefore, he focused on just one at first and tried to slowly bring the mana to the surface, as Chief Merensen had shown him.

  At that moment, the Chief's hand twitched, and out of the corner of his eye, Cale could see how hard Ninett Merensen was trying not to show it. Apparently, Cale was doing something wrong - Ninett must be in pain. But he didn't point it out to Cale. So Cale could only guess that he had to slow down.

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  With extreme caution, Cale continued to bring the small bubble upward, so slowly that he finally stood motionless, his eyes wide open. Just before it reached the surface, the mana began to mix completely with the blood. It gradually clumped together, as if the two no longer saw each other as enemies, but as allies.

  Cale's gaze was fixed on the spot where a small patch of skin was forming, while the rest of the wound continued to bleed - unstoppably, like a waterfall.

  "By the holy mana", Chief Heriog interjected, while Cale himself couldn't believe what had happened. All he had to do was move the blood to the right position and then let the mana mix with the blood, and the rest took care of itself?

  "What... is that right?"

  "Are you sure you're not from Frignez?", Ninett Merensen asked.

  "Excuse me?"

  "You seem to be... a natural."

  "I've been told since I was a child that I'm a... quick learner", Cale replied, somewhat surprised, and at the same time applied the principle to a few dozen drops of blood.

  He slowly moved them to the desired position, this time without any problems or pain, before the whole thing transformed into healthy, slightly reddish skin. He repeated this process step by step, taking a little more with him each time, and after a good three minutes, the wound had closed. With his free hand, he carefully brushed the remaining blood aside to check that he had closed all the areas before staring at the result with satisfaction. The area was still slightly red, but otherwise there was no sign of the cut. Only the blood that had already dripped onto the table from his hand betrayed its existence.

  "That's... amazingly easy", Cale muttered in amazement.

  "Easy?", Chief Merensen repeated. "That's incredible. It took you less than half an hour to understand how to treat small wounds... that could possibly be a new record."

  "But you're forgetting that I have a lot of prior knowledge."

  "Nevertheless, you learned this at such a pace that even we healers can only stare in amazement", Chief Merensen replied, taking his hand back before examining the result himself and then wiping the remaining blood from his arm on his clothes. He turned his hand back and forth several times before turning his attention to Cale. "I'll cut off a finger and then we'll try this again. "

  "By the gods, no! Are you crazy?"

  "At your rate of learning, you should be able to heal internal organs and entire limbs in no time. Even if you have to... yes... you should...", Chief Merensen said and sank into thought, causing Cale to glance irritably at Chief Heriog.

  "How did you do that? I mean...", Chief Heriog inquired.

  "Actually, just what I was shown. I enclosed small drops of blood with my mana, moved them to their position, and fused them with my mana. Although I admit I thought that blood and mana couldn't be mixed."

  "That's exactly what healers do. They mix it, but understanding the principle and then applying it immediately... is a completely different matter. It's like giving a beginner the task of learning how to fly."

  "Thanks for the... compliment?", Cale replied, somewhat embarrassed, staring at his hand before reaching for his sword and cutting his own hand. The wound immediately began to bleed, but at the same moment, Cale began to close the wound with his magic so that hardly any blood could escape. Even though he had to concentrate really hard on how he used his mana, it was an incredible feeling to have such healing powers. "What about organs? Do you reconstruct the entire organ?"

  "Basically, yes. You are the architect of the body, if you will. Therefore, it is important to know how a living being's body is constructed in order to heal it", Chief Merensen explained, turning his attention back to Cale. "If you heal an organ incorrectly, you have a big problem. Re-injuring a bleeding victim to correct the mistake is quite brutal and painful. Especially considering the time wasted... it's a pretty dangerous topic. Therefore, a healer must take the time to avoid making mistakes."

  "I see. And what about when you try to heal illnesses? Something like a fever?", Cale asked curiously, remembering the many times Aletta had healed William.

  "That... is a step above the rest. First, you have to identify the cause itself and then know how to deal with it. With fever, for example, it is difficult because it can have many causes. From hypothermia, infections, inflammations, and poisoning to cell-destroying diseases. Fever itself is not the disease, but the symptom of a disease, usually associated with sweating, chills, muscle weakness, breathing difficulties, and hallucinations. You have to look at the whole picture, similar to what a normal doctor does, before you can really help."

  "Logical. To solve the problem, you have to know what the problem is."

  "Exactly. Healing has a lot to do with knowledge and is not just the application of magic. Many of the residents here who do not become healers are therefore simply doctors and pass on their skills."

  "It's a shame to know that despite your knowledge, you distance yourselves from the outside world. Many things could have turned out differently if...", Cale began, remembering the wars of the past and the countless corpses that laid around him. If more people had known how to help each other back then, it wouldn't have had to come to this. "Forget what I said. I crossed a line. I apologize."

  At that moment, the faces of his friends appeared before his inner eye, causing him to hastily turn away from the table and look outside. Every time he remembered what had happened in the past, he was overcome with a deep sadness.

  While Cale wandered through his past lives in his thoughts, the chiefs sensed why he had chosen these words, and a spark of guilt stirred within them. They had always held back to protect the Holy Mana. The fact that this had isolated them and endangered their own survival weighed less heavily on them than the fear of sharing their knowledge.

  They had always been suspicious of what outsiders might do with this knowledge. But in light of what lay ahead, this restraint would prove to be a fatal mistake. Although the chiefs did not know what Cale had experienced, they suddenly realized once again the consequences that a wrong decision could have.

  "I have a request, if I may", Cale said after a few minutes of silence, turning to the chiefs, who were also lost in thought. "Would it be possible to teach me how to heal burns?"