The short battle against the Rock Lions had been one of a couple we had over the last couple of days of moving through the mountains. It seemed that the local wildlife was a lot more aggressive and predatory than elsewhere, or maybe they were simply hungry. Similarly, hunting had been rather sparse and difficult, the few mountain-goats we had seen quick to flee and difficult to spot or later track. There had been some success, mostly by cheating with magic, but it was quite obvious that the area was a step up in danger, compared to the areas we had travelled through before.

When the sun started to set, we had found a good spot to make camp, an outcropping of rock protecting us from above and even a few shrubs nearby that we could search for dry branches for a fire. That was another part we had troubles with, the lack of fuel for a cooking fire, the area both dry and dusty, almost void of vegetation. The Elder hat somewhat warned us, but only Adra had any experience in the local climate, while Sigmir and Rai had never left the northern reaches. Even for Adra, it was a challenge as she had travelled further south on her original journey, staying within the lower forests, where her nature helped her with concealment and survival.

Once camp was made and some of the meat we had harvested from the lions was being roasted over the fire, I decided to check on Rai again, planning to make sure that my earlier emergency-treatment had worked as intended and his gut wasn’t slowly poisoning him. The wound had driven something home within me, the need for competent healing and treatment. Just a simple wound, received when he was covering for me, would likely have been enough to kill him, without magical help.

“Let me see that again.” I ordered, gesturing towards his slowly healing stomach. I hadn’t fully healed it, simply to conserve Astral Power and it looked like that had been the right call. Earlier, it had looked like an angry, red scar, not scabbed but also not bleeding, thanks to the magical healing, but now, it looked mostly fine, at least on the outside. Sending my magical senses into his body, it was easy to see where the problem had been, only that his innate regeneration had taken care of most of it. But not all, looking closely, I was able to watch, with a certain amount of fascination, his body slowly, ever so slowly, neutralising a trace of poison and Death-Magic that had escaped my earlier cleansing. It wasn’t enough to be a problem, not with his resilient body, but it gave me something interesting to watch.

While my knowledge of anatomy was rudimentary at best, mostly from highschool with a smattering of more or less accurate information acquired from novels, I thought I was able to make sense of what I was observing. To me, it looked like some of the bacteria that normally lived in his gut had managed to escape my earlier cleansing, simply an oversight on my part. It made me consider whether there was a better way to cleanse a wound than using some blood to sweep up the problem before forcing it all out, maybe some way of carefully using Death-Magic to sterilise the area but that wouldn’t solve the problem, it would be more akin to using disinfectant. I still would have to actually force the sterile residue out, or there might be other problems.

But while I made a mental note, sharing my thoughts with Lenore, I decided to closely focus on what my magic perceived as poison in Rai’s tissue. When focusing closely, I felt a strange shift in perception, allowing me to differentiate between distinct particles, instead of simply a glob of poison.

“Take care, that takes a lot of power.” Lenore warned me and, for just a moment, I shifted my attention to the power within me, noticing it draining at an alarming rate. Not quite at a rate that would require the use of Overflow but almost. For a mere analytical spell, without any actual action being taken, it was surprising.

Knowing that I was working on a timer, I focused back to my earlier discovery, the individual objects working away at Rai’s flesh. It was interesting, it looked like the clusters were taking both matter and life-energy from their surroundings and processing them, just as one would expect from gut-bacteria. They were just in the wrong place, digesting the wrong things. Looking closely at that process, I almost had to laugh, they gave off a mix of matter and death-energy, with a small amount of life-energy separate from it. Only that the life-energy wasn’t processed further, simply sitting there along the waste-products, festering in his flesh.

For a moment, I considered testing what would happen if I supplied one of the clusters, what I thought were bacteria, with additional energy, maybe with my blood magic, but I quickly banished the thought. Risky magical experiments on my student were not the way of a responsible master, it was bad enough that Adra and I had made him use the Despoiled Bride’s Gown a few times, and that was only a threat to his self-esteem. Instead, I focused on the healthy areas of his body around it, letting a trickle of energy flow there, channelling the runes for healing and strengthening within my mind. Before I could see a change, I felt Lenore give me another mental push and noticed that I had used almost ninety percent of my Astral Power to look at the problem, leaving me almost unable to help.

Instantly, I let go of the focused perception I had used, letting my mind settle before looking again, this time with the simple way I normally employed, nodding to myself when the problem seemed to have shrunk a bit, enough to make me think his body didn’t need any help.

“There is no lasting damage, tomorrow, you should be right as rain.” I told him, noticing a worried look on his face. Similarly, Adra was standing nearby, watching me closely.

“Master, I felt you use a lot of power just now.” Rai said, not quite questioning me but obviously curious.

“That was just me, being curious.” I admitted with a wry smile. My curiosity was something my companions had witnessed quite often, especially when it got me into trouble. “There are levels to the way I can perceive things. On the simplest level, my magic tells me what is different from the way your body should be.” I explained, fudging a little as I thought that there was an interplay between what I knew about the way a body should work and how a body actually worked, something I had hypothesized after dissecting the centaur a while back. Later, when I had used Blood Magic to turn a few of them into living bombs, I had been able to work that magic because I had known how their bodies worked, allowing me to use magic in a peculiar manner. But I could hardly dissect Rai, in an effort to learn how a wolf-beastman body was supposed to work, so I had to use my instinctive feel, provided by my Blood Magic and what I could infer from my knowledge on human and centaur anatomy.

When Rai nodded in understanding, I continued my explanation. “But on a deeper level, I can actually witness why something is different from the way it should be, allowing me to be more discriminating with my magic.” I told him, getting another nod in understanding. “However, looking that closely, scrying that deeply into your body, requires a lot of power, especially when one is not quite used to it. It is highly useful and interesting but not easy, not by a long shot.” I finished my explanation, stepping back and settling down, instantly lost in thought.

There was so much I might be able to do with that new trick I had just learned. So much potential, for both good and ill, just waiting for me to learn about it. A notification caught my eye, telling me that I had gained a point in Blood Magic, bringing the skill to sixty-five but also a skill-point in Death-Magic, something I hadn’t anticipated. I had used Blood Magic, certainly, but Death? Maybe simply due to the observation of the interplay between life- and death-energy during digestion and the thus obvious realisation that life and death were inseparably linked, at least on that level.

Before I could continue my thoughts, I felt a hand on my shoulder, bringing my attention back to the outside world and to Adra’s worried face.

“Is really everything alright?” she asked, speaking softly to make sure Rai couldn’t hear us.

“It is, yes. There was something that would have been a problem, but I took care of it. I wouldn’t risk Rai, not without a very good reason.” I assured her, truly meaning it. Rai was my pupil and I had given my word that I would take care of him. Adra studied me, for just a few more moments, before nodding and turning away. The dynamic between the two of them made me smile, even as I wondered about that supposed link Adra had to Kallista, the dryad living in Neyto. Souls, yet another topic I would love to research, if I only had more time.