Chapter 98

  The Healing lesson was easy enough for Dylan. Being able to differentiate between different bacteria and viruses with a manual in hand wasn't hard "if you had eyes." But what was going to be hard was learning the spells Aegiswaen, Orzari, and Eliminis. After a quick glance at them, Dylan realized that this was going to be a whole new world of magic and pain in the abdomen. He didn't know any of the constructs that these spells used, absolutely nothing. He didn't even have any guesses, which scared him, because he had [Insight Great Mage].

  Thinking about it, he almost decided to just rely exclusively on medicine. But remembering how much more he had to learn in pharmacy and biochemistry to be more or less a normal doctor, he shuddered.

  Over the past month, on the basic healing course. He learned how to properly stitch and heal wounds with magic. Roughly speaking, he knew methods of how not to die from pain, sepsis, infection and bleeding. How to properly heal bone, muscle, something more serious, such as injury to complex organs, liver, kidneys, heart, treatment of diseases other than basic ones, was unknown to him, as was much else.

  Well, it was not surprising, it was already a big progress that he learned 6 spells of the healing school, in a little more than 1.5 months. The further path promised to be truly long and painful.

  After finishing the lesson, Dylan was putting a new pile of textbooks in the spatial ring, with other small things. As he was getting ready to go to the next lesson, Dylan heard Vivienne's voice, using telepathy.

  "Dylan, please stay."

  Mentally shrugging, Dylan sat down in a comfortable chair, watching Vivienne talk to the other students. Throwing his head back, Dylan began to think wildly about why Vivienne needed him.

  The first thing he thought of was the new spells he would be forced to learn on top of the others, or he would be given more homework. But then his thoughts slowly began to slide to less and less likely options. In the middle of the process, he heard Vivienne's polite voice, tearing him out of his thoughts.

  Dylan looked up, blinking stupidly. A moment later, he realized he hadn't heard Vivienne at all, standing next to him.

  "Excuse me, Miss Vivienne, could you repeat that?"

  Smiling sweetly at his inattention, Vivienne repeated her words. "Are you enjoying your time at the academy?"

  Dylan nodded without thinking. "Of course, learning magic and other subjects is very exciting, but I would complain about martial arts classes and subjects that have a lot of water in them."

  Vivienne nodded, sitting down next to him. "Well, it's not surprising that you're bored in martial arts. The teachers are currently evaluating your class, nothing more than simple practice and light sparring should be expected, but soon everything will be more interesting. And subjects that have a lot of unnecessary knowledge, I wouldn't be so sure, they may well come in handy."

  Dylan smiled, laughing to himself. Even in his past life, he had little faith in these words, and after graduating from University, he was only convinced of this. But he shouldn't have said how many meaningless and uninteresting things he was forced to learn. He simply nodded, silently agreeing.

  Vivienne smiled, catching his silent monologue. Dylan still wasn't used to talking to people with an intelligence of over 1000. Thinking about it again, Dylan realized that Vivienne definitely had much more. He was an open book in front of someone like her, of course he had already gotten used to this idea and came to terms with it, but it still made him upset. He felt not as smart as he wanted to think.

  "Hee hee, you're very funny Dylan. I'm surprised you're not afraid of high-level classers."

  Dylan shrugged, it was obvious to him. "You're too strong to worry about that."

  "Hee hee, you're right." Shaking her head slightly, Vivienne continued. "Let's not talk about that. Better tell me about your successes in magic. Maybe there's something you want to learn?"

  Seeing no reason to lie, Dylan answered honestly. "I've been paying attention to a lot of directions lately. I'm trying to diversify my repertoire, now I want to raise the magic of wood, blood and shadows to a decent level. But so far everything is working out, only with shadow magic."

  "An interesting choice, aren't you afraid of spreading your magic too thin?" Vivienne asked with interest.

  "No, no." Dylan shook his head, remembering the ritual. "My affinity for all schools is roughly in the middle range. So it's the tactics and spell variability that are my weapons."

  "Let's say, but it's hard to believe that there isn't a kinship to whom you have the highest affinity." Vivienne answered skeptically.

  "Well it's true, my highest affinity is Earth 70, but does it matter? For me, no, I don't want to become a mage who relies on one element when there is arcane magic. Besides, it's not a very strong affinity in itself. My other affinities are below earth, around 50-68, besides Mind, Space, Gravity, they are around 16-22. And my holy affinity is around 40."

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  "I see, well, you can still say that you are lucky with your closeness. So many opportunities. Why did you choose these three schools now, what is the reason for your interest?" Vivienne said thoughtfully.

  "Shadow Magic is very good for me as a [Phantom Sword Adept], I would benefit from any distraction. Blood Magic is strong due to my physique, race, and accumulated life force. And Wood Magic should be strong due to my sword and the contract with the nascent maple spirit. However, I have a little problem with the latter, I can't use the spirit inside the sword to greatly enhance the magic." Dylan answered without lying.

  "Not a bad choice, with the spells you already know." Vivienne nodded, thinking. "Spiritual Magic is always difficult. Not that it's difficult, but there's more to it than meets the eye. You can't use real spiritual magic unless you have an innate talent for it. I have a skill, [Spiritual Body], it's a very common skill. Its main ability is to strengthen spells due to the amount of spirit and its power."

  This is not bad at all, isn't this the ability that all magicians strive for?

  Dylan thought.

  "Hee hee, you'd think that would be a good skill." Vivienne said, easily reading Dylan. "I can give my creations my own spirit, giving them this ability, or even create spirits and elementals from my spiritual body. I can also create some skills from the spirit and give them, but all these abilities are manifestations of [Secret Creation Magic] rather than spiritual magic. And that's all I've come up with in my entire life." Vivienne simply said.

  After thinking about it for a bit, Dylan seemed to understand what she was getting at. Of course, considering her boast, "everything she had accomplished" was more than almost all the mages on the planet could manage.

  "That's right." Vivienne said, interrupting Dylan's thoughts. "During that time, my spiritual body could have developed a spirit ability. For example, controlling flames without using mana, but with willpower. Or feeling people's thoughts with just aura, without using spells. Of course, such an ability would not be stronger than spells for a mage, but they usually strengthened existing ones, in the same way as my skill, they were just greater in themselves. But I did not develop them because I did not have the innate talent."

  This is interesting...

  Dylan thought, trying to hide his thoughts. "What about [Word Magic], isn't it spiritual Magic?" He asked with interest.

  "That's a good question, [Word Magic] also relies on [Spiritual Body], but also relies on the depth of knowledge and karmic magic. You haven't come to that yet, but in a couple of years you'll be going through rituals that will increase your understanding of the language. It's like combining the words of a spell into a single whole, and the more you can combine them, the shorter and stronger your spells will become. Of course, this isn't always the case, there are many nuances to it... Word Magic is more of a separate branch, its interaction with the spirit is difficult to assess."

  Dylan nodded as he continued to think. The next thing he thought of was the threshold of [Battle Elite], for this stage of the [Warrior] class line, a spiritual ability was required.

  "What about the [Battle Elite]'s spiritual skills, are they any different?"

  "Not many, but from my observations I can say that on average Warriors have stronger spiritual abilities than Mages. Rather, this is due to the many conditions and limitations that such skills bring with them. But also because the spiritual body of Warriors is on average more adapted to direct combat than that of Mages. In general, there are many factors, but if you compare the strongest warriors and magicians specializing in the spirit, they are approximately equal."

  "Thank you for answering my questions, Miss Vivienne." Dylan nodded gratefully.

  "It's okay." She smiled sweetly. "I just wanted to chat with you, such an opportunity doesn't come up often due to my busy schedule. Well, after our conversation, I became terribly curious about how good you are at combat magic and fighting. Of course, I know that you are relatively good for your level, but I want to really appreciate it."

  Dylan's smile faded slightly, and his mind didn't know what to think. He wanted to curl up in fear and pray to all the gods to keep him from this. Or curse Vivienne and all her relatives to the seventh generation for her stupid suggestion. After all, there would be no sparring between them. As Dylan imagined this, only a few words came to mind.

  This is... an execution.

  He simply could not remember a worse or more appropriate word.

  What are we even talking about, without the [Ghost Sword], I wouldn't even be able to scratch her skin. Or, she could just crush me with aura, or a thousand other possibilities.

  Choosing his words as gently as possible, Dylan replied. "Um, no thank you, Miss Vivienne. It's not that I'm afraid to fight you, but I honestly don't see the point. Your magic is too strong for me to learn anything from it. And to be honest with you, fighting against you would really lower my morale. When I see someone of your level, any will to fight disappears." He said, looking very awkward under Vivienne's gaze. This time, she didn't seem as soft and kind as usual. There was a sense of steel in her.

  After listening to his explanation, Vivienne nodded slightly sadly, but then the smile turned quite joyful. "Oh, I have an idea. Of course, I can give myself some restrictions. For example, I will lower my skills to your level, lower my stats to your general ones, and use the collected surrounding mana." She said, thinking for a second, she smiled intriguingly and continued. "But, that won't be very interesting. I will use the personalities of four people, changing them in the middle of battle. Actually, my classes will also change, but so that it would still be fair... Hmm, my mana and stamina pool will have a common number and I will give you 10 minutes to prepare the battlefield. How does that sound to you?" She finished with a satisfied smile.

  Dylan had hoped that she would offer him some valuable reward for the "sparring", but he had to keep his lip down. Even so, Vivienne's offer interested him.

  "What about the artifacts?"

  "That's a good question!" Vivienne replied enthusiastically. "I won't be able to use any artifacts other than the most basic [Uncommon] level. For example, Staffs, Swords, Armor. And you will only be able to use [Uncommon] level artifacts, but you can use your spirit sword. And no potions, stamina, mana, or healing. I think we can also give you consumables of the same level, but a small number of them.."

  Dylan thought about it and was in full agreement. This was going to be fun. But what strategy he would use was something to think about.

  Of course it's a pity that I won't be able to shoot her, Razer is a [Rare] level weapon.