Nephis proceeded to teach me the second-circle version of Lux Healus, which could treat deeper wounds and even heal a fractured bone.
We needed a test subject in order to test the spell so I could understand and see how it worked.
Sure, I wanted to offer myself as a test subject, despite not liking the fact that I had to fracture my bone or cut myself deep enough with a knife.
Cutting my wrist was one thing, but stabbing myself was a different issue.
But nevertheless, I was about to offer myself when Nephis refused and proceeded to fracture the bones on her left hand with her own right hand before I could even persuade her.
Crack!
I was shocked that she did that without a second thought, but what was more shocking—or terrifying—was that she did it with a bright smile on her face, as if she didn't feel a single bit of pain.
"A-are you not feeling any pain?" I asked with concern.
"I'm peachy. This pain is nothing compared to what a light mage, specifically the healer type, has to go through when experimenting on themselves," she said nonchalantly.
Experimenting on themselves?
I frowned.
Seeing the frown on my face, Nephis replied.
"Healers need to practice their spells in order to master their healing techniques. Unlike other affinities, we can't practice our healing spells on dummies, only on living beings. Meaning that we either get someone willingly to practice our healing magic on, or we practice on animals. But animals don't have the same body structure as humans, so it isn't really helpful." She paused and then, with a bright smile, said, "That's why I practice on myself!"
Ah.
"Don't you feel any pain?"
"Nah, not really. After, like, hmm, cutting myself, my fingers off, my own limbs for like hundreds of times, I got used to the pain." She said with the same warm smile.
Ah, yes.
She's nuts.
Everyone in this family is nuts for sure, because what did she mean by cutting her own fingers or limbs off and then getting used to it?
Sure, I'm glad she didn't use another human being as a test subject without their consent, but harming yourself in order to upgrade your healing skills spoke about insane commitment and sheer fucking will. And a bit of insanity.
Well, could I really judge her? That just spoke to how fast she would go in order to achieve her goal.
Could I say that Nephis lacked conviction?
No, she definetlly didn't.
But damn, is she not a masochist? Hurting yourself so much to that extent without going insane speaks volumes about her.
I looked at her broken hand and then at her face while she smiled at me.
Maybe a bit insane, I thought as I felt the chills.
Props to her, because if I were in her place, I'd never have the balls to do that.
She had balls of steel—no, balls of adamantium for real.
"Now, this is where it gets tricky. We have to fix all the bones back to how they were without making it worse, like putting a bone in the wrong place or direction. So pay close attention."
She hovered her hand over her broken one and cast the spell.
"Lux Healus."
Her hand glowed bright as the magic circle formed.
Her broken fingers, which were twisted in the wrong position, twitched and then started to move and revert back to their original position. As they did, popping sounds released from the bones that were getting put into place.
I looked at her face to see if she was wincing or had a frown, but she didn't seem to feel any pain.
I shook my head and murmured under my breath, "Lunatic."
"Hm? Did you say something to the Second Prince?" Her head turned to me.
"No, nothing. You can continue with the demonstration."
She nodded and did so.
Then, in no time, her fingers were back to how they were supposed to be, and her hand was healed, she could now clench and unclench her hand normally.
"There, all peachy now. Did you see everything?"
"Yes I did, but seeing is different from actually doing it," I admitted.
This was not about understanding the spell, that was much easier for me but being able to heal the hand without making it worse, which seemed difficult to me currently.
"Don't worry, you weren't supposed to get it on the first try or first day anyway. You still have a lot of time, and you could practice on me as long as you want," she said with a serious face.
For some reason, what she said sounded very wrong, but I chose not to dwell on it.
"Practice on you? You're not some kind of dummy I can practice on."
"Ah, young master, don't worry about it. I don't mind." She waved her hand.
I frowned first but then sighed in defeat. "Okay, fine. I'll do as you say."
"Great!" Her eyes sparkled. "Now you can try healing my hand on your own."
Crack!
She broke her hand once again on her own, nonchalantly, and then moved her hand toward me.
My eyes twitched slightly at her actions.
Shenanigans after shenanigans.
I hovered both my hands over her broken one and then cast the spell.
"Lux Healus."
For the remaining minutes, the cracking sound of bones and my voice cursing and apologizing while Nephis laughed resounded in the room.
During the healing training, there was one time I healed all the bones in Nephis's fingers, but they were all facing the wrong position, making me apologize to Nephis, who just laughed and said it was okay and that she had been there as well.
The other time, I healed her hand, which was really great, but she couldn't move her hand at all.
Hell, healing magic was becoming more and more annoying as the time passed by.
Eventually, and unfortunately, I was not able to heal her hand back to normal.
I slumped back on my chair while murmuring, Healing spells be damned.
"It's okay, Second Prince. We will try again next time." Nephis patted my shoulders as she stood up and put her book back in her bag and then her bag into her spatial ring.
I stood up, and then she stretched her hand toward me.
"It was good meeting you, Second Prince. I look forward to our next lesson tomorrow." She smiled.
I shook her hand back and replied, "Same here, and hopefully I can heal your hand tomorrow and not disable it."
"Hehe, maybe you will tomorrow. We'll never know."
She said goodbye to me and then walked toward the door.
"Wait, are you not going to use a teleportation spell the same way you had arrived earlier, Instructor Nephis?"
She paused as her hand grabbed the door handle and turned around.
"Nope. It consumes too much mana since I'm not a space mage, and plus the one who had teleported me was Lady Viserys earlier since I was late, and she most likely already left, so I have no choice but to walk."
So it was Instructor Viserys who had teleported her here.
"Ah, I see. Then have a nice evening."
"You too!" she said before opening the door and stepping out.
I sat back on my chair and sighed.
"I'm so exhausted in body and mind."
Well, that was what I got for increasing my daily training.
I wanted to grow stronger and faster, so I had to do it. Even if my mind and body break.
I couldn't let myself feel powerless ever again.
After resting for like thirty minutes, I finally let myself get up from the chair, walk out of the training room, and head to the dining room.
When I got to the dining room, I didn't find anyone else except Andromeda.
When she saw that I was in my pajamas, she didn't react—she just stared at me with those bored eyes, looked away, and muttered something I didn't hear.
"Big sister has passed the curse…"
When I asked her where the others were, she said that Alexandra had to go solve an issue out of the palace.
That prompted me to raise an eyebrow as to what kind of issue that was for Alexandra.
I decided to just ask herself when she's back, since I had to ask her about my personal training room.
Regarding Londres and Sephira, the former apparently was busy training so she refused to attend dinner, while the latter was busy sleeping somewhere in the palace.
That made me wonder when Sephira would return to the academy, because she had been on leave for a long time now.
Well, since it was just the two of us, it was kind of awkward because Andromeda barely says anything. Whenever I tried to make some conversation, she'd just nod.
After that long, awkward dinner, I wished her goodnight and left the dining room and headed to the garden.
I took a deep breath, feeling the sweet air of the garden entering my lungs.
I looked up to the night sky, and as Virgil had said, his constellation was really gone. No matter how many times I looked for it, I couldn't find it.
"He's really gone for six months, huh?"
I sat down, closed my eyes, and started absorbing the stellar energy, filling up my core.
After that, I stood up and unsheathed the sword that I had brought with me on my chest and started exercising the first two stellar series techniques.
With calm breath, I thrust my sword forward once, then twice, then thrice in a steady rhythm.
This was just for warming up.
And once I was done warming up, I picked up the pace and increased my speed.
My feet lifted off the earth as I dashed around the garden.
I slashed, cut, thrusted, and blocked as if I were fighting an invisible enemy.
I tried my best to execute each technique flawlessly, even if it wasn't as perfect as Virgil's.
Mind you, I was doing it without using stellar energy since I didn't want to attract any attention yet.
I was only planning to show my cosmos affinity in the military academy entrance exam if I needed to use it, or if Alexandra or Arthur asked me to show them.
Mid horizontal swing, I increased my speed using the time element, and then in a burst of speed I launched forward.
Then I decided to bend the space between me and one tall tree that was thirty meters away from me.
In an instant I was in front of the tree, already thrusting my sword forward in a blur.
Then the tree released a high-pitched whistling sound as six huge holes appeared on its trunk.
I didn't stop and moved forward toward the small forest the palace had.
Unfortunately, there were no monsters for me to practice my techniques on.
My figure blurred as I moved in the forest.
I had only been using the time element to speed up my speed, but I hadn't used stellar energy nor mana to enhance my body.
However, I was still moving at a great speed. I couldn't imagine how fast I'd be if I used them all together.
When I got to the middle of the forest, I activated the gravity element and manipulated my own gravity, reducing this world's gravity on me.
I crouched and then shot up.
I felt no resistance as I tore through the air upward with speed.
I stepped on a tree, then moved to the next, and so on.
I low-key genuinely felt like the way ninjas like Naruto used to travel by jumping on tree branches.
"Magic is so fun," I said as I shot past an owl nest, causing it to fly away.
Then when I jumped to another branch, I willed lightning to crackle around my body. I felt my blood boil as lightning ran through my veins.
The buzzing and crackling sounds of lightning filled the silent forest.
Then I sheathed my sword and jumped down, deactivating the gravity element.
Thud!
When my foot touched the ground, I willed my mana, the space element, and the stellar energy to enhance my speed. My hand was already on the hilt of my sword.
I felt so much energy in my body that I almost thought I was going to explode.
I looked at my intended targets.
Then I muttered:
"Swift Sword first move, Thunderclap Bullet."
The muscles in my feet tensed, and then my body simply vanished in a flash of blue light.
Swoosh!
I was moving so fast that my vision narrowed and changed. I felt like a Formula One car.
A blur of blue light tore through the forest in the blink of an eye as I moved in a zigzag motion.
My sword became a blur as it slashed through the trees' trunks.
Then I appeared behind a tree, my sword already sheathed.
Then the aftermath came in an explosion of wood splinters.
Twack!
Seven trees were cut in half cleanly and fell down, crushing the earth below and creating dust in the forest.
Settling the lightning around my body down, I said:
"Damn, I didn't expect to do so much damage or even almost execute the technique perfectly."
I hadn't planned to perform the technique yet since I had only learned it today before training on my own, but it didn't hurt to try it and see if I was going to get it right, yeah?
I almost had it. Almost.
When the dust settled and revealed the trees on the ground.
I inspected the seventh and sixth tree's cut, and well, the cut wasn't as perfect as the others.
The others were cut straight horizontally flawlessly, while the two last ones weren't really horizontal as wanted...the cut looked a bit tilted to the left.
I sighed.
"As I expected. Why did I think that I would've gotten it in one try?" I shook my head and smiled.
I looked at the trees and suddenly my expression soured.
"I just hope that I didn't attract the guards' attention by causing this. Well, it's just trees, anyway."
As I turned around to leave, I was faced with a golden blade in front of my face, heading toward me at a threatening speed.
Seeing the danger, I clenched my jaw and forced my hand to move toward my sword.
I drew my sword in a quick motion and blocked the incoming attack.
Clang!
Golden sparks lit up the dark forest as both blades met.
I was sent back, staggering a couple of meters back.
And guess who attacked me?
As you've probabably guessed, it was that insufferable master of mine keeping his word to attack me whenever he can.
Arthur smiled and whistled as he looked at the fallen trees.
"You are really performing well with the sword, my prince. You almost executed the first technique flawlessly. Quite the genius, aren't you?"
I glared at him and said, "Almost. Maybe I would've gotten it on the second try if you hadn't tried to pierce my skull with your rapier!"
"I told you earlier today that I would attack you whenever I could." He shrugged his shoulders. "I always keep my promise."
I knew that. I was just trying to buy time in order to escape, but to whom am I fooling?
Even if I did run away, he would catch me effortlessly, so running away was useless.
So I gave up on running away and took a stance, my sword raised high.
Blue lightning crackled around my body, then I blurred with speed toward Arthur.
Arthur smiled again, then golden lightning crackled around his body and he shot toward me as well.
We met in the middle of the forest, and the moment our swords met, a shower of blue and gold sparks lit up the forest.