Adamant Blood

Monday morning.

Mark was dressed for the arena, but he did not go into the arena with all the other brawnies. He went through a side entrance, to a different sort of room that was mostly a way station that led directly out onto the stands.

To the Healing Club.

Most of the people for Healing Club were already out there on the stands, but Grand Healer Badaira and Inquisitor Lola were in the hallway, talking, when Mark turned the corner.

Both of the women glanced at Mark, and then they recognized him.

Badaira grinned as she said, “Welcome, Mark.”

Mark bowed to Badaira. He rose, and said, “Glad to be here.” He looked to Lola, adding, “I’m glad you could come.”

Mark had sent off an email to Lola yesterday asking about the lessons for the week, and Healing Club, and how all of that would work out. Lola had replied that she might just come today, though it was not a sure thing, and that they could have a lesson during the club.

It seemed Lola was able to come today.

Lola smiled beatifically… Which she really only did when she was angry at someone.

… She wasn’t angry at Mark, was she?

Lola said, “Barring a few individual lessons during today, we can likely transfer the bulk of your learning to Healing Club. There’s nothing quite like pure practice, and Healing Club can do most of that.” She lightly turned toward Badaira, adding, “I was speaking with Grand Healer Badaira about plans. I believe that you might only be staying here for a week, to work on vast workings and throughput, and then you should move on to the higher sparring clubs as soon as possible.”

Badaira did a tiny little bow, with just her head. “Staying here and forgoing the higher sparring clubs might help you develop a vast appreciation for Union, for its main power is not in helping small groups, but in leading armies.”

Both of the women had put certain spins on their words, but only Badaira did it directly. Lola was more circumspect.

Mark got the impression that maybe the women didn’t like each other, or maybe they were rivals.

Lola said, “In all likelihood you will be able to do both, but you are advancing fast, and I don’t want you to pick up too many habits from normal Union users.”

Badaira resigned her arguments to a regal sort of silence.

The two healers were definitely having a fight, and they were being exceedingly polite about it.

The fight was about Mark, wasn’t it.

Mark said, “I am highly interested in smaller scale combats between unique forces, if that helps. But is…” Mark was about to ask if ‘coordinating an army’ was truly that difficult, and then he realized the depth of where that question led him. Of course coordinating an army was difficult. Mark didn’t even want to think about that, though. “Er… I’m not sure I want to… coordinate armies?”

Badaira latched on to that, asking, “Not even armies of supporters in order to fight a kaiju with your own power? Or focusing the power of a city onto an individual, either for good or for bad?”

“Oh,” Mark said.

An army could be ‘everyone who lives in a city that is under attack’, couldn’t it.

Badaira had spoken of Freyala’s rise to power, back when the goddess was known as Emily Turner, of using Union to focus the evils that the dragon Partanatrax had caused back onto that dragon. Emily Turner had become a void-dark heart, killing the dragon in one beat of her Power.

Mark thought for a moment, about many different things, and concluded, “I was approved for a training mission in two weeks. I should get some small-scale training before then.”

Lola just nodded, so small it might not have even happened.

Badaira bowed to Lola, and then moved on, up the stairs leading to the stadium seating.

Mark remained with Lola for a moment, asking her, “Did something happen?”

Lola said, “Nothing in particular. Badaira and I used to be companions. She went into healing, becoming a Grand Healer. I went into the Paladins, and then I became an Inquisitor. We fundamentally disagree on the best ways to use Union, but if you want to learn how to heal an entire city, then Badaira is the one you should listen to.”

Mark’s eyebrows went up. “She can do that?”

“You can too, using the same tricks that she does, that we all do. Even the lowest Union healer could do it, too, but linking a city is a fundamentally dangerous act, and the only way any politician or leader would allow such a coordination is if they cannot stop you, because you are stronger than them, or if it actually needs done, and they agree to assist.” Lola looked at Mark. “You will be of the first category, of powers impossible to stop if you want to do something, so it is important to align yourself with proper organizations, Mark. Do the Slayer thing for a few years in the beginning, but take the Villain Program job later. It will vastly boost your credibility.”

Mark felt a weight. “Really? The Villain thing? You approve?”

“Inquisitors are murderers, Mark. There is no way around that. We hunt and kill the demon-possessed, the Fallen and the would-Fall. Villains and Inquisitors align a lot nicer in goals than either Wandering Sage or Cybersong wish to admit, but which Freyala easily sees,” Lola said, “We would welcome you as an Inquisitor, by the way, but not for years.”

Mark had an emotional reaction to the idea of killing, and so he made an emotional decision, “I don’t think I can do that. Become an Inquisitor. Kill people.”

As though Mark had just commented on the weather, Lola continued, “And that’s fine. It’s a terrible, horrible thing to kill people. I hope you never have to do it. But you should still eventually learn how. If you should end up on Daihoon, you might be called to do exactly that.”

Mark’s thoughts went blank.

He came back to himself. “What?”

“Inquisitors are mostly active on Daihoon, just so you know.” Lola discarded the heavy topic like she was throwing a weight overboard. She seemed lighter, as she said, “But we can leave all of that for other days. For now, let us heal and directly protect people.”

“… Yes, please.”

Lola led the way into the arena, right past a well-stocked vending-machine area. Mark only really noticed the vending machine area because it had a sign up that read, ‘Free for Healing Club Members! Honor System!’. Mark kinda wondered what that was about, but then Lola went up some wide stairs, into the arena, and Mark followed.

The sun slanted into the arena, but the healer area was in the shade and it would continue to be in the shade for the whole day. People were already sitting around, chatting. The brawnies were coming onto the field down below, walking in the sun. Some of them were shielding their eyes, briefly, as they looked around.

Lola sat down in the front-middle of the pack and patted the seat beside her.

Mark took a seat.

Badaira was chatting with some other students, but she looked up when Mark sat down. She checked her watch, then told everyone sitting down, “5 minutes to start. Begin breathing exercises now.” And then Badaira began to breathe deeply, like she was showing the club how.

Everyone sat up straight, while some stood, and then they began breathing deeply—

Mark felt a snap of Union in the air, like a weight upon the world that tried to draw him in and make him a part of it—

Lola told Mark, “You can let it happen.”

Mark started breathing in Union with everyone else.

Lola was doing it, too, but she was also talking, “You and I will be talking to each other throughout the whole club, as this is sort of a private lesson, but not quite. Ask questions when you can —learning how to talk while breathing Union is an important lesson, too— and let’s try not to interrupt everyone else’s Union work too much.”

Mark nodded.

“The club always starts this way to establish a baseline. You’ve felt the gathering of Union when Badger calls you all to order, right? The gathering we’re working on right now is meant to ping off of that call, to connect the gathering Union here to the Union they wish to establish on the arena floor.

“That is how you start the big workings.

“You start with the personal power, build momentum, and then latch on to a big signal, like Badger’s gong, that goes out to a set of people, or that the people establish themselves. If the Union gathering here cannot grab onto the gathering down there well enough, then Badaira signals Badger and Badger might make everyone on the field call out some specific names, or whatnot, to establish the ‘groove’, as some have called it.”

Ah, Mark thought. Like at the start, when Badger had us repeat the names of the instructors.

Mark asked, “With fewer people—” His breathing Union broke instantly. “Is there— Mmm.” He couldn’t get the Union back together while he spoke, so he tried to be quick about his question. “With fewer people is there less need for that unified dance in the larger population?”

Lola waited on Mark, and then she answered, “Correct. Looks like there might only be 70 people down there today, and there’s 23 up here. That’s a good ratio, actually. 1 Union to 3 other people means that we will have no trouble going off of the Badger’s gong. There will be no need for a unified dance…” Lola grinned. She asked, “Are you signed up for any dance classes yet?”

Lola seemed to find it delightful that Mark had called Union a dance in his email, and also just now.

“Not yet, but I looked at them,” Mark said. “I’ve noticed the flow of battle is easy enough to get into, and from there it kinda just… flowed. You know? A step here, a circling there. It’s all enough to grab onto someone with Union.”

Lola smiled a little. “ ‘Grab onto’ is a bit of a loaded language, and shows that you are more suited to offensive capability with this magic, but we knew that already. Usually people say ‘join with’. To say ‘grab onto’ implies an offensive act, so don’t use that phrase around people who don’t know you.”

Mark glanced at the other people in club, some of them looking at Mark weirdly. They rapidly looked away. Mark felt a flush of red on his face. “Er… Did not know that.”

“And that is why I am here teaching,” Lola said, “Anyway. For you, you can use anything that another person or life form shares in common with you. That is the true basis of Union, as Freyala envisioned and used the Talent. To form a Union is to consecrate a common ground and build something upon that space.”

Mark nodded. He knew that, but not in those specific words. It was a bit enlightening to hear it like that, though. It was sort of like someone explaining to you a concept that you knew, but which you just didn’t have the words for. Mark breathed deep, in contemplation, and with everyone else breathing deep, too.

He grinned.

Lola said, “Now here is where we add some new thoughts to your repertoire. You have the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ duality, along with ‘durability’ and ‘weakness’. Personally, I place this addition into the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ part of the scenario, but you might want to do differently.

“Tell me: Have you ever wondered why you never took water breaks or bathroom breaks out there on the arena floor?”

Mark blinked.

It was like someone telling you that the oven had been on for an entire week, but nothing burned down, so, in the end, was any damage actually done?

Yes. There was damage.

Mark’s psyche rebelled.

“What! No way. I would have... noticed…” Mark quietly said, “I never noticed.”

Some other healers chuckled.

Badaira hushed them, and then made a big show of breathing more—

Mark suddenly said, “I don’t have to go to the bathroom anymore?!”

Everyone else was professional enough not to laugh. Lola professionally chuckled.

Mark had another thought. “Oh gods. I could make an enemy piss themselves.”

The Union broke as a lot of people laughed.

Badaira even grinned and then she rallied people to rejoin, and she might have even used that laughter as a joining mechanism; Mark wasn’t sure. He was still wondering if he could make someone piss themselves. It boggled!

Lola smiled, barely able to contain her mirth, but she adopted a strong countenance and with a deeply serious, sarcastic tone, she said, “This is a dark power you tamper with, Mark Careed.” She lightly added, “Also, it’s not nearly as effective of a weapon as you might suspect.”

Mark almost laughed at that one—

And then Lola added, “You can evaporate the water in someone’s body, though. That is a much better way to use this power.”

Seriousness returned to the conversation.

Mark said, “No thank you.”

Lola nodded. “Even so, it is good to bring up these subjects, because the maintenance of a crew is important. The words we use to sustain and maintain a crew while on missions are ‘sustenance/starvation’, and ‘purity/impurity’. These two uses of Union have deep nuances and side effects. Most of the time, you can just get away with using the good/bad dichotomy, but sometimes you need to do more, and this is how you do that.

“ ‘Sustenance’ and ‘starvation’ can take from an environment and blight the land, or take from an enemy and weaken them deeply. It can also take from yourself, and give to others. These are all rather slow-acting things, though. If you —personally you— eat well and drink water, then you can provide sustenance to a group such as all of the people down there on the arena without blighting the land. That is why the Healing Club has that snack bar downstairs. We’re all literally eating and drinking for all the other people down there.

“In a forest, you can just take from the land around you just fine; there’s lots of life there, and the blight you put out in the world is easily healed if you stretch it out thin enough. There’s no forest in this stone garden, though, so we have to use the snack bar downstairs.

“Against an enemy, in a protracted combat, you being well fed and them running on fumes is a good way to improve your chances of winning, but it won’t save your life or damn the enemy in a single 10 minute exchange. Now several 10-minute exchanges? A day of fighting? Then that is when this aspect of Union will show its power. That is how you keep an army fed and watered even in the worst parts of Daihoon or Earth.

“This is why Freyalan acolytes and otherwise are the ones that go out with teams to heal and fight outside of cities, while Hearthswell stays inside the cities, by the way. We are good at roaming battles. Hearthswell is much, much better at other aspects of healing and battlement fortifications.”

Mark nodded.

Lola continued, “ ‘Purity’ makes your body without waste and clean. It is what I use to clean up my outfits, and otherwise. The environment absolutely loves ‘impurity’, too. All sorts of messes. Messes are lovely for a forest, and easily go into all parts of a forest, or any natural system with life in it, really. You only need to run purity/impurity every so often, though; not a full time thing at all. It’s good for cleaning up toxins and otherwise, and if you want, you can even use it to draw out metals from the ground, or from other places.”

Oh! That was how Lola had made Mark breathe out the adamantium from his bones!

Lola was aware that Mark being able to grow adamantium was a secret, though, so she added, “Once your adamantiumkinesis gets to a level where you can detect the stuff in the ground, then you’ll be able to easily find more, and grow your stocks, and you can even use Union to draw it out.

“In all of those cases, you feel the pulse of Union in the give and take; you can’t just give, you can’t just take, you have to do both. Otherwise the Union becomes unbalanced and you risk saturating your astral body, blocking you from doing more Union work. Wherever you give and take changes the world as you desire.”

Mark nodded; that particular lesson was a repeated one, but repetition was the mother of learning.

Lola looked to Mark. “We’ll just be breathing right now. Leave your blood-Union to another day. I imagine Grand Healer Badaira will direct us in specific ways, though. It is almost time.”

Mark looked over to Badaira and she was still breathing deeply, but she glanced his way.

Badaira nodded, and then said to the group, “Hands up if you ended Friday on healing.”

Hands went up, but not all.

Badaira pointed out people, saying, “Jessie, Tommy, Laura, Adrienne, Wilbur, Floyd, Nathan. You all stay healing. Everyone else switch to protection. All people who were on protection at the end of Friday switch to healing. Mark, you’re on protection. I’ll switch some people around as necessary later. Now we wait for the gong, and then we connect.”

Nods all around.

By Mark’s rough estimate the number of people on healing or protection were roughly the same. Maybe more people were healing than protecting, but that was fine, right?

Lola asked Mark, “What do you consider when you think of ‘durability’?”

Mark rapidly rattled off, “Toughness of body that is more than skin deep.” His breathing Union broke, but he kept talking, “An inability to be damaged. A resilience that is bending instead of breaking.”

“Do you consider the damage from the sun, or the damage from the clothes you wear, like a shoe that doesn’t fit right? How about the glare of a bright light? Can you stare into the sun while you are protecting yourself?”

“… I had not considered that.” Mark breathed deep ‘durability’ and the light of the sun was still there, but now it was easier to handle. The light wasn’t any dimmer at all, though— A different problem suddenly occurred. “Wait. If we’re all breathing in durability and exhaling weakness, then the entire group of people out there will only be getting protection during half of the breathing; the intake?”

Lola smiled softly. “Once the battle starts we’ll all start staggering our breaths, because a staggering is just a different type of Union; a Union that is spread out.”

Mark’s mind felt expanded yet again. “… You can do that?”

“In a group, yes. Individually? No. It is one of the great benefits to having multiple Union users in the same group together, and one of the main differences between individual and group use.” Lola put her finger to her mouth in a quiet gesture—

A gong rang out across the field. Mark hadn’t even seen Badger get to his spot in front of the instructor booth, but there he was.

Every single person on the field, and in the stands, jerked to attention.

That's what really did it. That jerk.

Mark felt the Union of their group reach for the people down on the field, and connect. Mark breathed in durability, and expelled weakness, twisting the miasma coming out of his mouth into the air, like sewing into an invisible quilt. The miasma vanished into elsewhere.

Badaira brought the group to further attention, saying, “I will begin the staggering, linking to you and moving you through the motions.”

And that is exactly what she did.

It was weird.

Badaira sort of… extended the groove in the world? Or something like that? She breathed a little out of sync with the group and people began falling into those new grooves one at a time, and then, within a minute, the entire group was staggered.

It was like a single harmony of voices becoming a song instead; a chord progression. Or some other word that Mark didn’t know. He wasn’t too much into music. He just felt the change in the air as unifications became something more… woven. Less singular.

One person passed off a magic to another, which passed off the magic to the next person, which came back to the first person, and now the entire group was breathing in ‘good’ and exhaling ‘bad’ at the same time that they were inhaling ‘durability’ and exhaling ‘weakness’.

… It was almost like what Mark did when he was using blood and breath Union at the same time. They were not in sync with each other, for how could heartbeats and breaths ever be unified except… through the medium of the body. Huh.

… Huh.

Everyone here seemed to know how to thread their miasma into the astral, too; nothing stunk like death. That was nice—

Oh.

They all knew how to breathe out the ‘weakness’ of a stressed astral body, too, didn’t they? They could keep going forever, too, if they wanted, and as Mark breathed out weakness, he did his part to make sure even the healers, who were not focused on keeping their astral body together, were able to maintain just fine.

Mark smiled at that.

He had thought he was being smart with that ‘discovery’ of his, but everyone had already figured out what he had thought was neat and cool and not-done-yet. Welp! That’s what the club here was for; for teaching.

And Mark was learning.

Lola smiled. “Very good, Mark. Now all you have to do is keep that up for 2 hours.”

Mark said, “I can do—”

He fell out of the Union.

He focused, and got back into the Union, his breath matching the rhythm of the group that was stretched thin across the entire arena floor. All of the other healers were already talking amongst themselves, though Mark only now realized that they were talking only on their exhales… Or something. He looked at the others, trying to understand what he was seeing.

Lola said, “It takes some doing to get the hang of talking and breathing at the same time, but there is a trick. The trick is to view it all as communication, as a Union created through words, which are actions upon the world that link us all together, just as the people on the field are linked together through actions which are still just physical in nature. It’s all a Union.”

… Huh.

Mark felt himself connect to Lola, to the air, to the world and to each other healer in the club who overheard him, as he said, “It’s like breathing but different.”

He was able to keep his Union going, even though he spoke.

Lola said, “Here’s a big secret to Union, Mark. You are the locus of a creation of your own making. Just by existing at all, you are a part of the world, and the world is a part of you.” She smiled a little. “As soon as you understand that, having Union active at all points in time will be as easy as breathing.”

In that moment, Mark felt connected.

His heart beat in rhythm to everyone else there on that bench, and also to everyone else down on the field. They didn’t beat at the same time, and some, like that Ulrich guy with Weird Body, didn’t beat at all. But they were there. They were participating in the creation of a fighting force, to drive back the monsters and to save the world, each in small, individual ways, that would become large ways when taken in aggregate.

It was magical.

Mark blinked, and he saw threads.

Threads connected everyone to the world, to each other. As the S rank speedsters pummeled their opponents from ten directions almost all at once, their hearts beating fast, the S rank brutes held their own, those small punches doing nothing, their hearts beating slow and steady. They were not connected in heartbeats, but they were connected in the spar. They were connected in the ultimate, nebulous goal, of helping each other, and also the world.

The instructors helped, too. Speedster Instructor Nifty separated some people who got too heated before they actually injured each other. Charms evaluated from her tablet and from her own breath, for she was in a Union right now, too, and so were Badger and Medley, who all had Freyala-gifted Union as well.

And the healers healed, and protected. Instructor Badaira was a dancer of intent across the web, shoring up thin spots in the group, her breath like a wind of creation and stabilization in those areas.

Mark saw light in the corners of his eyes.

Threads of light came from him, from his astral body, from the black veins that pulsed under and out of his skin. It was weird to see those threads in the air, in his skin. How far was he stretched right now?

Were all those threads in the air, him?

… Not exactly; but also not ‘no’.

Mark saw it now. Those threads were him, but they were not the whole story. He was just one threading. One bit of light in the air that wasn’t light at all. It was his astral body, stretched thin. The healers on the benches were other colors among the world, but Mark couldn’t see them that well.

He felt them.

Astral bodies touching astral bodies.

Mark felt the world.

The underlying strength of it all.

He was a thread, and the world was an ocean of threads, crisscrossing and weaving, knotting and tangling, breaking and coming together, splitting and joining and—

Darkness closed in from the edges of the world, and Mark’s heart thumped hard, weak—

Mark pulled back, gasping, throwing himself out of the Union, leaning back and sweating hard. Sweat poured off of him as he struggled to understand where he was and what he was doing. His eyes worked. His heart and lungs worked. But he felt too connected. Where was he? Was he on the bench? Was he on the sands? Was he standing or laying dow—

Something crinkled.

Mark snapped back to himself like rubber bands breaking.

And then there he was again, in his body, fully. He breathed. He was sitting down but he threatened to fall over, so Lola’s hand was on his back, holding him upright. She was staring into his eyes. She was saying something.

Mark blinked a few times, and then Lola started to make sense again.

Lola’s worried face faded. She spoke softly, “There you are, Mark. You had a little trip, but you’re back.”

Mark looked around and saw people staring at him, but also Badaira snapping her fingers at the others and redirecting them back to the Union. He couldn’t actually see the Union, though; whatever vision he had encountered was over. But he knew that the Union was still there, in the air. The world was still threaded all throughout.

Mark looked back to Lola. “What was that?”

“A revelation of the world.”

Mark breathed in, then out, and said, “Okay.”

Lola grinned. “In a smaller, just-as-true way, you stretched your astral body further than you should have, focusing on connections that I cannot perceive, but which I have been enlightened to by Freyala Herself. I still have lessons for you that are not whatever you just did, but what you just did will get easier with time, and with astral body strength. If you do that without supervision you’ll probably faint, though, so try to take it easier with that.”

Mark took that in, and said, “Okay!”

Lola chuckled. With an easy countenance, she said, “Get back to it, Mark. You’re on protection detail.”

Mark focused on Union again and he started breathing with purpose, falling into sync among the broken-with-purpose rhythm of the group.

And then he just experienced it all for a while.

Some of the healers spoke with each other. Some watched the fights. Some were studiously focused on their connections to the people on the field. Some tapped away at their tablets, reading or playing games. Not a single one of them, and probably not Mark either, could weave the tapestry that held together everyone on the arena floor and on the stands. But they could all contribute a little part.

Mark’s part was breathing in durability and breathing out weakness, and focusing on the group. To an outside observer, it might appear that he was doing nothing at all.

But really, he was his own center of a vast, connected network that brought people together and made them whole and strong.

Eventually, Mark managed to fully understand how to speak while running Union. It was a tricky thing, but he figured it out. It was sort of like, when throwing a punch, you could just throw the punch, or you could put your whole body into it, and then you still delivered a lot of punching power even if your fist wasn’t the strongest. Mark focused on his Union, on durability and weakness, and managed to say, “It really is like just becoming a beating heart that enables exchanges between a vast area.”

He ‘overshot the punch’ through pure Union power, and thus, when he destabilized his own ‘punch’, his ‘punch’ was still solid enough to work… well enough.

Lola corrected, “You are the center of a web of exchanges that you desire.”

Mark corrected himself, “Exchanges I desire, yes.”

Lola said, “I’ve always imagined it as helping hands reaching out to each other, through the wind. Some have imagined it as roots in a system. I think you spoke about that once.”

“I did. I learned about that from one of my elementary teachers. It always seemed neat that plants help each other with nutrients sometimes.”

“That ideology ties in well to blood Union…”

Lola spoke of nuances of Union and Mark focused his Union this way and that, at her instruction, for the next hour. Most of those nuances were repeated lessons. Protection was a pretty easy type of magic to focus on. Making sure people didn’t take damage was pretty simple, though Lola had a lot of case types with regard to protection that Mark hadn’t thought about before.

“The damage of the sun was just one source you didn’t consider, but there are others. Fire is a usual thing to protect against, and instead of considering a specific protection against that, you must instead expand your definition of durability, like you did with the damage of the sun. What does fire do? It changes the energy state of a system in a way that damages a system. So if you make ‘durability’ include the idea that the system cannot be changed in energetic ways against your will, then you will have guarded from fire, and also cold and also electricity. Similarly, you can exhale weakness, and consider that being vulnerable to energy-changing powers as a weakness that must be purged.

“That’s just being defensive with it, though.

“You’ll be able to be offensive with it, and give weaknesses to energy state changes to an enemy. This goes alongside the ideas of buffing and debuffing the 6 categories of Body, Kinetic, etcetera, and weakening an enemy in those sorts of ways…”

Mark adjusted his thinking a few different times.

A problem arose.

Mark said, “I don’t think I can hold all of those specific ideas of what ‘durability’ and ‘weakness’ means all at the same time. How do I fix that? With time and practice?”

“Time and practice will help, but truthfully this is an impossible fix on your own. You need to have some Mind-enhancing magics cast upon you by a Minder, and then you can do everything at the same time. For most of your career, you will need to prioritize and change up how you work your protections...”

Eventually, Grand Healer Badaira switched the entire chorus of healers over to from healing to protection, or from protection to healing.

Mark switched from protection to healing detail.

Lola spoke of healing, “In with the good, out with the bad; this is truly the best way to heal the body. This is because, for the most part, the body knows how to heal itself. In the few cases where you encounter cancer, or malignant issues of other kinds, you can work in purity ideology. Perhaps you might even work in some sustenance/deprivation to help provide nutrients to the body, as well.

“But you, specifically you, with your Healthy Body, and all brawnies like you, will find basic healing methodology exceedingly useful. This is because your Body Talent is specifically useful toward making you healthy, and you can share that healthiness with other people, even if their own bodies aren’t able to support them, as-is, for genetic or whatever reasons.

“The only reason you should ever go beyond good/bad methodology is after medical school, where you can learn more direct ways to heal the body. That’s 4 years of schooling at the least, or more likely 8.”

Mark grinned. “Not doing medical school.” He asked, “But surely there are ways to heal the body better than just good or bad. Are there no specific ideas?”

Lola shook her head. “Don’t go too far down that path, Mark. Once you are stronger, you will kill people if you push that methodology far at all. Instead, what is better and what people usually do, is that you might find that your basic healing is overkill. You might consider the ideas of half-healing/half-protection, in the dichotomy of ‘resilience’ and ‘weakness’, as we spoke about earlier, because with that sort of ideology, you can start to include ideas from protection, like buffing/debuffing the 6 categories…”

Lola spoke of previous lessons, tying many different threads together into half-and-half healing/protection.

Mark tried to ignore that part about how ‘he would kill people if he tried specific healings’.

That was a weapon he hoped to never need to wield.