Reborn Healer Chapter 7

This spell does not work on humans.

I had already known that the spell that my father had used on me twice now had been a powerful one. Though I didn’t have any particular spell that allowed me to sense the power of the spell being cast, Rebind Soul’s mana had entered my veins and altered my body—well, my soul, presumably. I wasn’t sure what the difference between those two were just yet.

Anyway, the point was that I had been able to tell that this spell was powerful. I hadn’t been able to the first time for a couple of reasons, mostly owing to the pain and my lack of knowledge about anything to do with magic. That was different now, and a year of constant practice had led to  enough sense of what was within me to understand the artistry of the spell, if not the mechanics.

The movements of the mana within my body had been a great deal more complex than they had been when I’d been healing myself, and the sheer power I had felt had been unlike anything I could have even fathomed. It had been like a caveman thinking a slingshot was the limit of firepower a human could achieve being exposed to an A-10 Warthog’s gatling gun. The scale was just incomparable.

So I hadn’t been all that surprised to see that Rebind Soul’s tier was Highmaster. From the introductory section of the book, it said that fewer than one in five mages made it past the basic tiers, with even fewer making it to a level where they could comfortably cast spells of that. That confirmed that my father was a pretty powerful mage, but I couldn’t dwell on that so much as…

This spell does not work on humans.

What was that supposed to mean? We had a couple mirrors in the house, and I’d seen my reflection any number of times. It always tripped me up to see that I was still a barely-walking toddler, especially given how mobile I felt in this body. I didn’t look like someone who should have been able to move like I knew I was capable of doing.

Still, despite the abnormalities, I was still pretty sure I was a human. Whether or not that meant homo sapiens sapiens in the same way that it did back on Earth was a different question, but I still looked and felt the same as a regular human should have.

So why had a demon binding spell been used on me successfully twice? The implications of that were frankly terrifying. 

First of all, I hadn’t even realized that my father even used magic in the capacity of dealing with demons. Aria had spoken of the ken like they were only a step above fairy tales, banished to a realm that we didn’t have to worry about, but this was clearly a specialized spell that my father had learned specifically to deal with them.

Second and more obviously worrying, what did this imply about me? I was pretty sure that I wasn’t a demon, given, well… everything. I did have a running theory, though.

This world wasn’t mine—or, rather, it hadn’t been. It was now, but until just about two years ago, I had been an American citizen trying to carve out a life for myself. It had taken me a while to accept the fact that I had died and thereafter reincarnated into this body, but with all this talk about souls, plus the fact that I had two cores, it got me thinking.

What if there had already been a soul in the about-to-be-born baby? What if I’d not just replaced it, but possessed it? It would explain why I had two parts of my soul, and it would also explain why they kept on trying to escape from each other.

If that was the case, then I’d basically killed someone by reincarnating here. My new parents’ real child.

The possibility was almost too horrifying to consider, but I couldn’t just ignore it.

On the other hand, how was I supposed to bring it up to my parents, the only people who might know more? I could very easily be wrong—after all, my father didn’t seem to mind casting Rebind Soul on me, which he might have if he suspected that I wasn’t his real son. And if I was right, what then? If it had been me, I certainly wouldn’t have known what to do with a child whose mind was that of a dead man from another world. 

Plus, I didn’t know what they did with possessed babies here. I assumed my particular case of reincarnation hadn’t happened before, but surely they had some form of system in play for abnormal children. In the worst case, I could very well die again before I could even get a real chance to explore this life.

I resolved to keep it quiet, then. One day in the future, when I was more able to defend myself and survive on my own, I could ask again then.

Highmaster. I needed to bring my mage core to that level, at the very least, so I could cast the Rebind Soul spell myself.

And I had to train. My parents might have been okay with my soul acting up like this, but I doubted that would still be the case if they learned the full truth. When it came to other people, I was certain that the leniency of a parent wouldn’t apply at all. I needed to be able to fight. I needed to be able to protect myself.

With that in mind, I dedicated myself to my magic studies twice over. While I still didn’t have any offensive spells to my name, better buff spells combined with my warrior core could help a lot.

Enhance Strength lvl 2 -> lvl 3

Spell learned: Swift Step [Beginner]

Fortify lvl 0 -> 1

One interesting thing about magic was that the spells didn’t just stay in my system screen forever. Once a specific spell pattern faded enough from memory that I didn’t have a perfect grasp of how to cast it voicelessly anymore, it disappeared from the screen.

The first time it happened, I may have freaked out a little bit. I had put in a lot of effort to learn magic, and just losing a spell was terrifying.

As it turned out, I hadn’t lost it. Once I picked up the spellbook and looked it over, I refreshed my memory and the spell returned to the system for a while again.

So basically, the system kept track of which spells I could cast without having to follow a spellbook exactly. That made sense. A spell disappearing didn’t mean it was gone—it just meant I had to refresh my studies if I wanted to cast it without an incantation. It was reminiscent of how clerics in the tabletop games I’d played had to choose which of their spells they wanted to be able to cast each morning, just on a longer time scale.

There was a limit to how much magic I could have properly studied at any given time, and while my memory was definitely good, it wasn’t foolproof. That was fine in my books. I didn’t have to know Beginner-tier spells like Sharpen Sight or Enhance Hearing when I had better versions of them already.

Physical training was a different story from magic. While I had a good routine for meditation for both cores, I only had a strong practice regime for magic. I had only ever been moderately physically active at best on Earth—I’d done a bit of cross-country, and I had gone to the gym every now and again, but it had been less than I probably should have.

I tried to exercise where I could, but not only did I not have a proper regimen to try out, I also was still four years and some change old. I didn’t have the slightest clue on what I was supposed to do to strengthen my body.

That changed one day when Aria came home. She arrived in the middle of the day, trudging through the door in a stained blue cloak, her usually neatly styled hair matted to her face. Vallis wasn’t there to greet her, but she did see me trying to do laps around the house.

Even with how clearly exhausted she was, she mustered a smile when she saw me. “Active today, are you? It’s good to see you again, Ren.”

“Mother,” I replied, smiling back. “Good to see you too.”

It was nice to see her. I didn’t get to that often with how frequent her excursions were, but she always made time to care for me when she was back.

This time was a little stranger, though. It had been just under a month since she’d last been home, and it had been then that I had discovered what Rebind Soul did and committed to my path. There was a distinct level of awkwardness only on my side that made words harder.

“You’re growing up quickly,” she said. “A little mage of our own.”

I wanted to learn from her. I’d seen my mother dancing in our yard once. No ballroom dance, that was—she’d been twirling with a sharp, ceremonial-looking knife that I’d eventually realized she almost always had on her person, tucked away beneath the folds of the cloak and robes she preferred. 

Given the dark stains that were much more likely to be blood than mud, her abilities with a knife, and the strange vision-like dream that I still hadn’t gotten an explanation for, I had gotten the feeling that I would learn much more about being a warrior from Aria than my father.

“Welcome home, my lady,” Iryn said, appearing at the top of the stairs. “A bath has been drawn for you already.”

I wanted to ask Aria if she could help me, but the words got stuck in my throat. I didn’t know if it was the same fear that had kept me from casting or the new fears that somehow, some way, I would give away what I was and this new life I had started to grow used to would be stripped away from me in a moment, but I just couldn’t say the words.

My mother’s hand gently landed on my head, surprising me. When had she gotten so close?

“You’re doing very well, Ren,” she said. “If you would like, I can show you the way to even better.”

I tensed. Was she a damn mind-reader? How had she so accurately predicted what I had wanted to say?

No. If she had been able to read minds, she definitely would’ve noticed some of my more Earth-like thoughts.

Maybe this was just motherly intuition. I wouldn’t know. My mother back on Earth had generally been of the opinion that if I wasn’t doing exactly what she told me to do, I didn’t deserve the time of day.

“I would… very much like that,” I managed to say. This time, my throat didn’t close up out of fear.

Stupid toddler eyes. Why did they have to cry at everything?

#

Aria stayed home for a longer period this time. Since she was often away from the house, she wanted to spend more time now to establish a training routine that I could continue to use in the weeks and months where she knew she wouldn’t be present.

“Where do you go?” I asked her while she was showing me the way through a set of what she called katas. “When you’re away, I mean.”

The ghost of a pained expression flickered over her face before she righted herself, smiling softly. “Maybe when you’re older, Ren. Your mother doesn’t go places you should be going.”

I thought back to the dream I’d had where she’d been fleeing what had seemed like an army. The more I learned about this world, the more I got the idea that something like that might have had much more meaning than I would have given them on Earth.

“If you say so,” I said. 

If she didn’t want to share bloody tales of war with a child, I could understand that. I would learn eventually, and for the time being I needed to get stronger.

Over the course of about a month, she guided me through what she said were basic drills and what I thought was torture.

“You’re going to have to pick a weapon one day,” she told me, “but that day is yet to come. For now, you should focus on building a strong foundation.”

Panting, I couldn’t find a response. I was already getting nerfed by the body I was in, and these exercises were a push to full exhaustion. I could barely move by the end of them.

Internal Harmony lvl 5 -> lvl 6

Seeing the results, though, was worth it. Over just this short period of time, I had found a way to train one of my two warrior skills. Doing so was incredibly difficult in a different way from magic, but it was just as rewarding. I’d unlocked Internal Harmony at level 2 and gotten it up to 3 on my own. With Aria, as cruel as her training could feel, the results were clear and immediate.

The training I liked the least was the one meant to train my perception. For that one, she blindfolded me and threw marbles at me. I wished there was a better, more elegant way to put that, but there wasn’t.

Reactive Instinct lvl 4 -> lvl 8

It was effective, yes, but that didn’t mean I liked it. At first, I didn’t even notice when the projectile was coming until it hit me. It went on like that for a while. Even now, I could get the sense of a minor threat coming, but it often came too late for me to actually get out of the way or do anything about it.

I still couldn’t trigger the instinct completely on reflex. For the most part, I had to actively rely on it for it to work.

“Feel it coming to you,” Aria said. “You’re trying to think about how to avoid it. Don’t think. Understand.”

As much as I appreciated her for sparing hours out of every day to teach me, that might have been the vaguest instruction I’d ever received. To me, it seemed pretty clear that Aria had spent so much time operating at a high level that she had forgotten what it felt like to be a beginner.

Still, it was incredibly helpful overall, and even when it was time for her to leave again, I had a usable system for practicing and honing my warrior skills.

I set up a routine for the time being. Magic practice in the morning, then once it cooled off in the later afternoon, I would train until I was physically barely able to move. Iryn still seemed to prefer avoiding me, but she acquiesced to anything I asked of her. She prepared food, equipment, and baths for me when I needed. I still didn’t know what her relation to my parents were other than as hired help, but she didn’t seem to want to talk to me, so I didn’t press.

Mend Wound lvl 4 -> 9

Cure Minor Infection lvl 1 -> 3 

Body Scan lvl 1 -> lvl 5

Basic Heal lvl 1 -> lvl 3

Swift Step lvl 0 -> lvl 3

Slowly, I pushed myself forward, advancing my knowledge of primarily healing spells but also the most important defensive ones.

Eventually, the day of my fifth birthday came around.

This time, when my father came to meet me and Aria, he wasn’t alone.

Next to Vallis was a young white-haired boy dressed in a smaller version of the mage’s robes.

“Greetings,” the boy said, bowing slightly. “My name is Locke. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Ren,” my father said to me. “Meet my apprentice. Soon to be your tutor.”

Huh?