"I nearly died!"
When Luo Ge woke again, he found himself in a small, pure-white room, just as expected.
The room was small, its four walls as smooth as mirrors, with no windows. Only a magic lamp giving off soft white light hung from the ceiling.
He was lying inside a circular teleportation magic circle in the middle of the room. Its markings flickered faintly beneath him, as though it had just completed a teleportation.
Every inch of his body hurt.
His entire body was covered in horrifying wounds: torn flesh, broken ribs, bruises mingled with scabs. Although the hole the Dragon God had punched through his chest had miraculously stopped bleeding.
The surrounding skin had already turned black and purple, and the pus seeping from the wound's edges gave off a faint, rotten stench.
This was proof he had survived.
A medal for escaping alive from the Dragon God Orsted.
Luo Ge forced himself to sit up, the agonizing pain making his vision darken.
He raised a trembling hand and barely managed to cast a beginner-tier healing spell on himself.
Yet the pale-green light brought only a brief coolness as it fell on his wounds, then vanished like a stone sinking into the sea.
It did nothing at all.
Sure enough, ordinary healing magic could not repair the damage the Dragon God had inflicted.
The lingering mana was like barbs embedded in his flesh, blocking every force that tried to heal him.
He had only survived this long because his monstrous constitution was holding out.
Had it been someone like Rudeus, who could not cloak himself in Touki, he would probably have been long dead.
With no time to spare examining the room, Luo Ge immediately fixed his gaze on the row of bookshelves in the corner.
The old wooden shelves were dusty, with numerous books scattered across them.
Exactly as Hitogami had described in his dream.
"Nngh! Nngh! Nngh!"
Gritting his teeth, Luo Ge crawled over, inch by inch.
Dragging his lower body behind him like that.
Every movement sent piercing agony through his broken ribs, and the wounds on his arms rubbed against the floor, leaving smears of blood.
He writhed laboriously across the ground like a dying maggot.
He had no idea how long he crawled.
Perhaps ten minutes passed before his fingertips finally touched the lowest shelf.
Among all the books, a thick gray volume lay there, utterly unremarkable.
It matched Hitogami's description down to the last detail.
"Looks like... Hitogami didn't lie to me after all."
Luo Ge carefully pulled the book out.
There was no title on the cover, but when he opened the first page, familiar writing greeted his eyes-it was God-Rank Healing Magic, written in the common human tongue.
At that moment, Luo Ge was ecstatic, like a drowning man clutching a piece of driftwood.
Without a doubt, as long as he learned what was in here, he could survive!
Yet after he casually flipped through a few pages, his smile froze on his face.
It was like dumping a bucket of cold water over someone about to drown.
Motherfucker!
He was utterly dumbfounded.
He had thought God-Rank Healing Magic would be a simple incantation, but holy shit, it was an entire book.
A whole book.
The spellbook was as thick as a brick, and every last page was about God-Rank Healing Magic.
Three days.
Learning this book of God-Rank Healing Magic within three days was no easier than making a failing student who sat by the window in the back row get into Tsinghua or Peking University on the final day of a daytime exam pep rally.
According to... what Hitogami had said, if he failed to learn it within three days.
He would die.
Even without Hitogami's reminder, Luo Ge knew his own body better than anyone. It was already nearing, nearing its limit.
Luo Ge could clearly feel his life force draining away through those wounds, little by little.
Even if he did nothing and left them alone, his monstrous constitution would never hold out for three days.
Could I learn God Rank magic within three days?
He had no choice but to give it a shot, ready or not.
After all... this was his only way to survive right now.
"Better get started!"
Luo Ge took a deep breath, opened the book, and began desperately reading and memorizing.
He worked through it word by word, rune by rune, as stubbornly and painfully as though he were chewing iron.
One day passed.
No progress at all.
Two days passed.
Still no progress at all.
After two and a half days, he had memorized most of the book, but understood very little of it.
The exquisite mana control and comprehension of the laws of life that God Rank magic required were simply not things he could master through rote memorization.
Meanwhile, his body's deterioration kept accelerating without pause.
The wound on his thigh had begun to fester, and the fatal puncture wound in his chest had begun to rot.
"I'm going to defeat the evil Dragon God! Aaaah! Let's go!"
Luo Ge roared, but his voice was pitifully hoarse and faint.
Shouting slogans did nothing.
It changed nothing, only wasting what little strength he had left.
Luo Ge collapsed onto the floor, facing upward, gray pages scattered around him.
The white light on the ceiling reflected in his clouded eyes, dimming little by little.
Was I going to die?
As his consciousness blurred, Luo Ge's thoughts began drifting uncontrollably.
He thought of Paul.
His father, who had split a boulder with a single sword stroke in the yard, then smugly waited for praise.
He thought of Zenith.
His mother, who gently stroked his head every morning and reminded him to eat and sleep on time that day, too.
He thought of Rudeus, uh... that older brother of his who listened to the battles next door all day, looking sleazy and lecherous, even drooling.
And Roxy.
From deep within his memories, Roxy's voice suddenly rang clearly in his ears. "Luo Ge... keep at it. Your talent for magic is every bit as good as Rudeus's."
Whenever he slacked off, Roxy always liked to nag him like that.
Luo Ge had never thought much of it before, only finding it a little annoying.
But now he understood.
That was the look in Roxy's eyes when she had high hopes for him, full of expectation.
"Can I do it?"
"You can. Keep at it, Luo Ge!"
It was Roxy's figure encouraging him in his mind.
I really... don't want my teacher to think less of me!
Luo Ge muttered to himself, using the last of his strength to prop up his upper body.
He did not want to die without a sound in this place nobody knew about.
Leaving his corpse to rot and stink.
With nobody there to collect his body in the end.
Roxy's words echoed through his mind again and again-
"Learning magic isn't about rote memorization. It's about understanding..."
Understanding?
Try to understand what's in it, rather than just memorizing it.
Luo Ge closed his eyes and breathed deeply.
Those scattered runes, complex circuits, and abstruse theories began linking together in his mind, like scattered stars connecting one by one.
He suddenly realized something. He had been underestimating his own magical talent all along. Only Roxy had seen this shining quality in him.
In his previous life, he had known only how to memorize and study mechanically. His grades had always ranked among the top three in his year, and he had been the model child other parents talked about throughout his childhood.
Only...
Was he really that good?
He had always known that he relied on rote memorization and was not as outstanding as others thought. Put simply, he knew how things were, but not why.
Traditional educational ideas, notions formed over a long time.
This had also left him less flexible in his approach to learning than Rudeus...
Once he stopped relying on rote memorization and tried to understand the content, everything suddenly became clear.
The entire framework of God-Rank Healing Magic grew clear in his consciousness, like a map lighting up.
In the final moment of his life, Luo Ge, whose flame had yet to burn out, opened his mouth and chanted the incantation with all his strength:
"O breath of the world that nurtures all things-turn back the course of time and reconnect this broken flesh."
"Soothe the scars upon the soul, and let not the flame of life be extinguished."
"Laws of life stretching from antiquity, manifest here-Divine Samsara Healing!"
The incantation was long, taking more than ten minutes to recite. Mana surged from his palms, blanketing his entire body.
An intense breath of life poured into every inch of torn flesh and every broken bone like a warm spring current.
Rotten flesh fell away, wounds closed, gaps in bones knitted together, and internal organs returned to their places.
His injuries healed rapidly at a speed visible to the naked eye. Even his severed arm grew back.
"Ahahahahahahaha... it worked! I actually did it..."
"I'm a fucking genius."
"I mastered it!!!!"
Luo Ge could not help bursting into laughter.
In a word, God-Rank Healing Magic was fucking awesome.
But... the mana it required was simply immense. Even though Luo Ge had trained since childhood, building up a total mana reserve countless times greater than everyone else's combined.
After casting this God-Rank Healing Magic, however, the mana in his body was drained dry at an astonishing speed, like a reservoir with its floodgates thrown open.
The instant his final wound finally healed.
His entire body also... went completely limp like a puppet with its strings cut, his mana exhausted.
Then his vision went black, and he fell heavily to the floor.
But this time, at least, he was smiling.
Thank goodness!
He knew he had survived, salvaging his life from the hands of that terrifying Dragon God.
All of this was thanks to the teachings of the mage Roxy. He was the one who had taught him magic.
It was Roxy.
Who had saved him once again.