I was about to start using mana when I suddenly realized that this poor creature did not even have a name. It might die because of this experiment, and I was also curious about what effect naming an animal that was not my familiar would have.
So I decided to give the little fellow a name. I lifted it into the air with both hands, then turned its face toward me and began examining it closely. It was skin and bones and did not even have the strength to open its eyes. Many cultures on Earth believed names held power, so people tried to give powerful names to people and things they liked or wanted to possess certain qualities.
"Then I'll do the same for you. Let me think; from now on, your name is Berus."
As soon as I named it, the mana around the puppy began to fluctuate, but it did not enter its body as it had with Im. The mana moved as though a stone had been thrown into water. It spread in waves, but stopped after a few seconds.
This experiment gave me more questions than answers, because had the mana been activated because of me, or was it the same for everyone? Another question was: would casually naming an entity make any difference?
Thousands upon thousands of questions filled my mind, but this was neither the time nor the place to consider them.
The puppy's condition grew more critical. I cradled it in my arms again and gently stroked its neck. I focused all my attention and pushed mana into its body as slowly as possible, but the moment the mana touched it, I felt its entire body contract.
I could not stop now. I knew this would cause it incredible pain, but it had to be done. The mana entered my body first, and once I slowed it down and brought it under control, I used my hands to help push it toward the puppy's body.
It began trembling and screaming uncontrollably, but its screams gradually turned into low whimpers.
A few minutes after I began pushing mana into its body, I noticed something. The mana entered his body, but its body did not absorb it.
Its body seemed to be rejecting the mana. I could not let this continue. If this went on and I kept feeding it more mana, its body would collapse sooner or later. What else could I do...?
Just then, I remembered the Ānogrosa (stop bleeding) spell. It was not exactly a healing spell; it cauterized wounds with intense heat rather than healing them, but at its core, it had to share some similarities with a healing spell.
When I used this spell, the mana entering the body acquired some fire-element properties, but it was not exactly fire. If a fire spell penetrated a body, it would try to burn everything in front of it until its energy and momentum were gone, but this spell did not burn everything. Instead, it remained on the surface and formed a membrane there. So what I needed was an intent like the membrane-forming part of this spell, but instead of forming a membrane, it had to nourish and strengthen the body.
Let's try it. I focused entirely on the mana about to emerge from my hands and began repeating my intent. This time, I had to use my own mana rather than the surrounding mana, because I could not cast spells with the surrounding mana.
Nourish and strengthen the body, nourish and strengthen the body, nourish and strengthen the body, nour... and strengthen the body... and strengthen the body, strengthen...
The spell was almost on the tip of my tongue, but I could not reach it. My mana flowed like water, and the puppy's body could no longer endure it.
I kept pushing myself. It was as though I had forcefully pulled aside a curtain in my mind. It suddenly appeared, clear as a mirror. I gathered all my remaining mana and cried out with all my life.
"MEDENVİTA!!! (Nourish and strengthen the body)." My hands began emitting a green glow, and a warm sensation began enveloping us.
Berus stopped whimpering and began breathing easily. I let out a deep sigh, and just then, I felt a warm liquid in my nose and ears. I put one hand to my nose and the other to an ear to see what had happened.
"Oh, damn! Blood!!" Blood flowed from my nose and ears, and suddenly, a tremendous weakness struck me. Then I passed out.
Something wet kept touching my forehead. It was a very uncomfortable feeling. I really wished I could sleep a little longer, but I suddenly snapped awake and jumped up from where I lay. I had nearly died. I had nearly died trying to heal a damned dog. I would never try to create a new spell again.
From now on, I would only practice and try to understand mana. I had been too arrogant, too reckless. This made me realize that magic was not a toy; it was a damned bomb. At the same time, though, I could not help feeling proud of myself. I had successfully created a healing spell.
"Verify Medenvita (nourish and strengthen the body)."
Medenvita (nourish and strengthen the body): It raises the body's self-healing ability to its limit, but cannot heal it instantly. It can heal minor flesh wounds or boost the body's immune system in time. Tier-three spell; costs 60 mana.
So that was why creating and casting a tier-three spell when I had only just reached tier two had nearly killed me.
"Dad, are you feeling better now?"
"Yes, Bo, I'm fine now. How long was I unconscious?" I had a terrible headache, but aside from that, everything seemed fine.
"Dad fell asleep yesterday at noon and woke up at noon today."
Had I slept for an entire day? I felt that was a small price to pay for what had happened. I began looking around and saw Berus. It was still sleeping where I had left it before passing out, and there was a small wet cloth beside me.
"What's this, Bo?" I showed her the little wet cloth.
"When other people passed out like Dad, I saw a cloth on their foreheads, so I got a cloth, hoping it would wake Dad up." I could not help laughing and began scratching beneath her beak.
Two days had passed since I tried to heal the puppy, but I was still paying for my arrogance.
It seemed I had suffered no permanent physical damage. At first, on the first day, I could not even lift my arms, but after two days, I could walk again. The bad news was that even after two days of rest and meditation, I still could not accumulate mana at my normal rate.
Normally, I could replenish my mana in five to six hours, but now, despite two days having passed, I had only managed to accumulate 25 mana. There was definitely a slight improvement in my mana accumulation, because I had only accumulated 10 mana on the first day, but managed 15 on the second.
I should never take a risk like that again. From now on, when experimenting, I should think things over thousands of times before acting. Berus seemed to be improving every day. It could open its eyes now, and when I brought it food and water today, he had the strength to get up and eat. Counting the time I had spent unconscious after casting the spell, three days had passed for it, so it was normal that it was beginning to recover.
But I felt it was not out of danger yet. Although its body was beginning to grow stronger, I should cast another healing spell on it so it could recover completely.
This healing spell could not actually cure diseases. Berus was still shivering, and his temperature was noticeably higher than the other puppies'. That meant its body was still fighting something. The spell description clearly stated that this was a spell to nourish the body and strengthen the immune system. So it probably needed another booster shot.
... Three days later
It had been almost a week, and I had fully recovered physically. When I woke up this morning, I found that my mana was full, but something was different. My mana capacity had increased by 10, and my maximum mana was now 75.
When I realized I was recovering, I did one to two hours of physical training to ease the stiffness in my body. Then I went to the sparring area and found that the people there were glaring even more fiercely than before.
Rodrik must not have been idle during this time, praising me while whipping the squires through even more hellish training. I could almost feel the punches they were throwing my way. After thinking it over, I decided not to spar today.
In two days, I would face Wayland. I did not want to get injured again during that time.
I decided to do some fitness training rather than more strenuous physical activity, and I also needed to cast a healing spell on Berus today. After another one to two hours of training, I returned to my room.
I was exhausted and planned to rest for four to five hours after casting the spell. If my mana gathering had returned to normal, my mana should be full when I woke up. When I went to check on Berus, it opened its eyes and looked at me, but seemed to want to go straight back to sleep.
Over the past six days, Berus's physical energy and vitality seemed to have diminished, but the short fur covering its body seemed to have regained some color, and its fever was subsiding. I slowly reached toward it and gently placed my hand on its chest.
"Medenvita (nourish and strengthen the body)."
My hand emitted a green glow as it had last time, and a warm sensation enveloped me, but unlike last time, I did not immediately feel a tremendous weakness. The only thing I could count as a side effect was my mana flowing like water. This spell cost me a full 60 mana.
I found this healing spell easier to understand than fire-element spells, perhaps because healing suited a Druid better than burning. I thought this because I could raise my ball spells to tier two in almost every element, but had made no progress with the fireball spell.
It was no longer appropriate to call the tier-two spells ball spells. The earth and ice spells were now shard spells. Earth magic in particular was extremely lethal, just as I had expected. Ice magic was good too.
They each had their own strengths and weaknesses. Ice might be more fragile, but it was cheaper than earth shard magic, costing only 10 mana, while the earth shard spell was sturdier but more expensive, requiring 15 mana.
I no longer needed to think about adding spin. Whenever I cast these two spells, they spun automatically.
The situation was somewhat similar with the lightning and wind elements. I could now use them at long range, but their effects weakened so much that they became a complete waste of mana, so I decided to turn both into close-combat touch spells.
Perhaps because I did not have to spend mana guiding them farther away, or because of their short range, these spells were much cheaper than the others. Both required only five mana.
Finally, I turned my water ball spell into a water jet. Of course, it was not powerful enough to cut metal and even struggled to penetrate high-quality leather armor, but I thought it had great potential.
After creating a water ball, developing this spell had been the easiest. I used all my mana to surround and compress it. Once it could no longer be compressed, I created a small opening in the spell's outer layer in the direction I wanted to send it, and with the help of that pressure, the water sprayed out, cutting almost like a knife.
When I used this spell on a large tree, it could not cut through it, but it shattered the bark and left a large gash in the tree.
I could say that my arrogance was the source of my attempt at healing magic, and the greatest reason for my arrogance was that I had managed to develop these spells two weeks ago.
Yawn.
All that training had taken its toll on me. Now, I wanted to sleep. Tomorrow, I would see whether my mana was full.