Tale Of A Berserk Healer

"Hey... Ry? What are you doing?"

Ry froze at the sound of Liv stirring, and began to sweat a little when she asked him that question blearily.

"Just... cleaning up?" Ryth asked, almost like a question, just hoping he wouldn't get into shit for whatever was going on. This damn black gunk took a lot to purify okay!

(I've been constantly regenerating mana, and throwing it at this crap for the last... god looking at the sun's shadow has it really been near an hour?)

Ryth bitterly looked down, at his body still covered in it all.

His face, ears, neck and right shoulder were clear of it now, leaving his head free.

The last digit on each finger was also free, as he'd first pushed the magic from his hands onto his head.

But then he'd remembered the sensation of the sunlight... it had moved through veins and channels, all throughout his body, and he'd noticed that a lot went to his hands, feet, and head.

In other words, the largest spiritual veins led to his limbs and extremities, while they built a network throughout him.

So he tried pushing the mana through other parts of his body, and found it interesting.

It was more difficult to purify his face from his face than his hands, because the energy felt unsteady, and drifted apart easily.

So he focused on refining control to hold it together, denser and denser, and wielded it like a scalpel to burn away the black goo.

Then he would purposely let it drift apart into mist, but still hold it all together{which is actually REALLY DIFFICULT}, so he could feel wherever toxins remained.

(When did I stop being a healer and become a cleaner?)

And now he had a semi-formed core in his c.h.e.s.t, sharing space with his heart.

(Does that make my heart the core, or the core simply takes that position as something symbolic...?)

"Ry?"

(Shit! Liv still hasn't quite seen me, but she's clearing up!)

"It's okay Liv, go back to bed." Ryth quickly have that response with a pained smile on his face.

(Please go back to sleep, please go back to sleep, please-)

"Mmm... okay... brrrhhh..."

After a few more mumbles Liv stopped moving and Ryth let out a heavy breath. "Phew... that was unnerving."

He forged on with his purifying, but got up while doing so, nearly losing hold of his spellcraft for a second as he lost focus.

(Wow, it is hard to move around while using magic... no wonder mages are forced to stand still instead of spellslinging on the fly.)

He slowly took it step by step, trying to split between walking and purifying with a lot of difficulty, before walking out to the yard once more, and going to the corner to the old well.

He pulled off the cover and a smell of... something old and wet came out.

(You might no longer be drinkable, but you are washable! I think. Better than this crap!)

Ryth pauses for a second. (Actually... why didn't I do this in the first place?)

Right as he pulled up the bucket full of water, he realized: he didn't know where to put the black ooze.

It was made up of toxins, so no washing it off onto the ground to poison the garden.

Can't put poison water into the well as that will deep into the garden anyways, and potentially poison other water sources.

"...I got it!"

Ryth walked back inside, and knowing he couldn't do a finely controlled spell, just chose to burn away the energy he gathered while walking to not waste it.

It would still work, it was just less efficient.

Like how concentrated heat melts ice faster than taking a lower heat and spreading it around the ice rather than focused directly on one part of it at a time.

Finally Ryth stood in the yard, surrounded by stone walls shielding him from sight, with a well, a bucket and rope for said well, and a large basin to put the black sludge into afterwards.

(Yes! I'm a genius!)

Laughing at his flight of fancy, Ryth stripped down and stepped into the basin, before dumping water on himself to soak away some sludge.

Instantly the water was black with filth, even though he barely noticed a difference in himself.

(Wow. This... wow. How hard to clean is this crap?)

~ ~ ~

"I am a f.u.c.k.i.n.g idiot."

Ryth facepalmed himself. (Really? It's that simple?)

The problem was easy really. Black sludge sticks onto you really well.

Eventually Ryth began looking into where it really even came from.

Pushing his healing mana throughout him, there were some signs of malnutrition{which REALLY should have been worse, if he thought about it}, but no toxins like he'd felt from that pure sunlight.

Also his mana looked... brighter. When he let it gather above his palm it naturally formed into a ball of golden light, but it seemed less yellow than before and more... shiny...?

After all that power originated from the Arcane source of Light, the Sun. When released into a natural state, it will either dissipate or return to the shape of its origin: a ball of light.

Eventually he tracked through to find an obvious thing: the ooze came from his pores.

The reason it was stuck so well was because it still was in his pores, and that acted like an anchor.

But if he used his magic very precisely, only burning away what was in the pores...

It fell off practically all on its own.

And because it was so small in the pores, it took very little mana, so he could actually keep it going!

This of course upset Ryth he hasn't thought of it sooner... leading to his outburst and facepalm.

Finally clean, Ryth put on some clean clothes, and got to work purifying his old ones quickly.

Finally the sun was decently in the sky, he could hear his father in his shop attached to the house getting to work with his apprentice who lived a few streets away, and the city was awake and moving.

"Alright..." Ryth kneeled down next to the basin of toxic water

"Time to experiment!"