A Scholarly Week (11)

All around Cyrus, well a few seats over to be specific, were students trying their hardest to do what was asked of them.

"While this is nothing new, the diagram on the wall is most interesting indeed. I had theorized that such pathways existed and planned to map it out myself, but lo and behold here it is already done. I should commit this to memory as well as I can, but I would prefer to have my own copy of this. Alas, my artistic talent is completely and utterly lacking. Maybe I can buy a copy with Fidem if I ask Cilla or if I look in the Fidem purchasing book" thought Cyrus as he studied the diagram on the wall at the head of the lecture hall.

Being unable to replicate it by hand, he instead opted to look upon a section of the body and try to memorize each individual part and its relation to the other parts. He then closed his eyes and tried to recreate the imagine visually in his mind, then checked the real thing to see how accurate this was.

"This is essentially just another form of memorization, just like what I did with the cards in Professor Caligo's class."

When he was confident enough of his level of memorization, he would activate his Vita domain and follow it along the path that his memory told him. He did so as slow as he possibly could, as his will was not full due to his participation in Caligo's class so he did not have the luxury to simply barrel forward recklessly and heal any damage that was done.

"Doing this slowly is actually making me somewhat dizzy, the inside of the human body is so complex to navigate even with the guide of the diagram. Before I just randomly chose a direction and went all in, dealing with any problems afterwards. Now it is like slowly walking through a maze, whereas before I knocked down the walls in my path, now I have to navigate it fully."

While he was as careful as he could possibly be, some of the students in the distance were not so careful or perhaps it was just an honest mistake. During the moment that Cyrus was analyzing the diagram on the wall such a honest mistake was made: The student a few seats in front of him took a wrong path when navigating his bone structure and ended up crashing through a wall of the maze and enter a blood vessel. The amount of life essence he was threading through his body was far greater than what the vessel could hold, as the bone path was extremely inefficient so the amount inputted was ten times or so as great, thus it started a chain reaction of bursting vessels one after the other.

All Cyrus saw was a burst of blood erupt from the pressure that was suddenly applied into the forearm of the student in question, but before he even registered what was happening Cilla immediately pointed at the injured student causing every wound he had sustained to be repaired instantly.

The blood that had left the arm was another thing, and it rose a foot into the air and fell back down onto the table where the student was sitting.

The commotion drew more than just a few eyes, interrupting the practicing of many students as a ripple effect occurred causing the concentration of more and more students to break and thus injuries were sustained and spread around like a deadly plague.

"I suppose this counts as an extra lesson of sorts" began Cilla as she sighed and outstretched both her arms forward, controlling a vast amount of essence and compressing it into one small orb.

Every student that was paying attention with their sense would see what could only be described as a small miniature sun, of which with a whistle from Cilla caused dozens of tentacle like tendrils to erupt from the ball connecting to each student that was suffering injuries. Like feeding a man dying of thirst unable to swallow with a tube down his throat, each student was healed completely by the essence that was piped through these tendrils as it was delicately and expertly threaded into each student's own natural life force.

"Such control, what superb skill. Multi casting while using sense to operate on multiple patients all at once, a masterful healer who can do the work of a dozen lesser all alone" thought Cyrus in awe.

Within moments the 'plague' had been ceased almost as quick as it had begun, with each student either realizing their error and self-correcting or having been set straight by Cilla.

"When on the battlefield or in a sudden surprise situation you cannot expect to have the luxury of having an environment free of distractions. In the former situation you will find nothing but pure chaos wherever you look and with the second everything will come down to training, conditioning, reflexes and accuracy where your entire life will be culminated into that single second to decide whether you live or die. Even if you master a spell in a place with the luxury of peace and quiet, that same spell might fail when put to a real test" lectured Cilla.

"Think of it like this: With every spell you must first understand the theory behind it, such as threading life essence through the body to connect to naturally occurring life force. Then you master it in a controlled setting, then one last time in a situation of complete chaos and disorder. Only then could it be said that you have actually completely learned the spell."

Looking at each and every student to see if they had understood her words, she then finished up by saying,

"Now, back to practicing. The goal is to at least get one arm done by today, but if you are capable enough to you can go above and beyond. Its not every day that you get someone of my caliber to watch over you."

Having finished his best attempts at memorization, Cyrus heard this last line and came up with an idea. Raising his hand, the required gesture for getting the attention of a professor as written down in the book of rules and regulations, he got the attention of Cilla.

"Yes Cyrus?" asked Cilla, whilst also revealing that she knew him by name.

"So any damage sustained will be healed by you, no matter the level done?"

Cilla eyes widened a bit before laughing, maybe just a bit too much, but she quickly explained after the sudden fit had passed.

"Sorry about that, the way you said that was almost exactly the same as a close friend of mine when he asked me a similar question. To answer your question, yes, so long as I have the will capacity for the next hour and a half you are free to do what you wish."

Cyrus nodded in acknowledgement, as he planned out what he wanted to do.

"I will not try for this mythical hidden pathway, I do not wish to test the limits of Professor Cilla's magical might when my life is weighed against it. Especially given the fact that she still has an entire class to look over, so lets just work on the small stuff" thought Cyrus.

Cyrus then began threading the life essence into his body, not going for any simple bones or the blood vessels and muscles that he had mastered before, but instead brute forcing his way right down uncharted territory.

Immediately, as one might expect from such a reckless action, his entire left arm exploded in such a fashion that the uninformed could easily be convinced that he had hidden several explosive bottles within his arm.

"Ah, I had expected this" said Cilla, reminiscing in nostalgic memories as she healed Cyrus.

The moment his arm was healed, however, it exploded in the same fashion a single heartbeat later except this time the epicenter of the explosion was a little further along the arm than last time.

This continued again and again, causing the entire left side of Cyrus' desk to be covered in blood and gore. The students who were close enough to see such a sight shrunk back in their chairs in terror and fright.

"What a monster…"

"Does he not even feel pain?"

"He is not human…"

Were some of the whispers that were being slowly passed around from person to person, which may sound harsh but it was surely not helped by the look of fascination that was on the face of Cyrus.

It was not that he did not feel any pain or that he did not have any inhibitions about causing his limbs to implode again and again, it was just that he had suffered far worse in the past and had long learned to ignore such 'trifling' things. Not only that, but his entire being was unilaterally focused on the progress he was making and the spell he was perfecting.

Upon his face, deep within the recesses of the window to the soul that were his eyes, a streak of madness and obsession would have been noticed by a careful observer who was well versed in reading people. Perhaps it was this that was truly responsible for the insane actions that Cyrus was undergoing, so insane that even Cilla who had a dear friend was a little visibly surprised but nevertheless she was entirely focused on healing the students she was responsible for.

No one in the outside world noticed.

Not Cyrus himself,

Nor the students around him

Or the professor responsible for guiding them all.

Indeed, no one in the outside world noticed a single thing.