Breaking the hex

Having completed the necessary post-delivery care of the child, Tracy now had a calm state of mind to think of ways to save the infant.

Tracy did not know any resuscitation spells that could help establish normal breathing, heart rate, and cell activity in the newborn infant. Such spells were only known to the midwives of the Church of Life, and experienced medics in military hospitals.

First, she tried to keep the child warm by wrapping him in a new cotton receiving-towel. She then cast a light-healing-spells to stimulate the cell activity in the child's lower chest. 

Tracy could deduce that the child was hypoxemic. The child's skin was abnormally pale. Thus, she needed to find a way to improve the child's heart and lung activity to increase oxygen in the child's tissues and blood. If successful, this would buy her some time to save the child.

But Tracy's thought process was interrupted by Vivian's voice.

"Tracy! How is my child? … Is he a boy or a girl? …Why are you very quiet? … Is there something wrong with the child?" She heard Vivian voice, her words at the pace of a machine gun. Her cranky voice projected a sense of worry and urgency.

Taking a deep breath, Tracy thought of how to express her words. She then used the most soothing voice she could muster to calm Vivian's agitated mood.

"It's a boy… But Vivian you have to listen to me carefully. I know that you have had a tough past few months. ...But what matters is that you are alive… And your child is alive with only some slight problems."

"Tracy! … What is wrong with my child? …Didn't you say the child was okay when you checked her life signature earlier today?" Vivian replied, her voice rising a crescendo.

"Please… Let me hold my baby… I need to hold him. … Mother Gaia! God of life Phanes! Please let him be okay." She cried, reaching out to receive the child from Tracy's hands.

"Vivian! Please calm down. And please let me finish. These few minutes are very critical if we are to save the child's life. So, can you listen for a few seconds?" Vivian replied. Time was precious, so Tracy spoke in a comforting but commanding tone. She wanted to move on with the eminent task of saving the baby's life.

"The baby boy is alive and barely holding on to his life. We need to first expel the dark energy within his diaphragm and lungs… As long as we expel this energy, his breathing should normalize..."

"I didn't tell the members of the Rafaela family that you were expecting to give birth today. This was because I wanted to avoid attracting unnecessary attention..."

"If the head of the Rafaela household was to find out about our circumstances, it would lead to complications. So, we have to take care of this ourselves." Tracy spoke to Vivian, who had now regained a bit of her calm.

[She took the news better than I expected.] Tracy thought, her mind formulating the next steps of the baby's treatment while putting the unconscious infant into the waiting arms of Vivian.

"Since I will be extracting the dark energy from the baby, I need you to keep casting the recovery spell on the baby to increase the baby's chances of healing. Although you have lost your memories, I am sure that you can handle it. It was one of your signature-spells back in the Red-Sky Island Academy…" Tracy quickly started explaining the next steps of her plan…

Tracy had wanted to describe the basic knowledge of casting the healing spell, but her tone broke off when she realized that Vivian was already enveloping the young infant in a bright green halo of light.

More green particles could be seen coming from the surroundings and plunging silently into the emerald halo, with its appearance changing into a vapor-like light-green substance.

[The scale of this spell is at the very least rank-3. The silent casting of a rank-3 spell… and borrowing world energy! … Is Vivian already at the level of a Mystic-Queen?] Tracy was a bit surprised and couldn't help but look at Vivian expectantly.

"Did you recover your memories? And how were you able to quickly visualize the spell?" She asked.

"No… I still don't remember anything before three months ago. I just thought of wanting to heal my baby, and this is what happened. It is just like a reflex. So, I don't understand and remember anything about this visualization you are talking about." Vivian answered in a detached tone.

Tracy was unsatisfied with the answer, but she quickly refocused and begun thinking about the next steps.

[The rank-3 healing spell will easily expel the dark energy from the baby's organs. I don't need to do anything at the moment.] She felt some relaxation for the first time in two days.

Tracy then took out 5 silver-colored metal-plates from her backpack. The metal-plates were in a rectangular brick shape, their shiny-silver surfaces engraved with several symbols - with the most prominent being the pupilless-eyes that formed depressions at the centers of their exposed surfaces.

These were the rank-3 runic-plates used for setting up a concealment formation. The formation could isolate the place from the prying eyes that might be around the Rafaela Mansion.

She quickly activated the runic-plates using some green-tier mana crystals and then arranged them around Vivian's bed in a pentagon formation. After double-checking the positions of the five plates, she chanted a few mystic words and a dark-greenish halo of light appeared enclosing the space around them.

"This is a rank-3 formation to musk the energy signatures of your rank-3 healing spell. We can't risk alerting others about our situation." Tracy explained to Vivian, who was still immersed in healing the young child.

"But this formation also bars world energy from freely flowing into this room. So, you need to make use of these green-tourmaline mana-crystals. They rank among the mana-crystals with the highest amount of life energy." Tracy added and handed out 10 dark-green crystals to Vivian.

Vivian nodded signifying her intent. She then received the crystals, and by reflex, started extracting the life-energy to fuel her healing spell. A large number of the crystals were quickly depleted by the healing spell. Tracy had to take out dozens more of the green-tourmaline crystals to support Vivian's spell.

Tracy while handing out additional crystals for the third time became concerned by the spells consumption. The healing spell was consuming a large portion of mana-crystals which were at the green-tier. These high tired green mana-crystals could easily push a healer-type mystic's breakthrough into the 'scholar-realm'. But here, they were being used to sustain a single spell … 

[For Gaia's sake… what is going on?] Tracy wondered while closely observing the silhouette of the infant now covered by the healing spell. She could sense a large amount of mana being extracted by Vivian's spell from the green-tiered crystals. All this mana was being fed into the infant as 'life' and 'soul' energy.

[Was the curse's strength so great that it required such a vast amount of life and soul energy to negate?] Tracy pondered trying to figure out what was happening.

"Tracy… The baby is beginning to make some slight movement… hahaha… Tracy! I swear I felt his arm move… he's about to wake up." Vivian's voice which had now regained some vibrancy interrupted Tracy's thoughts.

Although Tracy was still astonished by the massive amounts of life and soul energy being consumed by the spell, she quickly cast that to the back of her mind after hearing the renewed vigor in Vivian's voice.

"Thank you, Mother Gaia, for your blessings… Thank you for giving hope to my friend… And thank you God - Phanes for giving life to this young one." Tracy quickly mumbled a simple prayer and then sat by Vivian's side.

"Calm down! You have to maintain the flow of life energy into the spell. A little bit more and the baby should be able to wake up. Don't stop until you hear a baby's cry." Tracy replied in a soothing voice while gently smoothing Vivian's disheveled hair with her hands.

"Tracy! I can feel the baby's movements! But why isn't he crying? … You keep emphasizing that I need to keep the spell going until I hear him cry. Are all babies supposed to cry when they leave their mother's womb?" Vivian replied without masking the confusion that was clear as day in her eyes.

[!!.. ??] Those were Tracy's thoughts at that moment.

****

Within the light green halo of the healing spell, a silhouette of an infant could be seen making some slight movements.

The silhouette was consuming world energy at a very fast rate - that is at least much more than what a young child could handle.

Every breath the infant took seemed to consume a fraction of the mana that pervaded the whole area. … And then when he exhaled, he would expel a bit of a gloomy and grayish type of energy.

The two types of energies seemed to be locked in a struggle for supremacy within the infant's body. But the gray energy was on the losing end - gradually thinning out with every passing moment.

Although most of the dark energy was gradually expelled, a small amount of concentrated dark energy lingered deeply hidden within the abdominal area of the infant. It just silently persisted in one of the infant's tissues. Even on close examination, it looked no different from a common birthmark.

On the bright side, the struggle that had been going on for a bit more than 10 minutes, had gradually come to an end.

The infant started to make some jumbled movements. At one moment he seemed to slightly lift his leg, and at another, he could slightly move his arms. His body movements were not uniform and without any pattern.

His skin was no longer pale, but a healthy light-brown tone that would put any beautiful maiden to shame.

The baby's eyebrows trembled slightly to signify that he was about to wake up.

… And that was how Nikolai was delivered into the Mystic World of Gaia.

****