37. Teaching Juvia
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A week after Mira and I had sparred, we had finally finished the top two floors of the house.
The uppermost floor would be the training room, and eventually the practical teaching room however Totomaru had stated that he would only start teaching after he retired from guild work.
It was divided in two, similar to how it was originally, but we replaced the concrete wall with a glass one and reinforced the load-bearing beams. The left side was turned into a weightlifting room where I frequented my time, while Totomaru stayed in the right-side dojo where plenty of training dummies, targets, and weapon displays could be found along the walls.
Below that was the library and study room. Unlike the top floor, no walls were separating each half of the room, properly. Instead, the wall was cut right down the middle, removing half of its overall length without removing the load-bearing beams. The two remaining segments were then turned into bookshelves which progressed alongside the rest of the walls. On the floor, there were desks, tables, and chalkboards that had all been covered and seen heavy use through primarily mine but also Juvia's studies.
Renovating the top two floors removed the two master bedrooms, four smaller bedrooms, and two bathrooms. Now we were beginning renovations on the first floor to add in what we've removed, changing it to have one master bedroom, two smaller bedrooms, a guest room, and a bathroom.
The main floor would remain largely untouched throughout it all, except we would be removing the kitchen and living area on the right side, expanding the dining room and kitchen into it and adding an in-house theatre.
The roof, though, would remain my project that Juvia and the neighbours have been helping with. It was entirely flat and the staircases of all the homes would all lead up to it anyway, so we've been building a small greenhouse up there complete with a bonfire, grill, and lounge.
It was pretty common for everyone to go up there now and then for a cookout, but with us changing the floor plan, it got everyone else in the complex into a renovating mood. Over the past few months, a decent pile has been building up on the back end of the housing complex made of old furniture and wood.
But life continues outside of the housing complex.
Totomaru's relationship with Adalina ended pretty early on. They both enjoyed what they had and no hard feelings arose, but with Totomaru disappearing for days to weeks on end it became hard to keep things steady.
They're still friends, with him often taking the time to babysit her kids when she's away or cut down trees for her lumberjacking business, but it won't be going beyond anything casual anytime soon.
My studies have progressed largely uninterrupted. With a bit of help from Mirajane, I've grown a bit more used to using darkness spells and at more powerful levels, the "price" for me helping her get more used to combat in general. One of the things I've been aiming to do with this knowledge is study the element aspect of slayer magic to try and learn something akin to Darkness Devil Slayer magic or an equivalent. However, even with enchanting, this has so far been beyond my grasp due to a majority of my understanding revolving around the flame element which focuses on destruction and heat, not the decay-like chaotic and sinful nature of darkness.
In my black magic studies, I have fully developed the seals for demonic transformation with notable side effects. There are five in total, each unleashing more and more of my demonic state. The plan going forward was to try and study the Law spell, but finding records of its existence was one thing and finding the spell was an entirely different beast.
The blood seal keeps the demonic genes in my body to levels more akin to what they were in my early childhood, leaving me with red blood and almost entirely human. Or at least, as human as Mirajane is.
The bone seal blocks my horns and extra arms from forming, with the name not taking into account the extra muscle growth that comes with my extra appendages.
The flesh seal prevents me from assuming my "natural" demonic state. When unsealed, a black ink-like marking spreads across my appendages with the skin becoming increasingly harder in those spots, almost like porcelain adjacent callouses.
The Vision seal is different from the rest as it can be released separately from the others. It has two different versions, Mind's Eye and Heart's Eye. The Mind's Eye is the third eye that can grow on my forehead and increases my ability to comprehend magic, while the Heart's Eye affects any of my eyes and enables me to see souls as a separate entity from the body.
Finally, the Lord seal keeps the more evolved transformation in check, where the black markings on my limbs harden exponentially and crack, making them look like they are covered in scales that act as a sort of armour. Then my lower body also changes, even more so than when I first took the form. My legs gain an animalistic reptilian bent, I grow a large tail, and whatever magic comes with the form. This, specifically, is what I meant by side effects.
Previously, I could enter this state and only experience the same amount of aggression you would expect to come from someone who takes an obscene amount of steroids. But now, it's a beast that gets pissed off after being caged too long.
It's as if it's becoming a separate entity entirely.
What previously was just heightened aggression has slowly become near-blind fury, an animal lashing out. But that isn't what scares me, instead, it's the black magic I could sense after I had managed to create the Lord seal. Instinctively, I could feel it linking me to the soul of my mother, or at least what remains of it after I've absorbed its strength, and the soul of the demon she devoured.
But it didn't stop there. The link kept stretching and stretching, with an almost unfathomable distance towards whatever soul was the source of the black magic.
I couldn't even begin to comprehend what the magic was or its purpose, and that unnerved me.
The only things I could discern were that whoever the overlord was that acted as the progenitor of the fire demons wasn't the first overlord, and whoever was on the other end of that connection stared back at me when I tried to find them…
Still, while I was doing a bit of self-exploration, Juvia had been exploring on her own. She had grown more confident in her magic abilities, even if she still had yet to fully control whether or not it rained around her.
If she wasn't only twelve years old, I'd be confident in letting her go on missions alone. She has grown to have the magical aptitude of someone beyond her years but is still as socially aware as a newborn bulldog.
One of the things I've been helping her train was her water body spell and the ways she may utilise it. Spoiler alert, a hurricane of concentrated high-speed boiling water is just as bad if not worse than a fire tornado. At least I leave the tornado form to kick someone, she just traps people inside of her and…
Well, let's just say some spells we created together should probably be outlawed.
But, lessons like that weren't the only things I was trying to teach her.
The two of us were sitting in the library, Juvia in particular trying to comprehend the subject of the book in front of her.
"Juvia doesn't understand. Lyssa uses healing magic, but this book says healing magic hasn't been seen since the age of dragons…"
And that's the truth.
"Healing magic in its separate category is a Lost Magic. It's powerful, extraordinarily so, and all versions of healing magic seen today that don't come from slayer magic, which in itself is a category of lost magic in all its variations, pales in comparison."
"But I've seen you survive getting stabbed in the throat because of your blue flames. How can it be that drastic of a difference?"
"Because I know my body extremely well, and my Devil Slayer magic gives me a stronger body than most wizards on my level, just like Dragon Slayers, albeit in a different way. I don't get quite the same durability but I do get a stronger internal body, including my immune system and ability to heal myself. I can drink poison and be fine, but my skin can still get as injured as someone with the same magic power as I."
"You say people on the same level as you, and with the same magic power, does it matter that much when an injury is still an injury?"
"Yes, since the magic in our bodies projects a natural protective aura that can counteract an opponent's non-physical spells. Not entirely, mind you. Think of it like trying to shine light through a fog. The denser the fog, the less the light penetrates. This natural protection allows fights to go on longer than they reasonably should, and these confrontations usually end the moment that fog gets penetrated. And it's when this fog gets broken through when the internal body of a wizard gets damaged, that healing magic shows its strength in comparison to what you and I are capable of achieving today."
"Most modern forms of healing magic only act in a way that encourages the victim to heal what the body naturally can. Broken bones, wounds, scars, etc. Those are staples because of how common they are, but things like infection, disease, and poison require additional specifications. For instance, I can clean up some infections, and encourage someone's immune system to fight against disease and illness, but if the infection is too deep-rooted or the disease is beyond the body's capabilities then there isn't anything I can do."
"But healing magic can do these things?"
"And more," I said as I began to point at various copies I had found from centuries-old reports. "Blindness, asthma, cancer, hell even something as common as motion sickness which isn't an actual disease or illness but instead a natural bodily reaction can be treated by proper healing magic according to historical accounts."
The twelve-year-old girl read through the same notes I had pointed at, taking note of the apparent age of the original documentation these were printed-out pictures of. Half of the words were completely illegible or written in what might as well count as another language due to the more than four hundred-year difference in age. If it wasn't for the notes written to the side, I doubt she or anyone else her age would be able to fully understand what they were reading.
"So, how does Juvia learn to use healing magic then?" she asked, her voice a little downtrodden after the apparent revelation.
"Simple, focus on the wounds," I said as I pulled over a scroll that detailed the ways water magic can be used to seal up bleeding wounds while promoting scabbing. "The human body is mostly water, so you can encourage the blood to transport platelets to open wounds faster. In this same vein, you could potentially learn how to guide poison away from the heart and vital organs if you react fast enough, but let's keep it small for now."
I watched as she read through the scroll, re-reading several lines to ensure that she had thoroughly understood the principles written on the parchment.
When it looked like she had reached the end, I stuck my finger in my mouth and bit down as hard as I could. The coppery taste showed me that I had fully punctured my skin and was bleeding, giving her something to test on.
When she looked up she saw my bloodied finger held out in front of her, the occasional droplet of blood falling to the table.
She looked startled, but after I nodded at her with a confident smile on my face she wrapped my finger in a small water bubble.
"Remember, magic is the science of the manifestation of your will," I whispered, trying to encourage her to continue without distracting her. "Picture the tear healing, picture the clot forming under your command and manifest it."
We sat there for several minutes, the little ball of water glowing occasionally but Juvia's focus never wavering. Eventually, the low ethereal blue glow became consistent and the torn skin quickly began to scab over.
I pulled my finger out when the scab was fully set and studied it, taking note of the beginnings of skin knitting under the edges of the scab. I smiled, pride heavy in my voice as I patted her head, "Great job! Just remember to practice on any little cut you get and earn. Every little bit of training helps reach greater results."
"Juvia will! Thank you again, Lyssa!"
"Anytime, droplet. Now, if you excuse me, I have to go get a few cobras while healing is the topic on my mind."
Without explaining further, I made my way down the stairs and made my way to the magic shopping district, aka, the blue light district.
"...What do snakes have to do with healing…?"
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