259 Chapter 259: Fated Meeting II (1/2)
”Let me down!”
Despite her injuries, a punctured lung that caused breathlessness, and almost drowning in her own blood, Lilith Porter was still behaving feistily.
”I will once we are out of their reach,” I assured her.
”Your help is unnecessary,” Lilith told me coldly. ”Even without your assistance, I could have handled them myself.”
That wasn't what I saw, but whatever. Admittedly, her Hellfire Bear was immense and would have wiped the floor with those dudes if that shadowy assassin guy didn't backstab her. Actually, what the hell was she doing, allowing the shadowy assassin to sneak up on her like that? One of the tenets of being a summoner was to never let your guard down even after you completed casting your summoning spell, for that was when your opponent will work even harder to take you down when he realized he couldn't defeat your Soul Beast.
Not that I was going to tell her that, but whatever.
Above, Corvus squawked to inform me that there was no longer any student or monster in the vicinity, and I mentally instructed Pegasus to stop. He did so, and I allowed Lilith to jump down. She staggered for a moment, and then sat down cross-legged at the base of a tree.
”Hmph…well, I suppose I should thank you for saving my life, at least.”
Lilith seemed to want to say that I actually saved her from something else, but the experience was so traumatic and horrifying that she didn't put that into words and instead settled for that choice of words. Arguably, she was about to lose something that might arguably be just important as her life, so it made sense.
”What are you, a tsundere?” I demanded. Lilith flushed and looked away.
”Hey, I at least have some manners, you know? You helped me, and I owe you. I'll definitely repay this debt.”
”No, you don't have to. I chose to help you myself. You don't owe me anything.”
Knowing the clichés and iron-clad laws of web novels, light novels or manga, the repayment of debt often included something as ridiculous as romantic relationships or marriage. I sure as hell didn't want anything to do with that.
Lilith regarded me, annoyed. ”It's not what you're thinking…”
She then erupted into a coughing fit, blood flying from her mouth. Grimacing, she held her chest and tried desperately to stem the wound. With a sigh, she closed her eyes and straightened her posture. I watched as crimson mana began to shroud her body.
”Sorry…I'll have to ask you for another request. I need you to watch over me…ensure nobody attacks me while I try to heal from this injury.”
”Okay.”
I recognized the healing spell that Lilith was attempting to cast as very rudimentary. Hell, it was the same basic healing spell that Dad knew. It wasn't enough to make them a healer-type mage, and was often used to heal very light injuries such as slight burns, shallow cuts, scrapes or bruises. It certainly wasn't enough to heal severe injuries, not unless you did the same thing as Lilith and continuously cast the damned spell for two hours straight.
That was why she requested that I watched over her, to ensure she didn't get assaulted while focusing on recuperating from such a fatal wound. It seemed that she was determined not to lose her blood token and get kicked out of the Spiritual Road…yet.
Too bad I didn't have any healing Constellation spirit. It sucked, but I couldn't summon a healing Constellation spirit just because I imagined it. There were limits to my imagination, so I couldn't just imagine an invincible Constellation spirit and expect it to be invincible when I summoned it. I was also bound to the rules I had established for my constellation theme, so there was no stupid shenanigans such as summoning a tiger and pretending it was Leo, or pretending Corvus was a dragon or drake or such nonsense.
The limits of my magic were also displayed by the fact that I couldn't summon sentient or human-type spirits, which was why all my human constellations were summoned in weapon forms. That was something I could never summon, none of my Soul Beasts could ever be sentient or a human. That was a little sad, but that was how it worked.
Therefore healing magic was out.
This wasn't to say that my system or the rules I had established forbade it completely. If there was a Constellation that had something to do with healing, such as Ophiuchus, for example, then I theoretically should be able to summon a healing spirit. However, I wasn't a Mary Sue protagonist who could master all elements, otherwise I might as well be a god, and everyone would be following my example to become a Versatile Mage capable of casting multiple elements. Most mages focused on a specific element and specialize only in it, often locking themselves to a single attribute, such as fire or ice. Theoretically, people could specialize in multiple elements, but no one could claim to master every single element on earth. That was why elemental mages often didn't know how to cast healing spells, and healing mages weren't very adept at combat magic.
Furthermore, I had already done my very best to learn as many different types of elements as possible. Hell, I barely managed to learn the five different elements for my Celestial Guardians, and for my Constellation magic, I couldn't even do any wind magic. I never bothered to learn spells from the wind element. Five elements were my limit, and I will be honest, my elemental spells were the most basic of basic. I could never learn the intermediate or advanced elemental spells, not unless I one day chose to focus and specialize on one of them. They were powerful, yeah, but that was only because I infused a lot of mana into the basic spells. Even the simplest of spells would possess the power of a nuke if you infuse it with several megatons of mana.
Healing was no different. It was a completely different type of magic from elemental magic, and I had already invested so much time and effort in learning the basic spells of the five elements in order to create my elemental type Constellation spirits to the point that I didn't have the luxury or space to branch out into healing magic and summoning healing spirits. It was like jumping into a new major in the middle of your university years, after you spent two years on your previous major learning computer science, only to suddenly decide that you want to switch to liberal arts after all. You were not going to convert all that previous knowledge of computer science into writing essays for liberal arts. You will have to learn everything, including theory and content and knowledge from scratch. Similarly, healing magic was a whole new branch of magic that was completely different from elemental magic, and diving into it after spending so much time learning elemental and summoning magic was just impractical. Only a Mary Sue would be capable of doing everything and mastering everything while graduating at the top of her classes and becoming the number one mage or whatever while maintaining her super popularity and beautiful looks. I was not a Mary Sue.
In other words, I wouldn't be able to summon a healing Constellation spirit, not unless I decided to spend another few years trying to learn a whole new branch of magic. I would much rather develop the magic I already learned and start on the path of advancing my basic elemental spells toward intermediate and advanced. Right now, the only element I had moved toward advanced was wood magic, which was how my Green Dragon techniques were so…complex. And also the reason why he ended up being my last Celestial Guardian that I summoned (barring Golden Kirin, but that's a whole new subject altogether).
And just like that, two hours passed. As expected, despite the agonizingly slow process, Lilith succeeded in healing her injury. Not fully, but at least she restored herself to the point where she was no longer debilitated by a punctured lung, and her life was certainly no longer in danger. While she did so, I observed her, and was amazed by how beautiful she was. Not that I cared, because as I said, physical appearances meant jack all. That didn't mean I didn't appreciate beauty, especially since I was a normal, healthy guy.