PreCursive

  The m, I gave Grey and Sylvia my goodbyes and watched them walk away together. I had woken up fairly early around the green period, and made my way to the Healer’s tent for my operation, Fade at my heels. The retreating father and daughter had been waiting for me just outside the vas walls of the tent, ready to wish me well on my surgery. After g arms with Grey and exging a hug with Sylvia, to Grey’s raised eyebrow, they had told me that they had work to do with the camp anders.

  I was going to ask them to keep an eye on Fade, but I didn’t get the ce. He had already scampered off to do his own thing like usual. No doubt off to terrorize the local wildlife around Silvercrest.

  Now that they were go was time for me to get on with this. I took a deep breath, held it for a few seds, and the out slowly. When I was done, I turned back to face the Healers tent and brushed aside the fp.

  I retty mellht now. Si was so early in the day, I guess there was o patch up….

  Wait.

  I was going to say scrapes and bruises, but this was a Sculpted camp. Why did they even have a Healers tent? I’d gotten the impression that most Healing magic didn’t typically work on Sculpted. They needed individualized work in order to patch up damage to their bodies. My uanding was that Aurum had been a bit of an outlier by being an actual Healer.

  Giving the tent a closer look, I could see that it was a bit…odd. Sure, there were still plenty of things that I would expect from a Healers tent like cots and curtains, but that was where the simirities ended. Scattered around the tent were a bunch of workmen’s tools and materials. I’d usually expect things like…forceps, scalpels, and bottles of potions. Instead, I saw metal files, carving kongs, and a rge variety of materials ranging from wood to stoo metals arranged on a rge shelf. Hell, even the needle and thread that I’d think were used for stitg wounds were ominously rge.

  That looked more like a textile needle…

  I shook myself out of my odd ta. I was just distrag myself from my nerves about the procedure.

  Still, something else caught my eye.

  Venix.

  He was lying on one of the cots ient, looking like he was sleeping peacefully. I…hadn’t seen him in a while. I was ashamed to say this, but I had fotten about his state while I had been obsessed with repg my arm. Walking up to his reing form, I gazed down at him.

  He looked…fio me? I didn’t see anything wrong with him, even though he was still atose from the battle at Caer Drarrow. It had been weeks now and he was still out.

  I hoped he would be okay.

  I was startled out of my iion of the Antium man by the sound of Honoka’s voice.

  “He’s fiurning around, I saw that the older woman had brushed aside a curtain that led to a seed-off part of the tent. She walked to me and nodded down at Venix. “Had the Preceptor e dowhe other day and take a look at the big oaf, since I ’t do anything with souls. He firmed my suspis about a diminished soul.”

  “But he’s going to be fine?” I asked her, ed.

  Honoka o my relief. “Yeah, he will. But he’s going to be out of it for some time. It could be weeks or months until he’s strong enough to wake up again. But the Preceptor firmed that he’s rec well enough on his own.”

  I sighed in relief. Meanwhile, Honoka jerked a finger over her shoulder the way she came. Following it, I could see aire operating theatre set up in the seed-off space, plete with a raised bed.

  I looked around though, because there was something, or rather someone missing. “Where’s Renauld? I thought he would be assisting. For that matter, what about the actual Healer this tent belongs to?”

  Honoka glowered off into space. “The fox is te. We’re just waiting on him to show up now, and then we get started. As for the Healer,” She rolled her eyes. “Let’s just say, this isn’t her field of expertise. I asked her to clear out for the duration of the operation.”

  Casting a gaze at a nearby hammer covered in stone dust, I nodded in uanding. Yeah, I could see how they might not be able to help.

  Our attention was stolen by the entrao the tent fpping open, and Renauld sauntering in like he owhe pce. He brightened when he saw me, raising a hand iing and opening his mouth.

  He didn’t get a ce to say anything, though.

  Swifter than he could react, Honoka reached him and grabbed one of his furry ears. He yelped as she twisted it and brought him down to her position. “You’re te,” Honoka hissed into it. I ged in sympathy.

  “What do you mean I’m te?” Renauld literally whined. “You just said to be here after sunrise!”

  “It’s at least twenty minutes after sunrise, fool!” Honoka barked, letting go of the Gnoll’s ear. She raised a threatening finger in Renauld’s dire to point at him. He ged away from it. “This is why you didn’t get the internship with Professor Sereni st year! Always te!”

  I smiled slightly at the bypy. It was a little funny seeing someone oher side of Honoka’s haranguing for o calmed my nerves a bit. “I didn’t know you two knew each other.” I’d never seen them i ba the Thorny Reef or on the drive to Silvercrest.

  Renauld eyed Honoka like she was a dangerous beast. “I’m a Healing student at the Academy, so I have to know her. She’s in charge of the department, after all. Even if I’m not a Cultivator, she’s still in charge.”

  Honoka s the Gnoll and lowered her finger. “Damn right, I’m in charge. Go prep yourself at the station I made a ready.” She jerked her head in the dire of the surgery room she had apparently cimed in the Healers tent.

  You know, I was starting to wonder if the Sculpted Healer had been gd to get away from Honoka.

  Renauld did as she said, cirg around Honoka warily to reach the surgery station like she was a rabid beast that could attack him at any moment. Onside, I saw him skitter over to a sink and turn it on with o wary gnce over his furry shoulder.

  Honoka looked away from him dismissively and pinned me with a look. “Now you. You’ll have to lose the shirt, and the pants too. Unless you want them to be ruined with your own blood, after all.”

  Nah, I’d made these myself. I stepped past Honoka into the operating theatre and pulled my shirt off, ung about my partial nudity. I might have arrived on Vereden soft and doughy from a retively cushy life bae, but I’d si on some muscle. Not to be arrogant, but I don’t think I had anything to worry about looks-wise after months of hard travel, bat practice, and actual battle. Plus, I had the sneaking suspi that a Status just made you more attractive in general.

  It was odd to think about it, but I don’t think I’d ever met anyone on Vereden that was ht unattractive. Even old Porous Pete from the Reef hadn’t been ht hideous, despite his unfortunate pockmarks.

  I took off my pants as well, leaving me only in my leather underclothes, and then climbed up on the operating bed. I took a deep breath once I was in pce, while Honoka and Renauld appeared above me, on my left and right respectively. They'd yered white linen robes over themselves, belted at the waist and were wearing long gloves. I guess this was the Vereden equivalent of surgeon's garb.

  “Alright,” Honoka said seriously. “As we talked about, this is how it’s going to go. You’ll use your Skill to numb yourself, and then I’ll open up the stump so it be operated on. Ohat’s done, Renauld will start keeping you stable with a steady stream of healing so you don’t bleed out. Meanwhile, I’ll apply the cap,” She raised the twinned piece of gold and Mithril that Azarus had fed. “And apply the brute force mystical power that you’ll o 'Meld' it to your body and soul. Are you sure that you vert Ki to your needs?”

  I nodded up at Honoka from my reing position. “I am. I may not be very familiar with it, but I won’t have problems. Aetherial Melding seems to have no problem with things like that.”

  “Very well. Don’t worry if this takes a long time,” Honoka reassured me. “I have the staying power to keep whatever you need flowing for more than long enough. Ae his deficies in other areas, the fox is a det enough healer that he won’t have problems either.”

  “Wow. Thank you for the thrilling endorsement, Lady Honoka,” Renauld muttered under his breath. Apparently not quiet enough, as he ged away from the evil eye she shot him.

  Shaking her head, Honoka switched her gaze bae. “Are you ready to begin?”

  I took another deep breath to squash the nerves I could feel in my stomach. At the same time, I activated the abilities of both my middle and my cs. I instantly calmed down from the stranglehold that I py emotions, feeling an unnaturally deep and steady calm roll over me. At the same time, I felt most of my sense of touch fade from my body, with a rolling numb rolling over me. I wasn’t going to be feeling much of anything while I had this active, much less pain.

  I looked up a Honoka’s eyes. “Yes. I’m ready,” I said calmly.

  Honoka studied my pacified state for a moment before nodding. “The’s get this over with,” She said grimly, pig up a nearby surgical scalpel.

  .....................................

  In my artificially rexed state, I didn’t find it difficult to ehe physical portion of the operation. Once Honoka had opened up my stump and pressed the cap onto my bleeding flesh, she visibly trated. From her form roiling waves of vibrant, fming Ki began to flow in waves. With a gesture from her free hand, the Ki began to cascade down towards me, encirg the gold and silver cap. It began to glow, and I could see the gold half of the cap soften slightly. Strangely, it perfectly retained both its shape and its entment, to my senses.

  Still, it was time for my part of the job. I smoothly entered my Melding trand trated on the cap, ign the veritable bonfire of Ki that Honistered as to my senses. Fog my will to a razor-sharp edge, I urged the flesh of my arm and gold of the cap to bee one. While I’d ried this before, I was strangely fident that it ossible. At first, both my bleeding flesh and the shining gold were resistant to my demands. But gradually, I could feel it as they began to melt into each other.

  Good.

  On the inside of the cap, I did the same thing. I urged the two protrusions that Azarus had smithed on the inside of the cap to meld with what was left of my radius and ulna. The MIthril of the bones reached out, and much more easily than the flesh, twinned around and infiltrated the bone. I felt it as the bone was reinforced with the metal that Sylvia was made from.

  I had no way of knowing how long that had taken, but I was essentially finished with the physical portion of the operation. My stump now ended in a gold and silver fttened cap, with several slots set in its surface. The metal actually didn’t end at just the stump, either. I’d found a o snake several tendrils of gold up around my elbow to support it, leading to a sort of spiraling pattern to form. Due to the melding process, it didn't harden arict the crucial joint. Instead, it became oh the flesh, moving as oh the skin it had fused to.

  All that was needed for the physical portion of the operation now was some more healing from Renauld and Honoka. I had lost a not insignifit amount of blood from the whole process, even if Renauld had been supp me.

  However, now the easy part was done.

  It was time for the hard part.

  I fell deeper into my melding trance, closing my eyes. Deeper and deeper and deeper. Until I was resonating with the pulse of Vereden itself.

  In and out.

  In.

  And.

  Out.

  After a time, I opened my eyes.

  Just like with Sylvia, I found myself in the middle of a dark void. Floating in the middle of that void was what could only be my own soul.

  It wasn’t quite as beautiful as hers had been.

  While Sylvia’s had maed as a brilliant orb of silver light, mine appeared to be a tree, hanging in space with its roots exposed. A decidedly odd-looking tree, at that. T in the ter of the void, it looked to be wrought from the same diffusion of rainbow fire as The Stilnt Bde. But the tree itself wasn’t burning. Rather, it was somehow a crystallized fme, f tless branches sp bded leaves that tinkled oddly in the void from an unseen wind. Snaking all up and down its prismatic bark and curling around its branches were familiar thorny red vines, so simir in appearao those used by my Skills.

  Despite the glow from the frozen fmes, it was an almost ominous sight.

  Still, I’d sighted what I knew I needed. One of the branches of the tree had been cut off, leaving a sheered and splintered end. Here in this space where I could view my own soul, I somehow khat this resentation of my own arm.

  Well, time to fix that.

  I reached out, and ected a strand of the Aether that was so thick arouo that splintered branch. Deep inside myself, I felt something almost tingle. Slowly, I shat strand of Aether out into the void, searg for the golden resonance I knew I would find.

  e.

  Golden light fred ieo what I was going to call my Soulspace. I shielded my spectral eyes briefly with my one arm before l it. I smiled at what I found.

  A gold and silver cap, resting on the end of the tree branch that had previously been broken before.

  It had worked.

  My job here was done.

  Slowly, I started drawing myself out of my deep Melding trance. I was used to this part at least, so it wasn’t very difficult for me by this point. Before long, I was blinking open my eyes. Looking around, I could tell that I had been under for some time, based on the light streaming into the tent. It looked to be midday by now, and I didn’t initially see either Honoka or Renauld. They must have left due to the amount of time it must have takeo do the soul grafting. I stood up from the operating bench, finding that a thin b had been c me. It looked like I had been ed up, as well. I didn’t see any traces of all the blood I had lost on my body.

  My movement must have made enough o alert someone, as I heard a person rapidly approag the closed curtain of the operating theatre. Whoever it was ya open almost excitedly. I watched calmly as a female Sculpted, made of what looked to be pure white limestone and dressed in a robe in the colors of the Uprising revealed herself. She blinked rapidly in surprise at my upright form.

  “U-um,” She stuttered.

  I ignored her for a moment, looking around. After a moment, I flicked my gaze over to the obvious Healer. “Did a dwarven man drop off a gold and silver arm while I was out?”

  “W-what?” The Healer stuttered. “Oh! Um. Y-yes, one moment.” She scurried away for a moment, only to return with what I was so eagerly awaiting.

  Well. As eager as I was for anything, in this still numb state.

  Cradled in the Sculpted woman’s hands was what Azarus had promised me. Expertly fed and intricately detailed, what y in her hands was my new arm. Primarily gold with occasional visible Mithril i, it looked perfect. I took it from her and held its Mithril end to the corresponding Mithril y arm. I slotted it in and twisted.

  My arm clicked into the proper position.

  A bolt of electricity shot down my spine.

  Despite my numbness, I felt it as a smile grow on my face.

  Slowly, I held the gold and silver arm up, palm fag me and…

  Wiggled my new fingers.

  plete success.