Chapter 5 - Part 3 of 3 (Patreon)

“Doesn’t look the most appealing,” Erik smiled weakly as he walked to the bed in the middle of the room.

“I’ve seen worse,” Jen shrugged.

“Not the young impressionable lady running around with notes falling all over the place anymore,” Erik remembered the first time he had met Jen, filled with her questions.

“Had to grow up a little, still have plenty of questions,” She smiled and helped Erik take off the white gown.

Melissa finished talking to another healer and walked over.

“Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be,” Erik laid down on the bed, he grimaced as his broken skin came into contact with the bed.

Medics who were waiting moved in, they wiped on Wraith’s Touch, numbing him, as they used their fingers to place IO bands.

The bands adhered to the skin and the drill head dug through the skin, muscle and into the bone.

The caps on the back of the drilled in needles were connected to drip lines.

Sensing bands were put on Erik’s right arm.

“These are new formations, they will detect your overall stamina and health,” Jen explained, pointing to what looked like an EKG machine, but showed two bars; one red, the other green. The red was at around seventy percent and the Stamina around thirty percent.

The IV lines hung from the ceiling, a ring light shining down on Erik. The lines went to medics that were away from the bed. Around the bed, amplification formations were activated.

Medics stepped up on the platforms.

“Increase stamina flow,” Jen called out as she cleaned her hands and gowned up.

Erik felt energy coursing through his body as he let out a sigh, feeling more awake than he’d felt in days.

The bar on the screen reached fifty percent as Jen stepped near the bed, all of the other healers had been cleaned and were wearing sanitized clothing.

“Connect the spikes.”

She and the other medics took out mana channeling lines and hooked them onto the end of the metal attribute spikes, trying to be as gentle as possible.

“Okay, Erik this is the part when you take a nap,” Jen said.

“See you in a bit,” Erik smiled.

An alchemist put a mask on Erik’s face.

“Breathe deep and count down from ten.”

“Ten,” Erik breathed in deeply twice getting to six as he found it hard to keep his eyes open.

***

Jen listened as Erik got to three and slumped. She looked at the alchemist who put the straps around Erik’s head and adjusted the out-flow of powder through the breathing device into Erik’s face.

“He’s asleep,” The alchemist confirmed.

“Very well, lets not fuck this up,” Jen looked at everyone in the room severely. This was Erik West, their leader and their benefactor. She wouldn’t tolerate any mistakes.

“Lets get his stamina up. I don’t want it to drop below seventy percent. He has a high ability to heal himself as long as he has the right resources. Lets turn up the healing formation to forty percent.”

Jen waited for things to stabilize out. Melissa Bouchard is great on the theoretical side of things, turning information into procedures, though she hasn’t had the training or time in the Ten Realms. All of my people have worked day and night healing and fixing all kinds of issues. The Alva Healing House across the different realms has given them the practical knowledge they need.

“Okay, we’re ready Miss Bouchard.”

“First, we will increase the power of the spikes. That will introduce more of the metal element into his body. Once he can handle that, then we will start to inject the metal element water from the lightning pool above through the spikes.”

“Increase power by five percent,” Jen said.

She watched as Erik’s stamina, which had reached eighty three percent, slumped.

“Increase stamina, up healing formation by five percent.”

Erik’s stamina continued to fall at a decreased rate.

“Ten percent on healing formation.”

The stamina bleed slowed and came to a halt, then started to raise again. It had reached sixty five percent at its lowest.

Jen used an organic scan on Erik, looking through his body.

“Healing formation up ten percent, five percent increase on the spikes,” Jen said after a few minutes.

She watched the Metal attribute poisoning, destroying Erik’s body, the healing power fighting back, recovering some of it.

Time passed slowly. The further they went, the less it mattered what Erik’s body did, only the formations, the concoctions and healing spells were supporting Erik.

He’s overextended as hell. I don’t like it. There has to be something else, we’ve pushed so far already. We’re tempering most of his body and then are letting it temper the rest. Jen frowned, and closed her eyes, recalling what she had read on inoculations and vaccines. What if we focus our efforts in one place; heal just one section of Erik’s body, just his blood, or just his bones. Shouldn’t that information then pass through the rest of his body and his body will figure out how to fight the Metal attribute mana? Tempering the body is taking on characteristics of the attribute, bending it to your will and being immune to it.

“Dial down the spike’s power. Do we have blood repairing formations?”

“Yes,” One of the minders said, moving to a row of medical equipment.

“What are you doing?” Melissa Bouchard asked, confused.

“We are only supporting his life right now on our abilities and gear. What I’m thinking is tempering one part of Erik’s body; say, take out his blood, purify it and circulate it back into his body. At the same time, we heal his bones specifically. What I’m thinking is that we teach Erik’s body to fight it in a concentrated way. Not temper his entire body with metal, but just his blood. Then let it temper and teach the rest of his body. We can do it ourselves, but there is a huge risk to Erik’s life,” Jen said as people were getting the right formations gathered.

Melissa looked at Jen and then Erik, biting her lower lip.

“That should work. It is why we were tempering the rest of his body before his neck up.”

“I’ll need an IV kit that we’ll need to loop into the blood purification and repairing unit and then back through another IV. Get me bone healing focused healing formations,” Jen said to her people.

They quickly assembled the gear. Jen watched two new IV lines get inserted into Erik’s arm.

His blood was drawn out, red and mercury, routed through the new machine, where the blood was blasted with healing spells. Cells were repaired and because it wasn’t in Erik’s body, the stamina draw on him was minimal. The blood was then circulated back into Erik’s body.

Bone healing formations were activated on Erik’s body.

The formations hummed with power as Jen watched the stamina levels and the color of the blood.

The mercury blood started to run redder, looking coppery.

“Increase the power of the bone healing formations. Keep up with his stamina,” Jen said.

Erik was starting to recover his stamina quicker, meaning that his body was requiring less of it to just sustain his life.

It went on for hours but the results were clear.

“Well, Miss Jen, your method is showing results. Now we just need to temper his blood, then on to the rest of his body,” Melissa Bouchard praised.

“I wouldn’t have thought about it if I didn’t have the information from Earth. I’m just taking the process you planned out and spreading it to the entire body and taking it down to a smaller level.”

“Its brilliant, well done!” Bouchard smiled.

Jen bowed her head, inwardly relieved. She didn’t want to get into a fight with the other lady, she respected her. Though she was here to do the best for her patient, so she couldn’t care about stepping on people’s toes in the moment.

Alright Erik, we’ll give you a helping hand, but this is on you. Jen looked at the coppery blood that was becoming more viscous, filled with dense energy.