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As Veronica tamed her new monster pet, Ervas was inside the Kingdom's Castle, using his newly acquired Skill 'Healing Touch' in Anna and Gaius.
?
Healing Touch was an interesting skill, which could be considered to be a contrast from the Life Drain Skill. Instead of draining life, Ervas granted it through making physical contact with a target.
The amount of 'life' depended a lot on his Mana pool and also on the level of the skill, as of now, it was a simple level 1 skill, so the power he could exert with it was limited for now.
Ervas touched the area where Anna's missing leg should be, it was completely cicatrized as of now, but Ervas was trying to see if he could use Healing Touch to hasten the growth of bone, cartilage, blood vessels, and muscles…
However, it seemed to not be the case.
"Regeneration does hasten even more than before but… it is really complicated to completely regenerate bone, cartilage, blood vessels, muscles, and other things all in order, it is like building a giant puzzle… I never knew that healing could be this complicated" said Ervas, who could easily heal from most wounds that weren't the detachment of limbs through his Rapid Healing skill.
Ervas could now completely heal a person that was burned alive and had almost all of its skin and muscles grilled… but he could not get reconstruct flesh, bones nor an entire limb.
He also tried it with Gaius, but it did not seem to bring too many results.
Although both Anna and Gaius felt incredibly vigorous after being filled with so much Life, they were still not growing new limbs magically.
"I think that it is fine if they don't grow back, boy… we are fine just as we are, the prosthetic limbs have been recently upgrading by me and Veronica, so they're even stronger now, especially now that they're also Cursed Prosthetic Limbs, which can grow stronger alongside us," said Anna.
"That is right, Prince Ervas… I think that we are simply fine with them… even more, I think I have become even stronger with these prosthetic limbs and my use of Phantom Form and Phantom Materialization. If I were to regain my limbs, I would most likely become weaker combat-wise, as there are even some new Jobs regarding my use of such metallic limbs" said Gaius.
Ervas knew deep down that the two were saying the truth, and that by using their prosthetic legs, they might have become even stronger than with their original limbs, as both of them even possessed skills that gave them greater strength or endurance while being equipped with prosthetic limbs.
The System of Kritias adapted to their users and their fighting styles, and most of the time, it would find a way to strengthen them even in such conditions, as long as they can keep getting Experience Points.
However, Ervas still could not help but think that giving them new limbs is what they truly deserved after all they had gone through. He simply couldn't call himself a Healer if he wasn't capable of healing other people's limbs…
"At the very least, I will have to work in learning more of beastmen anatomy and also study surgery… for now I will scan you two," said Ervas.
'He completely ignored us…' thought Anna.
'Prince Ervas is a very stubborn young man… although deep down, I am rooting for him… It would really make me happy to have my limbs back…' thought Gaius.
Although both thought different things, they showed the same expressions outside, sighing and accepting the boy's intentions.
"Sigh… okay…" they said.
Ervas then extended his limbs into phantom threads which he used to enter the bodies of Anna and Gaius and inspect them completely as if a scan.
This made the two feel very awkward, but through the boy's 'Mana Training' and 'Life Treatment', they had gotten used to this feeling for the most part.
After a few minutes of scanning, Ervas used 'Memory Retention' to save up all the 'data' he acquired about their physiology… now he needed to study it in detail while also practicing surgery.
Of course, the practice of surgery could not just be practiced in living beings… so he had other plans in regards to that.
"Thanks for your cooperation you two, I will make sure to see through your total recovery one day," said Ervas with a mild smile… he was way too compromised in helping others to the point of obsession, but Anna and Gaius knew that he was truly a good person, so they did not sweat it for the most part.
"Okay, good luck, Prince Ervas," said Gaius, going outside of the castle.
"I will go see Veronica, for now, I think she went to tame a Rat or something… I can't help but be a bit intrigued" said Anna.
As the two left the large underground room where they were receiving Ervas 'checkup', a large mass of eyes and other body parts pulsating and dwindling around appeared… although it seemed very realistic, it was made entirely out of phantom, a gigantic chimera ghost, Legion.
"Master… the subjects are ready for your experiments," said Legion in a soothing yet eerie and unnerving voice, which was the combination of many voices in one.
"The subjects… very well," said Ervas, walking towards the wall beside him, which opened automatically, as the whole building was a golem.
As the wall opened, it revealed a staircase that led to a dark underground facility which was the recently built 'laboratory' of Ervas and Veronica.
In this laboratory, many monsters were kept in captivity for different types of experiments. This was also a place for the practice of advanced alchemy, potion brewery, and surgery.
Of course, the subjects were not simple monsters that Ervas would disarm and then remake to learn about surgery and how to reassemble body pieces, but these were more advanced this time
Although not living, they were various corpses of humans.
These corpses were those of the human that had been caught in captivity inside of Oggoth's dungeon and were used as reproduction tools, many of them had died inside such dungeons and had stayed rotting in the cells for many days, Veronica's clones retrieved the corpses as she felt that they would be of good use for raising undead or doing other experiments.
Meanwhile, the corpses of beast-people that died were buried properly, as most of the people that survived remembered each person. And also, those that still had their dead spirits floating around were reincarnated as either monsters or undead, most of them choosing to inhabit their former bodies, which were rejuvenated and reinvigorated by Ervas into almost perfect conditions.
Although they were quite a few in numbers, these 'Undead Citizens' were quickly accepted within their original families without many issues, much like Pekoran was.
However, the corpses of humans that no one had connections with. No one cared.
And most of their Dead Spirits were not present either, mostly because their minds were weaker than those of strong beastmen, ending up dissipating or being assimilated by the reincarnation system instead of maintaining their grudge and hate and becoming dead spirits.
There were five tables filled with such corpses, which were mostly rotting a few weeks ago but were completely 'healed' by Ervas Life Attribute Spirit Magic, which he used to convert each corpse into a Live-Dead lacking a soul, only a living corpse that maintained basic functions so it could be preserved.
This could be considered as reviving people in a way, but each time Ervas inserted the soul of someone inside such Live-Dead, the result would always be an Undead and not a true revival. The Undead would feel as if he were alive, but would quickly realize that it stopped aging, that it stopped feeling hunger and most of its senses were rather dulled, or that it now had Ranks and not Jobs like a monster… amongst other things.
Waiting for Ervas were Lilith and her sisters, which were wearing white coats for hygiene… Ervas did the same immediately after getting inside the laboratory, alongside wearing a mask.
"Ervas-sama, everything seems to be ready… shall we begin the experimentations?" asked Lilith.
"Yes, let's build a basic Patchwork Zombie as practice for Surgery, I need to get used to these things…"
Ervas had only been practicing such experiments in monsters, which were greatly different than humans or beastmen, so he was rather nervous about doing this with actual human corpses, which were remarkably close to beastmen physiology.
"Eisheth, bring the surgery tools, Agrat and Naamah, you two bring me the monster body parts that I saved for this occasion," said Ervas.
"Immediately my lord," said Eisheth.
"On it!" said Agrat and Naamah together.
"Lilith helps me out in picking them up…" said Ervas.
"Oh, absolutely, my lord!" said Lilith, bringing many corpses that could be of Ervas 'liking'.
"These are mostly women… Well, pick that head, and that torso, they seem to be intact" said Ervas.
"Very well, my lord," said Lilith, taking the pieces of flesh and bringing them to the table.
Many corpses had some part of their body destroyed or that rotted too fast, becoming impossible to bring back by Ervas magic spells, so the new 'Patchwork Zombie' would use several pieces of different people to be assembled, similarly to Frankenstein.
"I always wanted to build my own patchwork zombie," thought Ervas as he began the construction of a new companion while gaining precious experience in the area of Surgery, which was poorly researched in Kritias.
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