Chapter 48: Healer Mage
A flicker of thankful surprise flashed across Diya’s face, as if she was thoroughly grateful that Uhtred had not decided to ask what exactly she had been looking for around his face even though she knew he saw her.
She cleared her throat, replying with a steady voice. "Just a few hours at most. It was just sunrise about an hour or two ago... essentially, you only slept through the night and woke up a bit late..."
"Oh?" Uhtred muttered in surprise. He took another good look at his body, feeling his injuries again.
The amount of damage he had taken from the battle with the Neanderthal should have left him with terrible body pains the moment he woke up if the amount of time that had passed was just a few hours.
Yet, aside from a few throbbing pains that he had not really paid mind to even at the moment of waking up, there was nothing else.
His bones felt intact, if only slightly throbbing. His muscles were the same. Even the cuts he had gotten on his bare hands, and the gaping hole in his foot were scabbed over already, as if a long amount of time had passed.
Of course, Uhtred was well aware of how much faster his body could heal with his enhanced stats and attributes, but even at that, he wasn’t supposed to be able to heal this fast.
If it was simply one type of injury, like the cuts he had gotten against the Epicyon wolves and the monitor lizards he had fought with at the start, he could understand that his body had the resources to focus solely on those cuts and light bruises...
But this was a total, full-body battery instead.
"You’re wondering how you got healed so fast, right?" Diya asked, drawing Uhtred’s attention.
A light blush seemed to color her face as she rubbed her cheek nervously with a finger.
"It was me," she said. "My class... it’s called Healer Mage."
Uhtred’s eyes widened immediately at her words. He activated his inspect skill, glancing above her head where a clear [Level 3 (Early)] hovered for him to see.
Was she saying that with her early Level 3 Healer Mage status she was able to heal him, a Level 10 individual, to near-full wholeness?
Diya seemed to see the question in Uhtred’s eyes, as it was barely even concealed. Of course, she didn’t know he had seen her exact level, but she could guess that he was questioning the fact that she was obviously lower-leveled than him and she had been able to heal him to such an extent.
"Ah... It wasn’t just due to my skill. Your body is just way too... fantastic."
The words left her mouth before she realized, and Uhtred’s brow perked up in a pleasant, teasing surprise.
Diya’s face turned extremely red in horror as she realized what she had just said. She quickly tried to take it back, stuttering over her words, but Uhtred waved a hand in dismissal, putting up a stoic face as if he wasn’t bothered by it.
Though in truth, he filed away the statement in his "to be used when necessary" stash.
Diya still tried to explain herself, but Uhtred simply urged her back on track, cutting off her stuttering words with a statement of his own.
"So in essence, what you wanted to say was that because my body is at a much higher level than yours, with greater natural stats and attributes, you had an easier time nursing it with your magic, compared to others who are lower-leveled, right?"
"Yes," Diya replied meekly. She seemed to have finally calmed down, seeing as Uhtred had quickly moved on from the words she had blurted out.
Oh? That’s a very unique, very useful class...
Uhtred stared at Diya with a curious calculation in his eyes.
I wonder if observing her use her magic would give me some insight into how cosmic essence interacts with the body during healing?
Of course Uhtred hadn’t forgotten the aspect of understanding. According to Dennis’s theory, the integration process gave people class options based on the individual’s experience, and maybe even their soul.
He didn’t need to ask. He already knew Diya must have had a background in medicine for that option to even appear in the first place.
While he knew his knowledge was very insufficient in regards to medicine, it didn’t mean the door was closed. It simply meant he needed to flesh out his understanding of it.
In any case, that was not the main issue right now.
Uhtred’s eyes firmed up, turning serious. And Diya noticed the change, becoming solemn.
It was time for the serious talk.
"What happened after I passed out?" Uhtred started first, "and what about the—" he caught himself, nearly saying ’Homo erectus’ out loud.
He didn’t doubt that, by now, the rest of the pioneers, and if not the pioneers, at least some of the intellectuals like Dennis or even any other person, would have come to the conclusion that their prisoner was a Homo erectus, live and in the flesh.
He simply didn’t want it to feel like he had so easily known exactly what it was, so he caught himself and expertly changed his words.
"—the prisoner we caught? Has any information been found out about it yet?"
"Well, it’s not an ’it.’ It might actually be a ’he’ or a ’she,’" Diya replied.
"But then again, could we even call it a ’he’ or a ’she?’" her expression turned confused. "Perhaps it might actually be an ’it.’"
"Arrgh. I don’t even know right now," she rubbed a palm across her face in frustration, as if it was crazy she was even talking about something as absurd as this so naturally.
"What exactly is going on?" Uhtred asked. He knew from her reaction that they had surely figured out that it was a Homo erectus they were dealing with, but her reaction had been too strong just for that alone.
"You’ve not checked your status panel yet, right?" Diya asked. "Open it and you’ll find out exactly what’s going on..."
With a raised brow, Uhtred muttered the activation phrase to bring up his status panel out loud:
"Status."
