Supreme Magus novel Chapter 276

"There are countless things that can go wrong during a Body Sculpting procedure." Professor Vastor continued.

"I’m not going to lie to you. Despite our best efforts, I expect you to see a few people die before you graduate. Some may die under your hands. It’s going to put you under a lot of pressure, testing your will.

"Too many times in this job I’ve seen old men live long enough to not even remember who they were, their bodies refusing to give up, while young people not even old enough to marry would die under my care for no apparent reason.

"Many healers refuse to practice Body Sculpting, either to not affect their reputation with repeated failures or because they cannot take it. Up to tier three, you can still blame bad luck. At tier four anything seems possible.

"Once you reach tier five, you can only blame yourself. People will die because you aren’t good enough, aren’t prepared enough, or simply because you have let your pride get the best of you. Never be afraid to tell a patient that it’s better a long but limited life than gambling everything on a maybe.

"Never hide them the risks of any procedure or make them any promise. The final choice is theirs, but the final burden is yours." Vastor sighed deeply, before resuming his usual confident attitude.

"One last thing. Don’t think that once you graduate you are set for life. What we are teaching you are the basics of the basics. The difference between a quack and a real healer is the number of personal spells they develop, how much of yourselves you put into your work.

That’s why we’ll also cover how to alter, improve, or create from scratch spells.

The fifth year will make the fourth one look like a walk in the park. Class dismissed."

After listening to Professor Vastor’s introduction to the subjects of the Healer specialization for the fifth year, the students were gloomy rather than excited. Up to that point, they had always worked in teams comprised of Professors and medical staff.

They were a safety net, boosting the students’ confidence that no matter what happened, things could still be salvaged. Now the rules of the game had changed. Only a few, like Lith and Quylla had lost a patient in the past, but no one had ever been responsible for a death.

The thought was scary and not because most of the students had such a good heart. The reason was that the majority of the patients admitted in the White Griffon hospital were powerful mages or influential figures in the political world.

Killing a commoner was one thing, explaining a powerful and well connected family why their loved one wasn’t among them anymore could easily destroy lives. The Healer’s life, to be precise.

Lith was insensible to such worries. Partly because killing was second nature to him, mostly because lots of people had already died indirectly by his hand. Back at Lutia or during the plague, he could have saved dozens of lives if he had given up his secret and used true magic.

’Seems I actually performed tier five light magic twice already. The first time with Tista, the second on mom.’ Lith thought.

’Yeah, but you only succeeded because of true magic. Tista’s treatment took months since we lacked tier four magic, while Elina’s would have gone badly if you acted alone.

’I’m really curious to see how much our abilities will improve once we learn how to listen to the life force.’ Solus considered all the fifth year subjects amazing. They had managed to mimic tier five spells despite missing so many pieces of the puzzle. She was eager to see how far they could get after mastering so much knowledge.