Skye was so terribly beaten that he was twitching a little even when he was unconscious. He was bought into a large room with many hospital beds was placed upon one. They were many chosen getting treated here, everyone was from different groups, which you could see from the different coloured belts they wore.
Out of all the patients, only the chosen wearing dark brown coloured belts were unconscious. Seeing them the palace workers were talking within themselves as they were tending to the patients,
" It looks like Captain Stonewall mercilessly beat them up again." someone said.
"I heard Captain Stonewall got reprimanded by Major Cross yesterday for beating up the chosen till they are unconscious. Was it not true?" said, some other palace worker.
"It might not be true; otherwise why would he disobey Major Cross and beat them up again today?" said some other.
"What do you even know? ….. I heard that Captain Stonewall is very stubborn and he did not listen to Major Cross on multiple occasions." Someone else said.
"Waaaah!!….really?? Then was he not punished?" asked the first palace worker.
They were so immersed in gossiping that they couldn't notice someone walking up behind them.
"Don't you have work to do? " came a stern voice from behind.
Looking back, they saw a woman in her early thirties, wearing a lab coat that hid her girlish figure, she had blonde hair pulled back into a bun and wore an attractive circle bar earrings. With her hair pulled back it drew attention to her slender neck and golden earrings.
She was the head nurse in the castle, Captain Eleanor. Seeing her they quickly went to their work.
Captain Eleanor orderly checked up on the people beaten up by Captain Stonewall and instructed the workers on what medicine to give. When she came to check up on Skye she frowned because he was in a very serious condition.
"He is so stubborn…. he really went overboard this time." Captain Eleanor said thinking about Captain Stonewall.
Even though Captain Stonewall beats up the chosen, it was generally for their own benefit. He has many years of experience training cadets, and he could point out their weakness in just a minute of observation.
Hence whenever he beat up someone as a punishment, he only beat them in the areas where they had lower strength. If someone lacked bone density, he would damage their bones. If someone lacked muscle strength, he would damage the muscle and similarly for other weak areas.
It was a special talent of his and he did it because he knew; that the medicine would heal their injuries and in a small way even help them grow stronger in those areas. That is, as long as he did not cause severe damage then everything would be okay.
But looking at Skye that didn't appear to be the scenario. He was severely damaged in all areas on his body; muscles, bones, joints, everywhere, and he was still twitching subconsciously fighting against the pain.
She quickly ordered the palace workers to bring the special medicine and then she administered it to him. She watched over Skye for a couple more minutes and when the twitching stopped, she left, angrily.
Shortly after Captain Eleanor left, there was Divine energy gathering around Skye and it was increasing in volume more and more. The palace workers couldn't notice this taking place, but if Captain Eleanor was here, she would definitely feel something was off.
The Divine energy around him was slowly sucked into his body. From the pores of his skin, it went in to his blood stream and circulated to every cell in his body, nourishing him with the rich energy.
But this time though, it was not increasing his strength, but rather mending his wounds!
Slowly, day after day of life force was being consumed and slowly the wounds also started healing. It continued on for an hour and his wounds slowly healed back to normal.
Since his wounds were all internal, the palace workers couldn't notice anything strange happening with Skye. He was still unconscious and they thought he is still recovering.
Even after his wounds got back to normal, the gathering of divine energy continued on, through his blood stream it slowly moved to every cell in his body. But, it now started increasing Skye's strength.
In just a few more moments Skye felt a massive headache come over him and he woke up and immediately deactivated his skill. He clenched his eyes because of the massive headache and was rolling on the bed left and right holding his head.
Looking at Skye rolling around on his bed and grunting the palace workers came over to check up on him, but before they could approach, he fell unconscious again.
Everything happened in just a few seconds and seeing his poor state, they felt pity towards him.
Other chosen got their treatment and then left, even the chosen beaten up by Captain Stonewall also woke-up and left shortly thereafter. Only Skye still remained among his group along with a couple newly bought in patients.
It might be around mid-afternoon when Skye woke up and he was immediately overcome with massive pangs of hunger. He quickly called over a palace worker and asked for food. Seeing his miserable state, she went running so that she could help him as soon as she can.
"First the beating, then the headache and now the hunger pangs. Truly; it's as they say....'Bad luck comes in threes' ." Skye thought pitying himself.
The palace worker ran over with a plate full of dishes and behind her 2 more workers also ran over holding another plate full of dishes and a water jug. She said, "I didn't know what you liked to eat, so I bought over as much as we can."
Saying his thanks Skye gorged himself with as much food as he can, not even stopping to chew he greedily swallowed the pieces whole. He drank some water whenever he felt like he was about to choke, and like this he finished up eating everything the workers bought over.
"Do you need more food sir?" asked the worker.
"Sorry, I was famished just then so …... Anyways, thank you for taking care of me. I don't need any more food." Said Skye embarrassed.
Skye rested a bit more to be sure and he felt just as normal as any other day; but slightly stronger!!
Checking up on his status screen he saw his stats increase.
* Name: Skye
* Title: None
* Passive Skills: Accretion
* Active Skills: --
* Strength 5.62
* Stamina 5.12
* Speed 5.22
* Wisdom 13.12
* Intelligence 18.32
* Soul Strength 3.42
His stats increase a total of 4.8 points!!, but what was unusual was that all the stats did not increase equally, rather only strength, stamina and soul strength stat points increased.
"If my stat points increased by so much, then….", feeling an ill foreboding. He checked his life force and surely as expected, there was a massive decrease in life force. Around a hundred points were subtracted from it.
With a worried face he thought "Those were 100 days of my life, just gone in an instant, and the worst part is, it happened without even me knowing it."
"Even if my skill used up my life force, shouldn't 100 days be worth as much as 6 stat points? Why did my stats increase by only 4.8? where is the rest of my life force? And why did only 3 stats increase? ", there were lots of questions running through his mind.
"Did I subconsciously increase only those stats which would help heal my body and withstand the pain?" Skye deduced, pondering over the questions for a moment. That was the only explanation he could come up with.
He opened his skill description once again to check some things and his skill description appeared in front of him.
* Accretion - Gathers the Divine energy around you into your body and accumulates it. Speed of gathering and accumulation increases as you grow stronger.
Just as he thought, his skill description only mentions about gathering the divine energy into his body and it doesn't mention anything about how it can be used.
Putting two and two together he deduced that the missing life force might be used in gathering divine energy, but this time the divine energy might be used for healing his wounds rather than increasing his strength.
Thinking his deductions made sense, he got up and left to his room. He went through so much suffering in a single day and since he also did not have enough sleep last night, he just wanted to rest on his bed for a while.
.
.
.
Unbeknownst to him Captain Eleanor angrily walked into Captain Stonewall's office to heavily admonish him;
Within his office, Captain Stonewall was sitting on his chair and Captain Eleanor came in front of him to his table. She slammed her hands on the table and angrily shouted "Have you gone MAD ???"
After a brief pause Captain Stonewall looked at her and said, "I trust your medical skills. I know you can heal him back to normal."
"That's not the point here…...If Major Cross gets to know this, he will punish you severely. He might even remove you from the training staff" Captain Eleanor said; she had a little less anger now and slightly more concern in her voice.
"I am looking forward to it." Captain Stonewall said with a little bit of seriousness in his voice. Looking into his eyes and at his serious expression, all her anger has subsided and was replaced with care and understanding.
Looking directly into his eyes, with concern, she asked in a soft voice "Do you want to go there so badly?"
But Captain Stonewall did not reply this time.
He just stood up from his chair …... walked around the table ... came up to Captain Eleanor and embraced her, resting her head on his chest, as if he wanted her to listen to what his heart was saying.
He continued embracing her for a few moments and neither did Captain Eleanor move away.
"I am doing this for us" he said softly near her ear, broke the embrace and quickly walked away.
She just stood there, her heart filled with million emotions; she felt very heavy in her chest and couldn't move.
She just looked at his back, with unreadable emotion in her eyes…..and ..... with a glint of tear.