The sounds of battle could be heard from the over the wall equal parts from both monsters and men, I finished wrapping a broken arm I had set and nodded to a group of young boys who carted off my lucky patient.
Sett had managed to get my bounty lifted during the invasion so I could come and be "useful" to the defense of the city, and my home was protected enough under Warren's watchful eye. Being a healer wasn't particularly dangerous, for now, with the wall holding steady and with plenty of soldiers keeping the goblins at bay.
"We need a healer, NOW!"
I trotted over to a cart being wheeled from the wall, lying on it were two adventurers the man had a few arrows sticking out of his side like a pin cushion, he would live without aid for a few hours while the woman beside him was not so lucky, her insides well they were on the outside.
I rushed forward and washed out the gaping hole and pulled a broken piece of a dagger from her intestines, I held back vomiting while I stuffed the guts back into her before casting a set of healing spells. The first stopped the bleeding, the second helped put her intestines back into place and the third started repairing the damage. I cast a cleansing spell to fight off the infection before moving onto the man beside her, he was still conscious so I had him bite down on a piece of the hide while I cut out the arrows.
Crude and barbed with jagged edges, the things must have hurt as I cut them out of him, he only screamed for a few minutes before he passed out.
I took a rag and wiped the blood from my hands, a group of young men came over and wheeled the recovering patients away. I watched as one of the companions followed them covered in blood both human and goblin, I looked over at Hextia as she stood a few feet away from me. She had come for the purpose of training her combat skills, two of her splinters were on the wall causing mayhem in the enemy ranks.
I looked back up at the wall and watched as a human warrior took an arrow to the knee, I could heal that right up, and then he fell off the wall and a sickening crunch reached my ears. His adventuring days are over, at the dark thought and the nauseating sound I finally couldn't hold back and vomited on the ground. The stench of blood, death, and shit had finally pushed me to the limit.
Hextia put a hand on my back as I got reacquainted with my breakfast, I wiped my face and headed for the hospice tent. I had run out of mana and needed a break before I could start healing again, inside the tent were a few other healers and those who could cast similar spells. There was even a group of dryads who had come to support the troops, they couldn't heal directly but they could create a special sap that could heal wounds that don't require complex healing.
I sat on a small sofa and closed my eyes, at first I thought the war would be exciting but for the most part, it was exhausting. It was far from the excitement I got while I and Hextia hunted down goblins in the forest, it was just a constant wave of pain that came back from the wall.
"Hextia how is the battle going up there?" I asked I would have to live vicariously through her eyes for now.
"-Not great master, though I am performing quite well there seems to be a never-ending river of these goblins. My current kill count is 52 goblins. The rest of the soldiers are in need of rest, they tire quickly which leads to injury and mistakes.-"
"And have you suffered any injuries?" I wondered if she was just boasting about her combat skills. She didn't respond right away. After a few moments I opened my eyes and looked at her, she had a small frown on her face, "What is wrong Hex?"
She fidgeted with her armor for a second before replying, "-I am unsure if I have sustained an injury, there have been no events that prevent my bodies from functioning and performing their task in battle.-"
"Ok, then how about from my standard of what constitutes an injury. Harm to your body or bodies in this case caused by enemies or allies alike."
She then mumbled out a long list of injuries that would have killed several people, she had been stabbed a few dozen times, shot by arrows, there was even a hatchet stuck in her shoulder blade. I wondered if any of this damage was permanent.
I chuckled and laid down again thinking about what her bodies might look like by the time we went home. An hour later most of my mana had recuperated, though the battle was still ongoing it was winding down, the monsters would send raiding parties throughout the night but it was time for us to head home. When the splinters met up with us at the shuttle I had to stifle my laughter, they looked like two porcupines with all the arrows sticking out of their backs.
Hextia heard my chuckling and pouted all the way back to the manor.
Recently Hextia had been showing her own character, she wasn't just a machine anymore, she was alive and was starting to experience emotions and it was quite refreshing. The once cold and aloof synthetic could now pout over the look of her splinters. Though she would only show emotion in front of me to keep her identity a secret until we could create more of our people.
Once we got back home I took Hextia to the lab and helped her remove the armor and arrows from her splinters, after a bit of maintenance the splinters were ready for duty. With the experience I gained from healing and from Hextia being in my party I had been able to get to level 5 and with my increase in level and mana pool it was time to experiment on my beautiful research assistants.
Hextia sat on my bed, we removed her armor leaving her in the black bodysuit, I let out a stream of mana and let it saturate her body.
I watched as my mana filled her to the brim, the structure of her DNA came up and just like before though the unknown bloodline had grown slightly by 2%. I moved away from the unknown bloodline as the spell, or I wasn't strong enough to penetrate its secrets quite yet.
I looked over the slime bloodline, how it intertwined and connected with the rest of the structure. The enhancement portion pointed to a few glowing portions, I moved closer to the glowing portion and touched it, last time I tried this my hand went right through. This time I felt a slight resistance before it enlarged and showed a new message.
(Slime bloodline available for enhancement. Absorption ability suppressed. King slime bloodline detected- 0.01% requires more genetic material required.)
My eyebrows rose, 'holy crap, finally some progress!'
I pressed on the absorption ability, it began to glow and a pulse went through the rest of the DNA structure. The glow slowly faded, Hextia was gripping the blankets and her eyes were closed tight, she didn't seem to be in pain, more like concentrated on a thought or memory.
Her eyes opened a minute later and she called out to me with her mind, "-Master! I believe this is the solution to my energy consumption.-" She stood up and went to my desk and pulled out an energy crystal, she sat back down on the bed and I watched her unzip the bodysuit and placed the crystal on her abdomen. It slowly sank into her stomach, I could see the glow from the crystal as it began to pulse and spread through her body before it dimmed and disappeared.
Hextia explained how the ability just came from nowhere and flooded her mind, but using it was like second nature. There was little to any energy loss once she consumed the crystal while it restored any missing energy she may have used up. This led to my wondering if I could then use empty crystals that had a higher quality but were not filled as secondary storage, it could potentially reduce the cost of producing the bodies by millions of credits. There was also the king slime bloodline, it said I needed to provide more genetic material so maybe corpses of slimes would be the best material.
I mused over the possibilities my spells could bring to my subordinates. I walked to my desk and pulled out my journal and wrote down my discoveries and a few ideas for experiments while writing down my earlier thoughts a new idea came to mind. What if I could cast enhance on myself?