The students gazed at the professor with a profound sense of interest and curiosity.
Just the fact that he was a master mage was enough to draw all their attention to him. It certainly was also the case that his presence was gravitic, almost forcing their eyes to return to him each time they looked away.
"Healing magic," he began with a composed and dignified tone. "The art of restoring one's body to a recovered state. The process of healing wounds, bodily damage, and the process of treating and curing disease with the power of magic."
He directed a sweeping gaze across his students.
"That is what I will be teaching to all of you," he continued. "Out of all the fields of magic, healing magic is perhaps most knowledge-intensive and particularly…"
His tone grew pointed. "…non-magical knowledge-intensive. Of all the things that magic can do by itself, restoring or curing one's body by itself with no knowledge of physiology and anatomy is not among them. That is the first lesson that I will be taking upon myself to teach you. It is the most important lesson, and those who fail to learn it are doomed to fail as healing mages."
SNAP
With another snap of his fingers, an eloquent diagram of the human body spread across the whiteboard in black ink.
Cæ sensed that the ink wasn't really even ink.
It was conjured ink.
Meaning it would disappear the second he turned off the spell.
His attention turned to the diagram of the human body.
It was complex, focusing on anatomy primarily while highlighting various biological systems in one's body.
The basics of anatomy, as far as knowledge on the topic went.
"Healers must have not only as much knowledge of the human body as doctors do," he continued. "But they must also have the skill of mages. This makes it so that healing magic has a higher barrier to entry than other fields of magic. This also makes it so that healers are among the most valued and well-remunerated classes of mages, but also…"
He directed a pointed, sweeping gaze across the students with his sharp yellow eyes.
"…that many of you will fail this course."
The air grew heavy.
The atmosphere grew a little tense as his ominous declaration before the students caused them to stiffen.
"And almost always," he continued. "The ones who fail are those who failed to truly understand the first lesson that I imparted to you at the very start of the lesson. Which is…"
He waved his hand as writing appeared on the whiteboard magically.
[Knowledge is as important as magic in healing magic.]
"I would even go as far as to say that knowledge is even more important than magic in this field," he shifted his spectacles. "A mage with no knowledge can't do any healing whatsoever. However, a doctor with no magic can do more than absolutely nothing. Healing magic is a field of magic where magic often takes a step back. A more knowledgeable healer is more valuable than a magically skilled healer. Remember that."
A lot of students stirred in their seats at those words.
Indeed, people were aware that healing magic was very knowledge-intensive.
However, to hear just how important the knowledge aspect of healing was was enlightening and also disheartening. None of the senior students were eager to spend their time memorizing things about human anatomy and physiology.
They were mages, after all.
They were elite talents in the field of magic who ought to have spent their time learning magic.
"While it may not be the most glamorous field of magic," he continued with a knowing tone. "It is one of the highest-paying fields of magic. If you choose to become a healer mage, you are guaranteed to out-earn most of your peers. It is also one of the safest fields of magic. Being a mage is dangerous. Many of the fields we have at our disposal may seem glorious from your naive and inexperienced perspectives, but the reality is that many mages die like dogs. They suffer, and they suffer in ways that cannot be healed very easily. I'm sure that…"
He pointed a knowing gaze across the classroom.
"That at least some of you are interested in a more peaceful path of life."
Cæ stirred as he thought about Sorenon.
He had made it very clear that he was not inclined to pursue the field of combat.
There were also students like Seliphaz who were not eager to throw themselves into dangerous situations and had temperaments befitting more creative pursuits.
"Now that I have regulated some of your expectations," he continued with a satisfied tone. "Let us actually begin with learning healing magic. As a healer, you will be confronted with healing lapses in health, usually falling into either disease or damage, with magic. The magic that we use in healing magic, however, is applied with knowledge of anatomy for the process of healing to occur. The most common Fundamental Forms that we use in healing magic are…"
He waved his hand.
It caused a square and a pentagon to emerge on the whiteboard.
"…The Fundamental Forms of Manipulation and Change," he remarked. "There are uses of conjuration in certain cases, but your greatest tools are going to be manipulation and change. It is your medical knowledge that will help you decide exactly how you will leverage these tools to your benefit. However, the fundamental process of healing does not change. It is as follows."
He waved his hand, causing the first step to appear on the whiteboard.
[Diagnosis]
"As with non-magic medicine, the first step in healing is diagnosis," he continued with a knowing tone. "You need to understand exactly what is wrong with the person that you're trying to heal. For that, we have a sub-specialty in healing magic known as diagnostic magic. These are spells that allow you to deploy magic to gain an understanding of the patient's body. Typically…"
He raised a hand as a ball of light appeared in his hand.
"…diagnostic magic is of the light element," he continued. "However, many times, it can also be of the heaven element. The light element is most effective in information gathering, which is also why it is most dominant in the field of divination. We use the power of light to illuminate the problems of the body and ascertain what the treatment or cure for the problem is. Or in the case of an injury, we evaluate to what extent the damage is spread and what the best way to heal it is."
He paused, waving his hand to cause the next step to be magically written on the whiteboard.
[Evaluation]
"This is where your knowledge comes in," he remarked. "Once you have gathered all the information and have fully diagnosed the patient, you will need to leverage your knowledge of medicine and protocols to come up with a treatment. How right you are and how wrong you are will decide the quality of the treatment or healing if it is just a wound. If you choose to become a healing mage, you will be exposed to a large system of diagnostic and treatment protocols, the magical versions, and you will be expected to know them inside out and backwards. These protocols will help you decide what the treatment is, and with that…"
He waved his hand once more.
[Magical treatment]
"This is where things will vary greatly depending on the treatment, but it all boils down to using magic most effectively to bring about the treatment," he explained. "One of the most common and simple forms of magical treatment involves the Fundamental Form of Change to cause localized changes to the affected part, if the ailment or wound is local. This tends to be the simplest solution, but not necessarily easy. It requires precision and accuracy, and a single mistake can kill your patient. But when done correctly, it essentially functions like medical alchemy. You bring about changes to organs, tissues, and, in the most advanced forms of healing, even individual cells or cell components. We call this simply…"
[Change-Healing]
He situated it under magical treatment.
"However, oftentimes, change-healing is not able to or is not enough to fix the problem," he continued. "There are many ailments and wounds that can be more widespread or systemic. These cannot simply be waved away magically by causing one's flesh to change. In such cases, your solutions will be more complex. In the case of a serious wound with lost flesh and blood, change alone will not be enough. You will need to use a combination of change and manipulation to heal the damage. You use change to cause flesh to heal more quickly. You use manipulation to bring over cells from across the body or the region to try to patch the wound with the redistribution of tissue. And so on and so forth."
The students grew curious as they grew immersed in his lecture about the methods with which healing magic was used to heal diseases and wounds.
"There is no universal spell or methodology to heal wounds," he explained. "There are many broad approaches, and within those broader approaches, many sub-specialized approaches. And because each person and their ailments are unique, each solution will be truly unique in the strictest sense. Healing magic requires you to understand how to apply knowledge and power to bring about a desired change. It is an applied magical field where the magic itself is not the focus, but the outcome it can provide if applied properly."
This was different from other fields of magic, where the magic was more directly tied to the desired outcome. In healing magic, magic did not take center stage and hog all the glory, but the decisions were made by healers in the heat of the moment.
"In this particular course, you will be merely taught the most basic of healing magic for the most basic and elementary of ailments and wounds," he remarked. "You will also be taught emergency healing magic and combat healing magic. The latter is substantially different from other forms of healing in that it focuses on ease, speed, convenience, and mitigation. Healing magic in combat does not heal wounds then and there, but focuses on making sure that they are not an immediate problem and that they do not impede combat. It is, in fact, this field of magic that makes the most use of conjuration, where large swathes of temporary flesh and skin are conjured to fill wounds and essentially make them function like they did before. Of course…"
A hint of contempt appeared on his face.
"This is not true healing. It does not fix the problem, merely delays its handling and makes the situation more dire by the time it needs to actually be dealt with," he snorted. "However, it is useful in war, conflict, combat, and operations. It allows mages to continue deploying their magical power relatively unperturbed, depending on their skill level and the severity of the wound. So it is popular among magetants. However…"
He shifted his glasses. "I hope that none of you have chosen this field for the sake of getting better in combat. Healing magic is a noble field meant to help those in need. It is not meant to be an instrument in war."
Most students who signed up intended to pursue healing magic to a serious degree as at least one specialization.
However, there was one of them who was famous for being extremely good at combat magic.
The students directed a glance towards Cæ as their attention converged on him.
The professor threw a glance at Cæ.
His expression was perfect, but Cæ had the feeling that he was not pleased by the inference.
Cæ heaved a soft sigh, glaring at the students around him who immediately averted their gaze with fear.
He intended to learn more about heart healers from the professor; he couldn't afford to be on bad terms with him!