Chapter 271
Healing methods
Even if a human lived a perfectly healthy life—eating well, exercising consistently, avoiding diseases, and maintaining low stress—their lifespan would still be bound by their biology.
The human body, no matter how well cared for, had its limits. Cells aged, proteins decayed, and even the most advanced medicine couldn't stop the gradual erosion of time. The oldest humans barely reached past 120 years, and that was considered a miracle.
Perfect health could grant longer years and better quality of life, but it could not break the ceiling of mortality that all humans shared. No matter how disciplined, intelligent, or fortunate, time would always win.
However, an ascender was different.
Through the awakening of their cores and the absorption of mana, ascenders could defy the natural order. The mana flowing through their veins reinforced their bodies, purified their blood, and slowed the inevitable decay that plagued ordinary people.
The stronger an ascender became, the slower they aged. Some could live for centuries—vigorous and sharp even in what would be considered an impossible age. Their healing was faster, their resistance to disease was greater, and their connection to mana almost acted as an extension of life itself.
A peak Novice, as long as they lived a stable life without succumbing to rare diseases or dying in battle, could live up to around two centuries. Their bodies, strengthened by mana, aged at a fraction of the normal rate. Muscles stayed firm, organs remained efficient, and even the mind retained its sharpness far beyond what mortals could dream of.
A peak Experienced-level ascender, however, was something else entirely. They had already transcended the boundaries of human biology, existing in a state where their lifespans stretched astonishingly long, reaching up to six centuries with relative ease. At that level, aging became more of a concept than a visible process, and death came only through violence, exhaustion of the core, or choice.
And then, there were the Masters—those who stood on the edge of myth. A peak Master was no longer bound by the ordinary flow of life. Their bodies and souls had been so thoroughly intertwined that they could endure for millennia. Two thousand years was not an exaggeration but an expectation. They were living legacies, witnesses of ages long gone, carrying the experience of centuries.
This meant that the higher one's level, the more effective healing methods became.
For example, imagine a Novice who had suffered a devastating injury—one that left them barely clinging to life at the age of forty-five. Out of their possible two hundred years, they still had a long road ahead of them. Yet, to be fully healed, the healer would need to draw upon a hundred years of that remaining life force. In other words, most of their remaining potential lifespan would vanish in an instant, traded for survival.
That's about 64.5% of their remaining lifespan gone in an instant.
Now, if a peak Master suffered the same injury, and for some reason their natural recovery failed, forcing them to rely on another ascender to heal them—then that same hundred years of life force would no longer equal sixty-four and a half percent, but a mere five percent.
It was the exact same devastating injury, yet the toll it took was drastically smaller for the Master. In fact, they could endure that same life-threatening wound nearly thirteen times more than a novice before facing the same consequence.
And this was assuming their natural recovery wasn't working at all—which only further highlighted the vast, unbridgeable gap between a novice and a master. They weren't even comparable.
It was one of the many reasons why only a Master could truly kill another Master. For an Experienced-level ascender to do so was near impossible, and for a Novice—it was nothing short of a dream.
Unless there were some very, very, very special circumstances leading to it, the idea alone was laughable.
But moving past that, there was a way to avoid losing life force from being healed—creating your own healing methods.
For an ascender, this was the best and most efficient solution. When you used your own method on yourself, you still drew on life force, but since it came from you and was used on you, it formed a kind of balanced cycle. The energy returned to its source instead of being consumed.
In other words, no years were lost from your lifespan. The only thing you'd actually spend was mana. As long as the injury stayed within what your method could handle and you still had mana to burn, you could heal yourself again and again—at least until your reserves ran dry.
This was why it was always recommended that every ascender have at least one healing method.
Now, IAM needed to create one of his own. If he followed his current theme, then naturally, the first thing that came to mind was the simple and direct command: [HEAL].
But thinking back to the last time he had tried that, it had completely failed with no effect.
At the time, he hadn't known why. Maybe it was a lack of mana, or maybe his understanding wasn't enough. But now he understood—it was because [HEAL] itself lay beyond the realm of possibility for him.
At the level of a novice or even an experienced ascender, every method had to exist within the limits of what was possible—within what you could truly believe could happen. That belief shaped your understanding of your path, and without that foundation, no amount of will or mana could make an impossible command come true.
IAM realized that simply saying [HEAL] wouldn't mend something as serious as a gunshot wound. It was utterly impossible—without proper medical treatment, nothing he did with words alone could fix it. At best, using [HEAL] might produce a faint placebo effect, but that was the extent of its power at his current level.
But he also understood that this limitation wasn't permanent. If he could reach the level of Master, everything would change.
This was called the level where the impossible became possible.
For now, [HEAL] would have to wait. It had potential, yes, but IAM would put it down down until he could reach a point where it would truly work as intended.