Chapter 379

Chapter 316 – Guidance

Following the scent of bl**d, Dorothy continued forward. She could tell from the traces that the heavy drops of bl**d on the ground were caused by an injured therianthrope being carried or dragged. These traces ended at the exit of the alley, where there was a wider spread of bl**d on the ground and a new claw mark on the wall.

‘Davik… was ambushed and severely wounded in this alley. Then he was put into something and taken away. It looks like they stuffed him into a carriage. During this process, he resisted. More bl**d and claw marks were left at the alley’s entrance. This suggests he must still be alive.’

After examining the scene, Dorothy thought to herself and began her analysis.

‘Davik was ambushed by a hunter in this dim alley, suffering severe injuries. Although he lost a lot of bl**d, as an ‘Cup’ extraordinary being, he didn’t d*e. The hunter took Davik to the alley’s entrance, where he got on a carriage. During the journey, Davik struggled…’

With her thoughts clear, Dorothy quickly understood where Davik might be. Therianthropes have strong vitality, but without extraordinary items, they don’t have the same level of self-healing ability as werewolves. Losing so much bl**d wouldn’t k*ll him immediately, but leaving him untreated would certainly be fatal. Since the hunter wanted to capture him alive, he wouldn’t let Davik d*e easily.

Once she had everything figured out, Dorothy pulled out her ‘Navigation of the Literary Sea’ and quickly flipped to Vania’s communication page. After a moment’s thought, she wrote:

“Hello, are you there? By the way, are you still working at the hospital?”

…

North City, Tivyán, Mercy Hospital.

Mercy Hospital is the largest public hospital in Tivyán, located near the Church District in the north city. Like many cities, Mercy Hospital has a deep background with the Radiant Church.

In Pritt, just as every slightly larger city has its own An Yin Bureau, every public hospital established by the government and church also has a dedicated ‘Extraordinary Injury Department.’ This department is hidden among the other normal departments and is used specifically to treat ordinary people, hunters, or valuable society members who have been injured in extraordinary events. This place is no exception.

Near a park in the north city, several white buildings of Mercy Hospital stand tall. In the hospital’s main hall, countless civilians, suffering from various ailments, crowd around, waiting for the limited public medical resources to heal their wounds amidst their complaints.

Many of them are injured workers, bandaged with bl**d-soaked wraps, while others sit and cough incessantly.

Behind Mercy Hospital, in a room in a building somewhat isolated from other areas, Vania, dressed in a white nun’s robe and wearing glasses, stood inside. In front of her was a bed, on which lay a man in hospital attire. He stretched out one hand, with the other arm covered in removed bandages. There was a terrifying wound on his arm, and the man frowned slightly, seemingly enduring some pain.

“Please bear with it a little longer.”

Vania said to the man on the bed, then extended her hand and touched his wound. Afterwards, Vania closed her eyes, and a faint yellow glow appeared in her hands. Within this glow, the wound on the man’s arm healed visibly and rapidly. The man clenched his teeth, seemingly resisting the pain transmitted through his healing hand.

Soon, the yellow glow under Vania’s hand faded away. After letting out a sigh of relief, Vania removed her hand. The previous wound was now completely healed, leaving no trace behind. Seeing this, the man’s face broke into a joyful smile.

“Alright… everything is fine! I can’t feel any pain anymore! It healed so quickly, Holy Mother above, thank you, Sister Vania!”

“Thanks to the grace of the Holy Mother, this is what I should do, Mr. Jack. Please be more careful during your missions in the future.”

“Sigh… there’s no helping it. With all the recent unrest among the societies in Tivyán, our work pressure is increasing every day.”

Vania responded with a smile to the patient before her, then chatted briefly with him. After giving him some instructions, she picked up her medicine box and walked out of the ward.

As Vania left the ward, she saw an old nun, a familiar figure, appear at the end of the corridor just after closing the door.

“Sister Anre! What brings you here?”

Upon seeing the old nun, Vania quickly approached and greeted her with a bow. The person before her was the guide who helped her reach the Black Tier.

“I’m here to handle some matters. After finishing, I came to check on your situation, Sister Vania. Haha… Doctor Card was praising you just now.”

“What? Doctor Card was here too?”

“Yes, he just mentioned how quickly you’ve mastered the healing abilities, and how efficiently and quickly you can heal many wounds. Your devout faith is truly impressive.”

With a kind smile, Sister Anre spoke to Vania, who was slightly stunned but smiled in response.

“Oh, no, no… I’m just doing my best.”

“Haha, no need to be modest. Our bodies are complex, only the sacred can fully understand and control them. For Sister Vania to grasp the healing prayers so quickly, and for the Holy Mother to respond so precisely to your prayers, guiding you, it’s truly admirable. We are fortunate to have such a devoted servant as you.”

Sister Anre continued with a satisfied smile, and Vania bowed slightly, as if in prayer.

“Thanks to the grace of the Holy Mother, I am merely doing what I should…”

With a devout posture, Vania spoke to Sister Anre, but internally she was extremely nervous, hoping Sister Anre wouldn’t notice anything.

The reason wasn’t because of anything else; it was simply because when Vania treated patients, she never prayed to the Holy Mother.

Healing priests possess the ability to quickly heal others and accelerate the regeneration of flesh. However, the regeneration process guided by this ability isn’t the natural healing process of the body but rather a miracle guided by external forces. This external force’s will is that of the healing priest, not the body’s inherent will. People’s understanding of their own complex bodies is limited, and sometimes they don’t know how to grow tissue properly.

In simple terms, for extremely complex human bodies, healing priests don’t just activate regenerative abilities to correctly heal a wounded person. There could be a scenario where skin and tissue grow haphazardly but don’t connect properly, making it impossible to heal. Therefore, to correctly heal wounds, proper guidance is needed. In the Radiant Church’s system, this guidance is provided by deities.

The key word is ‘prayer.’ Healing priests pray to the Holy Mother when healing others, asking her to guide spirituality to execute the healing process correctly. As long as one prays sincerely and masters specific healing prayers, the Holy Mother will surely provide guidance. This is the Radiant Church’s practice over hundreds or even thousands of years, allowing the great Holy Mother to help guide the power to heal complex bodies and prevent mistakes.

However, things were different for Vania. Due to some reason, Vania’s true faith in her subconscious had shifted away from the Holy Mother. Although she appeared very devout on the surface and believed herself to be devout, once she truly focused on praying, her prayers would deviate towards Akka.

Despite her inner turmoil, for Vania, her ‘master’ was now Akka rather than the Holy Mother, so her prayers couldn’t receive guidance from the Holy Mother.

Initially, Vania panicked when she realized her prayers weren’t receiving guidance from the Holy Mother because without guidance, she couldn’t correctly heal the wounded. So she prayed to Akka for a solution.

After hearing Vania’s dilemma, Dorothy thought for a moment and then said it wasn’t a big deal. Then, Dorothy went to the library and borrowed several books on anatomy to read quickly. After reading, she exchanged these knowledge points for many theories about human bodies from another world. Dorothy then organized these pieces of knowledge along with the medical knowledge she had previously learned and sent them to Vania, printing them on the extra pages of Vania’s soul book after her promotion to the Black Tier. This made Vania instantly become a theoretical surgical expert.

Dorothy’s approach was straightforward: human bodies are indeed complex, but they can be understood and learned. If she mastered everything herself, she could guide her own power instead of relying on divine intervention.

Thus, after receiving a heap of knowledge from Dorothy, Vania felt dazed for a day and started practicing her theories in the hospital. Initially, it was a bit awkward, but once she adapted, her skills improved rapidly and became unstoppable.

Now, Vania’s efficiency in healing injuries by guiding her own healing abilities is gradually surpassing the usual efficiency of praying to the Holy Mother for guidance.

…

Hmm… seems like I hit a writer’s block, but I managed to grind it out. The update is a bit late today, but I’ll take a day off tomorrow to adjust my schedule and resolve the writer’s block. Please forgive me.