Episode 12.15

The next morning, they went to Norma's clinic.

Norma brought Lecan and Eda to the medicine prep room in the morning.

There are far more tools at Norma's place than Shira's.

This is partly due to Shira's usage of magic to help her work and partly because most of Shira's medicines have combined effects while Norma's are more specialized to a type of illness each.

"That's a lot of drawers."

"Haha. Eda, can you read?"

"Yes."

"OK. That's good. How about you, Lecan?"

"No problem."

There are only 35 letters so memorizing them wasn't hard. But it gets much harder when several letters combine into different pronunciations like with the names of herbs and stuff.

"Alright. Then first, please recite the names on these drawers correctly. The <Dry> to the left of the names signifies dried herbs, while <Pow> means powdered ones. <Raw> marks raw unprocessed herbs, but it's empty right now. We'll just go pick up a lot, wash and dry them off whenever the need arises. <Half> is for herbs that are half-life. There are some herbs that give off high efficacy in this state."

Lecan and Eda read all the drawers' names aloud. Due to Eda's short stature, Norma allowed her to climb on a chair to read the taller drawers.

Then the examination started.

There's already more than ten patients waiting while having idle chatters between themselves.

During the examination, Lecan and Eda are told to stand next to Norma as she works.

Norma doesn't use <Recovery>.

She softly wraps her mana on her wand to examine the affected part on her patients. She speaks out loud which part is that and what problem does it have each time.

She also examined chest and waist area of most patients besides the affected parts.

"Those of old age or suffer from long illness tend to have problems with their heart internals, breathing viscera, or eating organs. These internal problems get worse over time, so we need to slowly heal it over time. If we don't fix those up first, any treatment is only going to relief their pain temporarily before worsening their condition quickly."

Norma's explanations were concise and precise, very easy to digest.

"Types of illness differ depending on the spot it crops up, so does the herb used to treat it. You'd figure out how to deal with them once you've got a good grasp on those."

Most of the time, Norma immediately made the medicine on spot right after examination.

Wounded patients often get salves, while sickly ones usually get decoction.

As for the salve, she uses either water or raw leaf's stickiness.

"This stickiness, y'see. Is the secret to heal wounds."

Which means, to medical practitioners, the raw herb plants growing abundantly in her garden must look like a treasure trove.

Their lunch was bread and vegetable soup.

(Mu? This got herbs that recover mana inside.)

"Haha. Looks like Lecan's figured it out, yes, this soup does recover mana. Along with stamina. I really don't have a lot of mana you see, I've even used up all I've got during the treatment earlier."

'Please excuse me', said Norma as she lay on a nearby sofa. She must be taking a short nap to recover her mana.

Norma's mana pool is indeed small. However, her mana control is a work of art. She had a complete control over the mana emitting out of her thin short wand, taking shapes like it was a real object.

In most cases, it looked like a thin string.

There were times when it looked like a small sphere as well.

And times when it took flexible shapes of the patient's entrails.

Norma commands a free reign over her mana.

Lecan kept his <Mana Detection> on as he observed Norma all the while.

<Mana Detection> is an ability to precisely grasp the movement of mana. The way Norma's mana went along the patient's bones, afflicted parts, muscles and blood veins during her scanning was a master work.

Human body is like a gigantic labyrinth. Entering the mini world to explore it fully was the very definition of an adventure.

Lecan joined Norma in her adventure in human body.

It was an experience he had never tasted in his life before, he was completely absorbed in it.

Of course, not being as knowledgeable as Norma in this kind of stuff, Lecan had no clue what caused something even though he knew there was something going on in the patient's body, nor he knew how to proceed. Actually he's virtually clueless in how body parts work. However, he intuitively knew how to make impaired parts work right again. So long as he knows the problem is, <Recovery> will take care of the rest.

Eda seemed to also be learning Norma's examination in her own way as well.

She was observing Norma in a surprisingly earnest manner.

At first, Norma did everything from taking medicine out of the drawers to picking up herbs in the garden. Lecan and Eda only followed her around.

But halfway through, Norma began giving orders like telling them to bring specific amount of medicine on plates, or medicinal leaves.

"You've got to remember to always wash your hands whenever. It would be absurd if you mix in dirt and mud in the medicine you're making, in this world full of invisible weak poison. Makes it a habit to wash your hands off medicinal powder. This is the most important knowledge I can impart you."

"What is weak poison?"

"By eating food, your body takes it in and brings you energy. However, eating rotten food make you fall ill. In other words, they're poison. This world is loaded with graces that support human strength and existence. But those graces could also work similarly to poison under certain circumstances."

"Why aren't we allowed to talk when we're making medicine?"

"That's an inviolable rule common in the world of medical practitioners since old days. It's often expressed as 'taking your vitality away', or 'inviting evil spirits' and such. To tell you the truth, I don't understand the reason behind such rules myself. However, the act of not chattering off when you're making medicine itself is most likely sound. I want you two to follow this rule so long you are my apprentices as well."

"Got it. Also, I'm thinking of putting <Recovery> on the medicines during their creation, what do you think?"

"You mean putting <Recovery> in all the medicine you're making? No, that's way too reckless. But, I suppose you two can do it. Just, unbelievable. Humm."

Norma pondered for a while before shaking her head.

"An attractive proposition, one that I have to decline."

"Why."

"It's unfeasible to have all the medicine I make put with your <Recovery> all my life. Which means, there would be unevenness in quality. One medicine may be tenfolds more effective over the other. What do you think will happen if a person who has been using that tenfold medicine uses the normal one next."

"Fumu. It won't be as effective, I believe."

"Right. And that will have a negative effect on the patient's mind. And speaking personally, medicine that demonstrates better efficacy than what I've anticipated is a bit of a wild card to me."

"I see. Understood."

"Use your time here in this medical center to observe and study how I treat and diagnose patients. Your help in preparing medicine is more than sufficient. Please keep your <Recovery> only for patients with serious conditions that are beyond me. Though well, exceptional circumstances may arise where you have to use it in this medical center."

One such exceptional circumstances occurred the day after.