Reeves glanced at Zayne, he was in no hurry to get down to business, instead, he spent more than ten minutes cleaning up his little lab, putting everything in its place. He checked several times to make sure everything was in its proper place.
"Good." Reeves nodded approvingly, then he turned to Zayne, "Sounds like you're in a pretty tough situation if Solomon himself is asking for my help."
Zayne felt uncomfortable as there seemed to be some tension in the room. He stared at Reeves and nodded seriously.
"I was in the misty forest, and after a battle in one Dungeon, I returned to the academy. However, one of the monsters seems to have wounded me more than I thought."
Reeves grasped his chin, with a hard stare examining Zayne from top to bottom.
"Hmm... I see, the problem is inside, right? Outwardly, you're definitely perfectly healthy. By the way, your muscles are pretty good, or rather the way they're connected to each other." Reeves muttered with a stone face.
Zayne flinched at such a comment but didn't look away from it, as he thought Reeves was just showing his professional interest.
Zayne wanted to say something, but, suddenly, he felt a sharp pain in his chest again.
"Argh!" Zayne cried out, as he gripped his heart, trying to somehow take the pain away, but it didn't help at all.
Reeves's eyes went wide as Zayne vomited out a mouthful of blood, leaving a dark stain on the ground with tiny ice crystals.
"Damn... You could have at least warned me, now I have to clean up again." Reeves sighed, shaking his head.
"You know how to cure it, don't you?" Solomon asked with a serious expression.
Reeves nodded, "Sure, it's not a problem, but it's pretty weird." Reeves walked over to Zayne, staring intently into his eyes for a while.
"There are quite a few monsters in the misty forest that use the ice attribute, but that's not the most important thing." Reeves muttered, tilting his head slightly, which was rather creepy, "Part of your organs are left frozen, you need something very powerful for that."
Zayne took a step back, "Well... Maybe I overestimated my abilities a little by entering the Dungeon, which I managed to overcome with difficulty. Everyone makes mistakes, don't they?"
Reeves stared at Zayne for a while, as if trying to see through him, then a wide smile appeared on his face.
"Yeah, I think you're right!" Reeves nodded vigorously, turned, and headed for the bookshelf.
Solomon with a complicated expression glanced at Zayne but said nothing. He understood that Zayne had lied and even guessed the reason for his actions, however, he had no reason to reveal it.
Reeves opened the book, flipping through several pages until he found what he needed.
"Right, with this I can cure you. Take off your clothes." Reeves said calmly with a wave of his hand.
"What...?" Zayne was puzzled as he looked at Solomon, but he only nodded.
"Hmm? Is something wrong? Are you embarrassed? If so, I can kick Rea out." Reeves shrugged as he glanced at Rea, who instantly blushed.
Zayne began to shake his head quickly, "No, no, no, that won't be necessary. I just don't understand why it's necessary?"
Reeves tilted his head, "Damn... Don't you know anything at all about alchemy...? I can't blame you though, your case is pretty rare, that's a fact. Anyway, we need to get those ice crystals out of you."
Zayne still didn't understand anything, but he decided not to argue with Reeves and did as he said. He didn't have to be completely naked, only to the waist since the ice was in the chest area. He lay down on the stone table, waiting for the next action.
Reeves, as expected, began to prepare the potion. He mixed various ingredients, sometimes even tasting them as if he were a chef and not an alchemist.
'Well... Though I've never met an alchemist before, I definitely imagined them to be somehow different. He's kind of weird, but considering Solomon trusts him, I have nothing to worry about.' Zayne pondered inwardly as he watched Reeves pour the blue liquid into the flask.
"Done, now open your mouth wide and don't move or something unforeseen might happen." Reeves said calmly, tilting the flask over Zayne.
Zayne opened his mouth as the blue liquid fell onto his tongue, flowing down his throat and spreading all over his body. He immediately felt an unpleasant chill, as if he were starting to freeze from the inside, then the pain increased sharply.
"Fuck!" Zayne cursed, spitting out a clot of blood in what was now one big chunk of ice.
"Not, bad, it'll get better in time, but it's a start." Reeves nodded satisfactorily as if everything was happening as it should.
Zayne didn't know what to expect, but it only got worse, even though Reeves said otherwise. He felt as if blades were flowing through his veins, cutting him from the inside, and gradually it became just unbearable.
"Argh!!!" Zayne cried out in pain, filling the room with a scream that was impossible to contain.
At the same moment, several messages appeared before him.
[The external force displaces the chilling energy that is destroying your body!]
[Go all the way to the end of the process to heal completely!]
However, Zayne didn't pay attention to it as he was in too much pain to read anything.
His body glowed brightly as some of his wounds reopened. Ice crystals began to emerge through them, along with blue streams of energy that left behind a thin layer of ice.
Once this began, Reeves quickly took a stone seal from the shelf and activated it, absorbing all the ice flows.
After a while, the pain became weaker, until it gradually subsided and Zayne could breathe again in peace.
"Good job." Reeves said calmly, looking at the seal, "If I were you, I'd scream a lot harder. You're a pretty tough guy, that's commendable. Young men these days aren't as sturdy as you are."
Zayne didn't say anything, he just enjoyed the moment. He hadn't noticed it, but as soon as he woke up he felt a strange heaviness that was now gone.
'Damn... I don't know if Karin tried to heal me, but she certainly didn't do it completely.' Zayne inwardly muttered before slowly standing up.
"Are you okay?" Rea asked with a worried expression as she ran up to him.
Zayne nodded, "Yeah, Mr. Reeves did a great job, though I didn't expect to have to go through something like this..."
Reeves smirked, "I'm sorry I didn't warn you, though it would have been even more painful if I had. It's better to face these things under unexpected circumstances, isn't it?"
"Perhaps." Zayne nodded with a bitter smile, "Mr. Reeves, I don't understand anything about alchemy, but was all this really necessary? Why couldn't you just melt the ice in my body with some kind of fire potion or something?"
Reeves shook his head, "The problem wasn't the ice crystals, it was the energy that was left in your body. If I just got rid of the crystals, they would reappear, and it would go on indefinitely."
Zayne gulped.
"Aghm!" Solomon coughed, "I think that's enough. Zayne, Rea, you need to rest, especially you Zayne. I, on the other hand, need to talk to Reeves."
Zayne and Rea looked at each other, nodded, and headed for the exit. When they closed the door, Solomon's gaze changed as he looked intently at Reeves.
"Hey, maybe Zayne bought that crap you told him, but obviously, it's not going to work on me." Solomon said seriously, piercing Reeves' gaze, "You did that on purpose, didn't you?"
Reeves smirked, leaned against the wall, looked at the seal in his hands, and said, "Isn't that something? You asked me to cure him, so I did. I see no reason why you could be angry with me."
Solomon frowned, "You know what I'm talking about. You absolutely did not have to put Zayne through such a painful process, there were other ways, that's for sure!"
Reeves nodded, with a slight smile, "You're right. What's more, Zayne's idea was right. I could have just melted the crystals inside his body, however, then I wouldn't have gotten it." Reeves showed the seal to Solomon.
Reeves continued, "We both know that Zayne wasn't wounded in Dungeon, there are no monsters in the mist forest that can freeze organs from the inside. It's too high a level. That Karin, the Frost Moon, for example, is capable of."
Solomon was not surprised when he heard Karin's name, on the contrary, he only nodded slightly.
"So you noticed she sneaked into the academy too, didn't you?" Solomon asked with a sharp look.
"Of course, however, she left too quickly. By the way, Fate Knight came to our academy today, looks like it's going to be an interesting tournament." Reeves muttered in a quiet voice, "Give my apologies to Zayne, but, that energy was too valuable to pass up. I could do some interesting experiments with it."
Solomon took a deep breath, "You never change... Well, hopefully, the tournament won't be a disaster, since things are pretty intense so far."