Chapitre 13: What good does it do?

The key to eternal life has been on the mind of every magical scientist since the dawn of mankind. Who wouldn't want to continue their research forever and gain all the power possible, after all? Which monarch would not want to stay in their comfortable golden throne until all comes to end? Everyone at least once thought of what it would feel like to reach the ends of what magic has to give, but mortality prevents this line of thought to continue. Not like there is no known way for one to live extremely long periods of time, technically eternally, but as of now all these paths require such sacrifices, that many are not willing to make, and very few are actually capable of making.

- Small portion of 'On the topic of living eternally' -

- Markan Royal Library, Forbidden Section, Royal Private Letters -

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Zora was extremely delighted when he finally managed to learn healing magic. He was 5 and a half years old then. His magical skills were growing by leaps and bounds, but his physique was only worsening as the years passed. He was still scrawny, he could barely run, his blood was as unwilling to clot as before, it even turned a bit worse, as time passed.

When he showed his parents he is capable of summoning huge ice spears and mighty fireballs out of thin air, after a very lengthy talk about responsibility and taking care of oneself, along with those around him, he was allowed to move as he wanted, obviously from their house to the village to speak with Olak freely. During these times sometimes instead of going to the village as promised, he visited the nearby forest to hunt the wildlife. It was child's play for him to absolutely obliterate every common animal with his arsenal, but he could also force-twist smaller animals' necks in a complete 180 degrees to cleanly kill them. Olak obviously shared the sentiment and played along with it.

This way he always had as much food as he wanted. Processing his prey was something he learned back in one of his military services. He doesn't remember which one anymore. Anyway he had the necessary skills, and that is the only thing that mattered.

The first time he brought the game back he was reprimanded and locked into the house for a week or so, but once he got out he went back to hunting, so his parents decided to talk to him about being very careful and responsible, instead of trying to force him into submission. For this he respected them greatly. So after a while he had food and the family gained a lot of money out of the pelts they sold.

But it was not enough. His body kept deteriorating, no matter how well-fed he was or how well he was clothed. He was still very sickly and weak.

Olak could only do so much, his internal mana reserves were very limited and he was unable to replenish it by ingesting the ambient mana in the air, unlike Zora. This was something seemingly only he could do, not even the books mentioned that someone should or might be able to harness the natural mana around themselves. Anyway, Olak tried to heal the kid every time he came to him with an injury, but he was unable to help his body as a whole.

Common healing magic was only able to promote cell regeneration, which means if the body itself was faulty, then there was nothing to do. Genetic diseases were incurable for even the best healers. The top of magical healing in that time was regrowing complete body parts for the patient, maybe even half a human, if the necessary energy was supplied, but remodeling a person on the genetic level was something that eluded even the biggest brains of humanity.

This made Zora anxious on a level which he didn't know to exist before. Even though he was able to heal his own injuries, that didn't mean he was able to keep himself healthy. At first the thought bummed him out so much he completely lost his will to live. What is the point, when he is just slowly waiting to die? Obviously that is what everyone does, but he will live probably up to the end of his teen years. That is barely enough to leave a mark, much less explore the whole magical world as he wanted to. Or find a way to break this curse on him that makes him reincarnate every time he dies. If all he can do is wait for a decade at best then die in pain, then why would he not just skip the painful part and try his luck with rerolling again?

He was brooding for days, but every day his family would check up on him to try and cheer him up, as they all saw how bad his mood was, even though he never talks about his feelings. For a whole week straight the whole family day-by-day kept nagging Zora to cheer up, to do something, to go and have a talk, or give them a magic show. Ever since he started working for the family the burden placed on his parents were halved, or more. Now everything was back to normal, or even better.

Their relentless enthusiasm and love reminded Zora, that even though he barely had a decade to live, there was a 'now' for him, a life that he could live, even if its short. And on the other hand, there is no certainty he can't find a way to save himself. There are always options to explore and hidden paths to find. He was given a great chance with this life, and it would've been a huge luxury for him to just throw it away, simply because of some hardships he came across.

He felt like its his time to live again, and he won't give an inch of it, no matter what.

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