Chương 1202: HOW THE WHITE HEALER CAME TO BE
HOW THE WHITE HEALER CAME TO BE
A long time ago, a healer from the colored mountain came to the plains. She had lived a long and distinguished life of a powerful healer, and she was tired. Tired of the requests and demands that flowed into her Soul Tower. It was always one thing or another, and although she was well respected and connected, although there was no one in the mountains who would easily dare to offend her, she was never really free.
Because she could not easily dare to offend the powers around her either. Always, her life was hanging on a balance of pleasing the other powers by providing her healing, teaching, or producing miracle drugs who in turn supported her with the manpower and resources to continue healing, teaching, and experimenting in safety.
One day, while sitting at her desk, she looked out of her window and watched as the throngs of people waited outside in hopes of her appearance. There were two places the desperate wolf might run to - the soul tower, where even the dead could be brought back to life, and the king's throne, where everything else could possibly come true with a single wish.
It was while watching the indistinguishable crowds milling beyond the gates of her Soul Tower that she realized the irony of her life... How many centuries had she been trapped within the walls of the tower she established with her own hands?
A polite knock on the door drew her attention to her assistant's voice from behind the closed door, "Your grace, His Majesty's Agent Laru is waiting for an audience."
The healer sighed. It was not like she could turn away the King's agent. She didn't even like the new king - what was his name again? The kings kept changing... Or was she really outliving the average reign of the Tyger monarchs? Ignatius. That's right. The blasted lighting wolf. He was always demanding and also, he terrified her.
But safety for a coveted neutral force like the Soul Tower was always in the balance of all the other powers surrounding it. Specifically the White Mountain's Tyger King and Black Mountain's Royal Courts. Once upon a time, this healer had asked, "Why can't we just heal everybody?"
Once upon a time, this healer had someone who would tell her she was naive. Once upon a time, this healer had a name. Now, she was just the White Healer of the Soul Tower, and very few wolves remembered a white wolf named Wanda.
From the moment she noticed how her Soul Tower was nothing more than a glorified prison for healers and alchemists to practice "freely" in safety, Wanda could no longer feel happy there. It didn't matter than the Soul Tower only accepted disciples of the highest caliber of healer powers, or how miraculous the medicines produced here were. It didn't even matter that she was the first and most esteemed founder of this prestigious tower.
Even the Healing Palm Centers with its magic waters and technological breakthroughs could not reach the pinnacle of Soul Tower's heights of fame. At best, their services were more widespread and accessible. In most medical cases, the Healing Palm was enough. But everyone knew: if the Healing Palm could not cure it, the Soul Tower could. It was a fact all wolves knew. It was a fact that brought both talented healers and desperate patients to her door.
Perhaps His Highness Haruka understood better...he used to be her favourite disciple. She still remembered him just shifted, wide eyed and wet behind his ears. He wanted to change the world... More specifically, he wanted to change the face of healing across the Colored Mountains.
Once upon a time, a young wolf named Wanda had thought, "Wouldn't it be wonderful if I could heal everybody and no one had to suffer or cry?" She ended up setting up the Tower in pursuit of a higher healing.
Her favorite disciple argued with her over every little thing and a rather shocking number of big things too.
She wanted to see every patient personally. He wanted an army of physicians and lesser healers to screen patients first.
She wanted to write prescriptions from scratch, sometimes creating new medicines to perfectly compliment and heal her patients individually. He wanted premade general medicines that could be prescribed as an all in one solution for everyone.
She wanted to train gifted healers to cultivate their healing arts. He wanted to train them to use technology and modern medical medicines.
She believed the highest healers should all be teachers to hand their wisdom to the next generation. He believed the highest healers should all be researchers to create new wisdom for the next generation.
She would save a single patient and work tirelessly for a 100% recovery. She took pride that her patients would leave in better health than before they had suffered their mishap. He would see 10 patients in the same amount of time and discharge them at 60-80%. Or at whichever point they could live somewhat normally under daily medication and care. In this way, he would save 9 more wolves from the brink of death each time.
She believed the true payment one could receive from healing a patient was their sincere gratitude. He believed it was their money. In his opinion, every heal and medical service should come with a monetary price tag so that the patient understood how valuable their treatment was.
Eventually, he left to create the most modern and systematic medical organization the Mountains had ever seen.
While she planted a tall tree, he grew medical centres like pools of bacteria - which they were, that magic water. It was magical, what Haruka did. Any healer could heal, as long as the required price was paid for their power. But with a medical science and biotechnology, Haraku created healing centres where wolves with little or no healing powers could become physicians, therapists, and technicians. Computers could analyse drugs and blood tests, and bacterial baths can detox poisons and stimulate a wolf's natural healing abilities. It was a miracle of science, one that was very profitable.
In the centuries before she met him, her way had been undisputably the best way. And although, she had publicly acknowledged his talents, and praised his achievements, although she was also grateful that the success of the Healing Palm had helped ease the burden on her Soul Tower, they were still not on talking terms. The reason was simple. In their last and final exchange, some words were said. She said some things (she forgot what). He said some things (he said she was a cranky old woman). And she could never forgive him for that.
How dare he call her an old woman! Anyone looking could see that she was still as beautiful and lovely as a maiden in her Spring of life! Unforgivable!
She had continued to give him a cold shoulder since. She would have disowned him as a disciple except that she still didn't want to speak to him. There were some lines one should never cross, even if one were a favourite disciple once upon a time.
So she left... Well, not because of Haruka, but the success of the Healing Palm did enable her to leave the Colored Mountains without too much guilt.
The Colored Mountains was no longer relying on her Soul Tower for healing. She could leave to find her own freedom. She didn't leave alone either. A number of the Soul Tower's disciples followed her out into the plains. They worried for her, "Your grace would never survive alone outside the Soul Tower!"
Which was as insulting as it was probably true. The only reason why the other powers allowed it was because they assumed she would return. They didn't think she would survive outside the Soul Tower either.
"The Soul Tower is her life!" King Ignatius had huffed, "She had given her whole adult life to it!"
(But she proved him wrong. Ha! She never liked that Tyger.)
Out in the plains, the magic was thin, almost to the point of nonexistentence. This alone was reason enough to return to the Soul Tower, but everything and everyone was unknown out in the plains too, and Wanda found her freedom in incognito in a small unnamed village.
Here, they quietly brewed potions and studied the local medicinal plants. Here, Wanda met her true love. He was much too young for her, and she was against it from the start, but he was a Young Alpha Blade Wolf whose hair was as wild and passionate as his will.
He really didn't know how to take no for an answer. But to her surprise, she fell in love, she had his pups, and grew old with him (so it must be true love - she had not done so even for her own soul mate). For one wonderful lifetime, she was happy. When he died, she realized everyone else who had come out of the mountains with her had long left this world. How many grandchildren and great grandchildren did she have? Why were all their powers so weak? Like the magic in the air, the powers of the wolves born to the healers here were also barely existent.
Now and then, a rare talent would be born, and everyone would make such a big fuss over the pup. "Quick, bring her to Grandma Wanda!"
Wanda would always be disappointed. Such a talent would not even if accepted at the Soul Tower in Colored Mountains. Was it karma that all her descendants were Healing Palm level employees?
One night, she accidentally brewed the wrong sachet of tea leaves and woke up the next morning young again.
For some reason, she was embarrassed to show herself to her family. Why! She looked younger than her own grandchildren! How would she ever face them? So she ran away... Again, but this time alone.
Her disciples at the Soul Tower were right. She was unable to survive... It was right in the crux of the Great War. At first she did very well for herself. She lived in a cave and made medicine, enchanted bandages, and created ressurection charms. Many packs paid handsomely for these items. The war had taken a toll, and a resurrection charm doubled a desperate pack's warrior count.
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