Resting places of sufficiently powerful manabeasts are easy to locate, as the energies from one’s core shapes the surroundings. Snow-covered plain in the middle of a scorching desert or tornadoes in caverns deep underground are obvious signs, but others are more subtle.

  How does one tell whether the earth is too earthy, or whether the metal vein in an area rich in mana is a sign of a long dead saurian?

  — Excerpt from The Saurian Primer

  Day 116, 9:20 PM

  It was strange that the healer class didn’t really require you to successfully heal anyone for the first three levels. Treating patients, diagnosing them correctly, and prescribing correct treatments got me three levels in under an hour. I couldn’t tell whether the system considered the healer class useless, thus giving it easy leveling conditions, or whether it found the class necessary, giving the practitioners starting down that road a beginner’s boost.

  For my first level, I got the choice between two fairly useless skills for me, Initial Triage and Initial Bedside Manner. I needed neither. Redo performed better than any triage ever could, and with my stats and a bit of common sense, I knew how to talk to people.

  Still, I chose the latter, and for the next level picked Initial First Aid over Initial Unintelligible Handwriting. I can’t imagine a scenario where the latter could prove useful, but I know for a fact doctors often got the unfortunate skill. Third level left me with two nasty choices, and I chose Initial Bloodletting as the more positive one.

  The fourth level condition was tougher, and something I would have to wait a while before completing. Set a bone was ridiculously simple. All I had to do was break someone’s leg and then fix it, but such action led down a sociopathic path I wasn’t willing to take. Besides, a stonemason would come an hour past dawn, after suffering an accident in his workshop.

  “Thank you, thank you.” While plans and future information rampaged through my mind, a gaunt young woman, perhaps seventeen years old, perhaps less, sobbed as I came and told her I had a cure for her younger brother’s terminal condition. “But how can you cure gangrene?”

  A valid question, the boy suffered from a certainly terminal case of the illness, but I would cure him. I could get two levels out of him before noon tomorrow.

  “He needs surgery.” She paled at the word. “And then an alchemist-brewed healing potion.”

  She swayed, about to drop unconscious.

  “We can’t afford that,” she stuttered, hating herself because money stopped her from curing her little brother.

  Her concern was quite reasonable. A potion which could cure the boy after I removed all the dead tissue cost several thousand gold coins, one which could treat the gangrene outright would have cost several pieces of first realm manarium.

  If the level up condition for the fifth level hadn’t been to perform a successful surgery, I would have given him the more expensive potion straight away to save time, but even as things were, I was doing them a life-changing favor while benefiting from it.

  While weighing the morality of the situation, I assured her that I was donating my time and knowledge, and that I wouldn’t ask for anything in return, other than the infirmary’s standard plea for help and donations.

  “Thank you, thank you,” the scrawny young thing nearly threw herself at my feet, but I held her arm. I suddenly knew she wouldn’t make it past thirty with how frail and malnourished she was. And yet, there was nothing I could do. Such was life and evolution. The survival of the fittest ruled even amongst civilized humans, we just saw it differently.

  I disengaged from the woman, sorry I decided to meet her in person in this final loop. Things would have been easier had I remained a cold, distant professional, who just did their work without talking or making eye contact with patients and their kin.

  After walking down the corridor, I approached Clear. “You should go home and grab some sleep.”

  The woman was near the point of collapse. She stared at me blankly, and I hesitated a moment before asking the question that’s been gnawing at me for a quarter hour.

  “Do you have soup kitchens around here?”

  They didn’t. And I gave a billion gold coins to distract a sixteen-year-old while I got my act together. I rubbed the bridge of my nose, thinking, What’s another billion?

  A simple, nourishing meal was around a silver coin, possibly less when mass produced; assuming I was feeding ten thousand people, plus paying for the infrastructure needed to organize the whole thing, a second realm piece of manarium would see them fed for two and a half centuries.

  The math of it made my head spin and my guts churn. Despite the voice of cold reason somewhere in the back of my head, I knew what I was going to do. The food needed to be slop, though; nourishing, yet with a horrible taste, otherwise people would come for the heck of it or to save money.

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  With the plan forming in my mind, I made the evening rounds, helping those I could. There were a handful with broken, but already splinted legs and arms. I could have saved time, undone their splints and reset the injuries better, but the treatment they received was good enough, and tormenting them without justification, just so I could level was inappropriate.

  “Dandelion,” Fivesnake called my name. I turned around, and the man motioned me to approach.

  “You’re an awakened, right?” he whispered when I reached his quiet corner.

  “I am. Why?” He hadn’t broached the topic before. In the previous loops, I came, did what I had to do, keeping my distance from everyone, imagining my patients as lumps of flesh rather than people, and left with my levels.

  “You’re doing admirable work, and you treat the patients like humans. Poppy came to me a little while ago, crying and asking what she could do to help us.”

  I had no idea who Poppy was, I helped eleven women that day, more than half of them shedding tears of relief and gratitude. With no idea what to say, I nodded, a safe bet, given the circumstances.

  Remaining silent was obviously the wrong thing. Fivesnake gave me a nervous smile, but plowed through.

  “What I want to say is, thank you. Thank you for helping and for caring about those of lower status than yourself.” The man’s eyes were wet, his voice heavy with emotion.

  The difference in status between awakened and the non-awakened was mind-blowing. I disliked such an obvious inequality, despite knowing it existed. I experienced it firsthand when the valiant of ice, Frostgrave, rampaged in the street. She could have unmade me with a thought, and just the frigid air of her rage could have killed regular humans, infesting their bodies with unnatural chill which they could never dispel.

  “You never know,” I said with an easy smile. “Maybe some of my patients will have children or grandchildren who awaken, maybe I will reap the benefits of my good deeds.”

  Fivesnake threw me a glance, knowing none who entered the slum hospice would have awakened descendants.

  “If you need to say such things in front of your peers to maintain your reputation, I will naturally help spread such rumors.” His voice was heavy and indignant, filled with the impotent rage of the non-awakened in the world in which they would forever remain less than human. “But we both know that’s not why you’re here, and I and all the patients here are grateful for your grace.”

  I nodded. He was making the whole affair more emotional and awkward than it needed to be. And it would only grow worse once I started the soup kitchen.

  The relationship I shared with Fivesnake in the previous loops made the conversation even more awkward. Namely, I used to pay him for instruction and information on healing, with a strictly professional and even mercenary relationship between us. The clash of perceptions made me realize there was another nuance to looping which I had failed to consider.

  The dissonance was a minor thing, one I could rationalize and compare to going out on a drink with a coworker you had known for years, and then discovering they were a completely different person once they left the office.

  That helped calm my mind, so I went about the infirmary, performing tasks for another hour before I was done for the day. Then, as a member of the alchemists’ guild, I went to the guild building and brewed the tonic I would need in a couple of hours.

  The pace was inhumane, but so was my leveling speed, and the exchange was well worth it. I was in the infirmary five minutes before a burly man with a mangled arm would walk in. Clear was thankfully gone, replaced by the young woman whose brother’s advanced gangrene I planned to heal. Another change.

  “Good morning, Lord Knight.” She bowed deeply, her voice and hands trembling. “Thank you for your grace. I’m volunteering at the hospital to return a fraction of your kindness you have graced us with.”

  Her words were clumsy, as was her bow, but she radiated sincerity. I couldn’t help but feel dirty.

  “Relax. Has anyone explained what your job is and how you should act?”

  “Yes, madam Clear told me everything I need to know. I’m not afraid of blood and I’m ready to help—”

  “Can someone help me?” The muscular stonemason walked in, a shattered bone sticking out of his forearm, blood dripping down his hairy arm, and the thin young woman helpfully fainted.

  [Name - Dandelion Blackfist

  Class - healer level 3

  Health 25/25, Strength - 25, Agility - 25, Physique - 25, Wisdom - 25, Intellect - 25, Willpower - 25, Presence - 25, Charisma - 25, Composure - 25

  Abilities - See Abilities for more information.

  Attribute points remaining - 26

  To level up, set a bone.

  Statuses - none]

  [Abilities - Expert Appraisal, Initial Forest Ambush, Advanced Looting, Literate, Flawless Heartcore, Initial Mana Gathering, Initial Mana Circulation, Initial Black Fist Arts, Advanced Body Reinforcement, Master Rider, Initial Fast Reader, Initial Reference Checker, Master Calligraphy, Initial Arithmetics, Initial Persuasion, Initial Photographic Memory, Initial Time Optimization, Initial Logical Deduction, Advanced Steady Hand, Initial Eye For Detail, Initial Seal Deconstruction, Initial Seal Prototyping, Expert Staffmanship, Expert Swordsmanship, Expert Spearmanship, Initial Clubmanship, Initial Flailmanship, Advanced Knifemanship, Initial Axmanship, Initial Macemanship, Initial Slingmanship, Advanced Bowmanship, Piercing Weapons Master, Battlefield Mastery, Always Ready, Initial Sense of Danger, Initial Hammer Proficiency, Initial Find Structural Weakness, Initial Rhythm, Initial Endurance, Advanced Herbalism, Advanced Healing, Initial Focus, Initial Woodland Sense, Initial Poison Lore, Initial Precise Hand, Advanced Poison Tolerance, Initial Infer Recipe, Initial Infuse Admixture, Initial Quick Brewer, Initial Bedside Manner, Initial First Aid, Initial Bloodletting]

  [Anarchist Level 7

  Abilities - Rage, Redo, Blunt, Heavy Handed, Direct, Insightful, Precise, Amicable, Visionary, Godly ??, Gate Sealer ??, Vengeful ?, Grandmaster Rider ?

  To level up, force the authorities to impose justice upon a party they had previously ignored.]