The prince had this silly little smile on his face the rest of our way. I didn’t say much after that. I don’t know what the prince wants to ask, is it safe to assume it won’t be good? I can only wait.

We reached the castle without delay and headed straight to one of the tallest towers. The structure of this place… Big halls and tall windows, never ending carpets on the stone floor, the entrance to important places (like the throne room) decorated with mythical creatures made of marble, the cold of night biting my every uncovered skin. I can’t believe I’m in an actual castle! But this design… The wall that protects the main building had its fair amount of towers, each one every time the angle changed, making some sort of polygon. It resembled a tall bastion, actually, just with a classic 12th century castle in the middle… Ugh, this made my head hurt.

In any case, the historical inaccuracy of this style of building doesn't concern me... too much.

Rodrick’s Laboratory, as Hansel called it, looked more like a library. There were countless shelves with countless books arranged in every bit of space possible. In the middle, I could see a round table, filled with paper, potions? Empty bottles, you name it. The old man was resting in a comfortable rocking chair near a fire, reading a book.

“Rodrick, I hope I’m not too late.”

“Young Prince, not at all.”

The mage stood to apprise me, detailing every bit of my body. I found it strangely weird.

“So, this is Mister Leonard Sica. Nice to meet you.”

“The pleasure is mine, Sir Rodrick. Prince-” Hansel looked at me with some rage… I-I guess this is not a high-class place then. I cleared my throat and continued. “Hansel said you wanted to see me.”

“Yes, indeed. Please, follow me.”

We went up some stairs and into a small space. He asked us to sit in one of the chairs as he started looking for something in another room.

I’m gonna be ok, I bet it’s nothing serious.

“Let’s start then.”

He got… a frog, and a knife… What on earth? Some parchments and a quill pen too

“It’s quite simple. Since it’s a healing spell, let’s give you something to heal.”

“Ow, ow, wait. Are you gonna hurt that poor little thing?”

“Why, yes. How else am I able to see the spell?”

I took the knife in my hand and cut the palm of the other. Hansel startled when he saw the blood dripping to the wooden floor, worried, but I didn’t care. I started the incantation as slowly as possible, giving the old mage time to copy the circle that appeared on the wound. Rodrick didn’t waste any second and copied the circle at frightening speed. Now that I cast it to appreciate the work behind it, the first thing that happened is the bleeding stopping. The blood filling that wound disappeared soon after, and the flesh started to heal, beginning where I finished the cut.

“Marvelous!” uttered Rodrick. “This is simply marvelous!”

“Can you tell us what happened then?” asked Hansel, though I pretty much have an idea of how it works.

“It is a regression spell — it uses the mana to restore the target to a previous state. But the runes behind it! Did you actually create this kind of magic, Mister Leonard?”

This is a tricky question. I arrived into this world knowing this spell, I don’t know if you can be born with something like that, but my bet is that you can’t.

“Since I’m attuned to light, one of my superiors asked me to cast this spell and learn it. I can’t learn offensive magic, and I can’t hold weapons either, so his guess was to make me a full-time support.”

“To think that Flonctus’ military had access to such advanced magic. But tell me, do you know anything about the human body?”

“Yes, I do know somewhat the basics.”

Restoration is a skill that relies on memory to heal. Uses my mana to turn back time and sew the cells back together. It also envelops any kind of dead cells and uses the energy within them to give birth to new ones. It’s a very powerful healing skill, but it uses the memory of the user to leave things as they were. It’s not a skill that can be used by someone without knowledge in medicine. I had to take a nursery course when I became a teacher, and kept that information updated as best as I could.

Since I studied the runes, I was curious how Restoration worked, so I dug down a bit about it. It also helped me to understand how I could form complicated spells easily. Of course, I’m not going to make a 12-rune spell like Restoration anytime soon, but it helps.

“You are truly amazing, Mister Leonard… I don’t even know if I can cast it,” I wouldn’t be surprised. The knowledge we have on the human body and its functions is more advanced than yours after all. “You said you were attuned to light. Which other attunements do you have?

“Wind and darkness.”

“Oh, so you are attuned to Light and Darkness at the same time… Incredible,” he concluded.

“Just like my mother!” so, the Queen of this country has this kind of attunement.

“Yes, it is true the former queen could use light and darkness spells easily. She combined them with her other two attunements, though. Fire and Water. She was a fierce warrior, feared by her enemies and loved by her people.”

“Wait, you said the former?”

“Mother was killed a year ago,” said Hansel. “By the very woman that took Flonctus to its knees, Nancy Wright.”