It was a warm night. Still, with the summer breeze freely blowing on them, Nero felt relaxed. He was with his master, Veil, and they were sharing the light of a small bonfire the master healer had set up.

And Veil asked him: “Have you brought your indenture? You can’t get your signet without it.”

“Yes,” he said, “I keep it in my bag.”

(Nero felt something was odd with this situation, a sensation that told him he shouldn’t be here…but ultimately ignored it.)

His master, despite the humid climate, never really took out his black cloak, nor he ever flipped its hood. He was also wearing a white mask without any opening—and never took it off. It might be filled with sweat and disgusting odor. But, of course, he wouldn’t dare ask his master again, “Why that persona?” He’s master was secretive even from the start. And…well, he’s used to it now, now that he’d been training under him for whole three years.

“Do you remember the incident with Lady Amishovla?” Veil suddenly asked.

“Amishovla?”

“The abused sleeping beauty, pimped by his father. Damn it, kid, you should remember your patient’s name!”

“She’s your patient, not mine!” Nero contested. “But, why bring her up? I can’t stomach her situation.”

“Nothing much. Just a reminder that you can’t heal everyone.”

“But…you did heal her.”

“Well, only because I managed to convince her father.”

“Convince, eh? More like torture, I’ll say.”

Veil laughed. His deep voice reverberating through the mask. “You’ll find it useful later. Slightly injuring them and healing them continuously is very persuasive—if you became strong enough.

“But, the thing I want to point when I told you that we can’t heal everyone is: you can’t heal—and I’ve told you this, right?—you can’t heal us healers. Healers can’t heal themselves.”

“Yes. You’ve told me that countless of times already.”

Veil nodded. “However, that’s not entirely true.” Then he took out his right arm from his cloak.

At that moment, his master’s right arm suddenly charred black—as he witnessed, skin breaking and bleeding—without flame. From his elbow to the tip of his fingers, it was as if it was burned from within. His master, however, explained that it was a curse, and he confessed he was feeling it a few days prior, but only now had it occurred.

“And this will be my last lesson to you.”

Veil then, with the help of the light from the bonfire, showed Nero how his charred skin slowly stopped bleeding, the cracks simultaneously closing. He showed that his burned arm was slowly healing; not as fast as when he healed others, but fast enough to identify it as “healing”.

“How…?”

“What’s the principle in healing, Nero?”

With a monotonous recitation, he said, “First: to cancel all the antimana plaguing the patient’s soul by pouring mana into it. Second: to fill the mana core to 100%—more than the optimal level of 80% of the reserve; and let the 20% excess mana enable the preternatural healing.”

“Good! But why can’t we heal ourselves and others like us?”

“I…don’t know.” Nero frowned. “But, apparently you can.”

“Yes. Apparently.” At that moment, his arm stopped healing. Though the blackening and the cracks and the bleeding were gone, patches of burns were still covering most of his arm. “But not completely.

“You see, child,” Veil took out a roll of bandage from his bag; Nero stood up and volunteered to wind the bandage to his master’s burns. And as the young healer did, the master healer continued saying, “the only reason why we can’t heal healers is because our mana cores are quite special—they don’t accept the typical mana you can buy in the market; our mana cores require a certain type of mana. Yes, there’s another type of mana. However, I can only produce a very limited amount of it.”

Nero pondered for a long while; partly because his attention was caught up in winding his master’s wound, and partly digesting what his master had told him.

“Oh. The reason you didn’t heal me the first time we met,” the young healer then said, “was not because you can’t, but because you don’t want to…?”

“Hey, look at this bandage! You’re good!”

He finished winding the bandage to his master’s arm at that point, so the latter’s comment wasn’t too far off. But obviously, his master was avoiding the observation he stated.

“How did you come up with this mana, master?” he asked then.

Veil stood up. The light from the fire casted standing shadows on his master, making him look more menacing and towering. “Return to Siedsy tomorrow, and tell your uncle I’ll be giving you your signet. Come here again as soon as possible and find me.”

Then his master left. He put out the bonfire with water from his canteen before following behind.