Frustratingly enough, Brock was forced to wait in the waiting room to visit either of them, as currently they already had visitors, probably other warriors paying their respects, if he had to guess. Sure, he could probably move so fast that they wouldn’t even notice him sneak in, but he didn’t want to be the guy that always shed rules cause just he was powerful enough to.

So, he sat and waited amongst the coughing and lightly injured crowd who were awaiting their own check-ups. He had long given up caring about germs and bacteria as he just kept getting wounded, yet as the person beside him coughed up their lungs, he was beginning to wish for a bottle of sanitizer so he could shove it down the guy’s throat.

Eventually, thirty minutes passed by, and he was still sitting there. No one had left through the doors to the main section of the hospital, where his sister had been recently moved to, so he knew those ‘visitors’ were still chatting away. Sighing, Brock took the chance to look inward and occupy himself.

It was certainly a pleasant sight to see the radiant crimson glow surrounding his ethereal heart, as compared to the dim dregs it had been all those months ago. The little nodes that had stuck themselves upon it – his Techniques – had only changed somewhat, a result of their upgrades.

His pathways, on the other hand, hadn’t changed at all from their previously wretched state. While their actual condition wasn’t too bad in the area stationed within his chest and legs, the paths down his only arm were terrible. He had thought to use his Augments through the paths in his legs, but the energy first had to pass through those in his chest and would almost always result in some sort of backfire.

Either way, it meant that Techniques and Augments were off the table, but maybe…

Maybe I can just force them through…

Brock siphoned a small amount of Sparks from its orbiting core and carefully travelled it through the pathways in his chest. He felt some of the energy release itself as it fell through the abundant tears, although it wasn’t enough to damage him and dissipated through his pores, much to the shock of those around him.

He ignored them for the moment as the energy finally reached the paths of his arm. He had previously deemed it dangerous to try push energy through, but since it managed to get through his chest area, maybe he could get it to slip through-

The next second, Brock’s upper bicep exploded in a torrent of sizzling blood and red flame, the latter continuing forward and melting the glass panel that outlooked the street beyond to slag. While rather amazed by the idle potency even a small amount of Sparks now had, he tried to placate the people around him as they panicked and ducked for cover.

He gave a wry smile, “Uh… my bad?”

Even his sweet, sweet words weren’t enough to calm them down and Brock sighed heavily. A quick glance at his arm showed a pretty grisly wound, with charred flesh and revealed bone, although his Vitality would patch it up in a day or so and while it hurt, it didn’t really hinder him all that much.

Still, he got up and walked over to the receptionist, who was also ducking for cover and looking for the perpetrator, probably thinking it was some kind of outside attack. She glanced to him and then his wound, and her lips straightened. Realisation flared in her eyes, and Brock was sure that her glare was so sharp it could cut glass.

“Can I go in? It hurts.” Brock said to her, his voice almost monotone.

It took a second before she regained her bearings and ushered him to the door on her right to be seen by the doctors, albeit begrudgingly. He thanked her and proceeded to ignore his injury and search for his sister and co-worker. Honestly, he was a little miffed about the wound, but mostly because it seared a hole in his jacket. It was already looking scrappy enough as is.

Although, it was certainly troublesome that his pathways didn’t seem to be healing, even with the continuous pulses of healing energy his Ascendancy released through them. It had been almost 3 days already, yet they had yet to show any sign of recovery at all. The tears he had sustained before had usually been fixed within a few hours, a day at most, so it was a sizeable source of worry.

Maybe he’d get Kim to check it out, since she seemed like a pretty high levelled heale-

Brock felt blood leak from his nose, and furrowing his brows, he wiped it away with the back of his hand, thinking nothing of it. It promptly found itself smeared on the wall.

He visited Jane first, finding her sleeping form in her own private room. There were several different presents arrayed onto the bedside and the food tray from whoever had deigned to give them all. A lone warrior stood looking over her, his face portraying a deep worry and an intimate compassion for her.

As Brock opened the door, he glanced up and his eyebrows furrowed, “She isn’t allowed visitors at this time. Please leave us.”

Brock raised a brow, “Who the hell are you?”

The guy smirked smugly and raised his chin in the intruder’s direction, “I’m Jane’s lover-”

“Cool. I’m her brother. Fuck off champ.” Brock snorted and jabbed a thumb at the door behind him. Jane’s apparent ‘boyfriend’ – who he highly doubted was - seemed starstruck for a moment, before he opened his mouth to speak. Thankfully, a glare was enough to shut him up. Promptly, he walked through the door and left.

That guy seemed like such a knobhead.

Whether he actually was Jane’s boyfriend or not was yet to be seen, and hopefully never to be seen, but only time would tell. He didn’t try to re-enter the room, apparently having enough decency to leave the woman alone with her brother, and Brock sensed his aura leave the building a few minutes afterwards.

There wasn’t all that much he could talk about to an unconscious person, so his words stayed pretty close to a recount of what had happened in the time since he saw her, and what she was missing out on. He also vowed to take her to Beatrice’s Bakery once she was awake and well. For the most part, she was looking quite a bit better than when she was first admitted, so he hoped it wouldn’t be too much longer.

He felt he had said everything he needed to say around 20 minutes later, and with a goodbye, he left to find Carrie. It was a strange feeling he felt when he thought about her. He had crushed on her hard for a long time, yet now, he didn’t really feel anything, only a care for her as a friend. She wasn’t any less attractive, and her personality still was a major draw, at least from his perspective, so he knew she hadn’t changed.

No, he was the one that had changed, and he knew it. He accepted it. Ryan’s corpse flashed in his mind. If you hadn’t changed then you were probably dead.

As Brock walked, he spared a moment to spread out his aura senses to their maximum range – almost 600 meters, he estimated – and felt the powerful auras of the healers within the building. Every single one was above 40, and only one had exceeded 50 at 51. All in all, the staff here were quite reliable in their capability.

It made him realise that Sanctuary had no healers whatsoever, and that would definitely pose quite an issue as time progressed. He wondered if he could poach a few healers for Margo and her city, or at least ask Hiroto if he could transfer a few. Actually, he wasn’t even sure that they didn’t have any healers. He had never really asked nor needed them. He’d do so when Mio recovered and took him there.

He found Carrie easily, having been there many times before and he entered. Kim was already inside munching on what looked like a classic hospital issued sandwich, while Carrie was eating one similar to Kim’s own in her bed. They turned to him as he walked in, and Kim called out excitedly.

“You’re late. We thought you weren’t coming. Where were you?” She beamed playfully, “Was it a girl?”

Brock raised a brow and sat down on the chair opposite Kim’s, “No. I went to a blacksmith for a new weapon.”

He waved his bracer-less arm in the air as proof and Kim nodded, although the grin hadn’t faded. He looked over and saw Carrie smiling at them both and he couldn’t help but smile back. As a group, they chatted with each other, and Brock had to admit it was a pretty good feeling as it reminded him of a simpler time, without struggle and danger.

Apparently, Carrie was going to be discharged the next day, deemed to have recovered enough. Kim also revealed herself to be here visiting while she was on break. With the benefits of stats, he was sure the healers could work 24 hours straight without needing rest, but Hiroto seemed intent on keeping work laws in place, a fact he was very happy about.

He did wonder if the man had already built an economy, and if these hospital workers were getting paid, but he didn’t really care all that much, so he didn’t bother to ask Kim. Although, as her break finished and she bid them goodbye and prepared to get back to work, Brock stopped her. She was a level 49 healer and if she couldn’t help him, he didn’t know who else in this building could.

Well, maybe the level 51, but it was only a 2-level difference.

“Hey, Kim,” He began, calling out to her as she reached for the door, “You mind trying to heal something for me?”

Immediately, her gaze focused on his arm. She had looked at it a few times during their conversations, and he could tell the sight of it made her uncomfortable, “Your arm? Does it hurt?”

“No and yes. And I was talking about something else. Can you heal pathways?” he asked, half hopeful.

Kim returned to their group and checked the clock on the wall. She chewed her lips before nodding and stepping up to Brock, “Yep. It’s not too hard, but they usually heal pretty quickly on their own anyway.”

Without warning, the woman lifted up his shirt, much to Brock’s surprise, and she placed both hands directly on his chest. A second later, he felt a soothingly warm energy enter his chest, the very same kind that had healed his gaping hole a few days prior. It roamed his fleshy body, before it managed to worm its way into his ethereal one.

Slowly, the energy entered his pathways and slid along them. Brock couldn’t tell if the healing was working, but he felt no different, even as Kim energy dissipated, and she huffed out a breath. He furrowed his brows as he checked inward, “Did it work?”

He opened his eyes as he saw they looked exactly as wounded as they were before, and he was met with the sight of Kim, who appeared quite concerned, “It… didn’t. There’s some sort of foreign energy clinging to the wounds. I think it’s… nullifying my energy when it tries to heal the wound. What the hell did you put through your pathways? Did you… take drugs?”

Carrie piped in from the side before Brock could sigh at Kim’s excessiveness, “So is Brock going to be ok?”

Kim licked her lips and shrugged softly, “He should be. It just means that until they heal up, he can’t use Techniques or Augments without a large chance of it backfiring and causing that.”

She pointed at his mutilated bicep. Kim’s remnant energies had healed it somewhat.

“Oh…” Carrie went silent after that, understanding perfectly that his powers were essentially crippled. Brock understood that as well.

In the end, Brock thanked Kim for trying and she promptly left and got back to work. It seemed he’d have to wait until those stubborn ‘energies’ dissipated naturally. It did beg the question of what those energies actually were and where they even came from, but he just opted to assume it was from the same thing that ruined his paths in the first place; Salvation.

The Technique was appearing more and more dangerous as time passed by.

Carrie seemed somewhat subdued afterwards, though Brock assured her it was going to be fine, and she eased up. Their conversations began once more, and they ranged from what each other had been up to since the five months they had last seen each other, to theories on how the System worked.

Apparently, an extremely common one as to how experience was granted was that Ascendancies earnt ‘experience’ – or diluted Original Life, as Brock thought - by what their owner thought the Ascendancy’s purpose was. Like how she said Donte was rumoured to have never touched a beast in his life, even during the Tutorial, yet he was peaking well past level 50.

He believed – maybe even wanted - the purpose of his Ascendancy to be geared toward blacksmithing, and so his ensuing Techniques and experience gained related, or at least assisted in the former case, to blacksmithing. Brock found it extremely interesting and wondered if it meant anyone could change their path at any time if they really wanted to.

As such, for that very reason, healers gained experience from healing, not combat. Although, it was seen that killing monsters still awarded the most experience, even if someone’s Ascendancy was geared toward non-combat. Brock guess that was to be expected, as the System seemed to like watching people struggle. It enjoyed watching him do so.

He had asked why the citizens had such decent levels, though even Carrie was stumped to that. Apparently, their levels just gradually rose day by day, and no one knew why. They chatted for a while longer, and as Brock though back to his time in the jungle city, he found himself eternally grateful that he had found people once more.

He didn’t think he’d be able to live with the loneliness otherwise.