It wasn't there.

How? She cast a fearful glance to her shoulder, but the dim green swirl remained etched in her skin. Her Mark was still there, so why was the energy gone?

Once again, she ran her new senses through herself, and a raspy laugh escaped her lips.

Phew.

Like eyes adjusting to a lower intensity of light, after a few seconds of sensing the mystical energy, her feel for it seemed to grow sharper. It was still there, just diffused throughout her body rather than in one place. Why was that? Was that the natural state of her mark, or was it because of her current condition?

What if she...

She drew all of it in, and a pained gasp escaped her lips.

She winced.

Right, dehydration.

She let the energy suffuse back into her limbs, giving a sigh of relief as the pain lessened back to a dull throb.

Though that was certainly a temporary fix, she really needed to get more water in herself as soon as possible. With a herculean effort, she opened the second bottle, bringing it to her lips. And while she gulped down the precious fluid, she kept an eye on her spirit. With her 99% Affinity in Spiritual Regeneration, she should have regenerated something by now. Except, instead of having gotten more plentiful, the essence seemed to have gotten less dense. There had to be a reason for that, right?

Status.

Status - Elizabeth Sayler Titles: Marked Threat Level: G- Marks: The Mark of the Healer* Credits: 0 Strength: 2(7) / 29% Dexterity: 2(17) / 92% Spiritual Strength: 14 / 85% Endurance: 8(11) / 33% Perception: 6(10) / 55% Spiritual Capacity: 13 / 73% Constitution: 3(8) / 30% Cognition: 7(16) / 83% Spiritual Regeneration: N/A

All her physical stats had gone down a considerable margin, but that was to be expected with the trade she had made, not to mention her current state. She was actually pretty happy that the Void had left her with around 30% for each Affinity, as that was more than enough to work with. Then, her eyes drifted over to the right side of the screen.

N/A? What could that mean?

She fumbled with the bottle again, and her thumb nicked the cap.

"Oh, shit."

Her dry skin had split at the impact, and she could feel the area starting to swell. That was most certainly going to leave a bruise...

Then, she felt something stir in her spirit. The cloud of healing energy pooled from throughout her body for a moment, absorbing into injury.

And the cut closed up until it was nothing but a scar.

That had barely taken any energy at all. Her eyes widened, and she let out a weak whoop of excitement. Maybe this really would be enough! But how would she get more?

Something blinked in the corner of her vision, and as she focused on it, a flood of messages filled her field of vision.

The Mark of the Healer has fully integrated with your body. Physiological adaptations may occur in accordance with the Mark's effects. You have gained the Title: Marked Your understanding of the Mark of the Healer has reached the Basic Level.

The big N/A in her Spiritual Regeneration must have been part of those phisiological adaptations. She'd have to explore what that meant later, but for now, she examined the rest of the screens.

Warning! Commencing release of the First Wave... Error. User currently unavailable for release. Please step out of the chamber in order to be released. Error. User unconscious. Placing user in stasis... Transfering user to second wave...

In stasis? How long had she been held there for?

She dismissed the notifications, sighing. So the Void was releasing them in waves. At least she hadn't been tossed back into the world while she was unconscious. That made her think, though...

The last thing she remembered before passing out was the healing energy latching onto her spine. She examined the area, but instead of the angry, inflamed mess of nerves and scar tissue, the injury had healed into a natural bundle of nerves and muscle. Her nervous system was finally working properly again! And that meant that —

She tapped her leg, squealing. She could feel her legs again! And if she could feel her legs...

She straightened her spine, putting a hand on the lone chair for support. Then, as slowly as she could, she began to rise.

The muscles in her legs strained at the effort, and a moment later, she fell back down. A wave of nausea rose from her stomach, and she remembered that she had woken up not minutes ago severely dehydrated.

It looked like walking would have to wait.

She finished the second water bottle and called up the shop.

"Food."

A page full of delectable-looking options greeted her, but she narrowed her criteria even further. Right now, she needed something easy to absorb.

After a half a minute of scrolling, she found the perfect thing for her purposes. She mentally clicked on the option for a vegetable stew, and a tray appeared beside her, complete with a napkin and utensils to go with the bowl of steaming liquid.

She licked her lips. The shop was amazing.

A stew was a natural choice for rehydration, and it contained many of the vital nutrients and minerals the days spent unconscious must have deprived her of. Her stomach didn't seem to be rebelling against the sudden influx of liquid, so she voraciously drank it. Then, when she had finished the first, she called for another. And a third.

Slowly but surely, energy returned to her muscles. Her fever left her, and she wondered whether the fast recovery had anything to do with the physiological adaptations the System had told her about.

Still, as she inspected her arms and torso, she found that she looked practically emaciated. The status screen certainly hadn't just been for show, huh?

That must have been why she still had some of her stats in parentheses even after the healing. It would take her a long time to get back to peak form from this condition.

Or, at least it would have.

"Come on, healing. This is what you were made for."

Injecting her will into the energy, she urged it to move. The energy flowed to action once more, circulating through her like an extra set of blood vessels. Some of it pooled in her muscles and skin, and suddenly she was suffused with a warm, golden glow.

Your understanding of the Mark of the Healer has increased.

A grin spread across her face, and she laughed. She could feel it! It was working!

She flexed her hands, feeling the vitality returning to her forearms by the second. And her legs!

They actually felt stable, nothing like the dry twigs that she had been housing for the past three years. In just minutes, years of muscle atrophy were gradually reversed until she felt confident that she could stand. Except, when she tried to again, she still fell down.

As she crashed against the floor once more, the healing aura died, and a wave of lethargy filled her. It felt like she had just run a marathon — no, that was too easy a feat — two marathons, without gel packs or water.

The already strained state of her body fused with whatever the cost of using the healing energy was, creating a state of extreme fatigue.

Wasn't healing energy supposed to help with tiredness?

"Whatever," she groaned. "I can push through this a little bit longer."

Her legs hadn't given out because they were too weak. They had given out because she hadn't walked in so long that she had basically forgotten how. But that was a much easier problem to fix — all she needed was practice.

With a bit of difficulty, she managed to stand up again. And, with all her concentration fixed on the movement of her muscles, she took a step.

It was as smooth as any step she had ever taken, a clean, graceful movement that operated with every muscle, ligament, and bone doing exactly as planned. She had known the exact mechanics behind the motion, and for a brief second, that had been enough. Then, she extended her other foot, and promptly fell again.

She shook her wrist, grateful for the forgiving quality of the floor. "Let's try again, I guess..."

For hours, she relearned how to walk, activating her legs in a manner she hadn't been able to do in years. At first, she could barely string two steps together, but after a time the task grew easier and easier. After all, it wasn't as if she had had to grow an entire new set of legs. As she practiced, muscle memory slowly returned to her, and soon she was pacing around the nearly pitch-black room with ease.

And, as though inspired by her progress, her entire body began reenergizing. Her head cleared, and her steps fell easier, almost as if her joy alone had wiped out the fatigue. And though she suspected that that was a part of it, the repeated grumbling of her stomach led her to another potential answer.

Since she had woken up, she had eaten more than she could normally stomach in an entire day — three bowls of soup, a plateful of pasta, an entire loaf of french bread, and several assorted protein bars. Not only had she gone from full to hungry in the span of minutes, but after the first few hours, the impossible had happened.

Her healing energy had returned.

"Physiological adaptations, huh?"

There was now a steady flow of healing being generated from her body every second. It still didn't match the spark she had held earlier, but it was starting to build, and a hypothesis was beginning to form in her mind about why she didn't have a Spiritual Regeneration stat.

An increased metabolism was almost certain, unless the Void's food was somehow just less calorically dense than its normal counterparts. But how did such a trait tie in with a Mark centered around healing?

Metabolism was the breakdown of food into energy, but it was also the reconstruction of the body's cells through consumed materials. The green aura she had used before had touched on this aspect of metabolism, but she had only started regaining energy after she ate.

She concentrated on the new pool of shimmering fog inside of her, attempting once more to bend it to her will. If this worked how she thought it did, instead of regenerating energy in whatever mystical process normal people did, her body was converting metabolic energy into healing.

Which should mean that it would also work in reverse.

A blue aura flared around her, and suddenly a strength returned to her that she hadn't felt in years.

Your understanding of the Mark of the Healer has increased.

"Yes! Yes! Yes!"

She walked around the room, but quickly that motion grew boring. Under the power of her new discovery, she accelerated her gait, going from a fast walk to a near-run. Tears streamed down her cheeks, and her throat caught with emotion. This feeling — she hadn't felt it in so long...

Then, for the umpteenth time that day, she fell.

"Of course."

She laid on the blackened ground, still grinning like a maniac.

She might not have it all back yet, but now she was closer than she had ever been. And that was only with a bare handful of healing energy! What would have happened if she had done this with the spark she had had before, or even the full power of the Mark...

As she proceeded to struggle back up, another System message appeared before her eyes.

Warning! Commencing release of the Second Wave...