~ Chapter 100: Healing domino pieces ~

[Illsyore's point of view]

I stopped the car in what I believed was a good spot to set up camp for the night. At such a late hour, it was highly unlikely for us to meet up with other travelers. It was not impossible though. Ayuseya and Shanteya once told me that if needed be Nobles would travel at night, and the driver of their carriage would normally use Light Crystals or Light Spells in order to see where they were going. The numbers of their guards were also increased because this was the time when monsters were more active and bandits loved to attack.

Despite the danger, my group had nothing to worry about. This machine I built was nothing to laugh at and even if they showered us with spells and arrows, it would still be able to push through. Meeting Emperor, Godlike, or Supremes among the bandits was also highly unlikely for various reasons, including the fact that at this level of strength they could gain a lot more money through legal means than they could illegally.

“I'm going to start a fire and cook something fast.” announced Tamara after we all got out of the car.

I nodded back at her, and she went off to find some wood.

“This vehicle of yours puts to shame even the comfortable carriages of the kings.” Ayuseya praised my work.

“Isn't that right?” I replied with a bright smile.

“Where are we going to sleep tonight?” Zoreya asked.

“The usual place.” I nodded and then pulled out of my Inner Mind our usual house, which I placed right next to the cars.

I kept using this house ever since I built it back on the Sorone continent, but to say it was the same one was wrong. There were many things I had changed within it. Both on the outside and inside numerous changes had been made. The bathroom was upgraded with a bigger bath. I improved the heating system by hiding it within the walls, under the floor, and in the ceiling. I added a kitchen, enlarged it and improved it until it was on par with a modern one. There were more rooms now, each of my wives had one, which they customized by themselves. The living room was big, but it did not have a PC or TV.

As much I would have wanted to make those two devices, they were a bit beyond my current skill. I may have built more impressive and complex stuff, but I had no idea how the TV actually worked, let alone how to make something like a processor for the PC.

Besides, what was I to watch on TV? What was I to browse on the internet? Who was going to program the PC and make me awesome games?

There was no one who could do that.

But it wasn't impossible. By raising the awareness of the people I thought at my academy, I could one day encounter those interested in such devices. All I had to do was to allow others to make them as well, thus a bit of competition would appear here and there, urging everyone to come up with better and cheaper products. Then, in about 100 years or so, I would have my very own PC. After all, that was how long it took on Earth for technology to advance from a room-sized calculator affordable only by the army to a palm-held personal computer affordable by the majority population.

“Where are the slaves going to sleep?” asked Zoreya.

“This house has no room for them, but I'm going to create a separate one right now. Meanwhile, can you and Shanteya check them for visible injuries, diseases, and whatnot? You can cure those you can, and I'll deal with the rest.” I told her.

“I will deal with the children.” the el'doraw offered.

“I will deal with the others then.” Zoreya nodded.

“While you all do that, I'm going to scout the perimeter and kill off any monster I stumble across.” Nanya said as she began to stretch her body.

“Come back before Tamara finishes cooking.” I reminded her.

“I will!” she said as she left.

With this plan set in motion, I focused on my own part, which was creating the room where the slaves were going to seep for the night. It had to have several compartments: one for men, one for women, and one for the children. They also needed beds on which they could sleep and a way to reach us if anything happened, a simple alarm activated by a button. There was also the matter of connecting the house's heat system to this one's as well as make sure it had plenty of light.

They also needed new clothes, so I made them some simple ones, which I enchanted with a restraining type of magic programmed to activate when they tried to raise a hand against each other or us. These were just a simple safety precaution until they learned the rules.

Making all of these took me around 20 minutes. The clothes took longer than the added extension to the house. As for the Magic Energy spent, it reached a total of 22350 points. That was an insane amount from my pre-Darkness point of view, but this much was explained both by the speed and complexity of what I built. If I wanted to make a hole in the ground, I would have probably just spent around 100 points per square meter.

When I was finished, I went to check up on the slaves, starting off with the children.

“They are all suffering from something, be it an injury or illness. This child over here, she looks fine, but she cannot feel heat, cold, or pain. Look, her toe was broken, but she didn't say anything.” Shanteya said and pointed at Luisa, the eight years old who was sold by her own parents.

“This one has it the worst, doesn't he?” I asked as I pointed at the little boy with a sickly constitution and a weak heart.

“Yes. At this rate, he has only three, maybe four days left of living.” Shanteya pointed out.

When she said this, Andrael looked up at with worry in his eyes. The young child didn't want to die yet, I could see this, but in his heart, he came to the conclusion that there was nothing we could do about it.

“What of Marina?” I asked as I pointed at the little girl who had her arm bitten off by a monster.

“She'll live, but her spine is damaged. She cannot walk straight anymore. As for Corry, this child's blind. She wasn't born like this though...” she pointed out.

“What do you mean? I was told she was born like this.” I tilted my head in surprise.

“I know a born blind person when I see one. They do not have a problem with their eyes but with their brains. This little girl had her eyes damaged by something, probably when she was far too young to remember. Look, these are marks that prove this fact.” Shanteya pointed at a few scars around her eyes.

Upon a closer look, I noticed that her eyes were damaged quite badly. Still, this was good news. If she was like this, I could heal her.

“Hm, I think I can fix this. Zoreya? Anyone in your group is in need of immediate healing? My healing that is?” I asked and turned to look at her.

The lovely blonde was currently in the middle of casting a healing spell on one of the women slaves.

After she was done, she replied “So far, there's nothing I can't handle. I do believe, however, all of them are required to be tested for parasites and unseen diseases. You can do that after we're done.” she smiled.

“Thank you!” I said and then turned to look at Andrael. “You, come here.” I ordered him.

The little boy had no right to refuse unless he wished for the collar to punish him for disobedience.

Without further ado, I used my original spell [Body Scan]. Besides showing me if the targeted individual had any internal injuries, it could also detect a wide range of parasites and diseases. All of us Over Supremes were as healthy as we could be, and this was mostly due to this handy little spell.

The boy was wrapped in a warm yellow light and in front of me appeared a window visible to everyone around me. On it, all of his physical problems were listed up in categories. In regard to his weak heart, it extended too more than that. His entire body seemed to have weak muscles, he suffered form back pains as well, but he was keeping silent about them. The thing was that the only parasites I found were lice and no virus or bacteria to point out that his suffering was a result of an infection of this sort. The lice, I exterminated by casting [Parasite Kill] on him. The initial name was de-parasitize, but it was a bit of tongue twister in our current spoken language. The other one was simpler in translation.

As for how it worked, [Parasite Kill] was a combined spell that began by first covering the whole body in a sensitive Magic Energy barrier, which detected and identified any living organism bigger than a cell. Then, it hardened and forcefully separated the parasite from the host body by slipping a VERY thin layer of Magic Energy between the two. This way, the parasite couldn't retaliate. All that was left then was to cast something to kill them off, which was done through heat, electricity, or pressure. In this case, I used pressure because I didn't want to scare the poor child by turning him into a flaming kebab. The last step of this spell was to toss off the remains of the parasites off the host body, so no eggs or anything like that remained.

“This could be genetic...” I said as I looked at the window's information.

The blood work displayed on it didn't look that abnormal from my point of view, but I had the feeling I was missing something. It couldn't be that he was healthy one day and then all of a sudden, he wasn't.

“Status.” I ordered.

Immediately, a window only I could see appeared before me. His strength points were abnormally low. He had only 3 points, while normal children of his age had around 10 or 12.

I then looked at the part of the window that showed me if he was cursed or anything.

The only abnormal condition I found was: [Muscular Dystrophy].

Selecting it, I read that it was a genetic disease that caused all the muscles in his body to not function properly because the body was unable to produce certain protein called Dystrophin. Basically, his DNA lacked the genetic components he needed in order to produce it properly. This could have been a problem... if I didn't know how genetics worked. As for the weird name, I still didn't know if it was part of the Dungeon Memory, or something made up on the spot in order to identify it. There was a chance it could be connected to one of my hidden past life memories, but I couldn't verify that, yet.

“Well... I'll keep you for later. Go and stay over there.” I said and pointed to the fire where Tamara was preparing our meal.

“M-Master? A-Are you going to abandon me?” he asked with worry in his eyes.

The poor child must have suffered greatly throughout his short life because of his condition. In the world of the strong, having a condition that weakened your muscles was the same as a death sentence.

“Nope! Never!” I showed him a bright smile and ruffled his hair as a father would.

He replied with a weak smile and then went to Tamara.

Looking back at the children, I let out a sigh and began to treat all of the one at a time. I didn't use [Healing Spell 1] or 2 because I didn't want them to feel the pain of when their bodies were repaired. In case of the girl with the missing limb, it would have been quite terrible. Thus, I performed precise surgery on each and every one of them.

Honestly speaking, if I didn't have a pool of Magic Energy as big as mine, I might have been in need of taking more than one break. This thing was exhausting, but I was able to finish with all of the slaves by the time Nanya returned and the food was ready.

I had to say, Corry was so overwhelmed by the fact that she was able to see again that she burst into tears and kept crying for a while. It was very touching, and I think I may have sparked a bucketful of admiration in her young heart because of this and the fact that I was the first person she saw. Maria was similarly happy once she had her hand back. She made a bow with her head glued to the ground as she thanked me for restoring her body to the way it was. All of them thanked me for relieving their pain, and now they weren't as scared as they were before. The same went for those Zoreya healed up. Among them, there were only three that needed [Parasite Kill]. Luckily, they had no pathogenic diseases I had to cure yet.

The only one left was Andrael, on which I performed a more in-depth body scan and then used the now healthy children as a genetic model from which I could copy the information needed to repair his own DNA. This required me to check the genetic information carefully, but I could do this without actually keeping the scan active all the time. All I did was copy the information in my data banks and began to analyze it separately.

I was doing this while eating, but after a few spoons, I stopped and looked at the huddled-up slaves in the back.

“You guys, this pot is gigantic, come here and eat!” I told them.

“B-But we aren't allowed to eat with Master? We're slaves... It would be rude.” the eldest of them said.

“That's stupid. Anyway, I can't concentrate with your growling stomachs, just come here and eat. Look, Tamara even prepared dishes for each of you. Eat up your fill and ask for more if you want it.” I pointed at the plates filled with delicious food on the table next to ours.

“Those are for us?” Maria asked curiously.

“Yes.” I nodded.

“We're allowed to eat such good food?” Corry asked as she sniffed the air with her eyes closed.

She had yet to get used to being able to see, but she was going to make a full recovery.

“No, the ghosts of future past. Of course, it's for all of you! Go and eat your fill. Do I really need to order you?” I asked raising an eyebrow.

Looking at each other, the children were the first to approach the delicious meal and sat down at the table, then came the teenagers and adults.

“See, it's good! Now eat up or you'll make Tamara cry!” I said and pointed at the cat eared lady.

They nodded and smiled back.

“Thank you for the food!” they all said at the same time.

After we ate the delicious meal Tamara prepared for us, of which the slaves had another helping, everyone gathered up around the fire. There were too many of us, so we changed the positioning from a big ol' circle to two groups. On one side, there were my wives, while on the other were the slaves, with the children being first, then came the women, the men sat together to the left side of the group because of their variable heights.

Before I explained to them what was what, I began my gene therapy on Andrael. Technically speaking, I had to introduce new genetic information in his DNA. To do this, I had to cut the strand and introduce a polarized protein that would end up attaching itself to the cut off pieces. I could do this with Magic Energy, but back on Earth, they probably used artificially created viruses capable of inserting themselves into the nucleus of the cell, find the location of the missing gene and then begin treatment. What it would do would be to absorb that part of DNA within itself, cut it and then introduce the missing genes. They would probably need to shut down the patient's immune system for a while, otherwise the white cells would just eat up the virus.

Hm, a nanobot would probably be a better option in this case. Chances were the virus could end up mutating thanks to some outside influence and result in a terrible plague.

The benefit of using Magic Energy was that I could do this operation on almost all of his cells at the same time. It would consume about half of my current pool, and I would need a lot of concentration to do this as well as the will of the patient. Having them raise their Magic Armor while I was in the middle of the operation would have ended up really really bad. I could make a mistake and accidentally worsen their condition or even kill them!

Thankfully, this child was never thought how to raise his Magic Armor. Thus, I didn't need to worry about it.

“I will begin now, just as I said, all you need to do is stand still and relax. Don't move too much and don't even think about fighting against the energy you will feel flowing inside you. Don't even think about activating your Magic Armor either. I know you have no idea how to do it, but just in case you instinctively do it, try to oppose it right now.” I told him.

“I'll try but will this really help me?” he asked me.

“Yes.” I nodded and then patted him on the head.

With him accepting, I began the therapy. Magic Energy flowed from my body and covered his frail body, finding his magic channels and pouring into them. At first, he grimaced because it caused him a state of discomfort, but as the process continued, his whole body numbed down. I acted upon his nerves, making sure they didn't send the wrong signals to his brain, like pain and such.

While I was doing this, everyone else was watching me carefully. The slaves were amazed by the entire process, but I had a feeling that through today's display of multiple skills, we more or less broke their common sense.

The therapy continued with the second phase. I surrounded all the cells that constituted his nervous, immune, and cardiovascular system and applied the gene therapy on them. Several of his chromosomes were sectioned in 386 locations and the new genes were introduced in the empty spaces. With Magic Energy, I helped the DNA glue itself back together and after one last check, I released my control over those cells.

The genetic material was taken from nearby cells that were sacrificed in the process. One cell was enough to repair around 10000 others.

The process wasn't over here. This was the first part of three. The second one was focused on the internal organs, glands, and bones, while the third and last one focused primarily on cartilages, tendons, and muscles. The reason why it was partitioned like this wasn't without meaning.

When applying gene therapy in this manner, I basically turned a part of his body into a foreign body. Thus, the immune system would have reacted and tried to get rid of it, causing all sort of complications. The most dangerous of them all being total organ shutdown.

By acting on the nervous and cardiovascular systems at the same time as the immune system, I made sure that his body didn't attack his heart and brain. Afterwards, I worked on the rest of his organs, to keep them from being harmed by his immune system, which now saw his old organs as those of a foreigner's because they had the old DNA sequence. Lastly, I worked on the muscles and remaining tissue, on which effects of an autoimmune attack would have appeared in matter of days or weeks. When I was done, the young boy was literally another human. His body had changed from a genetic point of view for the better.

“There!” I said with a smile as I released him from the Magic Energy that flowed from me through him.

If I didn't have a pool as big as I did, this whole operation might not have ended so well or might have actually lasted a lot longer than it did, maybe a few days? Almost half of my whole pool was depleted right now.

“I feel... better.” the boy said.

“Of course you do, you're cured!” I declared proudly.

“Is that true?” he asked with doubt in his voice.

“Yes! I'm not one to lie about such things.” I squinted my eyes at him.

“That was amazing... I've never seen anyone do healing like that.” one of the men said.

“I still can't believe I have my arm back.” Maria pointed out.

“And I can see... Never in my life did I dream of a day when I would be able to see...” Corry said.

“Illsy's healing methods are unusual, but they work.” Nanya nodded.

“Well, now that everyone's all better and gathered up, is it time for you to finally tell us why you bought so many slaves?” asked Ayuseya after she clapped a few times, catching everyone's attention.

“Of course!” I nodded and smirked.

“Please do.” Shanteya said.

“We're listening.” said Zoreya.

“Nya~ Nanya will beat you up if you give a no-good reason...” Tamara warned me.

“Yes. Yes.” I nodded “Ahem! Well, as you all... well, my wives know, I am planning on opening a Magic Academy somewhere between all three continents!” I pointed up at the sky.

“A Magic Academy?” one of the children tilted their head in confusion.

“What's that?” another asked.

“I heard it's a place where they used slaves as target practice... Is that the reason why you healed us? So that you know where and how we get hurt?” the youngest of the teenagers asked.

“Are we, the women, to be used as means of pleasing the male students there?” the oldest of the women asked.

Hearing these absurd remarks, I was left stuck in my ridiculous pose of pointing at the sky. There were simply too many things to retort about, so after a moment, I relaxed and took a deep breath.

“No.” I replied calmly.

The slaves began to murmur and look at each other worried.

Ah~ They are thinking of more ridiculous things, I'm certain about it... I thought.

With a sigh escaping my lips, I began to wonder if maybe the first class everyone should take should be the 'Illsyore's common sense class'.

No, they would all end up as incorrigible perverts afterwards... I shook my head.

“The reason why I bought you was to have you become the very first students of my Magic Academy. You will all be in two different classes, of course, but you will learn like everyone else there.” I nodded.

“Students? But we are slaves... Aren't Magic Academies only for the wealthy and noble?” a boy asked.

“Others maybe, but not mine.” I shrugged.

“How can slaves become students?” a woman asked.

“They don't. You'll be set free.” I replied.

“Free? You'll free us and then... teach us?” she asked as though she couldn't believe her own ears.

“Yes, pretty much. Oh! And feed, provide shelter, heal you if needed, and guarantee your freedom unless you do something illegal.” I pointed out.

“That's ridiculous! What does master stand to gain from all of this?” another boy asked.

“Erm... students? Reputation? Who knows? I'm doing what I want because I can.” I shrugged.

“Are you a noble? A genius magician?” a little girl asked.

“I'm a Dungeon Lord.” I said proudly.

“A what?” Corry asked blinking surprised.

“I'm a Godlike Dungeon Lord with capabilities far beyond any known Supremes. Oh and those five are my wives, each and one of them can wipe out Paramanium on her own.” I introduced them in calm tone of voice.

“Illsy?” Tamara called out.

“Hm?” I blinked and turned to look at her.

“They all fainted while standing.” she said and jumping next to them she poked one of the boy's cheeks.

All of them then fell down like pieces of domino.

“What the heck! This isn't a comedy show! That's not possible! No way! The chances of that happening are extremely unrealistically low! No way!” I kept denying it shaking my head.

No matter how many times I tried to say it to myself, it appeared as though they had all indeed fainted from the shock of finding out the truth of my identity. But still, was something like this even possible. Was human mind that fragile? No, it couldn't be it... was it maybe a self-induced shock?

I couldn't figure it out. I couldn't understand through what sort of godly coincidence were they able to suddenly faint like that upon hearing WHAT I was.

“This must be the fault of one of those gods... I'm sure of it. That's got to be it...” I murmured to myself while my wives carried them one by one to their beds.