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Chapter 228: Brain Sediment (2) - Markets and Multiverses
🕑 Added 2024-04-05 05:57:30 +0000 UTC“Fizz Crystals in her brain?” I asked.
Doctor Trish nodded. “Fizz itself is a ......., which is a type of mold that eats binding essence. This allows it to ….., grow, and ...... in harsh conditions. For example, factory waste, ……., and other extreme environments. With Fizz, one can extract a kind of chemical that gives users happy hallucinations. This is the basis of the drug Fizz.
“Of course, Fizz can also ….. in the human body. The human body is one of the most powerful binding essence …….. in nature, after all. Normally, Fizz gets killed by our immune system or …….. …….. And Fizz mold is often killed in the process of making the drug version. But, it's easy to make mistakes during this process. And nobody holds ...... drug dealers accountable for bad product.” Doctor Trish shook her head. “Some Fizz users take a few badly made ......... of Fizz and the mold starts growing in their body. If they keep taking it, they eventually overwhelm their immune System. Then, you have a problem." Doctor Trish paused for a moment and looked at me, making sure that I understood the conversation so far. While I had missed a few words, I understood the gist of what she was saying. Seeing me nod, she continued.
“The brain, is central to any living being’s ability to ....... binding essence. So the most natural spot for this mold to grow is right next to where it's produced.”
“So my mother’s brain, is growing mold?” I asked, feeling horrified. Was my mother’s brain a mold factory now?
I had never stopped to consider whether my healing magic could get rid of mold inside the human body. I knew that my healing magic could handle most illnesses. But I had no idea whether it could handle mold and parasites.
Doctor Trish nodded. “Of course, the immune system will often get things back under control within a few months. The body starts to ramp up its attempts to kill the mold. Things like fevers, coughing, et cetera will help ......... it. The body doesn't take kindly to becoming a mold ........ . But there’s nowhere for the dead Fizz to go afterwards, and it's a lot larger than most bacteria. The dead Fizz hardens up and clumps together inside the brain. Which is what these .... detect - Fizz mold inside of your mother’s brain," said Doctor Trish. A moment later, she waved the three pieces of bright-blue paper in front of my eyes. "I’ll be honest. I have no idea how to extract the blockages from your mother's brain. It’s a ….. that your mother is still alive. The …… of the body fighting off the Fizz mold usually kills the patient. Most Fizz users die long before this point. They take a bad trip with Fizz, get mold in their brain, and then get a …… and die.”
I tried not to shudder. My mother had hardened pieces of mold inside of her brain. I finally understood why my healing never seemed to cure my mother’s problems.
My healing wasn’t omnipotent. I could heal a lot of things - I could even regrow limbs. But if there was still dirt or debris stuck in a wound when I healed it, where did it go?
Usually, my healing essence pushed debris out of the wound. If I tried to heal a splinter, for example, my healing essence would remove the splinter through the wound. Then, the wound would close, leaving behind no evidence of the injury at all.
But what about my mother’s brain?
There was no wound. Since there was no wound, there was nowhere for my healing to push the dead, hardened mold. So it got stuck inside of her skull, and every time she took more Fizz, it accumulated...
And this had been going on for years.
That was the reason that my mother seemed to be less and less conscious of her surroundings. Her brain should have shut off months ago. I had managed to prolong her life by infusing a never ending stream of healing essence into her body. But since I had no way to fix the root of the problem, my mother never became more aware of her surroundings. It was now obvious that some parts of my mother's frontal lobe weren't working at all anymore. My healing spells had probably sewed my mother's brain together around the chunks of fizz. But they clearly hadn't done a perfect job.
Was there a way to fix this?
I frowned.
To be honest, my understanding of the brain was… not very good. I knew, for sure, that the brain was connected to the way people’s soul’s interacted with their bodies. If the brain was like a control panel for the body, the soul was the person pushing buttons inside. But the brain also worked as a kind of glue that kept the soul from drifting away. If I tried to cut off parts of my mother’s brain and then regrow it mold-free, I might detach her soul and send it to the ocean. I had no idea how to stop that from happening. I could regrow almost any part of the body, but I had no idea how to fix the brain.
<Sallia, Felix. Did the soul fragment give you any information about how souls work? We still haven't reviewed everything you learned during that conversation,> I said. <The reason my mother never wakes up is because there are chunks of hardened mold in her brain. I don’t know how to fix it.>
<None of the information we got while you were watching Anise would be relevant,> said Sallia. <He told us a lot about how the Market itself works. And he also made a few other notes about the powerful factions of the Multiverse, as well as the way time works. None of those things are useful right now. The reason we never went over everything was because nothing is urgent or useful until we return to the Market. We just figured we'd get to it once we got to Damilius and started our new lives.> Sallia paused. <Sorry, Miria.>
<Thanks for answering,> I said.
I sighed.
“If you don’t know how cure, I’ll think about,” I said. My brain started racing. There had to be a way to fix this. It took me a few moments to figure out where I could learn more.
School.
If I went to a university specializing in medicine, maybe I would be able to devise a way to heal my mother.
And it wasn’t like this was the only time I would ever encounter something like this. In every dimension, understanding how brains and souls interfaced would be useful. The exact biology of people changed from one dimension to another, but it was usually still kind of similar. There were no downsides to learning medicine in this world. Maybe I could even get an ability evolution out of this if I got lucky.
I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about the idea of going back to school. Part of me vaguely recalled that in my first life, I'd had friends in school. But I also faintly remembered stress, tests, and frustration. But I didn't know where else I could study brains and medical knowledge efficiently.
“Thank you look at mother, doctor Trish,” I said. "Is there other doctor who can help?"
"I don’t think anyone in city could …….. mother with the brain mold. The brain is just too poorly understood. An accident would ......... your mother on the spot." Doctor Trish hesitated, and looked between me and my mother again. She sighed. "It might be better if you let her go.”
I shook my head. I could keep my mother alive with healing magic. I wasn’t willing to let my mother die. She might not have been a great mother in this life. She might have never been there when I needed her. But I wasn’t sure if I was ready to abandon her, either. Thinking about leaving her to die hurt. That wasn't the kind of person I wanted to be. I would do my best to keep my mother alive and heal her. If it didn't work, it didn't work. But I had to at least try.
But that would take a lot of time. Since nobody else could cure my mother, I doubted she would get better anytime soon. I needed to make plans for the near future, so I put the topic aside and got to the final goal of the day.
“Can you look over healing ability? I want to get certificate and heal patients.”
Doctor Trish nodded. “If your healing ability is what kept your mother alive, it must be amazing. I’m happy to help.”
Doctor Trish and I started testing my ability. Doctor Trish asked me what I could do, and then inflicted a few small wounds on herself. After I healed all of those injuries, Doctor Trish started getting excited.
“This is far more …. than other healing abilities,” she said. “It handles different situations very well. Most healing abilities only heal one thing. Like blood loss, flesh wounds, and broken …… . Those would be three different abilities most of the time. It’s just like potions - you need a different potion for different ……. . And it also handles some of the ……… that usually arise from healing, like debris left in an injury. This ability is remarkable.”
I grinned. I was proud of the renewal spell I had developed. It had healed a lot of people in our last life, and it was great for most healing needs. If it was useful in this world, we would have an easier time making a living in this town.
Doctor Trish paused, and gave me a curious look. “Instead of healing people off of the … would you like to work for me? I normally wouldn’t hire a six year old. But with your mother like this, you need a source of ……. I don’t mind having a little worker, …… with an ability like yours.”
I only needed to think for a few seconds before I responded. “I would be happy to!” I said.
I had found employment in the city.
Author’s Note:
If child labor laws existed in this country, Miria’s plan would get shut down so fast. In the real world, most child labor laws developed quite a bit after the time period I’m modeling this dimension's history off. In the US, they came around in 1916, right in the middle of the Great War. I modeled this world’s version of Europe during/slightly after the Napoleonic era, a solid century before those laws existed. In this case, it works in Miria’s favor, although she also doesn’t have some legal protections kids from more modernized societies would have.
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Comments
Rain
TFC
sjturner79
I would say a lot of the market people would stuggle in cultures with child labour laws unless they lucked in upper middle class or better families
Imagine Baggins
I mean…curing a previously incurable condition would probably be worth a LOT of Achievement.
SomeRandomGuy
While Miria does want to love her parents, she isn't stupid. I think that she will always side with her friends first and foremost before ever taking the side of an abuser, especially since she will never be an impressionable teenager ever again due to the market.
Narasan
i hope there will be character development at some point to adress this. I actually fear what miria would do if she gets an abuse parent. Protect them from retaliation? Get obsessed with them and abandon her friends if they say so? If her parent is a dictator, will she kill innocents on their order? This is really unhealthy from a mental perspective. Being this emotionally dependant on a person that showed you the sligthest bit of affection on maybe 3 occasions,while having the mind of a fully grown adult-i honestly believe she needs therapy.
