Savior

While I took out my cane and propped it against the door, in case some unobvious password was required to get out, my faithful companion slipped inside the magical library and ran forward, glancing at the spines of the books while trying unsuccessfully to request information by shouting keywords like "Cure" or "Eure".

After making sure that the passageway would not simply close, I entered the sancta sanctorum* of the magical mansion. There were so many creatures with mystical powers who wanted to get in, but the protection provided by the powerful shields, fueled by the dragon vein, and the sorceress's selectivity left them no chance.

I was now in the familiar narrow, winding hallway with double-decker bookcases on either side, which was visible every time I opened the door. But, it turns out, this is only a small fraction of the true grandeur. As I walked a little farther, I found myself on a small balcony leading to a spiral staircase of some dark metal, where I literally froze in admiration.

The entire five floors of the not insignificant room were crammed full of printed and manuscript material. Even without the many visible passageways, the place left the equally impressive Gotham Library far behind.

Honestly, such abundance might well be the envy of the Naga Sith, or maybe Hermeus Mora himself!

My dream has come true. A lot of magical knowledge is practically at arm's length, but unfortunately, I have a different goal.

Harley scurried around the top floor looking for relevant information, while I decided to survey the tier below.

A quick descent down the spiral staircase, and the eye clung to a reading table at the very bottom with several comfortable armchairs, as well as a very thick book lying on a massive stand, which, although it matched the mystical design of the mansion (carved cinnamon-colored wood with mysteriously shimmering blue symbols), but in this particular place it gave the impression of an alien object.

Hmm. If you put yourself in the place of a person who collected a library, it would be logical to have some kind of catalog to freely navigate in all this variety, and place it close to the entrance, or where you are going to read.

Thinking about it didn't stop me from descending rapidly, jumping three steps at a time, which was relatively difficult given the spiral design of the staircase.

"The Revenants." As if on purpose, the dark cover with its red symbols caught my eye, but I forced myself to keep going. Zee's health and life come first.

It seems that logic did not fail me, and on the podium there was indeed a catalog with a white palm print on the cover. Trying to open it failed, as did putting my hand to the symbol with a simultaneous pulse of magic.

"Healing school," I made another attempt.

Suddenly the catalog opened in the middle, followed by black letters on grayish rough paper, showing a long list of available literature.

"Hm... Simple spells to cure physical wounds. Without the use of artifacts and storages, - I clarify the request.

This time the information displayed was more in line with my expectations, showing just two names with the addition of coordinates: tier, section, cabinet and shelf number.

"Uh, can't you move all this stuff over here? Damn, - I'm sure there is such functionality, but time is running out and I don't have time to deal with it.

I hurried to the right place. Luckily, the two magic books were on the same shelf, so I grabbed them and rushed to the exit, almost colliding with Harley, who was holding a weighty volume.

"Mr. J, I didn't find anything on healing, but I did find a Diamond Shield spell," she said.

"Good girl. Let's go back, I think I found it.

It didn't take long to get back, and in a couple minutes we were back in the living room next to the pale, unconscious illusionist. The puddle of blood had grown even larger, soaking the carpet quite nicely.

That sucks...

My companion started reading right away, so I shouldn't lag behind. I opened the first book, looking for the right charms, and immediately slammed it shut. I could have guessed that the title "Curatio**" on the cover hinted at a language I didn't know. Fortunately, the second one was in English, albeit a bit archaic. The catalog didn't lie, I almost immediately stumble upon a simple healing spell to heal shallow wounds. Well, Zee didn't cut herself too badly, so it'll do.

I already know some of the runes used, some of them are new and not particularly complex, but activation through verbal charms, and incoherent, I will have to implement for the first time. Okay, there are not many options anyway, so I'm going to start cramming.

"Mr. J," Harley called to me five minutes later, squinting at the sorceress with concern. - If we wait any longer, it's not going to end well.

"Okay, I'm ready.

I place my palm on the translucent mesh shield surrounding the brunette, creating with mana a small invisible tentacle that should touch the cut, and which serves as a kind of anchor for the charms. It was time to rap.

"Hah! Jus vitae necisque, - I really hope accents and text comprehension aren't much of an issue here.

"vis medicatrix naturae, - I slowly weave the basic framework consisting of three intersecting triangles, gradually injecting energy into the construction.

When all the symbols are in their proper places, I proceed to the second part.

"Vires unitae agunt. Mens sana in corpore sana.

I can actually see the translucent threads of mana forming the enchantments! I used to have to mentally visualize them, but now I just have to maintain them by expending magical energy.

"Sanatio... Sanatio... Sanatio... Sanatio..." With each word, the triangles seemed to light up in front of my eyes, and then the whole structure curled into a spindle and screwed into the cut. Two seconds pass, and the wound closes as if it never existed.

I exhale with relief, glad that I've only spent a third of my reserve.

"We made it," I turn to the still reading Harley with a smile.

"I wouldn't be so sure about that," the blonde showed me a spread of her book, "It says here that the shield is only active if it's constantly recharged, so Zee's still losing mana and isn't likely to wake up on his own.

"Fuck...

"Uh-huh, and this thing is indestructible.

I want to say: "Kowalski, options", but I understand that it is necessary to somehow inject into the injured magical energy, but neither I nor Harley can boast a large reserve...

"Mr. Fluffy!" We exclaimed almost simultaneously, rushing to the cylinder lying on the floor, from which the knife had been extracted earlier.

Unfortunately, the magician had already had time to put up additional protection, so in our hands the headdress did not show any supernatural functions. Hmm, but last time the animated artifact was not in the cylinder, but somewhere in the house.

"Sun, look for the rabbit, and I'll try to share mana with Zee," I instructed, sitting down next to the mistress of the mansion.

"Okay, just don't overstretch yourself," the girl kissed me and walked out into the hallway, beckoning to the artifact, for some reason using a variant of, "kitty, kitty, kitty.

Fuck, that's what you call making trouble out of nothing. Zatanna is an incredibly experienced and powerful sorceress, I remember with admiration how she deftly and almost single-handedly dealt with a den of giant spiders, and here... A costly spell with unknown effect due to unusual pumping is used on herself... And this person told us about magical safety!

Finished with my reflection, I touch the shield, only pressing it lightly as it suddenly cracks and disappears with a melodic clinking sound.

Hmm, and if you think about it logically, the power was coming through prana, and by closing the wound, I was essentially cutting off the energy supply.

"Zee, can you hear me?" I gently touched the girl's pale hand. Her skin was dry, her pulse pounding at a hundred beats a minute... Fine.

Hell, if she's been expending her life energy, it's her life energy that needs to be restored. I hope my hunch is right.

I tear the long-suffering pad of my finger with my fingernail and order the blood to turn into a stylus, keeping the symbol of a circle with a dot in my mind. Will and imagination. The bloody outgrowth containing prana touches the pale illusionist, and now I mentally try to transfer life energy through it. I am certainly succeeding, for a slight dizziness has appeared.

"Found it!!!" The door to the room almost flew open when it was kicked open at full speed by a girl with a white rabbit in her arms.

"Shit, - my concentration broke, and the stylus collapsed, splashing a scarlet stain, but it didn't matter, because I had already transferred a decent amount of life energy, starting to feel nauseous. Now all hope was in the sorceress's body and the storage device.

"Good, you got the shield down. Mr. Fluffy," Harley addressed the fluffy wiener, holding the animal in her outstretched arms and looking carefully into its beady black eyes, "it's a matter of life and death. Your mistress has received a strong magical exhaustion and great blood loss, so all hope for you.

Judging by its appearance, the rabbit did not understand what the strange blonde wanted from it at all, and it was not intelligent enough to ask such a philosophical question. Fortunately, the algorithms worked well, so the artifact, after being placed on the belly of the sorceress, twitched its pink nose and spread out, starting to glow a little. Now it remains only to wait and hope for the best.

"Ahem... Fuck..." the waking mistress of the mansion moaned, raising herself up a little.

"Zee, you're alive!" I grabbed the slightly pale, blood-drenched sorceress in a hug. Harley was right there, so she joined in the hug, too.

"What... What happened?" asked the victim of the experiment, holding her head.

"Blood?" She turned her attention to her bloody hand where there had been a cut earlier.

"What's the last thing you remember?" I asked, pulling away as my lovely medical assistant began her examination, checking for a pulse.

"Mmmm... You came in, I started talking about illusions... No, you refused and asked to talk about revenants by demonstrating a spell... I remembered!

"Sit!" Harley easily thwarted a sluggish attempt to jump up. - You shouldn't be moving at all right now. You've lost about a liter of blood. Hmm.

"What are you doing?" The brunette asked in confusion as my companion rose and touched her lips to the illusionist's forehead, gently tucking a strand of hair aside.

"I'm checking the temperature. Surprisingly, it's pretty good, but you shouldn't sit on the floor," Harley gave her verdict, showing professionalism without a single vulgar hint.

Heh, except I know my assistant well, and it's all done to put the victim's guard down.

"Come here," I gently lifted the sorceress like a princess and carried her over to the couch, resting her head in my lap.

"Thank you. That's really better," she thanked, closing her eyes and stroking the rabbit she'd been holding.

"Oh, good, I'm glad you're feeling better," I said sarcastically. - But why don't you tell me what the hell that was about? You could have died!

"I'm sorry to startle you, but you just don't realize what happened.

Fully relaxed on my lap, the sorceress began to explain, but before that she teleported a small vial to herself, from where she wrinkled and took a good sip, saying that it was a restorative tonic.

The diamond shield spell is quite complex and has a rather long cast time even for experienced mages. To cast it successfully, Zatanna always had to weave the base of the spell by syllables. I, on the other hand, have demonstrated something incredible. Even if I imagine that all these days I was only practicing the flash, the mana itself has to "get used" to the fact that they are trying to create a certain structure out of it. For example, a HomoMagi sorceress with a predisposition to such manipulations would take almost a year to reach such a speed. And here some left-handed guy, who awakened magic a couple weeks ago and without a huge reserve, which could be used to compensate for the slow pumping, simply by injecting twenty times more energy, demonstrates a three-second cast of the spell.

Of course, such an approach was incredibly interesting to her, but it wasn't just that. All her life Zatanna had been taught that there was only one energy, mana, which could vary slightly in color and even saturate the blood to circumvent certain restrictions, but I had demonstrated that life energy simply was, and no additional conversion was required for it to appear.

According to the illusionist, it simply did not occur to anyone to weave a framework of light and mobile mana, and to carry out the final activation with coarse heavy and limited life energy. Weaklings simply do not ask such questions, so as not to waste already small reserves for conversion, and established mages do not need it, because of the huge reserve and already learned charms. Various semi-intelligent magical creatures can also be ignored: they sorcery as they know how, sometimes growing organs that facilitate some manipulations. Let's say that my accidental discovery can be equated to getting a nano-film with the help of ordinary scotch tape.

"Ow! Why?" The sorceress was outraged when I gave her a weak flick.

"For. You almost died! What if we couldn't find the healing spell in the vast library? Or we did, but I couldn't use it, cutting off the spell's power supply? Or I wouldn't be able to transfer prana? After all, what if we'd just ditched you after gaining access to the knowledge, and while you were slowly dying, we'd just take the same book on revenants for ourselves? Zee, you can't be so irresponsible!

"You're good, ha-ha-ha. Why are you making such a fuss? It ended well," she said. - Wait, did you say prana? That's the definition the ancient Sumerians had... I should do some experiments right away.

My visor fell. It seemed as if the entire environment had turned red, and I hurried to vent my indignation in the most gentle, yet humiliating way possible.

"Stupid!

~Slap~

"Ouch!

"Idiot!

~Slap~

"Ow!

"Dummy!

~Slap~

"Ouch! Yes, that's enough, I've understood everything and I won't do it again!" pleaded the victim of the execution.

"Are you sure?

"That's right. And finish groping my ass. The only reason I didn't burn you is because you saved my life," Zee said, blushing, giving me an angry look.

Huh, I guess we look incredibly colorful now: a man dressed in street clothes with green stripes, which perfectly complemented the bloody stains, holding on his knees a flushed brunette, with a puffed-up heel and in a costume, as if from a sex shop (also in blood), and all this splendor is filmed on a smartphone by a blonde beauty, biting her lip and tightly shifting her legs. The surrealism of what is going on is added by the absolutely snow-white rabbit hopping nearby, which was suddenly shoved to the floor.

"Ha ha ha ha ha ha!" I burst out laughing, relieving the stress. - Harley, you can send the video to some art house festival later. Ha ha ha ha ha.

"You filmed this?!" The sorceress was immediately on her feet, but it was almost unreal to catch up with a quick target who had spent half her life in gymnastics and without using magic. Besides, the taken tonic only removed the main symptoms, and the full recovery was still far away.

"All right," the mansion owner gave in after three minutes, sitting down tiredly on the couch next to me. - You can have the video, but don't you dare send it anywhere!

"Hee hee hee, I'll keep it for my collection," my assistant stationed herself across from me, beaming an incredibly satisfied smile.

When everyone had calmed down, I decided to bring up the question that interested me again:

"Zee, so what about the information on the revenants?

* Holy of holies *

**Cure (Latin).