Chapter IX: Restoration and the Lizard Wizard

After our little 'debate' we all headed for the tower of restoration.

The tower itself looked very simple on the surface, but its aura was the most beautiful when compared to the others, surrounded by a gentle golden glow, it gave me a feeling of peace.

The inside almost reminded me of a hospital waiting room, everything was orderly and clean, and there were even half a dozen residents from Winterhold waiting for some kind of treatment.

As we enter the classroom we are greeted by a short Breton woman, she is not quite young looking but there is certainly a vigor about her, the best way to describe her is that she is in such perfect health that it is noticeable.

She waits for us to sit down patiently and starts speaking in a calm voice "Welcome apprentices to your first restoration lesson, my name is Colette Marence, I am the resident master of restoration, and I also work alongside our Alchemy professor when he is coherent enough to do his job" she notices that she has started complaining and gives us an embarrassed look.

'That took a whole two seconds, just when I thought she wasn't as whiny as she was in the game'

"Anyway, forget that last part. What you will learn here is far more powerful than any firestorm, or enchantment. You will learn how to save yourself and others, how to stop bleeding, heal cuts and even regrow limbs. There are also some other important branches of restoration used for self-defense like wards and solar magic, the wards are taught by my colleague Tolfdir, as he has a fascination for them, but I personally teach solar magic. Now I am sure that at least some of you know a healing spell or two, would you care to show me?"

We all introduce what we can do with restoration, all of us can make a ward, but that is to be expected. When it comes to actual healing only Morrigan, the twins, and myself know the basic healing spell.

"Good, do you have experience using it or do you just know to cast it?" after our confirmation she points us toward a side room "There are some guards with minor injuries that didn't want to waste potions, you can heal them up while I show the rest the basic principles of healing spells, I do have a schedule to keep."

We enter the room and get to work, there are some seven guards covered with what looks like scratches and cuts made by wild animals.

As I get to healing the first guard I notice that the healing spell is not as draining as before, the Magicka seems to change its nature with more ease than when I was using it earlier, thanks Scorch. He sends me a smug-sounding chirp.

This time I focus on understanding how the magic works, while also looking at it directly. The positively charged Magicka seems to be working with the body to recreate the destroyed tissue completely, it doesn't split the cells, it creates them. After trying to guide my Magicka in a more precise manner, using the basic knowledge of medicine I have, the cost of the spell is reduced by almost a third, neat.

Quickly finishing up with the guards, who seem far more grateful to my human associates than me, fucking assholes, we get back to the main classroom where we see the rest of the class casting very flimsy versions of the heal spell.

Colette sees us and levitates us a couple of septims each, Morrigan and I just nod and place the money in our pouches, while the twins look at her confused. The master healer sees this and rolls her eyes "Always remember, we are healers, not priests." and, not waiting for a response, gets back to looking over the rest.

Sometime later, when everyone got the spell to at least an acceptable level, Colette resumes her lecture "As you could feel while casting the spell, the basis of restoration is channeling positively charged Magicka, whether you do it to heal wounds or harm things of a negatively charged nature matters little, the principle behind it is the same. That is the case for the lower-level spells in any case, the higher levels of healing specifically are more akin to permanent alteration of yourself and others, a true master of restoration can even reverse aging to an extent, but the requirements for this are immense, otherwise we wouldn't have idiots turning into liches."

Well, I know what I am gonna study.

After a short pause, she continues "Solar magic shares most principles with the destruction school, so I will leave that for later classes. When it comes to more advanced healing spells, there is a requirement beyond Magicka and control, you have to understand what you are healing, which means having a very advanced grasp of anatomy. If you wish to continue studying restoration you will have to spend much of your time studying bodies and what they are made of."

Most of my colleagues are not very enthusiastic about it, but I can already see who is going to be coming back here, Morrigan because of the money, the twins because it is their family tradition, and finally me, because dying is cringe.

She takes a bit more time explaining the basics before the class ends.

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The tower of Mysticism's atmosphere is far more... well mystical, like there is something hiding in every corner, not in the scary sense, it felt like it wanted to show me things that are just beyond my sight. I dearly hope it wasn't "blessed" by Hermaeus Mora.

The inside of it seemed like it had been arranged specifically to produce some kind of mood, but the specifics of it evade me. We quickly reached the classroom and what I saw made me almost faceplant.

A tiny albino Argonian with blue lines accenting his scales, wearing a bright blue wide-brimmed pointy hat, and robes of the same color covered in golden stars and crescent moons.

The others' reactions are more subdued but everyone shows some level of surprise.

It doesn't end there, as soon as we quietly sit down we are assailed by the cutest fucking squeaky voice imaginable "Good day students, and welcome to my mighty domain! I am Shalazar the misterious master of mysticism!"

My brother in Dagoth who the fuck made you?

"Under my magnanimous teachings you shall learn to defy space, trap souls, ignore logic, and even bend time itself!" He waves his hands around like a conductor while explaining "But! First you must learn to protect your own essence, we can't have you getting enslaved by Daedra and the like now can we?" he raises an eyebrow of his oversized red eye.

"To explain our purpose for todays lesson we must first set a firm foundation in our minds, Mysticism, the art of the Psijik, the ancient way, all these are words used to describe a mix of magical manipulation, instinctual insight and symbolic ritualism. Mysticism is a school of magic meant to be lived instead of studied, you must let your mind wonder and find itself once more to truly set yourself on the path of a mystic."

He clears his throat and even that makes a squeaky noise "There are two main aspects of Mysticism that you will learn under my guidance, the first is the ancient art of manipulating Magicka, before some of you say something inane like 'oh glorious teacher we already manipulate Magicka' I don't mean it in the simple way, but in such a complex manner that you may teleport yourself or levitate in the air. The other aspect is the ritualistic arts, by holding a magical ceremony in a precise fashion you may bring permanent changes to your own nature." At this he points us to a corner of the room that no one noticed until now.

It is covered in a magical circle, I manage to recognize some of the symbols, and it seems to say something along the lines of: soul aware protect sense and more words that I still don't understand.

The now surprisingly serious lizard wizard speaks up again "Today, unless you are unwilling, you will go through the 'Essential Ritual' named as such for it guards your Essence, or soul, against outside influence lacking your consent." No one seems to be reluctant so he goes on "Keep in mind that rituals are a very precise art that comes with great risk, this one is among the rare exceptions, as it has ben reworked time and time again over the eras. This doesn't however, mean that you can relax, once you enter the circle you must feel your soul as soon as possible, and once you do you will be able to consciously reject almost any outside influence upon it."

Marwyn raises his hand, and once Shalazar nods he asks "How do we know when we have felt our souls?"

The mystic shrugs and asks "If the ritual is made so you may touch your own essence do you truly believe that the feeling is something you can miss?" Marwyn seems dissatisfied with the answer but remains quiet.

Shalazar claps his hands and starts calling us one by one, I am among the last so I get to see what happens, and I will be honest it is really underwhelming, most of them are done in seconds and none seem to be in any distress.

Finally it is my turn, I sit down cross legged and channel my Magicka into the circle. I suddenly feel something touch a very deep part of me and said part seems to remain in my perception, and I feel that it will never go back to how it was.

[New system function created]

[Binding actions will now require a confirmation through system prompt.]

YES! Fuck you you Daedric dickheads, no tricking me into dumb bullshit curses for you! I didn't know what to expect from the ritual, but this did put a smile on my face.

After we are all done, the almighty and resplendent lizard wizard waves us all off and simply levitates through the window to do whatever it is he does when he isn't spreading his wisdom to the mortals.

We all quickly get out of our stupor and leave to heal our minds from whatever the fuck that was.

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A/n: it has been on my mind for some time so I had to do it.

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