Kyrion tried to get up, but his body refused to listen. He felt energized, yet it was as though his body wasn’t his own. Kyrion remembered the mushroom walking towards him and began to panic. He was held down by various restraints, and he still felt numb.

    

Kyrion entered his center to see if everything was fine, but inside he was met with chaos. The mana in his body was rapidly flooded into a mushroom-like creature filling past the point it would burst. Even still, he felt a door in his core open up and consume the creature.

 

Moments later, the remains of the mushroom were spat out and used to nurture his spirits like fertilizer. He felt gaps in his mana pool. Inconsistencies. Air bubbles that needed to be popped.

So he began to compress his mana further and further, removing the holes as he did.

 

It was easier than normal, as though some had already been condensed. So Kyrion made his core smaller and smaller, to the point that it was an apple seed. Still, he pushed and pushed until he used up all the energy given to him by the mushroom. He fed the new quality to his spirits, feeling a massive jump in understanding his power.

 

The sprout became a small sapling. Soon after, small blue fruits began to grow from it. They resembled a pomegranate, and Kyrion felt they would heal. Jala had grown in size as well, and she also seemed a bit cranky. Issac was as calm as ever, slightly bigger but resembling a swanling. Kyrion began to understand what the swan had done to him. First, it made his balance uncanny, he should have fallen off that tree when the beast charged, but he didn’t budge. The second thing was his improved appearance. Which he would have traded for anything useful. Kyrion felt a new quality to the elements he had control over. It seems that both water and wind had the power to heal.

 

Kyrion exited his center and began to look around again. This time he felt enough control over his body to speak. “Hello? I seem to be in a pickle. I never liked pickles very much. Please can you let me go? I have totally unsuspicious fruits to give you all.”

    

Everest looked at his friend. “I call bull.”

    

“Fair enough. It seems I am gonna rot here forever. Did we lose? Are we outside the forest?” Kyrion seemed to be happy at the possibility.

 

“No, you’ve been asleep for two hours. Seems you woke up and passed right back out. The fight shouldn’t have been that hard. I suspect that we beat a practitioner rank monster. Still, it did something to you as you killed it. Care to elaborate?” Damian asked, eying his friend with suspicion.

 

“Short answer, I hit rank three and everything fixed itself. Long answer, I really don’t understand the details. Can I go now? I has healing magics.” Kyrion said in a hurry.

 

“Fine, but we’re watching you.” Damian stated stoically.

 

“Just let him go already!” Asela flared up before putting her head in her tiny hands.

 

Kyrion was released from his binds, and he felt feeling return to his body. Kyrion stood up, stretched, and called forth the fruits of his labor. Five blue fruits appeared before him and began falling to the ground. Kyrion caught three of them before the other two hit the ground.

 

“Pomegranates, blue ones at that. What do they do?” Wura asked.

 

“I think they heal when eaten. Not sure how you eat them, though. It’s one of those fruits I’ve seen but never had the chance to eat. Kyrion took a bite out of one and winced as the shell proved too tough.

 

“You just eat the seeds.” Wura had to hold it in to keep from laughing.

 

Kyrion ripped it open from where he took the bite, revealing beautiful blue seeds.

 

He popped one in his mouth and found that it tasted pretty good. “Much better. Who’s the first vict… patient?”

 

Kyrion approached Noah first. “You seem to be the least injured. Try eating the seeds one by one. I have no idea how it works. I just know I can’t make any more right now.” Kyrion hands it to his friend, watching him very closely.

 

Noah took a big handful and began eating them one by one. Struggling at first as the thick seeds were deceptively hard to chew. Noah grinned as the tart taste, and sweet undertones filled his mouth. Cuts were sealed, bruises went from black to blue, pink, and finally, nothing. Not even a scar was left behind. He was fully healed by roughly a fourth of the pomegranate. “I feel great! Like I can run for hours.” Finally, Noah stood up, and the pain from earlier had faded.

 

Damian had a light in his eyes. “If this works we may be able to continue.” Hope was in their leader’s voice.

 

“Kiara is in the worst shape and she can’t take solids in her condition. If the berries could be crushed into a juice or paste then we may be able to feed it to her. There is a gash on the back of her head along with a few cuts from where she fell. Possibly a concussion of some sort as well.” Everest put down a familiar-looking book that looked like it was in Nico’s possession earlier.

 

Kyrion handed the seeds to Wura, who turned them into a juice. The blue liquid visibly radiated mana as it was brought over to Kiara and slowly fed her. Unlike Noah’s injuries, these seemed to take longer to show signs of working as the mixture rapidly lost potency. But it worked enough to heal the gash and minor cuts, leaving no scar behind.

 

Kiara woke up, panicked, immediately summoning her bow and knocking an arrow. Then, training it straight ahead of her. Where Kyrion was standing at the moment.

    

“You’re a bit late, your highness.” Kyrion said with a smirk and bow. “We already beat whatever that thing was.”

 

“Uh huh…” Kiara kept the bow trained and started looking around, observing her surroundings carefully.

 

“Moving on to Nico…” Kyrion backed away as though his teammate was a mad wolf. Setting all but one more of his blue fruits in a bag.

 

Wura briefed Kiara on the current situation, getting her up to speed. By the end of it, the girl had a newfound appreciation for their scout.

 

Nico lay on his stomach, his torso wrapped in so many bandages it was ridiculous. It was then Asela approached her brother, the tears on her face almost drying up.

 

“You can fix him right? It’s my fault. If I was faster I could have dodged. But… but… I wasn’t-ands-he-got hurt really bad.” The tears began to well up, and her words became incoherent.

 

Kyrion eyed his sister. “Everything will be fine soon. He should be fixable. Can’t let him get away with making the great Asela cry.”

 

Nico laughed and then winced as pain shot through him. “Not to be that guy, but I’m conscious. Can you hurry up? It still hurts quite a bit.”

 

“This will be the last time I do first aid on anyone. Nobody appreciates it when we have a professional healer.” Everest threw his hands up

 

“Oh, didn’t know you were up. You’ve been so quiet. Can you sit up? Don’t want you to choke on these things.” Kyrion’s voice didn’t match his words, as concern was apparent on his face. Everest was soundly ignored.

“I swear. Nobody appreciates anything.”

 

“Thank you for keeping us alive, Everest. You are a valuable asset to the team.” Damian stated.

 

Nico sat up and took his medicine. Healing much faster than Kiara with fewer seeds. Nico was back in fighting condition in a matter of moments. Nico got up, stretched, and began writing in one of his notebooks, asking to get caught up on the details. “It’s like the wound wasn’t there, to begin with. Kyrion have you considered going into alchemy? I’m sure you could make a killing with healing potions made from this stuff.”

 

“Nope. It sounds hard and boring.” Kyrion said, disinterested.

 

Nico cleared his throat.” You may even learn how to make candy.” Nico said in his best sales pitch.

 

“Where do I sign up?” A spark of interest appeared on his face as he seriously considered it.

 

“E-...Ex-...” Damian started to say, eyes wide as he tried to get into the conversation.

 

“I can teach you. Once you get the numbers down it’s quite simple. So to speak, there is still lots of trial and error along with various safety precautions.” Nico started to go on.

 

“Excuse…” Damian began again, gathering what seemed to be, resolve.

 

“On second thought. Lets...” Kyrion began to back off before getting interrupted.

 

“Excuse me!” Damian bellowed.

 

The two ceased their discussion and looked at their leader in a mixture of surprise and embarrassment.

 

“Thank you. Now, we need to worry about lunch, and getting back to the plan. We spent four hours dealing with that pig. Two of those were spent in recovery however. We have four hours to deal with that rabbit and I’m afraid that it’s going to be a slog to get there. On the upside we have a way to heal. So we can afford to go all out. Just no more overly effective fireballs.” Damian stood after that, issuing his next direct orders. Making it a whole ten seconds before he started to shrink back into his shell.

 

The tent was broken down, and each person was given an emergency pouch with the pomegranate seeds inside. This way, they could use them when they needed them.

 

The group figured that Kyrion couldn’t make more, and he didn’t have time to figure out how this new ability would work in his arsenal.

 

The group got into formation and began their march toward what they thought was the rabbit’s territory. Engaging in small fights with the enhanced rabbit population and growing as a team after each battle.

Yulon brought his hand to his chin and began to rub it. “That level of healing isn’t normal for a fledgling. It isn’t unheard of but he shouldn’t have the mana to do it.”

 

“I can finally say that I told you so. All that remains is what the others can do. Fire manipulation is fine and all, but with that crest. I doubt that’s all she can do, things like this will take a bit of figuring out. We may need to put more effort into drawing out of her innate abilities. They were in first place for all but thirty minutes. The team led by Brion has been paving through enemies of the fledgling rank at a breakneck pace. While Milo’s team is consistent. At the rate they’re going they will push Damian down to three in a matter of hours.” Lok stated.

 

Leon looked into the pool of water. “It is what it is. Brion picked the strongest people he could recruit and kept his team small for efficiency. Chances are we won’t have a full monster genocide this year, as in terms of combat power they’re the strongest. Milo built a balanced team with as few people as he could as well. He doesn’t have anyone who can heal, so they have to choose their battles carefully.” Seemed to be looking toward the other team's progress with a discerning eye.

 

“From my experience, teams like Brion’s tend to do really well on the first day, but fall behind as the test goes on. They have power but no real utility, and unless they hunt other teams, their pace will drop by quite a bit.” Yulon watched the children go about their test with a reminiscent expression.

 

Leon nodded solemnly. “While Brion’s strong for his age I can see that he skimped on his foundation. But his spirit is a powerful one from what we have seen. Such a waste had he compressed it a bit more then he may have been a true contender for my recommendation.”

 

Lok and the headmaster exchanged glances before looking back into the pool.