Galten POV

Galten let out a tired sigh. At his old age, he sometimes wondered if he was better off just spending his days relaxing around his house. As he entertained that idea for the thousandth time, he shook his head. He already knew how that would end up. He had tried that a few times in the past, and it never ended like he planned.

Each time, he had eventually gotten tired of it. His family was quite large, and he was constantly harassed by his grandchildren and other family members whenever he wasn't working. They were relentless little creatures.

He was never able to relax and read a book alone. They always ended up finding him no matter where he hid himself. Even when he tucked himself in his study, the little goblins found a way to sneak in.

It wasn't the worst thing, to be fair. He was luckier than most, and it was a blessing to have such a large family.

He let out another grunt as he dragged himself up the set of stairs.

"Must you continue to do that?" Freya asked him with a sigh of her own.

He grunted once more. "Huh?"

She breathed out loudly and rolled her eyes. "Never mind."

He stifled a grin. He had known Freya for quite a long time. He had taught her some things when she had been a young little girl.

She was nothing like the person she currently was. Back then, she had been a curious and silly girl who had an unhealthy obsession with healing people.

Her life affinity wasn't anything spectacular, but she had been stubbornly persistent in continuing to try. He had insisted that she would be better off focusing on her ice affinity, something she was blessed enough to have a perfect affinity for.

However, she always had the dream of being a healer, and despite his harsh words to her, she never gave up her dream.

It wasn't until later that he found out the reason why Freya was so obsessive. Her parents had died because the healer helping them hadn't been skilled enough to save them. If someone with the slightest bit of skill had been there instead, they would still be alive.

That had pushed the surviving daughter down a path that would define her entire life.

Perhaps that was why he eventually took her on as a student. He empathized with her and also appreciated someone who didn't give up just because it was hard.

He was glad that he did as well. She had eventually gone on to become a much better healer than he would have expected from someone like her. She had grown to be one of the most powerful healers on the continent, and it was all because of her hard work. He could barely take any credit for her achievements.

He had only shown her some simple exercises and given her the occasional advice when she was stuck. As a matter of fact, Cain had done more for her healing than he ever could.

The stupid boy had ensured that her healing was constantly in need and gave her plenty of opportunities to hone her skills.

Out of all of the people he had taught to heal, she was one of the few he was most proud of.

And now look at her. She was all grown up. While she and Cain didn't have any children of their own yet, they were still young and had plenty of time. He knew that they had talked about it, but he wasn't going to rush them.

They were going to have plenty of time to do so. It was one of the benefits of being so advanced for their age. They would live for centuries and barely look different a couple of hundred years from now.

"How is Julius doing?" She asked him with a curious tilt of her head.

"Oh, that brat you sent over to this old man?"

"Yeah, how is he holding up?" She asked, sounding more concerned than he expected from her. He was surprised. She usually didn't care all that much about the students. While she was far from apathetic, she liked to keep her distance, unlike Cain, who Galten knew loved to help the younger generation of talent.

"He's doing well," he admitted begrudgingly.

"Oh?" She asked with a turn of her lips. "Well? High praise coming from you," she said with mirth.

He couldn't say anything in response. The boy had indeed been doing well. He hadn't done any actual healing, but he had shown an admirable level of attentiveness and care that not every person demonstrated, especially if they were relegated to such tedious tasks.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

"Do you think he is ready to use his healing magic on patients?" She asked.

He shrugged. "You tell me. You are the one who has been preventing him from doing so. I thought he was okay to try it, not very long ago."

"He doesn't have the traditional education one would learn as they train as a healer. I want him to learn the basics that don't rely on pure healing magic first. It will help him understand that there are other ways to heal others without relying on life mana," she explained.

He bobbed his head. He couldn't find any reason to argue against her logic. He knew very well that people often neglected the basics. They assumed that healing only had to do with healing magic and only wanted to learn how to use life mana.

They didn't know how to clean a wound without life mana properly, and they didn't understand the basics of infection or take much care for the patient in general. However, he was somewhat pleased to see that Julius already knew about the festering of wounds and had a general knowledge of certain medical practices despite not being trained as a healer in the past.

Of course, you didn't need to learn this in order to heal someone. But it certainly helped and ensured you didn't waste precious life mana unnecessarily.

"I never asked, but where did you find him?" Galten questioned Freya.

"He was brought to us by Doren," she explained to him with a frown of her own.

"Doren?" He asked with a look of disdain. He never liked the researcher all that much. He was much too obsessed with his own experiments for Galten's liking. He recalled the incident a couple of years ago with distaste. The idiot had accidentally released a toxin the last time he stayed in Auraulos and had poisoned a good number of innocent people.

It was only thanks to the combined efforts of their healers that nobody died. However, several older people became permanently crippled thanks to the man's carelessness. The only thing that prevented people from hunting Doren down was the fact that he wasn't a bad person at heart.

That, and the man was quite powerful despite his odd behavior. Galten had long suspected that Doren was already at Tier 7 or at the very peak of Tier 6, and that didn't mention his equally powerful connections across the continent.

"What did he want?" He asked Freya with narrowed eyes.

"He said he needs a healer to help him with something," she answered with a shrug.

"He needs a healer or you?" He asked knowingly. This distinction mattered a lot because he knew that Doren, with all of his connections, would be able to find a powerful healer, but Freya was special. Her Ice Phoenix Concept gave her many advantages that other powerful healers were unable to replicate.

"Me," she said, sounding like she already knew this as well.

"So what? This boy was a gift in exchange for this? It doesn't sound like a fair trade," he said with a scoff.

She laughed at this. "No, it probably isn't, but it is certainly interesting at the very least. You should know this, you have been around him a lot during this past week, right?"

He didn't entertain her with an answer. There was no need.

"Have you seen his aura?" He asked her after a moment of silence.

She rolled her eyes. "Of course. What? Did you notice something?"

He grunted. "Yeah, several days ago, I gave him some Life Dew Spring Crystals to play with, and he was able to activate them without any trouble."

She paused to look at him flatly. "You could have hurt him," she rebuked him.

He waved aside her concerns, but knew that she was right. The only reason he had even done so was because he had seen how well Julius's control was. Delicately manipulating several objects at once with aura was a testament to his skill. As simple as it might have seemed, the fact that Julius was able to write his name elegantly with a brush showed that he had fine control.

That, on top of his impressive aura weight, was why Galten decided to test the boy with the crystals.

"He was fine, he didn't have any issues despite their difficulty. But that made me think about who trained him. I caught him doing some advanced aura and mana manipulation exercises when he had free time. It's not something seen by some random country bumpkin. He was definitely taught by someone powerful," he mentioned to her.

"I know," she said with a short nod.

He sighed, already suspecting that she did. "What does Cain think?" he asked her.

Freya grinned widely. "He loves the boy. He thinks the boy is a treasure and is thinking about whether or not to accept him as an official apprentice."

"Already?"

She shrugged. "He said he liked his attitude. I can't argue either. The boy has good control over his emotions despite his young age. Even when his peers harass him during his kinetic classes, he doesn't lash out, even though he could easily beat the snot out of them. He didn't even get that mad when Cain removed his arm," she said much too simply.

"What do you mean he removed his arm?" Galten asked with bafflement.

"We wanted to see his healing skill in action," she stated.

"And you are going to scold me for giving him the crystals?" He asked in disbelief.

"That's different. Physical damage is not the same as soul-related trauma," she pointed out.

He was going to argue, but knew it would be pointless, so he held his tongue.

"Why is he even in the class for beginners?" He changed the topic.

"Because he needs to learn how to use his kinetic energy the right way. Or that is what Cain said."

"Was that the only reason?" He asked with a knowing look.

She grinned slightly at the question. "What? Specifically, putting him in an environment to observe what kind of person he is and to see how he treats others weaker than him?"

He nodded. "That is exactly what I am asking."

"Of course not," she said with a wide grin before removing a fruit from her ring and taking a bite out of it. "That would be ridiculous," she mumbled.