Tim rushed up to them both. "What did you do? Explain it to me."

  Luke did his best to explain the pain-dampening procedure. He wasn't quite sure how the mana interacted with the physical nerve and how his Thread of Mana kept it all together, but it worked. It worked better than he'd hoped, even.

  Tim just stood there, stunned. "Do you know what this could mean? What if we could stop being forced to use opiates as a society?"

  Luke almost couldn’t believe it himself, but it wasn't done yet. "One step at a time, Tim. For now, I need to finish what I started with Aaron. I'm not even sure it'll work with those who aren't Integrated, either."

  "Why not?" Tim asked, frowning.

  "They don't have mana channels."

  "Oh," Tim said, then shrugged. "We'll just make every patient go through the Tutorial Dungeon. No biggie."

  Lilly moved in closer with a bounce in her step. "You can move your hand!"

  Her strange positioning and movements made him turn and look. Those bastards were recording this. Luke pointed. "Turn that off right now. I said no recording."

  Lilly turned to the camera and smiled a practiced smile, waving a little while bouncing up and down. "Did you guys see that? He did it! My brother can move his hand. This is Luke, a Lifeweaver Integrated out of Chicago. Isn't this amazing? A miracle!"

  She leaned in to whisper in Luke's ear. "We're not recording. This is a live stream."

  "You're streaming live?" Luke asked. He wanted to step away from Aaron, but that would mess up the Threads of Mana. Instead, he pointed at the one holding the camera again. "You turn that off right now!"

  Lilly stepped out in front of him, facing the camera. "This has been a Lilly Speaks segment. If you enjoyed this, you know what to do." She formed a heart with her hands, holding them up overhead. "See you next time, my lovelies!"

  The stream was over.

  "Wait," Tim said. "You can't post that. You're not allowed to film in a hospital."

  Lilly shrugged. "What don't you understand about 'streaming'? It's already out there."

  "Sis," Aaron groaned.

  Lilly rolled her eyes. "You can drop the act now. I got my segment. I'm sure they've figured out you're not really my brother by now."

  "You're not her brother?" Luke asked.

  "We're not even related. Used to date. Years ago. Then she turned up on my doorstep, like two days ago, promising a way to fix me."

  "I brought you two together, didn't I?" Lilly asked, face half-obscured by her phone. "I'm such a good person. Anyway, I got the footage I needed, so I'm going to head out." She looked at Luke. "Get your social media presence going, and I'll make sure to direct people your way. Maybe we can collab again."

  "Yes!" the one who'd held the camera said. "Make a series out of it! The engagement was wild!"

  With that, she was gone, leaving Luke with Tim and Aaron.

  "I'm so sorry," Aaron said. "She said you'd only do it if you thought I was her brother."

  Luke just shook his head, confused. "I have no idea what's going on here. I don't care if you're siblings or not." He looked at the door where they'd left. "She's a weird one."

  "That she is," Aaron said. "Always has been."

  He looked down at his hand, moving his fingers. "Can you still heal me?"

  "Of course," Luke said. "Just hold on a moment, okay? I need to test this pain barrier thing a little more first."

  It was time to experiment a little. Luke brought forth Threads of Mana. Using Needle of Life, he slashed his forearm, opening up a gash. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he focused and attempted to see the pulses of pain through the nerves around the wound, but no matter how hard he tried, he saw nothing.

  Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

  Instead, he attempted the procedure from before on a random nerve cluster. By grabbing hold of a mana channel and forcing it through the barrier separating the physical from the metaphysical, he could see it poke out of the wound. A wisp of mana, looking much like the threads he used with Weaver's Grasp.

  He brought the mana channel forward and into a bundle of nerves, just like before, then wrapped them in a Thread of Mana before tying it off. The wound still hurt. He'd chosen the wrong bundle, but combining the two made his finger tingle. Something to explore later.

  Rather than attempt the same thing with another nerve bundle at random, Luke moved up to the brachial plexus in his shoulder. This was the spot where all major nerves controlling sensation and movement of the shoulder, arm, and hand passed through.

  Like before, he adjusted his vision in a way he couldn't quite explain, using Weaver's Eye, so the nerves turned into bundles that he was able to single out. Repeating the procedure there cut off the pain in an instant. Luke flexed his hand and looked at the wound, then took his free hand and pushed the finger into it, digging around.

  Still no pain.

  "Luke, what are you doing?" Tim asked.

  Luke wiped his bloodied finger. "Science."

  No pain, but no sensation, either. Being unable to feel touch, pressure, temperature, and even proprioception, the sense that tells you the positioning of your body, would be a serious hindrance, but it was just during the healing itself. This was good. This was what he'd been looking for.

  System Message: Congratulations! New Skill Learned.

  Part The Weave [Passive]: The boundary between states of being is no barrier for the experienced Lifeweaver.

  Experienced, huh? Luke saw no reason why the new skill would appear now. He'd done something similar to this before, if a little different. Also, it was possible to learn new skills without leveling up and using skill points. Interesting.

  With that, Luke used another Thread of Mana with Needle of Life to stitch himself back together. This time, he mended the mana channels and saw his health bar fill back up as the wound closed itself, little by little. It was slow, so Luke added a few stitches in the physical realm, closing the wound. These different types of healing would require further study at some point.

  Once there was no trace of the wound left on his arm, he undid the pain blockages while wincing, but no pain returned. Good. Aaron and Tim both looked at Luke's arm with fascinated horror.

  Looking up at Aaron, he grinned. "Let's fix you up."

  "I'd like that," Aaron said. "I'd like that a lot."

  About fifteen minutes later, after intense focus and sweating on Luke's part, Aaron could move his body without pain. Tim and Luke helped him stand and gave support during Aaron's first few steps, but then he walked on his own. At least a couple of steps before he fell.

  Even then, Aaron laughed.

  "Coordination will come back in time," Luke said. "You should enroll in some sort of physical therapy."

  "Thank you," Aaron said, still laughing. "You've given me my life back. I don't know how I'll ever repay you."

  Luke got down to sit on his heels next to Aaron, grinning. "Do you have any credits?"

  ###

  With Aaron healed and gone, Luke turned to Tim. “So, who’s next?”

  Tim paced the room and stopped, winced, started pacing again, opened his mouth as if to speak, then closed it and resumed his pacing.

  "What's wrong?" Luke asked.

  “Okay, so I might not have been entirely honest before. You know when you were here last?”

  “I remember,” Luke said, not liking this one bit.

  “That painkiller I gave the kid in the wheelchair? I didn’t exactly have permission to do that.”

  Luke blinked. “What do you mean?”

  “There have been some probing questions regarding that syringe, so I was hoping to bring you up here to make sure you don’t speak with anyone about it.”

  “But you spoke to a bunch of higher-ups,” Luke said.

  “I tried, but they didn't want to see reason,” Tim said. “Bunch of scared assholes. The pain thing turned out to be a no-go kind of situation. But now that you've made this discovery, they'll have to give me the new ward I wanted! Once I'm a Lifeweaver too, they won't have any reasons to say no!"

  “That’s bullshit,” Luke shouted. “You stole pain medication from the hospital and gave it to a patient without even telling me?"

  "You assaulted a woman in the emergency room! You were even going to heal that kid without anything to dampen the pain!”

  “I healed her!"

  "That's not what it looked like to everyone else!” Tim said, raising his voice to match Luke’s before calming down. “Look,” Tim said, “we will get everything in place. As soon as my colleagues and I return as Lifeweavers, tell them you will train us. We’ll have our own ward, I’m sure of it. And now, if we don’t need pain meds at all, think of what we can accomplish. Come work for me!”

  “For you?” Luke asked. “You’re such a fucking asshole. Always have been.”

  Tim snorted. "Glass houses, Luke. Glass houses. So high and mighty. Are you saying you won’t train us? Are you that petty? Or is it jealousy? Because I actually finished med school?”

  “Don’t be an idiot,” Luke said. "You have no idea why I quit. Of course I'll help anyone who chooses to become a Lifeweaver. Even if you're an ass, refusing to teach would just mean you'd do more harm than good figuring it out on your own!"

  “I want to heal people,” Tim argued. “Can’t you see this is the best way? Who’s going to lead these Lifeweavers? You?"

  "Lead them all you want, but you won't be leading me."

  Tim shook his head in a show of condescending disappointment. “You know what? I’m going right now."

  “Going where?”

  “I’m going to touch the orb. Screw waiting until tomorrow. If you don’t want to work for me, fine. But you better keep your word and train us!”

  “Well... You better work on improving your attitude!” Luke said. Terrible comeback. Just terrible.

  Tim backed into the door, opening it while shaking his head. “Lame then, lame now.”