After his lessons, he had to go down to the town where he would help as an assistant at one of the clinics that healed adventurers or people who got injured fighting outside the town's protective borders.

He didn't do much of any actual healing. Freya made sure that he understood that very well. She still didn't trust him to heal anyone until he got better control of his healing abilities.

However, he would at least aid the healers and see firsthand how they managed injuries. It was pretty enlightening as well. He was surprised at how little healing was done. A lot of the time, the healers didn't heal the people entirely with life mana.

They used some of their other skills to do a portion of the work. For example, he saw a person using ice magic to numb an infected wound and then used a sharp scalpel made entirely of ice to remove the infected flesh without hurting the person.

This was apparently much more efficient than simply forcing life mana into the wound like Julius would have done in that situation. It was only then that the healer used life mana to heal the raw flesh.

This helped stretch their mana throughout the day. This was particularly important on busy days or when a large expedition returned to town and when mana became more scarce.

Julius walked into the clinic and found the healer who had been helping him for the past couple of days. Galten was quite a strict person, which, in all honesty, wasn't a bad thing for a healer. He was slightly older-looking. Nothing too drastic, but Julius could see small wrinkles surrounding the man's forehead. His hair was still dark brown with a smattering of silver laced into it.

What really caught Julius's eye when he first met Galten was that the man had a limp. Despite the man being a healer himself, he hadn't healed himself of that injury.

When he had asked Freya earlier today, she had told Julius that some injuries were harder to heal than others. There were injuries that no amount of healing magic would fix.

These injuries were called many things around the world, but she referred to them as soul marks. They were described like this because they left a permanent imprint of the injury on the person's soul that would be translated once they were healed again.

Even if Galten's leg were removed and regenerated, the injury and limp would be replicated.

She had pointed to his arm to demonstrate. "Your arm is an example. Burn marks as simple as those would have normally been healed by something as powerful as your healing skill, but they have been engraved into your soul. Likely, by your own choosing," she had explained to him.

"So is Galten's injury the same thing?" He asked her.

She shook her head. "No, it is something else," she said before waving her arm at him. "Now stop lazing around, you need to practice more," she scolded him before making him continue the exercise she created for him.

As he recalled that memory, he approached Galten, who was in the middle of organizing things he would need later. The man didn't turn around to see Julius; he somehow already knew it was Julius.

Although, to be fair, Julius wasn't exactly hiding his aura. Freya and Cain had told him that he shouldn't be shrouding his aura like he usually did. It would only draw unnecessary attention to him from people who could understand what he was doing.

It was better that he used a small but polite shroud during his time at Auraulos. It was actually harder to do since he wasn't used to it, but he was confident he would slowly get used to it.

He waited patiently for Galten to address him, which wasn't that long.

"Today I want you to start actually getting some hands-on experience with the patients," Galten told him as he prepared some items off to the side.

"What kind of hands-on experience?" Julius asked with an interested look.

"Don't get too excited. I have very stern instructions not to let you actually use any healing mana on anyone until Freya gives the go-ahead. You will be helping me with various tasks that are integral to a healer's skill set. She has told me that you are quite good with mana manipulation. Is that true?" Galten asked him.

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"I have been told that, yes," Julius confirmed. There were a lot of things that he wanted to improve, but he also knew that, compared to most people, his mana manipulation was one of his biggest strengths.

"Good, how is your telekinesis?"

Julius nodded hesitantly. "Not bad, but certainly not as good as people who have dedicated skills for it. However, I use my aura most of the time instead of pure mana manipulation," he told Galten.

This seemed to surprise Galten. "Oh, aura-based telekinesis?" The man asked, finally turning to look at Julius.

"Yes, is that not common?"

"Not really, most people rely on their mana manipulation since they already train it. A lot of people don't have the best control of their aura until they get older. Actually, too many older people still don't have good control of their aura either," Galten said with a hint of exasperation directed toward these people.

Julius nodded in understanding. He had already realized that most people didn't put that much emphasis on their aura training. It was surprising how many people often left this important ability relatively untrained.

Galten removed something from his storage device and threw it over to Julius. "Here, let me see how well you can write on a piece of paper, using only that brush and your aura," the healer told him.

Julius grabbed the brush from the air and looked at it. It was a soft-tip brush typically used for artwork, but this one seemed to have ink or paint already filled on its bristles.

He then took out a piece of paper from his own ring and held it up with his aura in front of his face. Then he softly wrapped the brush with his aura as well.

"What do you want me to write?" He asked.

"I don't know. Maybe write something down like, 'I can't wait until the day I can stop being useless and actually use my healing magic, '" Galten said with a slight grin, clearly trying to hold in his amusement at his own joke.

Julius shook his head in exasperation, ignored the lame joke, and decided to write out his name instead.

The task was quite simple. His ability to handle his aura had significantly improved over the past year, thanks in part to the training exercises he did with Lily, which also helped with the softer applications of aura.

Galten had walked over and examined Julius as he wrote his name, grunting as he watched him finish up the final swipe of the brush.

"Not bad," Galten said, not sounding impressed. However, despite only being around the older man for a couple of days, Julius had already understood that Galten rarely gave out praise. Even to other healers at the clinic, the man didn't say good job or well done.

Thus, hearing 'not bad' from him was already an achievement.

"Here, try this," the man said while snatching the paper from the air and handing Julius a bunch of small crystal prisms in return.

Julius looked at them and turned the shapes around in his hands curiously. "What do you want me to do with these?"

"Spin them," Galten said simply without any other instructions.

"Just spin them?" Julius asked slowly, confused as to what the man was looking for.

"Yes, spin them. Do you not know what spinning means?" The healer asked in a deadpan tone.

Julius didn't even bother to give the man a response; he simply ignored him and wrapped his aura around these crystal prisms. However, right away, he felt some resistance. It was like the prisms were doing their best to slip out of his grasp. He was forced to use a little more force to keep them under control.

Once he felt like he had a good grasp of them, he began to spin them gently. Initially, the motion was very wobbly, much like when he had been controlling them. They didn't seem to want to play nice.

And Julius didn't appreciate this. He narrowed his eyes and tightened his grip over his aura and these prisms. His aura responded immediately, and as if the prisms were scared of his aura, they quickly began to behave. The previous rambunctious behavior was no longer anywhere to be seen.

He nodded happily and slowly started to spin them on their respective axis. He started slow, but when he spotted the beautiful glow of the prisms as they spun, he got more excited and ramped it up.

The prisms started to shimmer iridescently, and a weird energy began to emit from them. It was both soothing and energizing. Almost like he was being injected with pure vitality, all of his soreness from the kinetic training vanished into thin air.

He would have kept on increasing the speed at which they spun, but suddenly Galten was there and took away the prisms just as quickly as he had given them.

The weird energy dissipated, and Julius was left feeling refreshed.

"What was that?" He asked with excited eyes.

"Just a little toy," Galten said non committedly and began to walk in the opposite direction. "Come on then. Let's get to it. A large expedition returned today. Maybe you can actually be helpful today," the man pointed out.

Julius rolled his eyes but followed behind Galten. He didn't know what he was going to be doing today, but he was happy that he wasn't going to be sitting around doing nothing. Hopefully, if he did well enough, he might get a chance actually to heal someone.

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