The effects of my first attempts at enhancing the healing potion fell below expectations. If the inefficiencies came from distance, I had no hope of saving him. However, if pharmacokinetics were the source and my theories held, then perhaps I had a method to make this work.

  I turned my mental gaze to his liver and tried to accelerate the consumption of the potion while limiting the adverse effects. As soon as I attempted it, the feedback fractured my control of the two other areas. My flow state collapsed shortly afterward. A deep, unpleasant throbbing built up around my Mark and spread to behind my eye. The ambient sounds and light, once tolerable, became harsh and grating. Still, I managed to find the dissonant Energy and suppress it. As before, with each passing second, the feedback diminished. I dropped out of a painful haze to see the results of my experiment.

  The concentration of the potion in his bloodstream had dropped precipitously, but at a price. At that accelerated rate, it lost efficiency. Tissue and vessels knit back together, outpacing the prior sluggish rate, but I had only managed to make the alchemical agent work on par with an unaugmented version. I prepared to give up on the experiment when amorphous voids in my perception cropped up.

  Their arrival spooked me enough that I deactivated [Enhance Medicinal]. As the skill’s effect faded, the voids disappeared. Out of curiosity, I reactivated the skill. In no time, they reappeared, their locations never static and their boundaries in constant ebb and flow. I pieced together the mystery only after picking up on the general decay in what I was sensing.

  By accelerating consumption, I drove the potion in my sphere of influence to negligible levels, depriving myself of the information from [Enhance Medicinal]. When added to the regeneration of the h?rlie’s injuries, I lost input from both extrasensory perception and [Enhanced Medicinal]. If I stopped consuming the potion, I gave the area time to return to equilibrium with the rest of the body. Still, it took time for the potion to diffuse through the area, creating a jarring lack of information.

  A rookie mistake, though if I had to choose, I would take the lack of information with healing over no regeneration at all. Except, were those my only two options?

  Even in the short time I had spent adapting the skill, I had learned some control. I throttled the skill’s effect on the healing potion, and in doing so, the voids disappeared. As a bonus, it also decreased the feedback. Yet, as I expanded to a larger area, my control slipped. A prominent concentration gradient developed between the center and edge of my sphere of influence, and even that wasn’t smooth. Voids popped in and out of existence in random patches throughout my sphere. My control lacked finesse.

  I worked on decreasing the disparity when I noticed a pattern in the void formation. Of course, the area closest to the center had the most, but moving outward, the frequency of voids decreased in a relatively linear fashion until a point. Then, they just stopped occurring.

  Did I really have time to experiment? While the h?rlie no longer teetering on the edge of death, I had only managed to walk him back a few steps. Still, I couldn’t shake the importance of this strange occurrence.

  With effort, I split my concentration, devoting just enough attention to the skill to keep it running in the background. Even with my imprecise control, it didn’t take long to determine the cause of the phenomenon. After all, Dorian and others had alluded to it before when discussing potions. When the healing potion concentration exceeded a certain threshold, its efficacy plummeted. Towards the center, where I consumed the potion at an accelerated rate, I kept the healing potion concentration below this threshold. While that meant the potion worked faster and better, it also made it much easier for me to overshoot, healing too much too fast and creating voids or near voids. That overshooting couldn’t occur when the concentration of the potion exceeded the optimal window—the potion’s efficacy had plummeted so much that the body didn’t respond to it. With my divided attention and Energy demands, my skill couldn’t overcome that delta.

  Fascinating on so many levels. Everything I learned kept pointing to the potions following rules similar to normal medications. Now, how could I use it?

  Accepting a raging migraine, I continued to split my focus, experimenting with my skill’s effect in real-time. Shortly, I landed on a rough sense of the upper limit of the potion’s ideal concentration.

  If [Enhance Medicinal] let me speed up a potion’s effects, could I alter its therapeutic window?

  It seemed possible. After all, I could already do it for the lower end, making a drop stretch farther than it should. This situation called for it. While awash in potion, he had so much damage that the amount circulating through his system might not be enough—even if I had the mental capacity to maintain focus long enough to heal with only potion acceleration. If I could expand the window, would it be easier? Could I do both? As before, I would need to stretch the skill.

  This time, it didn’t come easily. I couldn’t put my finger on why. Only, accelerating consumption felt more “natural.” I persisted, but I started to pay a price. My vision blurred. A white screen descended, obscuring more with each passing moment. I did my best to ignore it. I didn’t need to see with my eyes. I held on as more fiery pokers stabbed into my skull. I relinquished all other manners of control I had on the potion. His healing slowed to its prior sluggish pace. Still, I pushed.

  My mouth tingled. My fingers, buried in his stomach, followed. I still flexed the skill through all of it, pushing the window further. Like ants crawling on my skin, the uncomfortable pinpricks crept up my arm. Easy to ignore, I didn’t relent and found the first hints of success, fleeting as they were. Then, all at once, those ants stung. My concentration nearly shattered as fire engulfed my arm. Yet, I couldn’t let go. I couldn’t.

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  So close.

  I retreated into a flow state, desperate for more time to process. Time didn’t stop. My mental state prevented it. However, it did slow to a crawl—at a cost. As before, slowing time amplified the pain. My arms clenched. My diaphragm and accessory muscle spasmed. I would have screamed if I could. Maybe I did.

  Time lost meaning, but somehow, through all that, I managed to hold onto my connection to [Enhance Medicinal]. The skill’s resistance to modification started to fade, and with it, the pain. I pushed the skill’s area of effect as wide as my Projection would allow, and the potion responded. Tissue healed at a rate similar to when accelerated but without the loss of efficiency. It became easy to run the skill in the background, letting me direct my focus on the most heavily damaged areas. His liver and spleen both began to regenerate at a pace outmatching the rest of his body…and the brewing infection.

  I hadn’t noticed the wrongness at first. Either it crossed a threshold or I had subconsciously excluded bacteria when I accelerated the potion. However, by adjusting the therapeutic window, the pathogens that had spilled into his abdomen from his gut wound took advantage of the growth medium. Using the potion, they multiplied, spreading through his bloodstream.

  Great. I added sepsis to massive trauma.

  Even if infection was inevitable with this many injuries to his bowels, I didn’t need to add more complications to stabilization. Keeping him alive was just the first step. That stone shard still needed to be removed. It was sharp enough to do damage, but more importantly, it would act as a nidus for infection. I could reach it, but I risked tearing his aorta. Did they have the capability of doing surgery here to remove it if I didn’t? As more of the tissue healed, the harder it would be to get it out.

  I went for it. I twisted my hand, inching it toward the stone bullet. I pinched it, and it slipped. I hissed as it dug into the descending aorta. I tried again, this time wrapping my whole hand around it. The shard’s jagged point extended beyond the tip. Serrated edges dug into my skin as I clamped my hand around the projectile... I clenched my teeth at the pinprick of fire running along my palm, but I didn’t let go. I pulled my hand back and dropped the bloody shard next to me.

  “Are you done?” asked R?gnor.

  I didn’t have time for stupid questions. “Get my potion, uncapped.” I held out a hand. When nothing was placed in it, I repeated myself, channeling every ounce of arrogant, jackass surgeon I could muster. A sharp spike shot through my skull, but I got what I had wanted.

  I had half a vial left. That would have to be enough.

  I poured the rest into the cavity and slid my arm back into the wound. The wound acting as my entry point started to close around my arm despite my best efforts. It was that or let the infection blossom. I couldn’t suppress both. Besides, if needed, I could reopen my entry point with a dagger. Applying those non-existent antibiotics might prove difficult...

  However, that decision highlighted the tenuousness of the situation. Each move was a gamble, but I just didn’t see another way. Even with all this healing, the h?rlie still looked like crap. He had lost too much blood. These potions couldn’t replace it, which meant I had to ensure that I eliminated all major sources of bleeding. Some vessels would still ooze, but that would be okay if a [Healer] got here in time.

  I continued to drive Energy into my skill, all the while slowing down time enough to examine the effects. Medicines shouldn’t work this way. Potions let me cheat, but was what [Healers] did any different? I would embrace the house rules if it meant saving a life. After all, it was working. He teetered on the edge, but I managed to balance regeneration with infection suppression.

  A presence cut through the haze of my exhaustion, cool and unimpressed. “Human, what are you doing?“

  Being addressed like that was getting old. But despite the fact that my ears rang and my head ached as if someone had hit me with a 2x4, I kept a civil tone. Even if she was my least favorite of the two, she was the person I had been waiting and hoping for. For this case, I would trade scorn for experience any day of the week. “I am almost done fixing the last of the vascular damage. The internal bleeding is contained…somewhat.”

  “Vascular damage?”

  It translated correctly. Her scowl couldn’t hide her surprise. She knew exactly what I was talking about; she just didn’t know—or didn’t like—why I had that knowledge.

  “He had severe spleen and liver injury. I used potions to limit them.” I didn’t bother grading them, she would have no clue what that meant. “He still has a significant hepatic hema—bruising, splenic laceration, and multiple bowel perfs—perforations. His leg has been in a tourniquet for—R?gnor, how long has it been since you tightened the belt?” Silence. “R?gnor?”

  His name came out like a crack of a whip. With it, another lash struck my brain. I closed my eyes at the sudden pain, but not fast enough to miss the Vísir’s head tilt. Regardless, my command shook whatever reluctance he had. “Around one hundred breaths.”

  How does that translate into minutes?

  I wasn’t going to get an answer. Based on the Vísir’s nod, she understood the convention.

  I tried to ignore the crowd that gathered around us when I was working. I had ignored, or rather been oblivious to, what now constituted a good portion of the company.

  Focus. Only the handoff matters now.

  “I don’t know how bad the ischemia—the lack of oxygen—” I let out a grunt of frustration. “I think it is salvageable, but I don’t know how much damage occurred before I applied the”—I just pointed at the tourniquet instead of finding another word—“but I would probably loosen it to allow reperfu—the blood flow back.”

  She stared at me for another few seconds before putting her hands near him. She made no sounds save an occasional grunt. After no more than twenty seconds, she leaned back. “How many potions did he get?”

  “Half of one from me, and likely one and a half before me.” Her eyes narrowed, and I answered her unspoken question, “A skill.”

  She shook her head. “Of course, it was. I don’t care if you kill yourself, Human, but don’t you dare take one of your betters with you. Your crude meddling could have drained both your Energy and his strength—he would have died the moment I tried to heal him.

  Huh, an interesting pearl for later. However, that wasn’t the important question. “But can you heal him?”

  “I already am. Now get your dirty hand out of there before it gets stuck.”

  My eyes widened in shock, but a glance told me the truth. The h?rlie’s ashen tone was lessening. I pulled out my arm and watched a miracle happen.

  His color improved. His breathing normalized. His wounds closed right in front of me, leaving smooth green skin with blood-tinged stone shards resting on top of it. She had even managed to expel the tiniest of projectiles. It put everything I had done to shame.

  I tried to stand up, but the world darkened and spun. I fell back on my butt. Someone helped me up, and I let them. It was all too much.