Both the Sitivian and South District of Tivian are densely populated areas with a large concentration of commoners. Due to the industrial area being located in its southern suburbs, the South District has gathered a large number of industrial workers, especially its sewage area, which has become the most polluted bottom-tier community in Tivian.
In the northern section of the South District, on the south bank of the Moonflow River, and at the junction between Sitivian and the East City, there is a triangular area called Basket Street. Many small workshops and individual manual laborers live here. Although the residents here also live a hard life, it is much better than the working-class poor further south. The main source of pollution they face is the coal ash blown over from the Coal Ash District to the west.
On the south bank of the wide Moonflow River, the Corpse Puppet Ed stood. He was wearing an unchanging gray-black windbreaker, looking at the vast river flowing towards the sea, watching the busy cargo ships coming and going, and the various garbage floating on the water surface. He could faintly smell the pungent odor coming from the river.
Dorothy looked towards the north bank of the river through Ed's perspective. Through the fog, she could faintly see the city walls standing on the north bank and the countless tall buildings towering around them. That was the Royal City of Tivian. After turning her head, Dorothy had Ed look towards the street area. At a glance, there were rows and rows of low-rise houses. In front of the houses on both sides of the street were clustered stalls and storefronts. Various shops were densely opened here, selling everything. The entire street was overcrowded due to the large number of stalls, indicating that this was also a place where fish and dragons mixed.
"So... where should I start looking?"
Sitting in a stopped carriage by the riverbank, Dorothy observed the appearance of the South District streets through the Corpse Puppet's vision, and she was also thinking about how to further find that Davik. After only a moment of thought, she had the answer in her mind.
Dorothy took out her magic box, then manipulated Ed, who was not far away, to come to the side of her carriage. After having Ed hold the magic box, he quickly went far away, and after searching for a moment, he vanished into an empty alley. After a while, a group of people of various types walked out of that alley one after another.
These people were naturally all of Dorothy's Corpse Puppets. Dorothy controlled seven or eight Corpse Puppets to crawl out of the magic box in one go. After walking out of the alley separately, they walked out towards different directions of Basket Street without looking back, directly infiltrating it.
Ed was the last person to walk out of the small alley. After adjusting his hat, he returned to the bustling street. After looking at the vendors shouting everywhere, he walked to the front of a stall selling glass ornaments, squatted down, and began to play with a string of glass necklaces.
"Yo, customer, what would you like? If there's nothing you like at this stall, just tell me, I have many other styles in the back."
Behind the stall, the thin owner wearing a headscarf saw Ed choosing something and immediately said with a smiling face, while Ed slowly chose glass ornaments and said.
"No need, I'll just look at these... By the way, boss, I see the weather hasn't been too good lately, will this affect your business?" While choosing goods, Ed took the opportunity to ask the boss, and the boss immediately replied.
"Hey... that's for sure, but the family relies on this for food, so even if the weather is bad, we can only tough it out... Actually, as long as we don't encounter strange winds that can blow away the stall, we can continue working no matter what the weather is like. Although it's meager, we can still get some income."
The boss said with a half-complaint, and Ed's eyes rolled, then he continued to ask.
"Oh... so, boss, have you encountered any strange winds recently?"
"About that... let me think, there does seem to have been strange winds recently, but not here, I seem to have heard people say it was over on East Street..."
The boss recalled and spoke, while Ed also chatted with the boss while picking out small glass ornaments. The topics of conversation were mainly the weather and strange winds. In Tivian, these were very common topics, and the stall owner didn't feel anything was wrong.
Finally, after the conversation ended, Ed bought a string of glass necklaces, stood up, and walked away. A similar scene was happening in various places in Basket Street at this moment.
Under Dorothy's control, several of her Corpse Puppets were scattered in various parts of this area at this time, talking about the weather with the residents of this street area as ordinary customers and passers-by. The focus among them was strange winds.
Strange winds were a rumor circulating in Tivian, referring to a sudden strong wind that rose from the ground with an unpredictable direction. This wind suddenly appeared and suddenly disappeared, catching people off guard and leaving them bewildered. Some people in Tivian had experienced it, while more had not. Some believed it, while the vast majority felt it was pure fabrication, thus forming a peculiar folk rumor. Some believed it was mischievous sprites at work, even threatening children that if they were disobedient, they would be swept away by the strange wind.
But Dorothy knew that this was not a rumor; strange winds did exist. Their true nature was none other than the Hunters of the Tivian Hidden Security Bureau. When these Wind Art Users performed missions targeting organizations, the wind produced by their abilities affected ordinary people, resulting in strange winds, just like Edmund did in the Coal Ash District before.
According to the information obtained from Grego, that Davik was secretly apprehended by the Hunters. This means that there was a possibility of conflict between Davik and the Hunters. If the Hunters and Davik had a conflict or even an Extraordinary battle, the Hunters' abilities might have caused strange winds. In that case, Dorothy only needed to find the location where the strange winds occurred to at least find the scene of the conflict between Davik and the Hunters.
As expected, Dorothy, after consulting everywhere through her various Corpse Puppets, indeed inquired about information regarding strange winds. Near East Bottle Alley, many people claimed to have experienced strange winds two or three days ago.
Without stopping, after obtaining the key intelligence, Dorothy immediately had Ed go to the vicinity of East Bottle Alley. There, Dorothy, from the carriage, used the vision of Ed and the crow Corpse Puppet in the sky to scan around, observing the scene of the street area below very carefully, trying to find something.
Dorothy's Corpse Puppets moved through the long, narrow alleys, and the birds in the sky were also searching, but after searching for a long time, there was still no harvest.
"Hmm... This happened two or three days ago, it's indeed a bit difficult to find any traces now..."
Sitting on the carriage, Dorothy stroked her chin and murmured with a somewhat depressed expression. After much thought, she took out a seal. This was the Finding Breath Seal that Adele had given her back in the theater. This was the last of the three.
"This thing is quite useful, and it's all used up this time... I wonder if I can buy some more from Beverly or Adele."
Dorothy said, looking at the seal in her hand. Then she took out the "Cup" storage item, jerky, which Adele had also given her last time, and used it together with the seal. After consuming two points of "Cup" from the jerky, the Finding Breath Seal took effect.
Suddenly, Dorothy gained the sense of smell of a "Cup" Extraordinary. She closed her eyes and transmitted this buff through spiritual threads to the Corpse Puppet Ed in East Bottle Alley in the distance.
With the enhanced sense of smell, Dorothy had Ed take a deep breath and carefully sense the surrounding air, then he was choked by the pungent, irritating smell.
"Cough cough... Is this the air of the South District? It's so strong when enhanced by the seal..."
Shaking her head, Dorothy endured the irritating smell and then tried to distinguish other useful scents from the air in East Bottle Alley.
While smelling, Dorothy controlled Ed to start wandering around in the small alley. Finally, amidst the pungent smell of garbage and gutters, she distinguished a clue: the smell of blood.
"This is... the smell of blood? And quite a lot..."
Following the smell of blood in the air, Dorothy controlled Ed to move forward in the dirty, narrow alley. After a while, he turned into an empty, dim alleyway. Here, the smell of blood around him suddenly intensified.
Dorothy had Ed stand in the center of the alleyway. From his perspective, everything in the surrounding dim alleyway seemed normal, with no apparent abnormalities. But Dorothy could smell that there had been strong traces of blood here.
Ed's vision swept over the walls of the alleyway, the ground, the gutter... Although these places appeared normal, in Dorothy's eyes at this moment, they had all been splattered with a large amount of blood. In the cracks of the wall, she could still smell the blood.
"There was a lot of bleeding... There was a conflict here, an intense conflict, but the bloodstains were cleaned up later..."
Looking at the scene before her through Ed's eyes, Dorothy murmured. Then she began to manipulate Ed to examine the surrounding walls and ground, and found many strip-like cuts and scratches. She had seen such cuts before, when Edmund's wind blades missed and hit the ground.
'These cuts are much smaller than those caused by Edmund; they should have been left by Black Rank Wind Art Users. They had a conflict here with an Extraordinary who could fight with sharp claws, and the result should have been a complete victory for the Wind Art Users.
'This Extraordinary using sharp claws is a Beastkin. Judging by his appearance, he was likely ambushed by the Wind Art Users. The entire battle showed signs of collapse; he suffered many cuts on his body and lost a lot of blood. A normal person would probably be dead after losing so much blood, but a Black Rank 'Cup' Beastkin isn't that easy to kill.'
Using Ed to survey the crime scene in the alleyway in the distance, Dorothy deduced in her mind. She was almost certain that the ambushed Beastkin was Davik, and those Wind Art Users were the Hunters.
Continuing to observe the scene within the dim alleyway, Dorothy continued to think. She wanted to determine where that Davik had been taken based on the scene before her.
The smell of blood was strongest in the middle of the alleyway, and there were also the most traces of wind blades and claws, indicating that this was the main battlefield. After searching, Dorothy found that from the main battlefield outwards, a faint bloodstain extended towards the alley entrance ahead. Unlike the large area of bloodstains on the main battlefield, the bloodstains extending outwards were drops of blood.
Following the scent of blood, Dorothy continued forward. From the smell, she could tell that the dripping bloodstains on the ground were likely caused when the injured Beastkin was lifted or dragged. These traces finally disappeared at the exit of the alley, where the blood spilled on the ground in a wider area, and a new claw mark appeared on the wall.
'Davik... was ambushed and severely injured in this dark alley, then put into something here and taken away. From the look of it, he was probably stuffed into a carriage. During that process, he still resisted, leaving more blood and claw marks at the alley entrance. It seems he is definitely still alive.'
After examining the traces at the scene, Dorothy thought to herself and began her analysis.
'Davik was ambushed by a Hunter in this dim alley and suffered severe injuries. Although he lost a lot of blood, he didn't die because he was a 'Cup' Extraordinary. After severely injuring Davik, the Hunter took him to the alley entrance, where they boarded a carriage and left. During that time, the guy still resisted a bit...'
Clearing her thoughts, Dorothy almost instantly understood where Davik was. While Beastkin have strong vitality, without the support of Extraordinary items, they don't have the same level of self-healing ability as Werewolves. Such massive blood loss, while not fatal immediately, certainly wouldn't be okay if left untreated. Since the Hunter wanted to capture him alive, they definitely wouldn't let Davik die so easily.
Having figured this out, Dorothy took out her "wen hai hang zhi", quickly flipped to Vanya's communication page, thought for a moment before picking up her pen, and wrote:
"Hey, are you there? By the way, are you still working at the hospital?"
...
Tivian North District, Enchante Hospital.
Enchante Hospital is the largest public hospital in all of Tivian. It is located near the Church District in the North District, and like many cities, Enchante Hospital has a deep Shining Light Church background.
In Prit, just as every slightly larger city has an An Yin Bureau, every public hospital established by the government and the Church must also have a specialized "Extraordinary Injury Department." These departments are hidden away from the hospital's other normal departments and are specifically for treating ordinary people, Hunters, and even valuable society members who have been injured in Extraordinary events... This place is no exception.
On the edge of a park in the North District, several white buildings of Enchante Hospital stand. In the lobby of the hospital building, countless unwell civilians are crowded together, waiting amidst waves of complaints for the extremely limited public medical resources to treat their injuries.
Many of them were injured due to work, with blood-soaked bandages wrapped around them, and others sat in their seats, coughing incessantly.
In a ward in a building located somewhat away from other areas at the back of Enchante Hospital, Vanya, dressed in a white Sister uniform and wearing her glasses, stood inside. In front of her was a hospital bed, on which lay a man in a patient's gown. He was currently holding out one hand to the side, with removed bandages next to his arm. There was a terrifying wound on that arm, and the man's brow was slightly furrowed, as if enduring some pain.
"Please bear with it a little longer."
Vanya said to the man on the hospital bed, then extended her hand and touched the man's wound. After that, Vanya closed her eyes, and a faint yellow glow appeared in her hand. Within this glow, the wound on the man's arm rapidly healed at a visible speed, and the man gritted his teeth, seemingly resisting the pain coming from his hand during the healing process.
Soon, the yellow glow under Vanya's hand dimmed and disappeared. After a sigh of relief, Vanya removed her hand. The wound on the hand was now completely healed, leaving no mark. Seeing this scene, the man's face immediately broke into a joyful smile.
"It's healed... completely healed! I can't feel any pain at all! It healed so fast, Holy Mother above, thank you, Sister Vanya!"
"By the grace of the Holy Mother, this is what I should do, Mr. Jack. Please be more careful when you go on missions in the future."
"Sigh... there's no other way. Who told the societies in Tivian to become restless one by one recently? Our work pressure is also increasing day by day."
Vanya replied with a smile to the patient in front of her. Afterwards, she chatted with him briefly for a couple of sentences. After instructing him on some precautions, she picked up her medicine box and walked out of the ward.
As Vanya walked out of the ward and just closed the door, she saw a familiar figure in the corridor not far away, an elderly Sister wearing a formal Sister uniform.
"Sister Anlei! Why are Captain here?"
Upon seeing the elderly Sister, Vanya quickly stepped forward, bowed, and greeted her. The person in front of her was her guide when she was promoted to Black Rank.
"I was here handling some matters. After finishing, I just came to check on Sister Vanya's situation, hehe... Doctor Cade was just praising Captain in front of me."
"What? Was Doctor Cade just here too?"
"Yes, he was just saying that Captain's speed in mastering Healing Priest ability is beyond expectations. In less than a month, Captain can heal many wounds properly, and the efficiency is very high, the speed is very fast. I have truly witnessed Captain's pious heart."
With her usual kind smile, Sister Anlei said to Vanya. Upon hearing Sister Anlei's words, Vanya was slightly stunned, but then replied with a smile.
"Uh... not at all... I'm just doing my best."
"Hehe, no need to be modest. Each of our bodies is complex, and only the divine can fully master and understand. It is admirable that Sister Vanya can master the healing prayers so quickly, and the Holy Mother responds to Captain's prayers so precisely, providing guidance. Captain's piety is truly commendable. I am very grateful that the Holy Mother has a servant like Captain."
Sister Anlei continued speaking to Vanya with a look of satisfaction, while Vanya slightly bowed into a praying posture and spoke.
"By the grace of the Holy Mother, I am just doing what I should be doing..."
With a pious demeanor, Vanya said this to Sister Anlei, but in fact, her heart was extremely nervous at the moment, thinking that Sister Anlei shouldn't notice anything.
The reason was none other than the fact that Vanya had never prayed to the Holy Mother when healing.
Healing Priests possess the ability to quickly heal others' injuries and rapidly regenerate flesh. However, the regeneration process guided by this ability is not the body's own healing process, but a miracle guided by an external force. This external will is the will of the Healing Priest, not the body's own. Humans' understanding of the complexity of their own bodies is limited, and sometimes they don't know how the flesh should grow to heal properly.
Simply put, when facing the extremely complex human body, Healing Priests cannot simply activate regeneration ability on an injured person and correctly heal their wound. There might be situations where skin tissue and flesh grow haphazardly but fail to connect, unable to close the wound. Therefore, if a Healing Priest's ability is to correctly heal a wound, it needs correct guidance, and this guidance, within the Shining Light Church system, is completed by the deity.
Healing Priest, the key word is 'Prayer'. Healing Priests pray to the Holy Mother when healing others' injuries, praying for her to guide their Spirituality to correctly perform the healing operation. As long as they are sincere and pious enough and have mastered the specific healing prayers, the Holy Mother will definitely send guidance. This has been the consistent practice of the Shining Light Church's path of prayer for hundreds or thousands of years, allowing the great Holy Mother to help guide the power to heal the complex human body, to avoid mistakes.
But... this path became a little different for Vanya. For some reason, Vanya's subconscious belief was no longer in the Holy Mother. Although she was outwardly very pious towards the Holy Mother and inwardly believed she was very pious, once she truly prayed wholeheartedly, her prayer target would shift to Aka.
Although she was extremely conflicted, for Vanya, her "Lord" was already Aka and not the Holy Mother, and thus her prayers could not receive guidance from the Holy Mother.
At first, Vanya panicked when she found that her prayers seemed to receive no guidance from the Holy Mother, because without the Holy Mother's guidance, she could not correctly heal the injured. So she prayed to Aka for a solution.
And Dorothy, after hearing Vanya's troubles, thought for a moment, then said it was not a problem at all. Afterwards, Dorothy borrowed several anatomy books from the library and quickly read them. After reading, she exchanged this knowledge for many theories about the human body from other worlds. Then, Dorothy organized this batch of knowledge and some of the medical knowledge she had learned before, packaged it, and directly sent it to Vanya, printing it on the extra parts of her Soul Book after she was promoted to Black Rank, making Vanya a theoretical surgical expert in one go.
Dorothy's idea was simple: the human body is indeed very complex, but you can also understand and learn it yourself! If you learn everything yourself, you can guide your own power. Why do you need to pray to the deity for help with guidance?
Therefore, after receiving the pile of knowledge stuffed by Dorothy, Vanya was in a daze for a day, and then began to practice the theories in her mind at the hospital. At first, she was a bit clumsy, but once she adapted, her proficiency increased faster and faster, becoming unstoppable.
By now, the efficiency of Vanya's healing of injuries by guiding her own healing ability has slowly begun to surpass the efficiency of normal healing guided by praying to the Holy Mother.