The doors of the medical facility opened with a hiss, and Aria Frost was first through them, Darius close behind her, with Kael, Lena, Mira, Ryan, and Orion crowding in after.
They’d only gotten the message a short while ago, Felix Valerius had regained consciousness and none of them had wasted a second getting there. They’d practically run through the corridors.
When they reached his room, Kael shoved the door open without bothering to knock. "Felix!"
Everyone crowded in, and then stopped.
Felix was sitting upright in the bed, a doctor beside him carefully reading the flow of mana through his body on a sophisticated diagnostic device, glowing lines shifting across the screen as it mapped his pathways.
He looked awake. Conscious.
For a moment, that alone was enough, a collective breath went through the whole team.
Aria’s shoulders finally dropped. Darius closed his eyes for a second. Lena covered her mouth, and Mira’s eyes went wet immediately. Ryan’s clenched fists finally came loose. Orion just stared at Felix for a few seconds before quietly exhaling.
And Kael looked like someone had just handed back something he’d already grieved.
"You’re alive," he muttered.
Felix glanced at him, then around at the rest of them, his expression strangely flat.
He was just looking at them the way you’d look at a room full of strangers.
Aria’s expression shifted. "Felix?"
Nothing.
Darius stepped forward. "It’s us."
Felix tilted his head, then looked past them at the doctor. "Doctor."
"Yes?"
"Who are these people?"
The silence that followed was total.
"And why did they just barge into my room?"
Mira’s face went white. Lena’s eyes went wide. Darius stopped breathing for a second, and Aria’s expression turned to stone.
Kael just stared. *No. No, no, no.* Not after four days unconscious, he couldn’t have lost his memory, not after everything.
"Felix..." Kael’s voice came out cracked.
Felix stared back at him, and for a second Kael’s face fell apart completely.
Then he caught it, the smallest twitch at the corner of Felix’s mouth. Then another.
Felix was trying not to smile.
Kael’s face went red. "You bastard!" His voice filled the whole room. "The first thing you do after nearly dying is prank us?!"
Felix’s lips finally curled all the way up.
Kael jabbed a finger at him. "You really are an insufferable bastard!"
The tension in the room shattered at once.
Mira burst into tears, laughing through them this time. Lena buried her face in her hands.
Darius let out a long breath and shook his head, and even Aria couldn’t hold back the faint smile that crept onto her face.
Orion looked away, hiding his own relief badly.
Kael marched right up to the bed. "I swear, I was ready to forgive you for dying!"
"That’s reassuring," Felix said, raising an eyebrow.
"I mean it!"
"Clearly."
"You—" Kael stopped himself.
Felix smirked. "You really think you guys can get rid of me that easily?" He leaned back against the pillow. "Think again."
Kael’s expression flattened. "I’ve also made a breakthrough," Felix said, and the room went quiet in an entirely different way.
Aria’s face turned serious instantly. "What kind?"
Felix looked toward the doctor, who adjusted the diagnostic device. "His mana core remains at peak A-rank."
Darius frowned. "Then what changed?"
The doctor checked the readings again. "His healing proficiency. Before the incident, it was High I." Aria nodded, everyone on the team knew that number. "That limit has been broken." He glanced at the screen. "It’s now reached Ultra III."
Nobody spoke for several seconds.
"Ultra III?" Kael finally managed.
Felix nodded. "Looks like it."
Aria’s eyes narrowed. "That’s the same proficiency as mine."
"Yep."
She stared at him. She’d spent years climbing to that level, and Felix had crossed the same boundary in the middle of a fight that had nearly killed him. And, as the doctor went on to explain, that wasn’t even the most remarkable part.
"His proficiency underwent a qualitative shift, not just an efficiency increase," the doctor said, bringing up a projection above the device. "His effective healing range has nearly doubled." A second diagram appeared. "His mana coating has changed as well."
Felix held out one hand, and mana gathered around his palm, but instead of simply reinforcing his body or a weapon the way it always had, the dense mana began taking shape, extending outward and solidifying into a blade of pure condensed mana. He turned his wrist, studying it. "That’s new."
"Your mana density has increased dramatically," the doctor said. "You’ve gained considerably more control over its structure." Felix dismissed the blade. "Your close-combat capabilities should also have improved."
Kael snorted. "Because apparently he wasn’t terrifying enough before."
The doctor ignored and brought up another reading. "There’s another development, your passive soothing effect." Felix’s expression sobered slightly. "The effective radius has nearly doubled."
"How far?" Aria asked.
"Approximately ten meters."
The room quieted again. Felix’s mana now carried a noticeable calming effect on anyone within about ten meters of him, enough to make people feel steadier, safer, more inclined to let their guard down around him without quite knowing why.
The same strange quality that had made the Association select him for the rehabilitation program in the first place had only gotten stronger.
Then the doctor hesitated. "There’s also this. Your healing has moved past its previous limitations, you can now regenerate missing organs." A pause. "And limbs."
Mira’s eyes went wide. "That’s—"
"Extremely mana-intensive," the doctor cut in, his expression going stern. "Don’t misread this. Your proficiency reached Ultra III, but your mana core is still only A-rank."
"Which makes my mana capacity the bottleneck," Felix said.
"Exactly. Your healing has grown far more powerful, but you don’t have an S-rank reservoir to run it on. Large-scale regeneration used repeatedly could exhaust you fast."
Felix understood well enough. Most awakened who reached Ultra-level proficiency did so only after their mana core advanced to S-rank first, for the simple reason that Ultra techniques demanded enormous amounts of mana to actually use, having the technique and having the capacity to sustain it were two different problems.
He’d somehow crossed that threshold while still sitting at A-rank, walking away with an ability that belonged to a far bigger reservoir than the one he actually had.
The doctor shook his head. "Whatever happened in that fight pushed your body and your pathways past every limit they had."
Felix looked down at his own hands.
Fragments of it came back to him, the Black Horn Panther, the lightning, the pain, his own blood on the ground, the moment he’d stopped trying to dodge everything and just stepped forward instead. Then the fight itself, all of it at once.
He smiled faintly. "That was one hell of a workout."
Kael stared at him. "Workout? You nearly died."
"That’s why they call me the Mad Healer," Felix said, grinning, and Darius laughed quietly.
"Some things never change."
Aria stepped closer. "Felix."
He looked at her.
"Welcome back."
His smile softened. "Thanks."
Nobody said anything and four days of guilt finally started to loosen its grip on the room.
Felix was alive and more than that, he was still *Felix*, the same irritating, playful, battle-crazy healer who’d somehow turned surviving a peak S-rank boss into a punchline.
Kael pointed at him again. "You’re paying for the emotional damage."
"How much?"
"At least three meals."
"That’s extortion."
"Call it a friendship tax."
Felix laughed, the sound filled the room, and the whole team felt, for a moment, like everything really might be alright.
Later that afternoon, Gideon Rask read through the medical report, his expression growing more thoughtful each time.
Felix Valerius had awakened. Still peak A-rank. Ultra III healing proficiency. Expanded passive soothing range. Advanced mana shaping. The ability to regenerate organs and limbs.
The rehabilitation program had already been an experiment with no guaranteed outcome and now its designated healer had come back from the edge of death stronger than he’d gone in.
Gideon closed the report. There was someone who needed to hear this.
"Send someone to Seraphina."
The officer standing nearby nodded. "What should we tell her?"
"Tell her Felix has woken up," Gideon said, "and that his sessions will resume this week, once he’s cleared." He considered it a moment longer. "Thursday, most likely."
The officer left.
Deep beneath the earth, behind reinforced walls and layers of security, Seraphina sat alone. She was watching the door.
Then footsteps approached, and her eyes lifted as the lock began to turn.
This time, the person coming through the door was carrying news about Felix.