Risen World

Chapter 131: Checking Out the New Hospital

After the first training session with Jayce and the rest of his group Joshua had taken notice of a lot if things for them to improve on. The match was over the moment Joshua had knocked everyone out and had broken Jayce's shield arm. He had Lilly and her rabbits heal them and then Monika helped out after she had woken back up. Joshua made sure to sit them all down to have a chat over the things he had taken notice of while fighting against them and went through them one by one.

The first thing he noticed was the fact that as a group they tended to plant their selves in predetermined positions while fighting. Jayce up front, Allen right behind ready to attack at any moment, Marcus in between the front line and back line, and lastly Julia and Monika at the back. It was a decent strategy against normal monster that were easy to provoke and lead on in battles, but that wouldn't always be the case. There were beast out there that were too strong to provoke and were smart enough to go around the tanks and go for the more defenseless members. Joshua had already come across a couple of those and he was sure in the future this group would too. So to solve this problem Joshua was going to teach them how to be more fluid while fighting together. They needed to be used to fighting with each other until the point where there reactions would be in sync and Jayce wasn't having to jump around to try to save the day at every moment.

The second thing they needed to learn is how to deal with a smart opponent. They were to use to leading on beast and tearing them apart piece by piece. The moment they went up against Joshua and were put in the opposite situations things went horrible for them. Monika froze up at his killing intent and wasn't able to react when he blinked behind her and took her out. Allen wasn't able to handle Joshua's speed when he used and aura blast to approach him and was easily taken out even with his heightened perception. That left Marcus to be easy pickings since he wasn't exactly geared to fighting someone like Joshua head on. Julia's magic packed a kick, but with Joshua in his aura hardened form there was no way her simple fireball wasn't going to do any damage to him and the fact that it took so long for her to cast a spell was her undoing. In the end they were easily picked apart. Smart opponents would have no trouble doing something similar to them if they didn't learn how to work together better and more fluidly.

The last thing Joshua needed to fix was their repertoire. They all had interesting skills and abilities, but they needed more variety otherwise they could be taken advantage of in certain situations. For example if they ever went up against a flame monster that was resistant to just about all of Julia's spells then they wouldn't have the damage output to take it out and would have to rely pretty much completely on Allen for damage. So right now he needed to think of ways to get them more versatile in a fight, which could save them in a pinch. First off getting Julia some spells in other elements and more neutral spells would go a long way for the diversity of the group. He fully expected her to become a top tier mage that relied on fire magic in the future as her specialty, but having basic capabilities in other elements could go a long way for her. Neutral magic could also let her deal damage in any situation so learning some basic spells like mana arrows or something else along that line would be wonderful.

The next person that needed to be focused on to improve their versatility was Marcus. He was the one in the group that was supposed to be able to move between the front line and back line depending on the situation, but at the moment just about all of his skills were geared towards traps and scouting. His actual combat abilities weren't all that impressive and didn't have much weight behind them. From a distance he could use his crossbow, but he didn't really have any skills to improve his ranged ability and up close he relied completely on his daggers alone. So until he gained some skills to help in those regards Joshua thought it would be best for Marcus to start to stock up on items to use offensively and possibly in some traps of his own. It would add a great amount of variety to the group.

Jayce and Monika were fine the way they were at the moment when it came to group combat, all they would need is some more skills that they would gain in the future. It was a break day for Jayce's group since Joshua had pushed them a lot over the past few days and he had Julia immediately go to get some spell books to learn with from the system. They wouldn't be anything special since they weren't gained from dungeons, but it would definitely give her some variety going forward. He had Marcus go stock up on items so that they could go over some traps they could build with them in the future. The rest of the group was given the day off to either take a breather or go improve themselves on their own. From what Joshua could tell they all decided to figure out different ways to improve themselves and Joshua was interested in seeing what they'd end up doing.

Joshua spent the morning doing his basic training on his own before grabbing a shower and heading somewhere special for the day to keep a promise. He went to the main area and the busiest place in the entire hub city and found himself standing outside of a rather large four story building that looked like a modern hospital. It was still in the last phases of being built and he could see robots generated from the system quickly working to put it all together, but enough of it was already built that Joshua could go inside and check on things. He wasn't surprised to see people already walking around the hospital and setting up stuff for when it opened for business.

While exploring the place he checked out several rooms and noticed the designs that he had grown so used to while growing up around his mother as she worked at similar places throughout his younger years. It didn't have the usual hospital smell yet, but he could see all the equipment and supplies that would be standard issue for any hospital. What surprised him was all the new stuff that he could find in different rooms around the place. When he used the system to observe some of the new equipment he found out that just about all of it was used to detect issues with either aura or mana. There were effects that enemies could use that would be a permanent problem if not handled correctly and they often fed off either the aura or the mana of a person to continue to cause problems. Healers could handle small issues that came up in the field, but some haze creature could cause problems that could linger and become deadly if not handled correctly.

All of this new equipment was for detecting such issues and were able to work on a cellular level. For the most part healing magic just sped up the bodies regenerative properties while working off the mana of the caster and the recipient. This helped in a lot of situations, but things like a disease that worked against the regenerative properties of the body wouldn't be effected by common healing and things such as a cut off arm fell in the same boat. Healing could fix a broken bone or a fairly deadly wound, but if an arm was lost it was completely gone unless reattached or a higher tier healing spell was used that could stimulate the body to the point where it could actually regrow a lost body part. That level of healing magic was a far way off from the current level of healers on earth. Even so cellular diseases that effected aura and mana would still be impossible to heal with that type of magic.

This is where doctors came in. Their support job was geared with dealing with these types of occurrences and they specialized in dealing with diseases. They could heal like healers to a certain extent, but they were more in line with using equipment to solve those types of problems. After inspecting all the equipment and figuring out how they worked Joshua moved on to the director's room in the hospital and that's where he found his mother behind a desk looking over some books and typing away at a computer. She seemed lost in her own world as Joshua approached her without her even noticing his heavy footsteps. "Ummom? I came to visit and check up on your hospital. It looks like an interesting place." Joshua said causing his mother to jolt in surprise as she turned to look at him.

"Joshua? Don't scare me like that, you know I get lost when I'm busy with my research." She said with a frown that quickly turned into a smile as she realized her son had come to visit her. "I guess you've explored the hospital a bit. How do you like the place?"

"It's amazing, I feel like I'm walking around you're old work place but without the hectic atmosphere." Joshua replied with a smile as he gave his mother a hug.

"Well, that will probably change in the future, but for now things shouldn't be too tense around here. It'll probably take a bit of time before people realize that healers can't heal everything." She said with a sigh.

"Well when they do you will be busy." Joshua said after they separated.

"I'm guessing you're already interested in all the new equipment around here."

"What makes you say that?"

Joshua mother looked at him with a smirk. "Oh please, you may have picked up all of your love for fighting from your father, but that passion for the medical field came from me and I know there is no way you wouldn't be interested."

"Alright fine, I was rather interested in it. Mind explaining things?" Joshua asked. His mother laughed a bit at the grimace on his face before walking over to a shelf filled with books. She browsed through a lot of them before picking out a few warn books that she then passed over to Joshua. "These are?"

"Everything you need to study up on until you're level fifty and able to get a support job to go along with your current one. It's all the notes I took while studying over how aura and mana react with the body in different situations. You will need to learn up on this if you want to get much out of your sub-job. That way you will at least be well off at the start. Not as good as me, but better than most." His mother said with a smug smile that got a chuckle out of Joshua.

"Well you've had far more time to study and learn about these things than me." He replied getting a frown from his mother.

"Are you calling me old?"

"No, just experienced." Joshua said with his hands up in a jester of surrender.

"Good save, anyways you need to focus on that material. If you can get that all done by the time you reach level fifty then you should have no problem getting the doctor sub-job. It will be at an apprentice level, but that is more than enough for right now." She said before walking back over to her work.

"Thanks mom, I'll make sure to use this well." Joshua said before putting everything in his inventory. He walked over to stand beside his mother as he looked over the stuff she was working on. "Well what are you working on?" It was in that simple moment he watched as her eyes brightened up and she went into one of her long explanations that he had gone through several times. It was just like old times and he was enjoying their time spent together.