Chapter 408: Isn’t He a Healer?

He and Freya did end up getting along pretty well, much to his relief. That didn’t mean Doren got the same treatment. For some reason, the woman had a grudge against Doren, which was somewhat surprising since it was Doren’s idea to bring Julius here.

He was curious about what had happened two years ago.

“You want me to train him? Some gift that is,” Freya said lazily from her lounging position. She had taken them to a secluded area to talk.

“Eh, more like give some advice to a promising young man,” Doren offered.

“I don’t have the time for such things. I am a busy person,” she said as she was eating some fruit, which made her argument seem less convincing.

“He has a Phoenix Concept,” Doren said to her, making Julius whip his head toward the man with betrayal deep in his eyes.

“What the hell? You’re not supposed to tell random people that,” he said with an angry scowl that turned into one of confusion. “Actually, how did you manage to say it anyway? You said that you were unable to speak about the things you learned in the rift?” Julius was confused. He was reasonably certain that he hadn’t misheard him.

Doren shrugged at Julius. “I might have been misleading,” he said simply and turned back to Freya. “Does that gain your attention now?”

Julius was stunned and looked at Doren. He was tempted to try and hit him in the face like Freya had just done minutes prior.

Speaking of Freya, the woman who had been lounging was now standing up, and in a flash, she was next to Julius, her beautiful face close to his.

“So you do have a Phoenix Concept?” She asked, looking genuinely curious and excited.

“Maybe,” he answered non-committedly and gave another evil look toward the loud-mouthed researcher.

“Don’t worry, Julius. She also has a Phoenix Concept. However, instead of fire like you, she uses ice,” Doren said, barely dodging the shard of ice that tore at his head. Julius saw the shard miss and smash into one of the pillars.

Surprisingly, the pillar held up pretty well. It was missing a large chunk, but coming from someone who was powerful enough to speak carelessly to Doren, it must be pretty strong. Julius still didn’t know if Doren was at Tier 6 or Tier 7.

He was definitely stronger than Dante and Alice, but that could just mean he was toward the upper rank of Tier 6. He knew from talking to both Dante and Alice that the two of them were relatively new Tier 6s.

He looked at Freya with wide eyes. “You have a Phoenix Concept as well?” He asked.

She nodded. “Yeah, however, unlike you, I only got it when I reached Tier 5. I don’t think I have ever seen someone at your tier get a Phoenix Concept.”

He didn’t share with her that he had actually gotten his Concept earlier than that. He had acquired it when he was still Tier 2.

“Is it any different than yours? Doren said that you use ice for yours. How does that work?” He asked her, extremely curious about how that worked.

“There are multiple types of a Phoenix. You seem to have the more common variation, which is fire. I happen to gain an Ice Phoenix variation. It is pretty similar to yours. The main distinction is that it uses ice instead of fire. However, I wouldn’t worry too much about the differences for the time being. I will show you some more important things later on,” she explained to him, making it sound like she was already planning to help him as if it were a done deal.

Before he could ask her more questions, she spoke to Doren. “What do you want for this?”

“Why would you assume I am doing this for something?” Doren asked with a bit of hurt in his voice.

She didn’t flinch. “Because I know you. You would not do this if you didn’t receive something in return,” she said with total confidence.

Doren held his chest. “I am offended you think that way about me.”

“What is it, Doren?” Freya asked, sounding impatient.

Doren grinned. “I want you to help me with an experiment of mine. I need someone with powerful healing magic for it to work.”

She looked at him suspiciously. “You’re not playing around with necromancy again, are you?”

Julius shot an alarmed look at Doren. “Necromancy?” he asked with a worried frown.

“It wasn’t as bad as she makes it sound,” he brushed his concern aside.

However, Freya shook her head. “Don’t listen to him. He was playing with death and soul magic, then accidentally lost control of his experiment.” She looked at Doren with a glare. “How many people died again?”

“It wasn’t entirely my fault. Someone messed with it, and it went wrong,” Doren defended himself.

However, Julius was already distancing himself from him. He didn’t like the sound of that.

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Doren gestured at him. “Most of the people weren’t even that innocent. They were a bunch of bandits who got too curious for their own good,” Doren tried to explain to Julius. With that being said, Julius was still going to maintain his distance. He had not had the best experience with the undead.

“Okay, as long as it doesn’t have to do with any dead bodies, I will help you,” Freya agreed. However, they both saw the weird expression on Doren’s face.

“What now? Tell me the truth, is it actually necromancy?” Freya asked seriously.

“No, but it does involve a corpse of some sort,” he explained with a bright smile.

She sighed. “Fine, I will decide later after you tell me more. In the meantime, you can shoo away. I have had enough of your presence for the day,” she said while waving at him to leave.

“So you are going to train him?”

She shook her head. “Maybe I gotta do my own examination before I decide. Now get, before I activate some of the defensive enchantments,” she said impatiently.

“You weren’t the only person I wanted to speak to,” Doren added.