The chances that Alex was still missing anything he needed to learn about healing after reading through the Book of Boundless Healing were almost none. But it was never zero. So, just to double-check his own understanding of healing, he let Scarletâs mother explain what she could.
"To really understand healing, you have to start from the very foundation of it," she explained. "The best place to learn healing is not in any healing flower or in the flames of a Phoenix. The best place to learn about it is in yourself."
"Even without any pill or paste or additional aid, your body heals itself on its own. Even mortals, with nothing but some fruits, can heal themselves. Itâs not effective, and it takes a long time, but their bodies are capable of it. Everyone in this world is born with the capacity to heal themselves."
Alex nodded thoughtfully. While he could see where she was going with this, he was surprised that what she was saying wasnât inside the book he had read. What she was teaching was more basic than what that book could afford to be.
"So, after many eons of contemplation and consideration, weâve come to a simple conclusion. Any life is always accompanied by healing."
Before she could say the next sentence, Alex finished it for her.
"That is to say, to heal someone, you require Life Aura."
Scarletâs mother smiled. "Exactly. And Life Aura is a subset of Yang Aura, which is why we Phoenixes are so brilliant at it. Our flames are descended from the Golden Crow itself, known for its fire that burned strong with Yang. And the Golden Crow himself was the closest thing there was to the Phoenix Mother in terms of flames."
Alex gave a slow nod.
Scarletâs mother kept explaining about Life Aura, nodding each time she finished explaining something. Her words carried a soothing tone, like a teacher explaining a very important concept to her disciple, making sure he understood everything completely.
She explained that Life Aura was a spectrum, containing more than just simple healing. Life was growth in more ways than one. Sometimes it was growth in the right direction, letting someone add to what they had lost, perhaps due to an injury or a disease.
Sometimes, the growth was in the other directionâby rejecting something that was already there, by cutting off what was infected.
However it was, it was Life, and that was healing.
Scarletâs mother went into intricacies of the matter that Alex hadnât expected to hear from her, but was pleasantly surprised to do so. She knew a lot, but not everything.
Even in the matter of Life Aura, she didnât know the inner workings of how healing worked exactly. How a body knew which part it had to repair. How it knew what part it was missing.
Either that, or she believed the concept of Connectionâthe millions of tiny bindings that formed automatically due to the mere presence of Qiâwas too much for Alex to understand.
But he knew more than enough.
Aside from that, however, Scarletâs mother was missing something very fundamental about healing, which after some thought, he realized why.
The Vermilion Birds were at the forefront of healing thanks to their flames, but those flames only contained Fire and Yang Aura. Their bodies, their flames, even their pills revolved around Yang-based healing thanks to their understanding of Life Aura.
Which was perhaps why Scarletâs mother didnât talk about the other aspect of healing. The one that came not from Yang, but from Yin.
Healing that came not from Life Aura, but from Death Aura.
"Senior," Alex said, "do you know how Life Aura heals someone at a fundamental level?"
Scarletâs mother raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?" she asked.
"I do not know if you speak of it in the same terms as I do, but Iâm speaking of Connection. And more importantly, of Death Aura."
Scarletâs mother gave a confused look.
"Connection?" she asked, her eyes narrowing. "And what does Death have to do with healing?"
Alex understood that she genuinely didnât understand any of it. He considered for a moment letting her learn from the book. But after some thought, he decided against it.
The presence of such a book might stir more trouble than he could deal with. Scarletâs mother or even the Matriarch might be on his side for now, but in the depths of the palace lived old beings that might be willing to be unfriendly if they could gain anything from his book.
Considering most of them would be dying at the moment, they would very much not shy from hurting him to get what they wanted, and might even steal the book.
And without his ability to invoke their vow as the Sun God, he couldnât take that chance.
So, he stuck to explaining verbally.
"Connection, you see, is something that exists in everyone and everything. Just like how a person binds an artifact, there are already tiny bindings that exist within someone that tell who or what they belong to."
"That is the reason why even if I lose a finger, the exact same finger grows back. Why people that had long since been amputated grow back a healthy arm. The body parts mightâve been lost for a while, but the Connection lingers. And the Connection remembers what the body part looks like."
"Even at the tiniest level, it remembers what organs should be like, and what definitely should not exist there. That is what every healing aura requires to recover the sick and wounded."
Scarletâs mother gave a thoughtful look. "I had never considered this," she said. "But it does make sense. However, I canât see what that has to do with Death Aura. As far as I understand, that is the opposite of healing."
"It is," Alex said. "Which is exactly why it is also important to know about when it comes to healing."
The Phoenix gave a quizzical look, asking for Alex to explain further.
Alex complied.