One of the people in George's party had cancer. As a matter of fact, it had been their healer. Unfortunately, they had been killed by bandits before Teresa could get to them. According to George and his party, their healer had been completely unable to cure their condition, or any of their conditions for that matter. Things didn't look good for this gorilla, but Teresa had an idea of what to do.

Cancer was an ugly disease, a horrible plague that has affected humanity for centuries. It was relentless, unforgiving, and tough. The only way for someone to get through it was to be even tougher, and even then it would require some luck. Thankfully, Teresa had magic, and she knew the best way to kill cancer.

She had to cut it out.

"I'm sorry, but this is going to suck really bad." Teresa apologized. "The sickness is something called cancer, it's where the cells in your body keep replicating far more than they should. I'm not sure what could possibly be giving you cancer, radiation maybe, but the only way I can think of giving you a fighting chance is by cutting it out. I'm going to need to kill parts of your body and replace it with healing magic."

"Teresa did you just say they have contagious cancer?" Jake asked, incredibly concerned.

"No, I'm not positive what's causing the cancer but I'm pretty sure that's what it is. Like I said, maybe radiation? I don't know why the south would be emitting radiation, but if it's spreading that's a big problem. It's not contagious cancer, Jake, at least I don't think it is." Teresa replied. Contagious cancer would suck ass, it fucking better not be contagious cancer.

What do you mean you have to cut it out? Gary asked, also clearly concerned.

"Do you understand the general idea of poison, Gary?" Teresa replied. Gary nodded. "Well, this gorilla's body has some parts of it that have turned into poison. There's no virus or contaminant causing these symptoms, at least not anymore. The body itself has become poisonous, and the only way we can fix that is if I remove the poisonous parts and heal back healthy flesh to replace it."

How are you going to cut it out? Gary asked. That was a good question, one Teresa didn't have an immediate answer to. She could probably use her knife to surgically remove large chunks of flesh while replacing it with <Healing Touch>, but what about the internal organs? She might be able to remove parts of those and heal them back together, but what if a gorilla had a brain tumor? Teresa couldn't just cut out part of their brain and heal it back. What about cancerous blood cells? How would she handle that? Maybe bloodletting, but there was no way that would actually work.

"I'm not sure yet, I need to test some things to see just how much heavy lifting magic can do here. Hey, what's your name?" Teresa asked the sick gorilla, feeling they were incredibly distressed.

Daisy. She responded, her hands moving slowly.

"Alright Daisy, I'll try to use as much magic as possible here, but I'm going to be figuring a lot of it out as I go. This isn't going to be fun, not at all, but if I can figure out how to help you then I might be able to help the other gorillas. If you don't want to go first, that's okay, let me know now before I try anything." Teresa explained. Daisy paused, a terrified look on her face.

Daisy will be brave. Do what you must, then save the others. Daisy signed, her hands shaking. Daisy already had <Facilitated Restoration> active on her, but Teresa decided to cast <Magic Wellspring> to help calm her mind just a little bit. There was only so much she could do with buffing magic, so it was time to figure out how far her Restoration Magic could go.

Teresa activated <Purify> and <Healing Touch>, guiding two different types of Restoration Mana through the gorilla's body. What was she supposed to do here? She racked her brain for anything that might help. She had once considered using <Purify> as a cleaning skill by having it target germs and bacteria. Her initial plan had been to consider them toxins and have the skill eliminate them, but at the time she wasn't able to do it since the skill had been level 0.

Now, the skill was level 5, and it was locked at 99%. It was one of those skills that required use in combat to cross that last threshold for a level up, though it was likely the skill would immediately jump up in experience upon a level up. Her understanding was the skill still gained experience, and it didn't go away when she used the skill at 99% experience. It just got stored away and released once she experienced a skill level up.

The main point was <Purify> was stronger than it used to be, so maybe she could apply that same cleaning concept to cancer. It was a huge jump, considering she had never actually followed through on eliminating germs and bacteria with the skill, but she had to try. If she considered the cancer cells as toxins, maybe the skill would treat them as such.

The Restoration Mana from <Purify> began sorting through the cells in Daisy's body, trying to differentiate between healthy and cancerous cells. There wasn't an easy way for the skill to tell on its own, but Teresa wasn't using only one skill.

Restoration Mana from <Healing Touch> targeted the cells with damaged DNA, but it wasn't able to completely fix the problem. Her healing skills would repair a body according to how the body felt it should be. If there was a cut or bruise, the body would try to repair that and thus Teresa's Restoration Mana could simply speed that up drastically. In situations like cancer or natural deformities, the body didn't know how to heal correctly making her Restoration Mana useless.

<Healing Touch> knew the DNA in a lot of the cells were wrong, but it didn't know how the DNA was supposed to look. As a result, it could pinpoint issues but it could not solve them. That's where <Purify> came in. <Purify> didn't heal in the same way, it destroyed toxins entirely. It didn't assist the body in fighting them, it took matters into its own hands and canceled out poisons using itself as a neutralizer. It was like pouring acid into a base, or vice versa.

She just needed to convince <Purify> the body was the poison. Now that she had a way to figure out what cells were cancerous, she needed to eliminate them. She guided <Purify>'s Restoration Mana to the cells, and imagined the feeling she got when she healed herself from poison. Teresa had plenty of experience being poisoned at this point, whether it was from multiversal bandits or Giant Serpents. If she had only ever externally healed poisons, she wouldn't have such a grasp on the feeling. Thankfully, Teresa has gone through her fair share of shit and then some.

<Purify> very slowly began eliminating cancer cells at an incredibly inefficient rate. It took a massive glob of Restoration Mana to destroy even tiny chunks of cancer, but she had the Mana pool to support it. As flesh was slowly eroded, it was almost immediately healed back by the Restoration Mana from <Healing Touch>.

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"Are you doing okay?" Teresa asked, the vast majority of her focus still being on her healing magic.

It itches, but otherwise it is fine. Daisy responded. That was good news, this was going a lot better than what Teresa had expected. It was incredibly difficult, and it was putting her <Mana Control> to the test. It was at level 14, but she was willing to bet if she opened her status screen she would see it quickly gaining experience. Due to the way Restoration Mana worked, <Healing Touch> and <Purify> both repelled each other like magnets. <Facilitated Restoration> was able to assist either spell, though it behaved strangely. Before the spell entered a target, it also repelled Restoration Mana like a magnet. Upon entering a target, its Restoration Mana could be used to empower or even emulate another healing spell.

She had only ever really used it to passively heal injuries like a slower <Healing Touch>, but perhaps if she gained a greater understanding of it then it could also behave similar to <Purify>. Teresa hadn't really tried powering up <Purify> with <Facilitated Restoration>, but now was as good a time as any. If <Healing Touch> and <Purify> repelled each other, then <Facilitated Restoration> could function as the glue that held it all together.

Teresa's surroundings became completely irrelevant as all of her Perception, Intelligence, and Wisdom were entirely focused on Daisy. Three types of Restoration Mana all flowed together, and it felt like she was having an epiphany as the cancer cells were destroyed and replaced with healthy cells. It wouldn't be that useful at the moment, but what if she could use <Sturdy Outer Shell> while healing? If she could figure out how to make the Mana barrier spread to cover someone else, then she could stop blood loss in particularly durable allies where healing might take a while.

What about <Embers>? Could she cauterize wounds with it? What about <Appraise>? Maybe if she leveled it up enough, she would be able to figure out exactly what illness or disease she was looking at. That also might fall into <Identify>'s jurisdiction instead since it would be used on a living target, but the idea of using multiple skills in conjunction had never felt so natural.

Ideas about experimenting with her Mana flooded her mind as she worked. Teresa was locked in, giving a once in a lifetime performance as she treated Daisy's cancer. Was it cancer, or was it radiation poisoning? How big of a difference was there between the two? Shoot, speaking of radiation maybe <Purify> could eliminate it by treating it as a toxin. Teresa was rapidly figuring out how to make <Facilitated Restoration> emulate the skill, so maybe it could be used to adventure straight through the radioactive land to the south.

She would need to figure out how to increase its duration drastically, but it was possible. Teresa missed this. It had been too long since she had tried using her spells for something new on such a scale. Now that The Mall wasn't reliant on her, she could focus on what she enjoyed again. Fucking around and finding out.

Time passed, but Teresa was barely aware of it. This was way slower than healing a normal injury, significantly so. On the bright side, she could tell she was speeding up. Her main limiting factor was her <Purify> being at level 5, but she could feel that as soon as it leveled up in combat, it would probably level up again and again.

Eventually, the last cancer cells were replaced. Teresa collapsed backwards, feeling exhausted. A quick glance at her status screen showed she had used almost 1,000 Mana healing Daisy, she had 160 left in her reserve.

"I think you should be fine." Teresa said, sitting back and letting her mind relax a moment. Daisy looked like she was in significantly better condition. She was still missing patches of fur, but the sores and the black patches of flesh were gone. Daisy smiled, and pulled Teresa into a four armed hug while making happy gorilla noises.

"Dude, did you just cure cancer?" Preston asked.

"I think I did." Teresa answered, pulling her Mana recharging staff from her <Inventory>. "I think we'll have to delay our plans a bit, I gotta heal up all of the gorillas here. Now that I can apparently cure cancer, I feel like I'm obligated to go back to The Mall for a day and help whoever I can."

"Sounds like we left a bit prematurely." Thomas said.

"I mean, not really." Jake replied. "We wouldn't have found out Teresa could cure cancer if we didn't leave as soon as we did, but this is huge! Dude, you fucking cured cancer! Holy shit man, what else can you fix?"

"Well, I'm honestly not sure." Teresa said. "Restoration Magic just makes the body repair itself faster. It gives it the energy and accelerates it drastically. Meanwhile <Purify> can get rid of toxins. Daisy's body considered its cancer as a toxin, but didn't know how to fix it. So <Purify> was able to destroy it while <Healing Touch> made her body heal what was destroyed, replacing cancer cells with healthy ones. If someone had diabetes and they were born with it, then their body probably wouldn't consider its pancreas as a toxin. Even if we removed it, the body would just grow it back the same way."

"So you're saying cancer is easier to cure with magic than diabetes?" Sarah asked.

"Yeah, kind of ridiculous when you put it that way. Maybe if someone wasn't born with it, I know there's two types of diabetes but I always mix up which is which." Teresa answered. Mana flowed through her staff and gradually began replenishing her reserves. "Gary, how many gorillas are sick?"

Twenty three. Gary responded. No, twenty two now.

"How long did I spend healing Daisy?" Teresa asked.

"Like, half an hour maybe?" Mathew said. Teresa took her crossbow out of her <Inventory> along with some bolts and handed it to the teenager.

"Well, I'll be faster now but it'll still take a while. My <Mana Control> hit level 15, but my <Purify> is still level 5. Take some time to yourself, we're delaying our trip a day or two. I want to find our families as soon as possible, but I can't do that knowing I could literally be curing someone of cancer." Teresa instructed. "Preston, you're the fastest one here. Go back to The Mall and tell them to get anyone with serious illnesses or conditions that manifested later in life ready for me in the morning. Once I'm done here, I'm gonna sleep for the night and head back for a bit. Depending on how long it takes we'll either be leaving tomorrow afternoon or possibly even the morning after. I can only recharge Mana so fast."

"Got it, heading there right away." Preston said before taking off.

"I have an idea!" Jake exclaimed. "<Purify> requires you to be in combat to level up, right? I bet I can go find a poisonous monster and bring it back here for you to fight, it'll probably be low level but it might be enough."

We can help with that. Gary offered. We are familiar with the monsters around here, I can get a crew to lead you to them and assist.

"Great, I'd appreciate it." Jake said.

"That might work, I'll give it a shot." Teresa said as she watched her Mana slowly recharge.

"Mathew and I can take some time practicing the crossbow while Thomas practices his magic." Sarah offered. "A quick little training break never hurt anyone."

"Looks like we've got a plan then. Everyone's being productive so I don't see any problems." Teresa replied. She turned her full attention back to recharging her Mana while people moved around her, an entire operation coming underway focused on Teresa.

She was going to get so much experience.

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