"Alright."
President Mileila's voice broke up a discussion among the student council members as her gaze swept across the entire table.
"We have finalized the training methodologies for each of the eight competitions. Now, it's time to begin implementing them," she remarked. "We will adhere to protocol as we implement and execute these passed motions and proposals, and make sure everything is perfectly up to date on the books. We will need to serve these logs to the Contest Commission when they verify for fairness standards."
The student council would need to document everything for the Contest Commission to oversee so that it could make sure to verify whether any of the official selection and training processes did not violate the fairplay rules.
Given that the Magic Contest was held by the government, the Ministry of Magical Affairs, specifically, the rules and regulations were extremely rigid and had little place for error.
"And with that, this meeting comes to an end," President Mileila heaved a tired sigh. "Now that we have finalized it and scheduled it, we need to make an announcement on the matter to the entire magicademy so that students can prepare for it ahead of time."
The student council members nodded as everybody slowly got out of their seats, once the meeting had come to an end. They deliberated on every single testing and selection method for each of the eighteen competitions, leaving them truly exhausted by the time they had completed the task.
And yet, they were also eager about the news because it brought them closer to the Magic Contest.
CLACK
The moment the door was opened, as members of the student council began departing from the headquarters, they found themselves confronted by a mob of students.
"Well?!"
"Have you decided on a date for when the selections are going to be held?!"
"When is it?! Spit it out!"
Students, both apprentice and senior, began demanding answers from the student council, aggressively stepping forward and pressuring the student council.
"Move."
Cæ's tone was frosty.
His gray eyes were stormy with a calm intensity, while the scars on his neck and face only gave him a perilous edge. The students froze at those words as they moved out of his way as Cæ simply scooted past them wordlessly.
Yet, their desire to know when the selections were arranged had them jumping on the student council immediately after. Cæ simply shook his head lightly as he headed back home towards his dormitory, enjoying the gentle light of the evening Sun.
The second academic day of the year was over.
The first two days alone felt like a week with how much has happened.
And yet, his job wasn't done.
He immediately returned to his dormitory as he put his clothes away, changing instead to a more casual attire.
An overshirt atop a simple t-shirt, as well as some beige jeans.
It wasn't too long before he departed from not just his dormitory but also the Elendir Institute of Magic. He quickly took the air with a wave of his wand as several magic circles emerged before him.
WHOOSH!
He shot through the air above the central districts of Colohen City at great speeds.
His destination, of course, was none other than Colohen Hospital.
He had not forgotten the potential for a capital venture in the problem of the shortages of heart surgeon healers.
More than the other superfluous ideas for another venture that popped up in his mind, he much preferred to operate with something that had a clear market segment he had to target. Most other people would have simply lamented the absence of a heart surgeon healer for their friend and largely forgotten about the issue itself.
Not Cæ.
The issue lingered in his mind. It wormed its way into its interest, becoming more and more prominent in his idea in his mind.
He would see it through to the end, or at least until he knew that it couldn't work.
He still had no idea as to what he was going to do with this particular fixation. He had just barely scratched the surface of the problem in his conversation with Master Zymshire. What he sought was a transparent dissection of the problem and exactly where it lay. It wasn't easy sifting through medical-magical jargon of an industry he had no foundation in, though that was probably a sign that he was nowhere near ready to contribute to it.
For now, he only sought to gain a more in-depth understanding of the problem.
Everything came after.
That was why he had booked an appointment with a cardiologist.
Not for any medical purposes, but simply to understand what exactly the problem was in the industry on a more detailed level.
WHOOSH
It wasn't long before he arrived at Colohen Hospital, slowly lowering himself from the sky as he entered the hospital premises after going through a scan and surrendering his wand to the security team.
STEP
The very moment he entered the premises, he could feel a powerful interference field across the entire hospital, making it impossible for Cæ to cast any magic, especially without a wand.
In this particular case, he simply wasn't strong enough to pierce through the powerful interference field with his mana-motive force, which was what decided the outcome of a battle between two magic spells on the same target.
The moment he entered the buildings of the hospital, the sterile odor of rubbing alcohol and an air of sickness and illness lingered about. A general commotion of patients, staff, and medical experts echoed across the entire sector even as Cæ navigated through its expansive area.
He wound his way through the hospital, arriving at the cardiology department and finally at the right room.
He found himself before a room with a nameplate.
[Cardiologist - Doctor Mirae Marlin]
It was the doctor that he had booked an appointment with.
CLACK
He opened the door, peering in.
Immediately, the doctor sitting at the desk on the other end glanced up at him as she closed the door behind her.
"Yes?" she smiled welcomingly. "How may I help you?"
"I have an appointment with you, doctor," Cæ replied with an amicable tone. "My name is Cæ and I'm here for a consult."
"Ah…" she murmured as she shifted to a computer before her, skimming through her scheduling directory. "Yes indeed, I do have an appointment for one Mr. Cash. Please come in and have a seat."
Her office was cozy and comfortable, from the looks of it. It was certainly much larger than one could have expected it to be in a smaller clinic. The Colohen Hospital was certainly cozier and comfortable for its doctors than most other hospitals.
CLACK
Cæ took a seat opposite her.
"Well, what ails you, Mr. Cæ?" she leaned forward with her elbows on the table. "You said you were here for a consult, after all."
Her voice was slightly high-pitched, contrasting with her older physical appearance. She wore a pair of glasses with thin lenses, while her dark brown hair had streaks of white all the way to the back, where it was bundled up in a bun. She wore a white lab coat atop a simple light blue shirt and black skirt, making for a rather standard formal attire.
"Yes," Cæ replied. "But it is not a medical consult."
She frowned. "I don't understand."
"I wish to speak to you to understand the state of heart healing surgery, Dr. Mirae," Cæ informed her straightforwardly. "Specifically, I hoped you could explain to me exactly what procedures in certain heart healing surgeries give it an excessively high barrier of entry. I seek to understand what it is about these healing surgeries that makes the supply of senior-level healers so drastically in short supply relative to the demand."
She frowned with even greater confusion as her eyes furrowed. "You booked an appointment to consult me regarding the cardio-healing industry?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"…I must say, this is an unusual consult." She regarded Cæ with a curious expression. "I'm afraid I will have to bill you nonetheless. Hospital rules, not to mention, I'm at work."
"Of course."
She raised an eyebrow. "May I ask why…?"
"…Let's just say that it's for a potential venture," Cæ replied.
That confused the doctor even more. "Venture… as in a commercial venture?"
"Yes."
"So you booked an appointment with a doctor to learn more about this industry for a potential commercial venture?"
"Yes."
"Please do not misuse appointments like this in the future," she insisted with a disapproving tone. "There are patients who need my help and are looking to meet with me. The shortages you refer to are reason enough."
Cæ didn't expect her to chastise him on the matter. Admittedly, he hadn't really thought about what she had said before.
He simply wanted to speak to someone who could answer his questions.
"I will be sure to keep that in mind," he relented with a calm voice. "I hope, however, you will humor my request this time and help me understand this sector."
"…Alright," she acquiesced. "What specifically would you like to know about the cardio-healing surgeries? You mentioned something back about why the supply is behind the demand. The answer to that is simple and complex. The simplicity is merely that a great proportion of surgeries penetrate deeper into systems than apprentice healer mages are qualified to handle. The deeper the tissue that requires healing, the greater the associated risk. For example…"
She pulled a detailed diagram of the heart in a little chart on her table, pointing at the layers of the heart wall, labeled with names that Cæ didn't even know how to pronounce.
"This…" she pointed to the outer layer of the heart. "This is where apprentice healer mages are trained to be able to cast their healing magic. The tissue is tougher and less vital to the functioning of the heart; thus, it can handle a higher margin of error than you would expect to see in an apprentice healer. That is why they are only authorized to work on the outermost layer."
Cæ's eyes lit up with interest as he listened to her.
"Despite comprising the majority of heart healers, they can only work on the outermost tissue of sensitive organs," the doctor explained. "The second you go any deeper, you need senior healers. And that is where the problem comes in."
She pointed to a few deeper layers of the heart. "If apprentices were capable of handling this much, then the supply problems would be ameliorated. They would be able to handle a much greater bulk of the healing surgeries needed to be conducted. And indeed, that is what the industry has focused on trying to achieve. Unfortunately, this has proven to be very difficult. Aside from the most gifted apprentices, no other apprentices have any chance at being successful. The skill needed to handle these kinds of heart healing surgeries versus the number of wounds, injuries, and diseases that require such a depth of healing is a ratio skewed in favor of the latter. There is simply more than we could ever hope to deal with. For example…"
Cæ wasn't sure if it was because she was simply flexible, but once she got on board with the fact that Cæ was here for a lecture on the matter, she quickly shifted gears, putting on her lecturer hat.
She thoroughly explained exactly what conditions apprentices healers were unable to fulfill, which caused such a shortage of cardio-healers to appear, fulfilling all his curiosity for detail.