Nodding, the healer rushed out of the tunnel.
"Thank you for your help." Old Tobias said to the knight.
"I don't mind but tell me the next time you want to experiment on me." He crossly said.
The others chuckled knowing that Old Tobias rarely asked when he was doing an experiment. All of them needed to be on guard in case he tried experimenting on them next.
Going back to the screen Chronos watched as the healer went back to the medical tent. Once the healer was there, Old Tobias activated his communication magic.
"We're about to use the spell, I want every healer ready to assist as we don't know what will happen once it's active."
"Give us five minutes to organize everyone." Came the healer's voice.
They watched as several figures with strong life force gathered in the tents and took positions around critical patients for emergency treatment. Watching them move Chronos noticed that a couple seriously injured patients were being overlooked by the healers.
"Old man, I think these patients here have some serious organ damage. Why aren't the healers tending to them?"
Observing their movements for a moment, Old Tobias realized what was going on. The damage was deep inside their bodies making it difficult to find with the quick checks the healers were doing.
"Healers there are three knights with internal damage by the east edge of the tent. They need medical attention." He said into his communicator.
Several healers went to check on them and rapidly began casting healing magic over them. The knight's conditions improved but it was clear that they would need more in-depth healing later.
"Everyone is in place, Tobias. Begin casting whenever you're ready." The head healer said.
"Alright beginning the casting now."
Chronos waved his hand over the screen gathering the life force floating around the plateau and pulling it towards the medical tent.
They watched as the life force was absorbed into the injured knights one by one. Things seemed to be going well but the healers were scrambling to manage the healing power that was washing over the tent.
Several healers realized what was going on and cast a spell to grab onto the stronger points of life force, dragging them towards the most heavily injured knights.
"Hm, are you seeing this old man?"
"Yep, the stronger healers can sense floating life force and direct it. We'll need to assign one of the best healers in the castle to work as a castle lords' advisor. Hehe, they won't like that." Old Tobias chuckled.
Healing magic had a strong inclination to help others, so healers and priests being forced to stand on the sidelines during major battles would annoy them to no end.
"True but what I meant was this." Chronos pointed at a spot where two floating lights touched and fused together before a healer turned towards it and pulled it towards another knight.
"They can only sense the stronger points of life force. If we wanted to increase their healing abilities we could gradually fuse life points together, put them inside of a container and sell them as an emergency healing method."
That caught Old Tobias's attention. It was outside of his normal work and sounded like it would be difficult to achieve but that just meant that it was worth working on.
"Oh, do you think it's possible to capture life force like that?"
"Well, I can touch life force through the screen so we should be able to capture it too. In fact, I remember seeing a skill in the utility section that might be able to do just that. I'll look into it later." Chronos replied.
Nodding they continued to observe the healer's reactions and manage the life force to make sure that no one received too much or too little. After half an hour a message came through the communicator.
"Tobias, that's enough. We can handle the rest of the healing from now on."
"Alright, send the head healer down here later. I need her help to create specialized spells for this new magic."
"Understood."
After writing down everything they had discovered, Old Tobias turned back to Chronos.
"Let's take a look at the last layer."
"Alright." Touching the railing Chronos selected the thought side.
The pyramid spun around and sent a beam of light towards the screen once more.
What appeared on screen was a black world filled with people, floating around each person were several images that rapidly changed. Focusing on a large man in golden armor they saw that he was surrounded by images of battle plans and which direction they could go.
"That's Magnus. So, this is what he thinks about, well at least at the end of a battle. Now where is Gregory." Chronos changed the focus on screen until he found him sitting with Sariah in the grove.
Gregory's mind was filled with information both what he was gathering right now and important information from the past, but what really shocked Chronos was the thoughts around Sariah's mind.
Curses and Gregory orbited around her to an almost worrying level. Chronos would have looked closer, but Nimsy turned and looked straight at him. A moment later Nimsy shielded Sariah's thoughts from him making it clear that it understood what was going on.
Chronos sent an apologetic thought to Nimsy which she bowed to in acceptance.
"That's interesting. I didn't realize that little girl would have a creature that could interfere with other layers." Old Tobias muttered.
"I don't think that's quite correct, old man. I think that all magic can affect other layers to some extent, but Nimsy is a special existence that was summoned by Sariah in the past. More importantly, the way it defended Sariah means that we can harm others' minds through this layer. We'll need to be careful with who we put in charge." Chronos said.
"We're already planning on having a mental or illusion type mage be put in charge of the castle but maybe we should have a few more here for safety's sake. This screen could give one person too much power over others within the castle."
Nodding Chornos started touching the screen trying to create an image of a small dragon in front of them.
He found that it was similar to when he was practicing the memory imprinting method. Once the thought was formed in the thought layer trying to make it real, even temporarily, would require a great deal of willpower to push it through the barriers between layers.
Seeing what he was doing, Old Tobias kept careful records and watched as a small dragon slowly appeared in the room in front of them. The moment it fully materialized it gave a loud roar and Chronos lost control of it.
"Duck!" Chronos yelled as he dove off of the platform.
"Huh."
Old Tobias was slow to react and was engulfed in flame momentarily before the dragon faded and disappeared back into the thought layer.
"Old Tobias!" Chronos yelled.
"Hm, so thoughts can take on their own life if not properly controlled. That's good to know. The castle lord will need exceptional willpower to manage that layer." Chronos heard Old Tobias muttering to himself.
As the smoke cleared Chronos saw Old Tobias standing there writing down his observations while a shield floated in front of him.
Old Tobias looked at him in confusion. "What's wrong Chronos?"
"Don't scare me like that old man. Dragon fires no joke, I thought you might have died just now."
"Of course it's no joke, but it's not the first time I've faced such threats. Don't worry I've got plenty of methods to protect myself." He said as the shield shrunk and attached itself to his waist once more.
Looking at the things he carried Chronos realized that nearly everything on the old man was an enchanted item and none of it was weaker than the third rank. Trying to catch him by surprise or beat him in a fight would be just as difficult as fighting a fourth rank being.
Magnus entered the room while they were recording what they had learned.
"What happened here?" Seeing the soot from the dragon fire he demanded to know what was going on.
"We figured out how to make thoughts a reality, but we had a bit of difficulty controlling it once it left the thought layer." Chronos said.
"Oh, can we not use the thought layer then?" He asked with concern.
The defense of this castle depended on being able to use all three layers to cover the weaknesses of the other layers. If they couldn't use one of them it would leave a glaring hole in their plans.
"That won't be a problem. We just need a trustworthy individual to be put in charge of the castle, manipulating the thought layer gives way too much power to a single individual after all. Using this layer will have similar rules to mages that manipulate mental magic." Old Tobias explained.