You can't kill me.
If this sentence were in other places, it would definitely be a provocation, a mockery.
But in Castorice's ears, it was an incredibly warm promise.
From a young age, she was trained as a battle-supervising saintess, using her hands to send away all those who were severely injured, dying, seeking death, or recently deceased.
Because the underworld no longer accepted spirits, the dead could not reincarnate or rest in peace.
And Castorice's ability was precisely to allow people to truly die.
So she became the saintess of Aedilia.
Later, Aedilia was destroyed, and Castorice became a wanderer, up until today.
"That's great! You really can't die!"
Castorice's eyes lit up with a brilliant gleam.
She observed Oliver's body, completely without any signs of damage.
This made her feel very excited and very happy.
It had been hundreds of years; this was the first person she could hold hands with.
Oliver felt Castorice's hand tighten a bit.
Her fair and tender hand hadn't had time to put on a glove, and Oliver therefore had a wonderful hand-holding experience. (As shown in the picture)
Holding hands with a man she just met, and so seriously at that.
It shows how much Castorice values the fact that touching him doesn't lead to death.
"Not just holding hands, even if you embrace me, I won't die. Want to try?"
Oliver actively spread his arms.
To be honest, Castorice's ability wasn't ineffective.
Rather, Oliver's Power of Abundance was counteracting it, so no effect was visible.
If Castorice were also an Emanator, then Oliver would have to be like Wolverine, annihilating and healing at the same time.
Fortunately, she wasn't, so Oliver could hug her casually.
But Castorice shook her head.
"But we don't know each other yet, and you also did that kind of thing to me."
She cared about the other party's immunity to the curse, but she wasn't foolish.
She still understood the difference between men and women.
Hugging and cuddling right after meeting would be too frivolous.
Moreover, Castorice still had a vivid Remembrance of the slap on her bottom, and she still held two points of wariness towards Oliver.
"My name is Oliver. Now we know each other."
Oliver smiled, then immediately put on a serious expression and said, "What happened just now was not my intention; I woke up and was already there~."
"Okay. My name is Castorice."
Castorice saw that he didn't look like he was lying, and coupled with her own lack of skill in verbal communication, she didn't dwell on it further.
Grumble~~
Suddenly, Castorice's stomach let out a mournful cry.
She immediately covered her stomach with both hands, her face flushed as she turned around and picked up a fruit from the ground.
She also handed one to Oliver, "You, do you want some?"
Oliver smiled, took the wild fruit, and swallowed it whole. It was sour and not tasty. "You just eat this? Don't you eat meat?"
Castorice nodded: "No, I can't catch it."
Oliver realized that Castorice indeed couldn't catch anything.
Any chicken, duck, fish, or insect she touched would be annihilated, leaving no meat. How could she eat meat?
Pity for Castorice spontaneously arose in Oliver's heart; what a poor child.
Perhaps it was because Abundance pitied all living beings, even he was starting to feel a bit melancholic.
With that, he walked to the riverbank and looked around.
He wanted to catch fish, but this area had just been trodden by Castorice, and all the fish and shrimp were gone.
Fortunately, a plump fish was washed down from upstream, and Oliver directly reached back and grabbed it.
He piled up branches and lit a fire.
Then he sat on a stone stool and processed the fat fish.
Castorice quietly watched from the side.
She remembered when she was little, whenever she wanted to eat meat, her adoptive mother would personally cook it for her.
Later, she embarked on a journey to find the Death Titan, wandering everywhere, and only when she went to cities could she eat meat.
In the wild, she could only eat wild fruits.
Sometimes, she would go several months without eating meat.
For example, at this moment, she had already eaten wild fruits for three months. Seeing such a plump fish, she indeed had a craving.
Oliver made a single knife cut, separating the fish head from the fish body.
He skewered the fish body with a wooden stick and roasted it over the fire.
Then, he pulled out a white Bandage from who knows where and wrapped up the fish head.
"What are you doing? Is this some kind of funeral ritual?"
Castorice didn't understand.
Oliver, however, smiled proudly, "No, I'm just trying out my new skill."
This white Bandage was made by him using his life force.
Concept Entry: Bandage. Consumes life force to create a Bandage. Anything completely wrapped and covered by this Bandage will have its state 'restored' to the optimal state as perceived by the user.
Oliver himself could grant creatures Blessings, allowing them to self-heal.
However, this Bandage could even repair non-living entities, making its scope of application far wider than the Blessing of Abundance.
The only drawback was that the larger the object being repaired, the more Bandages were required, and the more life force was consumed.
This aspect would certainly be a headache for anyone else.
Oliver completely disregarded this restriction; the Aeon of Abundance lacked nothing less than life force.
Repairing an entire planet would be more than enough.
He wouldn't have to repair galaxies, the universe, or some Imaginary Tree later on, would he?
Soon after.
The fish head, wrapped in Bandages, began to swell, and the Bandages expanded with it, gradually forming the complete shape of the fish.
*Slap!*
Suddenly, the fish tail thrashed up and down; it was clearly alive.
When he unwrapped it, it was exactly the same as it had been moments ago.
Oliver felt half satisfied and half disappointed with this result.
"It seems the 'optimal state' is not just limited by my understanding of the concept, but also by the inherent limitations of the object itself."
In fact, what Oliver had intended was to restore the fish to an Emanator-level state.
The result was that the fish was only restored to its recently plump state, unable to break through its own inherent limits.
He now had a practical understanding of how this Entry applied.
"Why did it revert again?"
Castorice leaned over in surprise, her beautiful eyes fixed on the recently resurrected fish.
"Is this Alchemy? Are you an Alchemist?"
In her understanding, only Alchemists possessed the power to resurrect the dead and repair physical bodies.
What astonished her was that the body of the resurrected fish was identical to the part that had just been skewered.
Even the wound on the fish's tail was the same.
"It's not Alchemy. That junk is something even dogs wouldn't bother with."
Oliver curled his lips dismissively.
Alchemy operates on equivalent exchange; whatever you gain, you must lose an equal amount.
Look at me, what exactly did I lose?
Merely a negligible amount of life force.
As he spoke, Oliver used a hand chop to sever the fish's head once more.
"If one isn't enough, just tell me. I can repair it, and you can eat it again once it's fixed."
Hearing this, Castorice couldn't help but shiver.
Even the Death Titan seemed like a mere rookie in front of Oliver.
One fish, repeatedly killed twice—was that still not enough?
"It's enough! One is definitely enough."
Castorice hurriedly waved her hand.
Oliver smiled, then proceeded to eat ten of them in one sitting.
Meaning that single fish had been killed ten times by him.
The final time, Oliver repaired the fish and released it back into the river.
"Trading a dozen moments of suffering for a new life—it's a massive profit for it. When it gains sentience later, it'll have to come back and thank me."
"Uh... is that really the case?"
Castorice was left speechless.
It clearly sounded abnormal, yet when she thought about it carefully, the logic held true.
Was her perspective too narrow?
Exchanging suffering for life seemed acceptable.