Reborn as an Extra

"Huff... pant...huff..."

With bloody palms trembling and reddened eyes, Riya lay on the ground, completely exhausted.

Her expression showed that she was in a lot of pain; her hair were messed up and even opening the eyes felt difficult.

"cough! Cough..."

She coughed up blood and gasped for air. Today is the most traumatizing day of her life.

She raised her trembling palm, which was smeared in blood and was losing two of the fingers.

'This won't do... I am doing something wrong...'

Three hours had passed since she first started to heal the flower; in those three hours, she went from feeling pain to becoming somewhat numb to it.

At some point, she wanted to just give up, but after healing herself continuously, her resolve continued to improve.

'Forcefully using the healing magic on the flower won't work... I need something else...'

Riya had never seen a flower like that before.

That flower seemed frail and weak, but even after withstanding so many explosions it was still intact and not a single scratch had appeared on it.

After thinking about this strange phenomena, Riya came to the conclusion,

'It's an SS-rank item... Furthermore, it has high resistance to magic...'

Herbs or individuals that have high resistance to external magic are difficult to heal, you need an extremely skilled healer or a healer that is higher in rank than them.

Usually, an S-rank healer can heal anyone at rank S or below, even if the other party has high resistance to external magic.

But SS-rankers are different, their resistance to external phenomena is immense, healing them with the magic of an S-ranker is near impossible and it even causes massive rejection.

Same thing is happening right now with Riya.

The flower has extremely high resistance to external phenomena, so healing it with a magic lower than rank SS is near impossible.

Riya placed her trembling hand on her abdomen and healed herself with the leftover mana.

[Intermediate Heal: Continuous mild heal.]

Compared to how her body was healing at a speed visible to the naked eye before, this time her body started to heal at much slower pace.

'I am nearly out of mana... will have to make do with this for now... Otherwise, I will die from excessive bleeding...'

Riya continued to lie down for another half an hour and when she was about 80 percent healed, she sat up again.

'No matter how many times I try... a healing magic below rank SS won't work and the outcome will remain same... is there really no other way?...'

A look of doubt appeared on Riya's half-burnt face as she contemplated in her mind,

'I am missing something crucial here... Mrs. Syvis won't just give me this particular flower for no reason; there must be a reason why she arranged such an impossible-looking task...'

For the first time in her life, Riya focused on herself and tried to figure out what she was doing wrong.

Most of the time, either she is focused on candies or on Link.

She usually doesn't care about anything else, but now that she's been driven to a corner by Syvis, she has no choice but to think hard and focus on what she was doing wrong.

As the saying goes: To win a battle, you must know yourself first... (It's a reference from Sun Tzu's quote...)

Riya walked over to the flower again and sat down beside it with a doubtful look on her face. (Her face is half burned, but it's still healing due to mild heal...)

Staring at that flower, a thought came to her mind:

'could it be that... there's some other way to healing.... A way to bypass the magic resistance?... does such a way exist?...'

Riya glanced around herself and noticed that the area in a fifty-meter radius of hers was already littered with broken rocks and scattered debris.

Small and big craters spread all over the area; this was all a result of Riya's continues attempt to force her healing magic.

'Forcing my healing magic won't work... not only does it not have any effect, it causes immense rejection and my mana backfires onto me instead...'

Whenever Riya tries to heal the flower, her mana backfires and she loses control of it, which causes explosions and affects her mana circuits too.

'Unless I bypass this resistance.... There's no way to heal this flower...'

Thinking this far, Riya understood one key thing, and that is the weakness of her control over healing magic.

Usually, the higher your rank gets, the more control you have over your magic and the less likely you are to face backlash.

Riya is currently only a B-ranker, the difference in rank is too huge, and thus, when the backlash occurs, her healing magic loses control almost instantly due to her weak control.

Riya got up from the ground, slowly walked over to the nearby tree and sat under its cool shade.

The mild breeze made her feel refreshed and helped her clear her mind.

As her mind cleared up, she started to think back to Syvis's words and actions, and one thing stood out from her words the most.

'Lost sheep... what does she mean by that?...'

No one had ever used some random nickname to refer to her, Link and the others always call her by her real name, so this is the first time someone has given her such a strange nickname.

'No... she wasn't trying to tease... her words carried the feeling that she was stating the truth...'

A look of doubt appeared on Riya's face while thinking about this.

'It's as if she knows something about me that I myself don't... as if... I am forgetting something crucial...'

As the exhaustion caught up to her, Riya fell asleep under the cozy shade of the tree.

The wind caressed her face, making her feel comfortable.

...

(Riya's hazy dream)

A hazy figure resembling Link seemed to be scolding her for some reason in that dream.

She stood there and said something that made Link upset.

The dream was too hazy and bizarre; Riya was not able to understand what was happening.

She wanted to chase behind him, but Link seemed to have become upset with her and didn't stop for her.

As if a glass was shattered, something clicked inside her mind, and she forgot about that memory.

Perhaps it was because she never wanted to remember that day, or perhaps she suppressed something very important to herself in her mind on that day.

But one thing was sure: she had forgotten something important to herself.

...

Three days later,

"Ugh..."

For the past three days, Riya has tried all of the techniques in her arsenal.

She used the 'state detection' skill to detect and analyze the flower, but even that didn't work.

It was as if her mana was being rejected at an atomic level.

Unless she bypasses that immense resistance, her magic won't work at all.

Not only she did not eat or drink anything for three days straight, but she has also suffered countless wounds in the past three days.

She healed herself again and again; eventually, her mind went numb to all of it.

Her concentration reached such a focused point that she forgot about everything beside herself and that flower.

She stopped thinking about what was happening outside the garden and how Link and others were faring in the individual tournament.

All she had on her mind now was that she needed to somehow heal that flower.

…

Fifth day of the training.

After countless failed attempts, Riya figured out how to properly minimize the damage and how to recover faster from her wounds.

She concentrated her healing magic on her brain and forcefully stopped her own pain receptors.

Which means, no matter how many times she gets injured, she won't feel any more pain.

Tempering with the brain was a risky move, but for a genius like her, this was not worth mentioning.

She may be naïve in other aspects, but when it comes to healing, no one in the younger generation can compete with her.

…

Sixth day, evening.

Looking at the setting sun, Riya felt immense disappointment in herself.

'Even after doing so much… I still haven't accomplished anything at all…'

Not only did her rank not improve, but her skills were also stuck in a bottleneck. Her countless failed attempts were now starting to destroy her determination inch by inch.

Sitting in the flower field area of the garden, Riya felt powerless and worthless at that moment, Her mind was filled with negative thoughts as she stared at the setting sun.

'Tomorrow is the day of reward ceremony… I don't even know who won; I never even went to cheer up Link in his battle… I-I am worthless…'

Tears welled up in her eyes as she lamented her powerless self, She wanted to finish this training early and go cheer for Link's success, but in the end she achieved nothing.

Her dreams, her goals, her purpose to live, everything seemed to have become too daunting for her.

Just when she was on the verge of collapsing, she noticed a 'Rose' from the corner of her eyes.

Riya wiped the tears that were blurring her vision and glanced at that 'Rose' once again.

'Come to think of it… Rose is Link's favorite flower…'

She got up and walked over to the flower, She wanted to caress it but as Rose have thorns on it, one of the thorns pierced her finger and her finger started to bleed.

'Ah I forgot that it had thorn-'

Just when Riya was about to heal her finger, a sudden memory came to her mind as if the suppression over it was gone.

...

(Riya's suppressed dream)

Link mansion, flower garden

"See! I worked hard to grow this rose myself! Doesn't it look good!"

Link puffed up his chest in pride while showing the flower to Riya.

"Whoa! It looks beautiful!"

Influenced by his enthusiasm, Riya tried to caress the rose, but one of its thorn's pierced her finger, causing it to bleed.

Link hurriedly brought out a band-aid from inside the house and carefully placed it on her finger.

Then he scolded her.

"Idiot! Can't you take care of yourself properly! You make me so angry at you!"

Riya pouted her face after hearing those words and replied.

"Hmph! I can take care of myself! Just you see! In the future, I will deal with any injury easily!"

At Riya's words, Link became even more angry and said,

"No! you will never get injured if you stay beside me! I am strong! I will protect you!"

Riya didn't want to outdone by him and said,

"I will protect you instead!"

Link became angry and ran away to show his disagreement, Riya tried to chase behind him, but he was too fast for her.

Riya stood in the garden all alone and stared at her injured finger.

'Could it be… he wouldn't like me anymore if I became stronger than him?...'

As Riya was a naïve child, she misunderstood Link's action of leaving as a way of saying that he wanted to be the one to protect her, not the other way around.

This thought subconsciously suppressed Riya's dream of improving and becoming stronger.

Her ambition vanished because she was afraid of Link's hatred.

As a result of that small misunderstanding, she lost her ambition that day.

…

(Back to present)

'H-how did I forget… I-I forget my dreams, I forgot my ambitions… I lost my 'path' long ago…'

At that moment, Riya realized why Syvis referred to her as a 'Lost Sheep'.

Riya had lost her 'path' long ago; she was indeed a 'lost sheep' at this point as she had no clear 'path' to walk on.

The long-lost determination returned into Riya's eyes, a new flame of ambition condensed in her heart and she clenched her fists with resolve.

'No, I must not lose my 'path', I can't always remain in Link's shadow, I must carve out a future that belongs to only me and me alone…'

'I must not forget my dream of healing every wound, ever again!'

[Ding! Congratulations! You have realized your 'Path' to ascension!]

…

…

Author's note.

Yo! It's your beloved author here!

I know I know, this chapter is too long, but believe me, this is a special chapter so yeah, it was supposed to be long, so no question today as it's already too long.

By the way, don't forget to use those power stones and also leave a review if you like the story. Comment your opinion about the chapter. Your support is my motivation.