Health points, also known as vital energy, functioned as the fuel that healed the body and kept a living being alive. Undead creatures famously didn’t possess any health points but instead had an energy of death that kept them un-dead.
This meant that the natural healing of the body consumed health points. When one took damage, an initial portion of health was consumed, with another part used to heal the wound afterward. As long as health points remained, so did the life of the being who possessed it.
But being “alive” is a rather broad term. If the poison had consumed Jake’s brain, it didn’t mean that all his health points would’ve instantly disappeared. He would’ve remained alive, and his health points would’ve kept healing his brain. If the poison was then cured, his vitality winning
