After leaving Arfeld, the captain of the Midnight Due informed Levi that they would make no more stops on the way to Estroma and should arrive in two days. Back in their cabin, Seth pressed his dad for an explanation about path rods and the ‘ability growth plan’ that Jimmy had mentioned.

“I don’t know that much about path rods.” Levi said with a shrug. “They’re extremely expensive. I could probably afford one now, after years of saving in Lith, but they are mostly purchased by wealthy nobles. And growth plans are just a fancy term that those wealthy nobles use.”

“I assume it means a plan for what rods they want to use to get certain abilities?” Seth asked.

“Somewhat.” Levi replied. “It’s more basic, really. Since people can only have up to six abilities, a growth plan is deciding where each of the six will come from.”

“Hmm, what if someone uses one of those rods when they have six abilities?” Seth said.

“It doesn’t work, I assume.” Levi replied. “Anyway, growth plans are just rich people deciding where each of those six will come from. The most common is a ‘three two’ plan; two abilities from birth, two abilities from rods, two abilities from life experience.”

“Doesn’t it take a long time to develop abilities from experience?” Seth asked.

Levi nodded. “Yes, but abilities developed that way are always straightforward improvements to things that you already do. Simple quality of life stuff, like my memory improvement. They’re more reliable than the unpredictability of a path rod. You usually get the first by age thirty and the second by age sixty.”

“Ok, that does make sense.” Seth commented. “But if we usually have two abilities that we never develop anyway, why shouldn’t I have gotten an Immutable rod? It seems like everyone at the temple should use one.”

“Don’t forget there are other ways to develop abilities.” Levi said. “You should wait to see where life takes you before making that decision. Perhaps you’ll decide to study another essence, or wind up in dangerous enough situations to gain an ability that way. Like I said, growth plans are a luxury for lazy rich people.”

Seth nodded and absentmindedly looked at one of the candles, mind wandering to other essences as Levi picked up a folder of reports. Seth continued thinking about abilities while rolling Landon’s dice on the leather tray he’d bought.

The following day, Levi and Seth had just eaten breakfast when they heard someone cry out in agony. Quickly opening the door, they saw two sailors carrying a third down the stairs near their cabin. The man had blood running down his chest where he was clutching what was left of his right hand.

One of the people carrying him shouldered open the infirmary door and they set the man on a cot. Levi and Seth followed them into the room, and tried to ask what had happened. The screaming made it impossible to hear what anybody was saying, so one of the sailors stuffed a rag in the man’s mouth.

“The anchor slipped as it was being pulled up.” She said, and pointed to the man on the cot. “He tried to grab the rope, and got it wrapped around his hand. The friction tore off most of his fingers.”

“We’ll take care of him.” Levi said, then asked, “What is his name?”

“Keith.” The other sailor replied before both of them left.

“Alright Seth,” Levi said, turning to him. “It’s time for you to learn how to restore lost body parts.”

Seth paled, but nodded.

Levi walked Seth through the process of feeling out the Vital structure of Keith’s hand. The difficulty in restoring limbs came primarily from this step, it turned out. A Virtue essence user couldn’t directly sense a person’s Vital essence, and having heightened Virtue was necessary to even detect the echoes of the structure when pushing in Virtue essence. It was like mapping out rocks in a river by looking for the eddies they made in the flow.

Seth followed along for the first finger, then restored the second and third mostly on his own. For the pinky, Levi intentionally healed over the injury in the same way Seth had on Sheldon’s arm the week before, as a test. Reforming the finger from a healed nub was far harder, and watching the flesh slowly bulge up as the bone reformed was deeply unsettling.

While he managed to restore the pinky itself, Seth couldn’t get the fingertip to reform a nail bed this time. After a few minutes, Levi stepped in and fixed it. Keith had remained barely conscious throughout the agonizing process, and shakily thanked the two Priests once they had finished. Levi gently pushed him down when he tried to get up and told him to rest.

Once they returned to their cabin, Seth sat on the edge of his cot, conflicted.

“You could have fixed his hand in just a minute, couldn’t you?” He finally asked.

“I would have taken a minute or two to make sure his Vital structure was normal, but yes.” His dad replied. “Why?”

“He was in all that pain for almost an hour longer than he needed to be, just because you were teaching me to heal him.” Seth said uncomfortably. “It doesn’t feel right.”

“Good.” Levi smiled at his son. “Thinking about the patient before your own interests is important. In this case, I had already spoken with the captain and crew. They knew that I was training a new Priest, and had the choice not to be treated by you. There were two sailors who asked for me to heal them should something happen, but the rest, including Keith, were ok with being used for training.”

“That’s good, I guess.” Seth nodded reluctantly. “Why not have me practice by cutting off my own finger? I don’t want to, really, but it seems more humane.”

“You already have Virtue coursing through your body constantly.” Levi explained. “You’re also used to the echoes of your Vital structure to the point that you don’t notice them, and it’s much easier to heal yourself due to your birthright as well. You needed to train on someone without Virtue essence to get a sense of what you’re supposed to do.”

“So, if my finger had been cut off before now, I would have just restored it without knowing how?” Seth asked.

“Precisely.” Levi replied. “It would be inefficient, but you would do it. Now that you’re beginning to learn how to restore others properly, healing yourself will become even easier. Not to mention, your understanding of Vital structure will make healing the normal injuries of other people easier as well. You still have a long way to go, though. Restoring organs is more difficult than fingers, and whole limbs are even more challenging.”

“Why exactly is healing organs easier than limbs?” Seth asked.

“Bones.” Levi said. “Bones are what you most rely on the Vital structure to help restore, simply pouring in Virtue can help with just about anything else.”

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“Oh, that reminds me…” Seth said, shifting focus. “Speaking of pouring Virtue essence, do you have a candle?”

Levi looked at him for a moment, then gestured at the three candles around the room providing light.

“Thanks.” Seth said, grabbing the base of the one nearest his bed. “I’m going to try making Virtue fire now that we’re not in the temple.”

“Ok, just be careful.” Levi said, amused. “We can continue the lesson on Vital structures and body restoration later, then.”

“Yeah, sounds good.” Seth replied absentmindedly, already focused on the candle.

He tried to remember what the golden fire had felt like the last time he held it, and a surprisingly clear image came to mind. He had been able to feel a connection and even start controlling it then, and Seth tried to copy what he had felt.

Unfortunately, he was missing two important factors: existing Virtue fire as a starting point and an environment with extra Virtue to draw on. Seth tried to solve the second problem by pulling more Virtue directly from his soul, pushing it along with most of what he projected into the flame. Yet, nothing happened.

Seth had no innate connection to regular fire, and the candle in his hands felt no different from any other, whereas he'd felt the Virtue fire candle more with his priestly ability than with his ordinary senses. It had been in some sort of transient state, forced to destroy the essence around it to stay alive, while this normal fire was just burning the wick.

But hadn’t the Virtue fire also done that? He’d been able to light the candle with it. If they were completely different, then why would a candle have been able to catch the golden flame at all? Was there essence in the wick? Or maybe Virtue fire and normal fire were more similar than he assumed.

Perhaps the inscriptions on the furnace just powered the fire with Virtue instead of Flame essence? Could essences mimic one another? If so, he didn’t need to ‘change’ anything about the lit candle, just swap out the essence. He studied the fire, and started trying to figure how to add Virtue instead.

Five minutes later, the candle flame turned gold between blinks. Seth would have been thrilled, if the golden fire hadn’t immediately started pulling Virtue out of him at a terrifying rate. After struggling with it for almost a minute, he slumped over, too unconscious to hear his dad’s exclamation.

____________________________________________

The smell of salt and the sound of myriad voices met Seth as he blearily tried to sit up. The ground felt more comfortable for some reason. He realized it was steady, unlike when he had slept on the ship. Looking around, Seth found himself on a dock in a large harbor.

As his eyes traveled over his surroundings, they slowly widened into saucers. The city before him was so much larger than either Lith or even Arfeld that he couldn’t wrap his head around it. Estroma was built on a slight incline that led up from where the Proka river flowed into the ocean.

Oddly, the city didn’t have walls all the way around it, only on the sides not adjacent to water. Across the cityscape, Seth saw a vast sprawl of buildings primarily constructed of white stone or various woods. The layout actually wasn’t as dense as Arfeld had been, with most structures having space between them for gardens, roads, or other amenities.

Looking over the port, Seth saw over a dozen proper ships far larger than the one he had been traveling on. Then, his gaze landed on something far in the distance, over the ocean. He could see another island for the first time! It must be Ava, the main island of the Cruwar Kingdom. While many times smaller than Daiteka, it looked vast in the distance.

“Oh, for the love of…” Seth heard his dad’s weary voice. “He finally woke up now?”

Seth turned and saw Levi and another Priest making their way down the dock towards him. He also noticed that he was lying on top of the bags that he and his dad had brought. They stopped in front of him, the unfamiliar Priest looking him over quizzically while his dad leaned down for a hug.

“Good afternoon.” The woman said. “I am Healer Andrea, Priest of the First Temple of Virtue in Estroma. How are you feeling?”

“Well, thank you.” Seth replied, awkwardly getting to his feet as the other two Priests stepped back to give him space. “I am Healer Seth, Joint Journeyman Priest of the Temples of Sin and Virtue.”

“Seth,” Levi said, strained, “You’ve been unresponsive for a day and a half. Are you really feeling alright? I was worried.”

“What? Really?” Seth said, surprised. “I’m a bit unsteady, I think, and I need some water. Otherwise I feel fine. Well rested.”

Seth and Andrea watched as Levi took a deep breath, eye twitching slightly. Priest Andrea looked amused.

“If I may,” She began. “Seth, could you tell me what happened before you lost consciousness? Your father told me what he saw, but I would like to confirm.”

“Of course.” Seth replied, thinking back. “I was trying to make a candle burn with Virtue like the furnace in the basement of our temple in Lith. It kept not working, but I remembered what the Virtue fire felt like when I used the furnace to light another candle a week ago. I finally did it, but the candle took all my Virtue essence to maintain, and I guess I passed out. For a day and a half.”

Andrea nodded as he answered, tapping her chin.

“And you did see the candle turn gold, correct, Priest Levi?” She asked.

“Yes,” Levi nodded, “But not for very long.”

“Just wanted to check.” She said, turning back to Seth. “To be clear, it isn’t possible to make fire using just Virtue essence conventionally. Your father told me that he had encouraged you to experiment to see what you could do, which is fine, but it won’t work.”

“So I can use Virtue like nobody else can?” Seth asked, getting excited.

“No.” She replied. “The inscriptions on the furnaces you mentioned force the Virtue essence aligned in the temple to act like Flame essence. It isn’t a property of Virtue itself, any essence can be instigated to act like any other. Physical effects are the ‘easiest,’ but it’s always extraordinarily inefficient.”

“Ok?” Seth said with confusion. “Then what was I doing?”

“The same thing the inscriptions were.” Priest Andrea explained. “For a person to cause an essence to act against its nature, they have to have some connection to another essence. It could technically be Creation essence, but from your description, it sounds like you gained some insight into Flame essence.”

Seth and Levi looked at her in surprise. Before they could say anything, Andrea continued.

“You don’t have the ability to use Flame essence itself, to be clear.” She said, “It sounds like you forced some level of practical understanding by feeling how the Virtue essence emulating Flame worked. With the right reading materials and teacher, you could probably develop that insight into a low level ability in a month or two.”

“How do you know all that from just his description?” Levi asked. “I’ve never read about any of this.”

Priest Andrea turned up an open palm and a small orange flame lit in the air just above it.

“He’s not the first kid in the church to get interested in how the furnaces work.” She replied with a smile. “It’s not that common, but from time to time people figure out the connection.”

“Could you teach me how to use Flame?” Seth asked, his interest sparked.

“You’d be better off finding someone who’s focused on Flame essence.” Andrea said. “Also, you should think about whether Flame essence would actually be helpful to you. It doesn’t exactly have many healing applications. Water or even Gelid essence would be better, both of which are physical. Vital essence is the ideal, but it’s notoriously difficult to gain insight into.”

“We won’t be here that long anyway.” Levi broke in. “We need to go give our report at…”

He checked some papers he had in his pocket.

“...the Second Step Initiative Administration Complex.”

“Oh?” Priest Andrea said curiously. “Did something happen?”

“I’m not sure we should say.” Levi replied. “Sorry.”

“Hmm, you were planning on making an appointment to use the Explication Orb at my temple, right?” She asked, and Levi nodded. “Well, if you give me a heads up on whatever happened, I would be glad to register you a spot for tomorrow. Otherwise, it’ll probably be a few days at least.”

Seth could see his dad struggling with indecision for a minute before he caved.

“There’s been an Ain sighting.” He said in a low voice. “In the jungle below the Telid mountains.”

Andrea’s eyebrows rose. “Oh my. Thank you for letting me know, I need to have a word with my Head Priest. For now, let me carry your bags to the temple for you, since you’ll be staying for an Explication tomorrow.”

“That’s really not necessary.” Levi said, but she was already slinging them over her shoulders.

“I’ll see you two this evening.” Priest Andrea said, and she walked at a speedy clip back down the dock.

Seth and Levi watched her go.

“Let’s head to the Administration Complex, then.” Levi said, and Seth nodded.