[Essence Path discovered!]

[Skill - Essence Sight obtained!]

[Alchemist Class obtained!]

[Alchemist Level 1!]

[Skill - Infusion obtained!]

[Skill - Basic Alchemy obtained!]

Micah woke up to those words when he was eleven and a half, and his world had become a different place. At first, he thought he must still be dreaming, or that he had something in his eye. His wall seemed to be glowing? He rubbed the sleep out of them as he sat up and called over his shoulder.

“Mom?”

His wall was definitely glowing. Or rather, a thin sheen of light covering it was. It reminded him of shadow plays actually, the ones his Nana always made, but inverted. Instead of figures in black, there were distortions in the light in the patterns of tree bark.

Micah wanted to touch it.

He threw his blanket back and ran over to do just that. His skin tingled with anticipation as he placed his hand on the wood, but nothing happened. The wood felt the same. The light didn’t even react. Stubbornly, Micah tried dragging a finger over a ridged line instead, hoping for some kind of reaction. He thought he saw it drag along for a bit under his skin, but then it snapped back into place and moved along.

Wait, what?

Micah frowned and took a step back. Was his wall … crawling?

The bark sheen was moving ever so slowly, straining, bloating, merging again as if the wood was still growing. But everyone knew bark was dead. Micah looked up, up, up and saw the sheen stretched even to the ceiling and over all the wooden things in his room. Here and there, he even found distortions in the shape of leaves.

He definitely wanted to touch those.

He huffed and puffed as he jumped, and stretched all the way to his fingertips, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t reach them. After a short break, Micah scowled in frustration. He knew he was going to have his growth spurt soon, and then he would be super tall and able to reach anything, but in the meantime, he climbed his window sill, squinted his eyes a bit against the morning sun, and—

He stared at his windows. They looked different, too! The morning light revealed faint patterns inside the glass. They weren’t quite like pictures, but they reminded Micah of the stained glass windows he saw around the city anyway. He leaned closer to get a better look and the patterns shifted all the sudden. Some jumped from place to place, others folded in on themselves, they all rotated to spawn whole new fractures. It was mesmerizing.

Having an idea, Micah spun around to check if the patterns were thrown on his floor as well, like shadows. Instead, he found the sunlight waving like invisible strands of grass around his own shadow. He crawled back down in awe and tried to trace them, but they actually moved this time with each of his own movements. It was funny trying to catch them. Eventually, he managed by using one hand to catch the light of the other. It ran away then, seemingly affronted.

By the time his mother came around his room, Micah was jumping on his bed, or rather on his pillow on his bed, and laughing. Whenever he did, phantom feathers shot up out of the case and drifted into the air where they fell down slowly again. He was having fun pushing them around like dandelion seeds.

“What are you doing, Micah?” she asked.

“Mom, look!” he said and pointed. “The feathers.”

She smiled, seemingly bemused, but she didn’t look. She was too busy putting on her council pin and headed downstairs.

“Hurry up or you’re going to be late,” she called back.

Late. Right. Class. Micah had totally forgotten about it. Did he have to go? Wait, no, he wanted to go! Outside there were bound to be even more funny patterns. He scampered over to his bedroom door and sped downstairs, off to wolf down his food at the breakfast table. His dad watched him with a single raised brow.

“Hungry?” he asked.

In response, Micah mumbled something intelligible around the porridge in his mouth. His father clearly didn’t understand, so he just smiled and received a smile in turn. As soon as he finished, Micah said his goodbyes and headed for the front door.

“Micah, clothes!” his mother called him back from its handle. He almost groaned, but he knew he couldn’t go to class in his pajamas. Begrudgingly, Micah went back upstairs to get changed. His mother tried combing his hair as well when he came back down, but he dodged out of way and finally escaped.

He stopped on the doorstep outside their home and stared, taking it all in. His world really had become a different place.

Micah was halfway to the classroom that morning when he realized that this wasn’t some dream. He actually had a Path, and a Class, and a Skill. He even had three. And he had all three! He immediately turned back and bolted home to tell his parents. He could barely contain himself. All he wanted to do was run and jump, and laugh as he rolled around on the reaching hands of the grass below. But when he got home, his parents were already gone. The house was empty.

He wandered the empty hallways in case they were just busy again, but no, nobody was there. Micah made sure to lock the door on his way out again. The last time he had forgotten to do that, his parents had yelled at him for it.

Disappointed, he consoled himself by indulging in his newfound Skill, [Essence Sight], instead. On his way back to school, he inspected everything and tried to figure out what the shapes and colors meant.

Micah arrived late, very, very late, to the classroom and got yelled at after all.

He had hoped to just sneak in and find his way to his seat, but when he opened the door, the teacher stopped mid-lecture and sixty heads turned to stare at him. Micah’s heart hammered as he stuttered an apology. At home, his ears burned as he did the same. What had he been thinking, his parents demanded, wasting their tuition frolicking through the city all morning? His elder siblings had never behaved like this. They wouldn’t have dared. And neither would they have when they were children. They asked him if he had any excuse, if anything had happened at all?

But no, there had been nothing. Micah didn’t tell them.

Almost two years older than him, there was a boy named Ryan in his classroom who had discovered his Path at the age of thirteen and was hailed a prodigy. Micah wasn’t even sure which Path he had discovered. Maybe [Sword Fighting]? That was supposed to be common. He knew it had to be a combat one because he always saw Ryan train with a sword, but the teacher hadn’t told them and neither was Ryan forced to say. It wasn’t like Micah could just go up to him and ask.

The important thing was, Micah never saw Ryan alone in class afterward. Not once. His parents enrolled him in a nearby school immediately and Ryan got extra classes, extra training, extra attention. Everyone wanted to be his friend, even people he’d never talked to before. And all the girls fancied him, or so Micah heard, because of course he had to be handsome, too. The older boys always made him captain of an alleyball team.

As Micah watched Ryan in school that day, surrounded by their classmates, constantly answering questions and being forced to smile, his own giddy smile slowly evaporated and was replaced by a bigger and bigger growing frown. Why would he want that? Micah decided then and there, he wouldn’t tell anybody about his Path until he was at least fifteen, when everyone else discovered theirs, too.

So no, he had no excuse for his parents.

He did, however, have a clean glass bottle, a tripod made of wire he’d bought on his way home, as well as a small candle, some water, and a pouch full of things he hoped would be useful—herbs, fruits, and spices he had stolen from the kitchen. He snuck them up into his room and got to brewing.

He made sure to close his door and hide the equipment behind the far side of his bed, so it would conveniently block the vision from the doorway. The candle might drip, so he also got a small cutting board and a lighter from downstairs. Micah set everything up with care and filled the bottle with water, the basis of all potions, he thought. Then he stared. What now?

Nothing happened. Nobody answered.

He had hoped [Basic Alchemy] would just tell him what to do, but ... Maybe he needed to have an idea on his own? What did Micah want to make? A growth potion was the first thing that came to mind and he jumped on it. Growth potion, he thought over and over, hoping [Basic Alchemy] would do the rest. It didn't. He tried different names, height potion, tall potion, tallness potion? Nothing.

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Maybe the idea just wasn't "basic" enough?

Micah needed something simpler. What was simple? His eyes wandered to the metal lighter lying on the ground before him and he thought of the fluid that fueled most of the things in the city.

Fire potion? He thought. An idea shot through his head and he gasped. [Basic Alchemy] had jumped on it. That it could apparently work with. It was weird, though. Micah had a bunch of different ... somethings in his head now. He didn't know how to describe it. It was like a word that hung on the tip of your tongue. You knew what you wanted to say, you just didn't know how to say it, how to put it into words. It wasn't—

Ha, Micah laughed, because he couldn't find the right word for a moment, but then he did—"tangible". It just wasn't tangible. The Skill was only there to guide him, he thought. It was like a hunch. He would have to do all the rest.

Alright then. What came to mind when you thought of fire? Micah wondered and had an idea. He put out his candle and went back downstairs to get some old coal from the basement and wood from the fireplace. The wood had a patterned sheen to it like his walls or bedpost. The coal just looked blacker. Not everything had a pattern of its own, but everything’s colors had become more vibrant. It was as if Micah's vision had focussed all the sudden, thanks to [Essence Sight].

He brought the coal up and, following his [Basic Alchemy], broke it into two smaller chunks that he stuffed inside the water. Then he relit the candle and waited for the water to heat up some more. It took a while, so Micah considered getting a knife to whittle down the wood, but then suddenly something shot through his mind and he had another hunch. His eyes shot to the water and his arm moved on its own. He brushed the glass and thought gently, infuse. Suddenly, the vibrancy of the coal started leaking into the water, dying it that same black.

Micah stared. Was that its essence?

He tried adding the wood bark next—it was the only thing that would fit inside the bottle—but he soon realized he had done something wrong. Micah was just stuffing things together, like mixing chocolate and dirt together in a glass of water because they were both brown. It actually disgusted him a little. He sniffed at the mixture when it was finished, grimaced and threw it out. He had to wash out the bottle before he brought it back upstairs. It didn't seem pure anymore. Then he started up his next attempt.

Nothing worked that day, though Micah stayed up late into the night trying. He had grown frustrated with his misattempts over time, and then he was just tired. Only a brilliant silver shine spilling through his windows could pull him away in the end.

The light practically washed into his room like waves from the ocean and filled into every nook, every cranny, every ridge of the bark-shaped sheen on his walls. Like curious hands, and eyes, and ears, tongues and noses, Micah could feel the light inspect everything within its grasp. He followed its ebbing to his windows and stood on his tiptoes to climb into the nook of their sill. There, he looked up, up, up at the Tower that now shined bright like the moon.

Was that where it led?

He woke up still lying there and with a quick look outside, realized he was almost late for class again. Micah rushed to shove his equipment under his bed before his parents could walk in. Then he sped downstairs and skipped breakfast. In class, all he thought about was alchemy.

A few days later, Micah learned that you don’t normally discover your Path first at all. He knew that, loosely. Everyone knew you were supposed to get a Skill first, after all, based on what you’re good at. Whenever someone in the classroom got theirs, the teacher would invite them to the front of the class to tell the others, so they could congratulate them. He said this usually happened around thirteen, though some children’s parents apparently said otherwise. If it was a Class or Path, you didn’t have to say what it was, but everyone would find out eventually-Especially if you had parents like Micah’s. To some, getting Skills was even more important than birthdays after all, since you got them so rarely.

Micah had always dreaded that part, though. He wasn't good with standing in front of crowds and he hadn't been looking forward to the comparison that the other boys did, to decide whose Skills were best. Micah wondered about [Essence Sight], [Infusion], and [Basic Alchemy] and still didn't think he'd measure up highly. Hopefully, he would get a new Skill soon.

Apparently, you were then supposed to get your first Class around fifteen, when you graduated from the classroom and started doing things. The important thing was that you were good at what you did and that the work was a part of you. You wouldn’t just get a [Carpenter] Class because you helped your father build a table. You could, however, get a [Carpenter] Class because you helped your father build a table. That was why the city encouraged you to try lots of different things through Chores.

As if sweeping streets has ever given anyone a Class, Micah thought bitterly. Someone else said it out loud and the teacher admonished her. It was a common enough thought, though.

Lastly, you were supposed to get your first Path around sixteen, when you finally knew what really interests you in life.

Micah looked down at Ryan then, sitting near the front of the classroom, and mulled it over with a frown. So what if he liked something a little earlier than others? So what if he was good at something now? It only meant that he had even less of a reason to tell anyone. They were wrong after all, everyone who might think something of him. Ryan might have been a prodigy, Micah didn’t know, but he was sure wasn't. And that was that.

A little while after that, Micah learned about licenses and popular Classes and Pathes, and that most [Apprentices] studied for up to four years before they got the [Alchemist] one.

Nineteen, he thought when he heard. He thought he saw something flicker before him as it crumbled. Micah didn’t understand. What was so special about being an alchemist? There were so many of them and he was already one.

He spent the rest of the day in a daze and even forgot to skip chores. By the time he got home, it was much too late to start up on his next healing potion attempt. He had moved on from fire potions because nothing had ever worked out there. He knew by now that the healing potion would need to simmer for a long while, so he just lay down and tried to think of something else instead. He needed something new that could distract him, something easy, simple, nice.

He had a thought and looked outside where a bunch of flowers bloomed in their garden.

A week later, Micah finished his first potion. He wanted to celebrate, but it was late at night and he couldn’t afford to wake his parents. So he just bit his lip and grinned instead.

The potion was almost see-through and silvery green but had a colored pattern like a field of flowers. It smelled the same, too. And as far as Micah could tell, that was all it did. He was a bit disappointed that it wasn’t something awesome, like a strength potion, but at least it actually worked. He wouldn’t let his first creation go to waste. He rubbed some on his skin to make himself smell nicer.

The next day, he still smelled nicer. And everyone else could tell.

Micah saw the other children wrinkle their noses on the way to the classroom, and look around, looking for the flowers. They were looking for him. He hunched his shoulders and slowed his steps to a rigged walk. He didn’t want to be here. He wanted to turn around and go home or run to the nearest bathhouse to wash himself off, but he knew he couldn’t. He couldn’t afford to be late for class again. He just kept on walking. What else was he supposed to do?

When the teacher finally stepped inside the classroom, the elderly man asked about the smell, but nobody knew where it came from.

Micah realized then they really didn’t. He strained his eyes to catch the glow of the potion’s essence in the air, and it looked just the same all the way at the front of the classroom as it did in the back, right next to him. How was that possible? Magic, his mind answered. It did nothing to ease his worries. Magic, Micah imagined the other children think as they stared at him.

When the teacher mentioned the smell again after the break, Micah couldn’t take it anymore and silently excused himself from class. He found a nearby alley and had a quiet breakdown.

He wanted to cry out, but he bit his fist instead until he drew blood.

So close! His mind screamed at him as he leaned against a wall, let himself slip to the ground. So close … Any moment now, one of the other kids could have turned to look at him. Any moment, they would have seen him sweating, seen his fear, and they would have known.

It wasn’t just the smell, it was …

Micah imagined himself standing in front of the class, sixty pairs of eyes staring at him as the teacher told the others about his Path and Class. Would they even admire him like they did Ryan? Would they even believe him? Ryan was charming and handsome and friendly, he always smiled, always stood out in the crowd. All they would have seen when they looked at him was some pipsqueak who got lucky. They would have shunned him like they did the kids who lied about getting Skills.

Micah was so relieved he hadn’t told his parents back then it hurt. Or maybe that was his hand. He suckled on the wound to make it better.

Ryan, actually, had been the one to stumble on him back then. He left early sometimes to be in school by time, said he heard something and came to check if everything was all right. Micah just told him he’d flunked the history exam or something, barely paying any attention at all. Mentally, he’d been bumping up the age he planned to reveal himself to eighteen, nineteen, twenty … never? When was the right time to reveal he was an [Alchemist]? He would have to get an apprenticeship, wouldn't he? Only then could he say that he'd earned it. That meant he would have to study hard, to get good enough grades that someone would consider him. Maybe if he focused on studying alchemy, Micah could persuade them more easily since he would have prior knowledge of the subject? And then he could cheat his way through the expectations because he had a secret advantage!

Actually, that sounded like it could work. The more he thought about it, the more the plan came together and Micah found himself relaxing. Four years, he thought. He had four years to learn as much as possible.

Eventually, he headed back to class. Ryan was gone already. Everything would work out in the end.

The other children found him out, of course. About the smell. It lessened when he left the classroom apparently—which was good to know—and teased him by calling him Flower Boy. The teacher made him sit on a chair outside of the doorway that day, but that was all right. Nobody thought it was alchemy, just his mother’s perfume. At home, Micah even managed to make his first healing potion work. He saw the tiny wound in his hand while he was brewing and [Basic Alchemy] nudged him to squeeze out a few drops of blood.

This time Micah bit himself, it was to stop himself from cheering. He went to bed with the potion already working on his skin.

[Alchemist level 2!]

When he woke up to that the next morning, he did cheer and thrash around in excitement.