Take a deep breath in …
Micah closed his eyes and counted, as best he could, to ten while the cool air filled his nose, his mouth, his lungs. His stomach rose.
And with the air came essences. He didn’t focus on those just yet. He started with the fundamentals—the right breathing.
And out …
The cool wind brushed past his cheek, over his ear, and made his hair flutter against his skin.
Deep breath in …
He counted to ten again, took ahold of that rhythm like a physical object, and passed it on to [Controlled Breathing].
Here you go.
And out … [Controlled Breathing] responded to him.
Sure thing, boss.
That freed him to think of other things, but he didn’t focus on those either. He let his mind wander and relaxed in the cool morning air.
In …
Kyle had leveled up three times after the exam and obtained as many Skills from his Classes. He was genuinely happy for the guy.
One of those Skills had been [Ambidexterity], which taught him how to use his offside nearly as well as his dominant side, excusing a lack of training.
And out, [Controlled Breathing] said in a monotone voice.
Micah had urged him to write with his left hand and he could. Then he had urged him to write two different things at the same time and Kyle, of course, had called him an idiot.
And how am I supposed to do that? I can’t.
Then they had gotten to the topic of management Classes because there were Skills that could let you do that. [Dual Mind] to split your mind in two and literally multi-task.
In …
Yeah, yeah. I get it. If you’re not going to joke around, don’t talk at all, boss.
The Skill shut up. His breathing continued.
[Dual Mind] was kind of high-level, though. There were lesser versions and all sorts of ways to consolidate into it, but Kyle had said he wouldn’t opt into a management Class just so he could write two different things at the same time.
Which was fair.
Boring, but fair.
But [Controlled Breathing] reminded him of it because it worked on a similar principle locked into the purview of respiration. Micah wondered how it could grow, someday.
Not that he wanted to add another straw to possibly break his own back, but it was useful.
In …
And out, he answered, satisfied. Onto step two.
After he had the rhythm down, he went one step further and focused on the how of his breathing.
Spirits could be trained to do anything, he suspected. If he wanted to train his eyes to hold a pocket of lightning essence so he could shoot lightning from them, that was probably doable.
But spirits could affect the physical self over time the same as essences and patterns could and if he made a mistake, that lightning essence might as well end up boiling his eyes or deform them.
Micah had made the maybe mistake of training his spiritual lungs themselves to act as muscles. They breathed independently of his actual lungs. There were benefits to that, of course, but he didn’t trust his current knowledge to pursue that path in the long run. Not yet, at least.
Instead, he was happy to reap those rewards and was pivoting the focus of his training to something else. He wanted to reinforce what was already there.
Quantity and quality for his lungs, and training to develop the actual spiritual muscles that should be in charge of his breathing. Because who was he to argue with nature’s design?
… Well, he was an [Alchemist], but he was still young. Maybe another time. It wasn’t like he was Lisa …
The thought of her made him frown and he nearly lost his momentum before his Skill told him once more, Breath in …
Right. Focus, focus. He could talk to Lisa when she was ready and she had promised to find a day they could all talk to Garen together. He would cross that bridge when he got to it.
For now, he focused on his diaphragm, as well as all the other accessory muscles in his torso that managed his respiration. He’d referenced his biology and alchemy textbooks to make sure he didn’t miss any so he would be at least be aware of them during this exercise, though he would only be able to train them through exercise.
Unlike his lungs when he had first started, there was a glimmer of something already there, likely from [Controlled Breathing] and his [Lesser Constitution], the latter of which had changed—he assumed ‘fixed’—some things inside him. He referenced those changes as a foundation to make sure he wouldn’t make any mistakes.
And out …
On his next breath, he filled his lungs to the brim, held it, and watched it flush through his system, making sure he made the most of the air and wind essence he took in, from the top to the very bottom of his lungs, now and hopefully at all times in the future.
And out …
He made all of the same checks on the way out and handed that task, too, off to [Controlled Breathing].
Thanks, boss.
For a moment, he wasn’t sure which of them had said it, but it didn’t matter. He was just humoring himself because he was in a nervous but good mood. They were the same person.
That gave him the freedom to focus on step three, which he’d nicknamed the ‘clean water step’ in his notes for this particular exercise.
Now, Micah did focus on the essences. It was said [Travelers] who trained their [Controlled Breathing] could even use it to micromanage how much water they exhaled to preserve fluids in harsh climates.
He was pretty sure he could do that innately but if the Skill helped him, he was happy to let it.
He began to filter and compress the essences he breathed in, focusing only on the fresh air and stripping away the hints of impurities like dust, dirt, pollen, smells, and hints of smoke.
He wanted to make sure he was using the highest quality essences he could purify from his everyday environment, which in this case, was a window-side seat in a hallway of their school building and the fresh morning air.
Lots of morning dew essence. He wasn’t sure he wanted to filter that out. Maybe it could give a bit of an esoteric edge to his spirit? If that did anything.
He did have [Lesser Constitution], lungs weren’t entirely dry, and with the next step in mind, he wasn’t sure it mattered too much.
After a few more cycles, he handed the filtration task off as well and moved on to the last step of his new routine. If three was ‘clean water’, then four was ‘toothpaste’.
He’d considered ‘mouthwash’, but that didn’t have the same one-two combo with the step before it.
Micah reached down for his bottle and took a deep swig of hot alchemical tea. He immediately grimaced at the prickly citrus sensation but forced it down and siphoned its essence away to cycle the same as any breath.
It was a simple recipe recommended to people who were recovering from throat and lung injuries, like smoke or gas inhalation, drinking poisons, sore throats from singing or colds, and shisha addictions. [Singers] sometimes drunk it besides.
It was abrasive, like toothpaste, and uncomfortable, but that was the point. He had tinkered with the recipe to make it focus on the magical side and hopefully, it would get rid of some of the harmful essences he had been assimilating over the last few months without a care.
… Which could slow his progress, as it harmed his spirit, or it could accelerate it as the increased purity led to a quicker Skill acquisition.
He didn’t know.
Either way, it literally couldn’t harm him to drink it once a day while he practiced his breathing exercises and it was better than his thoughtlessness from before.
Already, as he exhaled, he thought he could sense traces of other essences that hadn’t been there before.
He cycled it some more with a growing smile, sensing more and more figurative dirt inside him, until it was too much and he breathed it out like a suppressed burp. He reached for his bottle and—
“Mr. Stranya?”
—jumped, scrambled up, and looked around to see who was speaking, surprised and embarrassed.
The secretary stood in the doorway to his office. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. Were you meditating?”
“Huh? Uhm, oh, no, no, no. I was just, ah … sort of like meditation? I was doing my breathing exercises.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Ah?”
“I have magical lungs,” he rushed to explain and pushed down the embarrassment, “so this is training. Sort of.”
He pushed the other eyebrow up, too. “Really?”
Micah turned the other way to take in a deep breath from the open window and the air dimmed fractionally around him, then focused to press it all together and let out a small puff of glowing air into his cupped hands.
It was barely visible in the artificial shade, but the man smiled. “Huh. That’s interesting. Quirky. Well, either way, Mr. Walker will speak with you now.”
“Oh.” He put his bottle away, collected his bag, and limped out of his seat. As he walked past him through the open door, he nodded and said, “Thank you, sir.”
Mr. Walker was in the middle of moving, it seemed. The drab cabinets and expensive bookshelves with rows of identical spines stared back at him but a smaller, new desk stood in the center of the room.
He followed a side door to the office one room over and the man only stopped working after another moment or two.
“Ah, Mr. Stranya.” He looked up and gestured, “Please, have a seat.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“One moment.” He finished the sentence, closed the file, and put it away. Then he opened a drawer and pulled out a dark etui he placed on the desk like a knife.
Micah stared. Straight to the point?
But his voice was as impassive as ever. “Now. Good morning, Mr. Stranya. I trust you’re recovering well from your exam?”
“Yes, sir. There wasn’t much to recover from, physically.” Aside from all of the aches and fatigue, but no wounds.
“And your teammates?”
“They’re … healthy, too, sir. Physically,” he repeated and watched his expression for some hint or judgment on their evaluation, for some portent about Ryan’s fate, or his own score and if he would be invited to the Registry party, but there was none. His face was a blank slate.
“That’s good to hear. Now, we only have a little while until the end of the school year, but you requested permission a while ago to practice with more diverse forms of divination, did you not?”
“Yes, sir.”
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He placed his fingers on the etui, drawing his eyes. “Can you elaborate on your intentions?”
Micah nodded and swallowed. He had thought about this and come prepared. Still, he screwed up on the first line and had to scramble to course-correct.
“It’s about— I mean, uhm … Sometimes, adding a little bit of sugar to a sweet dish can enhance the flavor, sir …? And when you quilt, you can’t leave a large gap in the middle of the blanket and say you’ll get to it later. When you build, you can’t leave out a supporting pillar. And in alchemy, sometimes it’s the littlest, most dangerous ingredients that matter the most.
What I’m trying to say is that I’m creating something inside myself, sir, and I can’t leave out any pieces of the project if I want to build a healthy foundation for all of its parts.”
“That’s a very reasonable argument,” Mr. Walker said, and his eyebrows went up a little in relief.
Was it? Oh, good. He had sort of just repeated the same point over and over with different examples.
“I believe you have said as much or something similar before where you hoped the addition of new ‘lenses’ could offer you additional insights?”
“Oh, yeah— Yes. I intend to divide the big picture into lenses like dividing a circle into smaller circles?” He gestured with his hands. “I can reach beyond those lines a little, either way, but ever since I received [Lens: Affinity Sight], I can see hints of other people’s spiritual influence on the nature essences around them even when I’m not using the Skill or focusing then.”
“Hints of spiritual influence even when you don’t use the lens. That seems like a good lead-in to this discussion. You must understand our misgivings about this, especially when the lens you wish to obtain would have little to no practical use to you, as a climber, in your immediate future, but it would have many easy-to-access immoral uses. And you want that lens anyway?”
Micah took a deep breath. He wondered if Anne knew how this felt like, if she had sat through these same lectures from her family or teachers all throughout her life.
What would she think, listening to them? What would she do? What advice could she have given him if he had found the courage to ask?
Probably something amazing. She probably would have told him to be patient and considerate and to take their worries seriously.
And Micah did. He was just … desperate for more. He needed to keep up, needed to pick up the slack and take matters into his own hands to ensure their future would be bright.
Whatever immortal motives he might have had for this request today, he locked them away for another tomorrow and shook his head.
Deep breath in …
Speak with confidence.
“I disagree with the notion that emotion essences would have no practical use to me as a climber, sir. Aside from other arguments that could be made—which I will not, as I doubt they apply to me—the fact is, I am an [Alchemist] first and foremost, and believe I could use emotions as fuel in my alchemy.”
Way too convoluted. Be more precise.
“Do elaborate.”
“One of the main steps of alchemy is fueling the alchemical with the right magic to make it work as intended. These are the crystals we add. Any given alchemical can only do so many things, but different crystals can influence those functions in different ways, from something as nuanced as sunlight versus moonlight essence—and yes, this can have an observable difference in effects, sir—to something as blunt as using fire essence over ice.”
Micah leaned forward. “But what if I fueled a healing potion not with honey ant crystals, but with distilled happiness instead, sir?”
“I couldn’t know.”
Micah smiled.
“Neither can I, but wouldn’t it be wonderful to find out? It’s a whole new set of options to explore and unlike the [Witches], magical culinarians, and hedge [Alchemist] who came before me, I have the tools needed to properly observe and document all my experiments and discoveries, sir.”
He sat with his back straight and chin held high, but he had no doubt the man saw through what he was doing, his small appeals to the Registry’s values. Hopefully, he would appreciate the effort …?
Or maybe not. Micah felt nervous as all hell either way and he couldn’t know until he tried, which was sort of the point.
It wasn’t like he could just look up the answers he wanted … but maybe he could ask his parents for advice some other time?
“That does raise a few more follow-up questions,” Mr. Walker said, “the answers to which I suspect. Do you know of any emotion essence crystals?”
“Oh, uhm … no, sir. I mean, there may be some that are part emotion and I wouldn’t know until I saw them with the lens but uhm, I’ve been practicing my essence manipulation freely, sir. I should be able to collect it?”
“From people, you mean?”
“Yes?”
Micah tried not to wince and wanted to explain, but the man went on before he could, “That would require you to see their emotions plainly. I have no doubt you would be able to find willing participants, if only for the novelty of it, but you would need those regular participants for practice or your alchemy experiments, too, and there are concerns of misuse under peer pressure.”
He was worried Micah would let himself be talked into teasing people with the use of the glasses, or lending them away?
No.
“With all due respect, sir,” he said, “I wouldn’t throw away an opportunity like this for giggles and also, I can already see emotions with my bare eyes.”
He wasn’t an idiot, and any lens he got wouldn’t allow him to read minds. The same as his current two lenses, it would probably only offer … nuance.
The man made a face. “Point taken. Our concerns still stand on principle alone, not to mention there may be side effects to your manipulation. Principal Denner herself is a prime example of their potential.”
So because she was too powerful and could manipulate emotions, he wasn’t allowed to step onto the same path?
“If it’s side effects you’re worried about, sir, I can use my own emotions, if possible, and test the potions on myself as I always have. And I have no doubt there are free-floating emotional essences near people that radiated off from them. I could probably collect them from the air in crowds without looking at any one person. Like at festivals?
I’ve gotten better at breathing in large amounts of wind essence to empower by body similarly to how I would fuel a potion, or how enhancement spells work, so I should be able to collect large amounts quickly.”
He wasn’t sure about the quality of those essences, but that was something for him to worry about.
Despite his criticisms and expressions of doubts, Mr. Walker had been impartial in his body language and tone throughout their conversation.
Now, he leaned forward with his elbows on his desk and rested his head against his folded hands. His eyes intensified and for the first time, he spoke with a bit of emotion, “That just raises an entirely new set of concerns.”
Micah panicked. He hadn’t prepared or even thought of this, and the man seemed to actually care about … crowds? Crowd manipulation.
Oh, fuh—
“I wouldn’t manipulate crowds of people for no reason or anything, sir! I’d collect the essences from the air, so there would be little to no chance—”
He shook his head and raised a hand.
Micah shut up.
“Not that. There are many skills and auras which do that already, and training crowd control can be useful. I’m concerned about the manipulation of you, Mr. Stranya.”
“Huh?”
He didn’t follow. What was this about?
“If you ever find yourself in the need to breathe in this ‘happiness’ essence in order to smile, or any other essence to consciously manipulate yourself, tell somebody as soon as you can. Whether that be me, another faculty member, family, or friend you trust. Do you understand?”
Micah didn’t want to lie to him and honestly, he was still trying to catch up with the change of plans.
“Uhm, I’m not sure I do, sir, to be honest …?”
“It’s concerning behavior.”
“But why? It doesn’t sound too different from some skills or potions as long as it does not muddle the mind, which it shouldn’t in small amounts, or doing something you know that makes you happy—”
“Like drinking a cold beer to relax after work?” Mr. Walker suggested, something more adult, and Micah nodded along.
“Exactly!”
Belatedly, he was surprised the man had used that example, though. Did Registrars even drink?
“And what are alcoholics?” Mr. Walker asked.
“Oh. Ohhh …”
Now, he got it. Micah had nothing to add to that, but the man seemed like he was awaiting another response and he still didn’t want to lie to him, so he said, “Thank you for the warning, sir.”
He wasn’t going to make any promises because that seemed like promising to never drink beer. He would, someday. With Ryan and everyone else.
But the warning itself seemed strange anyway because Micah would need the glasses to even do that kind of stuff and … Oh.
“Uhm, does your warning then mean …?”
“Yes.” He pushed the etui across the desk and Micah had to resist the urge to snatch it up like a prize. “Your other arguments do stand on their own, regardless of our misgivings. We thought of them ourselves, we just wanted to see you argue them.”
Micah nodded—another weird test; whatever—and reached out for the case, but before he could pick it up, Mr. Walker put an index finger down on it to get his attention.
“Rules first.”
“Oh, of course.” He put his hands in his laps and paid attention.
“You take good care of those glasses, Mr. Stranya. They are valuable and powerful. You do not wear them in public. You do not use them to look at someone without their permission. You do not lend them away to someone else unless it is to let them verify their effects for themselves and you are absolutely certain they will not break these rules, either. One complaint is all it takes for us to revoke this privilege, do you understand?”
“Yes, sir. Completely.”
He stared at him for a moment, then slowly nodded and let go. “Good. You can have them to use however you want until the afternoon meditation session with Ms. Burke in two weeks. Hand them to her for safekeeping by then and you can use them during any of the scheduled mediation sessions over the summer break, so long as you hand them back in time.
This is a trial run. If all goes well, we’ll see about allowing you additional privileges when you return for your next school year …” He trailed off and gently asked, “If you return for the next school year?”
“Whatever it takes,” Micah reassured him, “I will find a way to pay the tuition, sir, one way or another. I have the summer to earn as much as I can and I am more than capable enough of doing that, now.”
“That is good to hear.” He leaned back and suddenly seemed a little more relaxed. “Have you received any funds from your exam already?”
“Huh? Oh, uhm, a few. Maybe. I tried not to claim too many items from our loot, but I got a few smaller items that will stack up—a piton of stone shaping that will break soon and a teapot that boils water on its own.”
“Useful for an [Alchemist] on-the-go, I imagine.”
“Uhm, right.”
That was why it was useful.
He didn’t linger on the thought but instead thought of another he hadn’t scheduled for this meeting. He probably needed to speak to others about that anyway, but if the man was interested …
“I also picked something a little more expensive. A [Gardener’s] chest we found in the Fields?”
“Ah, that is also useful for you, I imagine, but quite expensive.”
“I was hoping to save a bit on growing ingredients myself. And gaining experience from the new experience, I hope.”
“And you’re looking for permission to place this chest somewhere on campus, I take it?”
“And that maybe others would be able to use it if it stood somewhere more public …? Maybe with a patch of earth next to it to plant other things, too …?”
A bit of a gardening club for just the workshop kids.
The man actually smiled. “I’m sure we’ll find a place for it, but you will have to talk to your alchemy teachers and groundskeepers about that. I’ll put in a good word for you when you do.”
“Thank you, sir,” Micah said and glanced down at the etui in excitement and a bit of impatience, then back to the door.
Mr. Walker didn’t immediately say anything and he didn’t know if he should leave, or wait to be dismissed, or …?
He noticed and glanced down at the etui with raised eyebrows. “Go on, you need to try it out first, don’t you? None of this will have mattered if we find out it doesn’t work.”
“Ah!” Micah reached out to open the lid, hesitated, and asked, “Do I have permission to look at you with the glasses, sir?”
“Yes.”
He popped it open and froze. They were … not what he had expected. They looked like something the rebellious teens from the post-rebellion [Lovers] generation might have worn.
Pink, heart-shaped lenses with an even brighter, pink frame.
“[Lens: Affinity Sight],” he mumbled and gingerly put them on. The frame was too large but the lenses were also far larger than his eyes and still covered them.
Weirdly enough, the world didn’t tint at all when he looked through the pink glass. He looked at Mr. Walker and saw reality warp around his shoulders, bending back like an infinite corridor behind him. His facial features—brows, eyes, nose, mouth, chin—were highlighted in a faint sheen.
It made it look like the man was looking down, focused to a point, an escape behind him …
“And?”
Micah opened his mouth, needed a moment, and looked around but there was no mirror in the room. He couldn’t see himself.
At least, I won’t see how ridiculous I look.
… If I look ridiculous, he let himself hope, but he was absolutely certain everyone would crush that hope if he ever voiced it out loud so it didn’t matter.
He explained to the man what he saw and the image changed. A glint of sunlight ran along his lips and flashed in the corners before winking out, like tracing the outline of a smile that didn’t happen.
‘Suppressed amusement’ essence, or something similar?
“Once again, you’re seeing things differently from the usual descriptions given. It sounds more intense, as well. Does space actually appear distorted to you?”
Despite himself, the man glanced over his shoulder. A hint of uncertainty, though the glasses didn’t show any changes. Maybe not, then.
Interest?
“It’s more … like a trick of the light?” Micah asked. “Although, maybe I’ve become desensitized to that. Reality has been pretty warped for me for the last few years.”
“Ah. And what kind of essence do you think this corridor effect is?”
“Caution?”
Walker inclined his head ever so slightly, like ceding ground. “Close enough,” he said and with the gesture, bright echoes of bubbles rose around his head like the sheen of a soap bubble without the bubble itself, tinted toward silver and gold.
Micah’s eyes went wide as he watched them for that second, but they disappeared in a blink of the eye.
He noticed. “Did you see something else, just now?”
“Yes, uhm … not to be presumptuous, but something close to pride maybe? Around your head, sir.”
“It’s wasn’t quite pride but definitely headed in that direction. What did it look like, to you?”
“Like the beginnings of a bubbly halo, sir.”
Mr. Walker did smile then and said, “Well, congratulations then, Mr. Stranya. They work.”
Seeing that smile on the usually stoic Registrar’s face felt like a dream come true to him because of what it meant in the larger picture.
Micah thought of those immoral intentions he had hidden away and wasn't sure if they were so bad at all.
How wonderful would it be to know when someone was frustrated and hiding it, or sad, or afraid, and you would know how to help them, help push them toward a smile again?
Some people deserved to never feel frustrated, or sad, or abandoned and unloved ever again after all.
But they were his glasses, Mr. Walker. His arbitrary rules. Micah could wait until he had his own lens and the summer break was right around the corner, so he doubted he was under too much pressure to learn this as soon as possible, either.
Mr. Walker gestured toward the door to dismiss him and mimed taking off the glasses before he did.
Micah still needed a second to catch up as he watched the other essences in the room, in the man’s hands, the air, his organized desk.
He grinned.