“We will begin squad training next week: team structures, tactics, exercises, and combat. For those of you who have to prepare for combat ahead of time, only prepare what you have the time and funds to make on a regular basis. We can simulate the rest. Hit a summoned monster with a practice sword? Our [Summoners] can pretend it was a real hit.”

That wasn’t a hard concept to understand. They were doing it already: thirty students sat on the bleachers and pretended to pay attention so Mr. Sundberg would let them go.

Micah had Grammar in another building after this, and he still had to wash up and change into his school uniform.

“That ties into my final point,” the man said.

They perked up.

“Many of you, I have noticed, have begun to widen your skill sets considerably since last year. The mages among you especially, but also those of you who have acquired more magic items than you know what to do with.”

He stared at one of the higher benches where a student sat with three swords, an ax, and a dagger she had brought to class—all enchanted.

“That is not necessarily a bad thing. It is not necessarily a good thing. However, there will come a point—and you get to decide for yourselves when that is here at this school—when you have to consolidate. I don’t mean Skills, and I don’t mean Classes. Consolidate your combat abilities.

“When an employer asks, ‘What do you bring to the table in a fight?,’ how will you respond? Will you list dozens of spells with no assurance that you know how to use them in a storm? Will you list the items you own, which could break at any day?

“I want to challenge you this year to think on that. What do you bring to a fight? Any fight, on your own, with a team, against monsters, against people, against hazards—traps, wildfires, the wilderness while searching for a missing person. What is the best thing you can bring, what is it you are expected to bring, what do you want to bring? Is there a difference? If so, can you bridge that difference? Should you even try?”

He paused, and the restless energy of the room had spiraled inward. Micah’s thoughts suddenly felt unmoored.

There it was again. Employers? What would he do after graduation? Micah had seven months to figure out his future. Where he would go, what he would do, who he would be with. Would he be with any of his friends?

“Hopefully, the experiences you gain in this course will offer you some insights on the matter, but it won’t be enough,” Mr. Sundberg continued. “You have to ask yourself these questions wherever you gather experience.

“If you think you have your answer, work hard to turn it into a reality. Hammer out the kinks. Practice until you puke; until ‘what you bring to a fight’ is whatever you can do in your sleep.

“I will post the sign-up sheets for the sparring slots next week. Use them. They will have adult supervision and mages to ward you; sometimes to summon enemies depending on who is available that day.

“Otherwise, if you feel like you don’t know the answer at all, our school has worked out an agreement with a local armament range, the Mimic’s Teeth Armory Club. If you show them your student card, they will log you as a customer, and, each month, you will get a fifty percent discount on two hours of their basic selection. If you want to explore options, they can help. Now. Are there any questions?”

Micah’s arm shot up. He spotted a way to distract himself and seized it.

“Yes, Mr. Stranya?”

“Are people who are blacklisted from the Workshop blacklisted from the sparring slots?”

Mr. Sundberg’s expression turned dour. “No. It is a good idea to let you experience the right way to do combat with your classmates: challenge them, don’t punch them when they have their backs turned to you. Any other questions?”

Micah suppressed a scowl and shut his mouth. He had had another question, but he wouldn’t ask it now.

Someone else asked about how the time slots would be regulated, and it was by and large the same as the Workshop: the teachers had the final say.

Sundberg gave them the address for the armament range, and then they were dismissed.

“What’s an armament range?” Micah asked the moment they walked out of the gym.

Vladimir gave him a sidelong glance.

Thankfully, Alexander explained: “It’s like a cross between an adventure park and an archery range—sometimes an arena or swimming pool—with a catalog of items you can try out before you buy a similar item in a shop.”

“Woah. That sounds awesome! Why—”

“It’s expensive,” Vladi cut him off. “They have to curate a constant selection of middling magic items for their customers to break.”

“Oh, what, so they’re only for rich people?” He shoved the door open to the locker room, held it until someone took over, and dropped his duffel onto a bench. His classmates spread out around him and began to take off their gear.

“Not really. People like Navid and Alexander here have private armories and training facilities at home—”

“I do,” Navid said with a grin.

“They’re more popular with show fighters, guards, and people who like to pretend they are a climber for a few hours on the weekend. You know, people like you or Thomas.”

Micah mentally went down that list as he peeled his gambeson off, then bundled it up and whipped it at his roommate. “Screw you!” Only one of those three points could apply to him.

Vladi dodged his strike but not the cold compress Thomas threw at his back.

“Still, half off is a decent offer,” he said calmly where he had thrown it from a few benches over.

His voice was almost lost in the crossfire of conversations. One of their classmates asked if he could conjure another cold pack for a bruise on his leg.

Micah watched in fascination as the blue gel pack simply appeared in his hand.

“Looking for a new sword?”

“I have a new sword. Items are useful. It’s just, whenever I see an enchanted blade,” he grunted as he took off his shirt, “I think, ‘I could do that myself.’”

“Ha!” Vladi barked a laugh over his shoulder as he walked away. “You haven’t even made up for the loss of your previous blade yet.”

Micah was one step behind him, but he looked back to see Thomas’ response.

Most of them had more training planned for the afternoon or more gym classes. Rather than shower three times a day, they competed for spots at the row of sinks to rinse off and hurry onward to their next class.

Some people didn’t even bother to wash their faces. They changed into their uniforms as quickly as possible and rushed out of the lockers like they were being hounded.

Strict teachers? Micah wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt.

But Thomas stayed behind. Again, he conjured twin layers of water over his hands and wiped himself off where he stood. It almost looked like an uncompleted [Water Gloves] spell.

Micah wondered if he could learn to cast a spell like that. [Potion Gloves]? That—

An arm swung up and down in front of his eyes. One of their classmates behind him in line scowled and complained, “Are you going to use the sink or keep ogling Mathers, Stranya?”

Vladi perked up next to him with a wet-faced grin. “Enjoying the show?”

“Huh? Oh—” With a start, Micah turned away and slapped his faucet on. The stream hit the sink with a thud. He rinsed off his face, slicked his hair back, and immediately turned back around. He hadn’t meant to be rude, but he wasn’t about to concede ground.

“How would you even do that? Make up for the loss of your old sword? It could store a spell, right?”

Micah had almost learned to make up for the loss of Clay, that baseball bat Ryan and he had found in the Tower. He couldn’t punch through walls or Golems yet, but he could reshape stone.

He could also store magic, formulas, and aerosols in his lungs, but he’d stumbled onto those abilities. Storing a structured spell was a little harder to conceptualize. How would that even work? Did you have to expend mana to suppress it? To sustain it?

Thomas’ reply didn’t answer any of his questions: “I’m splitting my mana channels.”

“Oh.” Micah paused for a moment as the streams of water splashed around him and his classmates bustled by. “What does that mean?”

“Shouldn’t you know this already? You mentioned wind-specialized mana channels? Those should be based on a similar principle.”

“Ahh, I didn’t— Not literally. That’s more artificial sorcery?” He did turn away then to dunk his head into the sink because he wouldn’t know how to talk about it if he asked.

Alexander’s surprised voice came from a hanging towel that wandered by. “You finished that? During summer break?”

“Yep!” Micah nodded and swiped at the stream of water to cover his shoulder blades. It muffled the sounds around as it flowed over his ears, but he heard Alex’s impressed whistle.

“As a Skill? Did you get, what is it called, [Lesser Vessel of Wind]?”

“Uhh, no, ‘aspect.’ I think it might have been a misnomer?”

Statistically, some names were more common, and those were accepted as the ‘standard’ by the Registry, but misnomers existed. Especially for Skills people got from their Paths because then ignorance and stubbornness could influence things.

One person’s [Fireball] was another person’s [Sphere of Violent Incineration].

Maybe Micah should have put more effort into finding the common names of artificial sorcery Skills beforehand. He got enough flak for referring to formulas as patterns.

In his defense, it was hard to find information on the topic, gated as it was behind various institutions, the Registry’s acquisition process, and research papers that were far too dense for him to skim in one sitting. Or ten.

“So, uh, splitting your mana channels?” he called as he washed his arms.

Thomas sighed. “Our mana channels have a slight natural divide, similar to the human brain. I’m growing channels in a way to exacerbate that divide so I can focus on multiple spells at the same time with greater ease.”

“Oh? Ohh!” He wasn’t learning to store a spell so he could switch between elements, he was learning to use two elements at the same time. That sounded scary. Micah smiled. “Can we spar when you finish?”

“Sure. If your wind sorcery has recovered by then. And, what, did you inject yourself with stone sorcery as well?” He furrowed his brows and asked Alex, “Is that safe?”

“I don’t think so, but if he is specializing in primers—”

“I’m not!” Micah awkwardly interrupted. “I’ve, uh … sort of put that on the back burner for now …? I need to do more research.”

They both nodded in approval, and even Navid did where he listened in on the sidelines.

The problem was, Micah didn’t have any more golem hands he could copy. When he had bought some clay on Saturday, he’d considered what he might have to do to turn his [Earthshaper’s Gloves] into a proper aspect like his wind—what would he even call that, ‘terra’? But he didn’t know where to begin. His Class had once used a level up to fix some mistakes he had made while nurturing his spirit lungs. He still didn’t even know what those mistakes had been. And his argument with his parents still haunted him. All day, while hanging out with his sister at the washhouse, he’d wondered, What next?

Could he even cultivate a second aspect? Did his spirit have a limited capacity? If he cultivated an earth aspect in his hands, could he cultivate another in his arms? What would happen if he grew two aspects to the point where they met? Would he have to create some sort of intermediary organ? Could two aspects coexist in the same location?

The answer was: he didn’t know. He thought of his course last year, The Dangers of Healing. Those pictures Mr. Jung had shown them in their first session: patients who had gone to the hospital for treatment and ended up scarred for life.

Artificial sorcery was new and exciting. It could be a game changer. It could be dangerous.

He would have to ask Shanty and Bastion when they next met … and maybe Lisa … but that was a project for another day.

Instead, Micah thought of a more immediate project, and a smile leaped to his lips as he toweled himself off.

“I’m actually more interested in potion preservation right now. Like, I read this chapter a few days ago about, uhm— So you know how in Ostfeld, their Tower is a giant desert? They have to travel for weeks to get anywhere interesting. And back. So they need ways to make their potions last, and they came up with this really simple seed creation formula powered by ice crystals to freeze other formulas. Not just the potion, like you would do with a spell or a fridge, but the formula itself! And then they can just freeze valuable potions or even ingredients for however long they need and renew the cheaper freezing potion— Well, cheap for them. Ice crystals are— were much more common in Ostfeld. They have snow floors. But now we have ice crystals, too. The serpents and the little fishies in the sewers!”

He beamed at the others across the bench.

They waited for a heartbeat in silence while they finished packing up their gym bags.

“So, armament range?” Vladi asked. “Any of you losers got plans for the weekend?”

“Rain check,” Navid replied immediately, “I managed to schedule a meeting with my father. I need to keep my weekend free just in case.”

“Huh. Tor, then? Would you enjoy some time away from your family?”

Alexander didn’t look as tired anymore after a workout and washing off, but he still blinked at the question. “I … It would have to be in the afternoon.”

“Sure. Five it is.”

“I have Workshop stuff planned for Friday?” Micah glanced back and forth, unsure if he was still being invited.

Vladi replied without a hitch, “Saturday, then.”

He smiled in relief. “It’s a date!”

They turned on him. “Get out of here!” Vladi scoffed and knocked him with his duffel on his way out.

Micah realized he hadn’t dressed yet and hurried to catch up, but the others were already headed for the door, chuckling.

“Leave him be,” Navid said with a genial smile. “He’s still heartbroken. If he wants to pretend it will be a date …”

Micah scowled. “I don’t see any of you guys getting dates!”

“Because you never hang out with any cool people!” Vladi shot back.

Alexander was shaking his head with a small smile, but when he glanced back, his brows furrowed and his eyes hung on Micah for a moment. Then they left.

Micah was among the last to leave the locker rooms. When he finally rushed out, he found Alexander waiting for him in the hallway. He slowed and calmed his breathing. “Hey, uhm, you waited?”

“I just remembered that I hadn’t thanked you yet.”

He frowned up at him. “Thanked me?”

“For what you did that day. You protected them, Micah. So thank you.”

His thoughts froze. Alexander walked next to him without a hint of embarrassment, but his brain stammered as it tried to think of a response.

Instead, he thought of Delilah. Was this how she had felt when their classmate had professed his love for her—if only as a joke? Especially after Chief Warrant Officer Dornan had berated her so. The man had berated Micah, too, and while most of it had been justified, Micah thought of the soldiers trampling through his Memory, his parents at the dinner table, his sister’s silent concern.

Then what he said was, “Would you have done the same?”

“Of course.”

Micah inhaled.

Alexander said it so easily, but to hear that felt like sitting next to Ryan, like Kyle choosing to sit next to him at lunch, like collaborating on a project in the Workshop, cooking with Brent or his sister, discussing theory with Lisa—hell, even just sweeping the street alongside his brother-in-law. Like he wasn’t an idiot and he wasn’t alone.

“I’m glad I joined your team last year,” Alex said. “By the way, have you, uh, thought about what you will do after graduation?”

“Huh?” Micah startled at the sudden shift in topic. “Uhm, a little bit. Get my license and then, I don’t know— What? Why?”

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

He shrugged. “Silver Sun has a decent medical branch, you know? We could always use more alchemists with a good head on their shoulders.”

“Silver— Wait, do you think I should become a city guard?”

“Eh, if you want to? I was thinking more along the lines of emergency response, forensics, or … you could come work with me.”

He stopped walking. “Wait, do you mean— J— Uhm, people say you are [Demon Hunters]?”

“‘Demons’ can mean anything. We save people and we hunt things. It’s our family business. But we usually deal with smaller threats: invasive monsters, wild spirits, people who … have become a danger to themselves and society.”

“Usually. How often do you … the Pretender …?”

His expression grew solemn. “Two or three times a decade, perhaps, we do have to ward off greater threats.”

Micah could imagine it. Rather, he didn’t have to imagine anything. He remembered.

Every three to five years, shoving a boot down a monster’s throat, fingers bent in the wrong direction. Feeding poison to a stranger before the man broke his leg. His claws in a spirit’s eyes, alone and at the end of his rope …

“It wouldn’t have to be like that. You could work in a support role or, if you did do fieldwork, you would have a team.”

He shook his head lightly with a heavy frown. His thoughts felt suddenly as tempestuous as the bottled storm inside of him.

And then Alexander spoke like sunlight into its howling winds: “You could help us make sure nobody has to go through what you did. You could help us save people.”

Micah raised his head, and the storm vanished like so much ash.

Alex joked when he saw his face, “After you get your license, of course. You’d have to avoid overdosing on potions long enough that you can make us some.”

He laughed. “I’ll try. And I’ll think about it?”

“That’s all I can ask because I really have to get to my next class.”

The bells rang. With a start, Micah realized they were already late. But another minute wouldn’t get them into any more trouble. With his strength potion still burning in him, he could run to class. He felt lighter anyway, with or without it.

“Alex?” he raised his voice to be heard and joked, “Thanks … but the Climber’s Guild and the military are already fighting over us, so you might have to keep your weekend free to schedule a meeting with my secretary.”

Alexander smiled, gave a bewildered shrug, and ran.

----------------------------------------

Initial observations: Sympathetic Catalysis is not as useful in combat as I thought it would be, Micah scribbled in his journal that evening.

The sun had set beyond the hills, but the Tower still glowed with a soft blue light above the tide of rising shadows.

His watering can propped open one of the windows and a flower pot the other. One of Fabian’s old boots propped open the door. A cool breeze drifted through the room to meet the sounds of running showers and their neighbors that echoed from the hallway.

That breeze also plucked at the herbs growing in his treasure chest and the corners of his page.

A can of repellant burned with a drowsy blue flame. Its steam kept the moths, gnats, and mosquitoes away.

Vladi practiced the violin, Fabian did homework, and Lanh meditated with a glowing spellbook in his lap.

By the blue light of his lamp and a scattered few light crystals he’d convinced to glow, Micah wrote: The best use I have discovered is to manually trigger potion activation, obviating the need to include more than emotion essences in some of the potions I make so long as I also brew emotional focus potions to reliably forge a connection (‘heart’s focus shots,’ name pending. ‘Whims? Fancies?’)

I have several concerns:

- Lilian auras obstruct the Skill; I have not had the opportunity to test if monsters have a similar resistance or if the Skill has other limitations

- Emotions are unreliable, so the investment in heart’s focus shots is a requirement

- Meditating to harvest emotions is not always pleasant; takes time

- This is a shortcut. If I grow to rely on it, will I never learn how to create more sophisticated triggers?

He left some space for future notes and continued on the next page.

Counterpoints:

- Saves money because heart’s whim shots are cheaper; although not necessarily time

- Sympathetic Catalysis is useful for meditation

- Has a lot of potential to grow (also takes time)

- Can be used to modify spells and potions on the fly

He considered for a few minutes, then set his pen down, leaned back in his chair, and blew some air through his lips.

His attention wandered to his left where the star essence began to chart the first constellations in the draining sky. The deep thrums of Vladimir’s violin reverberated in his lungs.

It had been a long day. His muscles ached from training. Micah had homework of his own to do. He massaged the butts of his hands into his eyes, inhaled sharply, and forced himself to focus for this final stretch.

Have to experiment more. Meditate more. Does it have value in the lab?

Definitely has value as a sort of mini Arcana. Divination cantrips. ‘ [Mini Divination] ‘?

Point in case, Micah swept a thin cloud of mana over the pages and asked, Any spelling mistakes?

Lots of grammar mistakes, his mana answered.

Micah made a face. That’s not what I asked? But the cloud dissipated in smug silence.

He struck through ‘definitely,’ replaced it with a ‘maybe,’ and leafed back in his journal with growing enthusiasm. One simple line titled the topic of the older notes he settled on: Why do potions expire?

What even were potions or alchemicals in general? They were formulas, fueled by essences, sometimes modified with spells, Skills, or rituals, bound to a physical or magical medium, usually with physical ingredients to use as building blocks, and kept inside of a container.

Why did potions expire? Because they were a chain whose each component link could expire.

Containers broke. Ingredients went bad or could be contaminated. Bindings loosened or were broken. Modifications crumbled. Essences waxed and waned and dissipated. Formulas unraveled.

Six problems to solve— No. Just one for now. A chain was only as strong as its weakest link. That begged the question though: Which one was its weakest link?

Down the line. Containers. Micah wasn’t a [Packager]. He had never considered the craft of bottles, cans, and jars. Their mundane qualities and design didn’t interest him so much, but he wondered about their magical ones.

How do preservation bottles work?, he wrote and underlined the sentence in his journal. Although trying to answer the modern enigma of how the Tower’s enchantments worked as a mere stepping stone to creating better potions seemed a little arrogant even for him.

Still, he covered his bases.

Are there any materials that keep essences in/out?

Spellwood bottles?

Is it possible to infuse patterns into containers?

Micah imagined casting [Infuse] on molten glass or metal in a crucible. It had to have been attempted before, so he expected to find some answers to those three questions, at least.

Or maybe he could consult with his classmates and teachers. Andrew had a [Basic Packaging] Skill. Their school had some artificers who hadn’t transferred out, like Brian’s friend, Conner.

Still, that was using the ‘container’ link to shore up the weaknesses of the ‘essences’ link of the chain. Micah was getting ahead of himself.

‘Ingredients went bad or could be contaminated.’ What could Micah do about that?

He considered for a few moments, staring up at a tiny spider on their ceiling, and surrendered his thoughts with a mental shrug.

No clue.

Keep the potion cool, dark, away from crowds, and hermetically sealed?

He supposed you could imbue the potion with a spell, but that assumed the spell would last longer than the ingredients did.

You could recast preservation spells—and some people did that—but that wasn’t the assignment. Micah wanted to create a way to extend the shelf lives of usable potions, not start a business of [Mages] who went door-to-door casting preservation spells on pantries.

‘Bindings loosened or were broken’ and ‘modifications crumbled’ were practically the same issue: they were spells. They only lasted as long as their power supply did and their structure remained intact. It didn’t help that some people unconsciously damaged spell structures around them with their auras. Only a tiny bit, but small animals also piled up shit.

Bindings at least had the advantage that they were linked to both the physical ingredients and patterns, but that was just pushing the issue somewhere else … unless the solution could be based on multiple components?

Micah hummed. Something to consider.

‘Essences waxed and waned and dissipated.’

See: ‘containers.’ Micah drew an arrow. There was one solution he knew of to stabilize essences, the same principle that pickling monster parts, mass infusions, and some rituals used: If you placed a bunch of crystals of the appropriate types around a potion, they could keep its essences from dissipating or changing.

For the same reason, if you placed a bunch of crystals of the wrong types around a potion, it could spoil the potion.

Fire crystals attracted fire essence. Enough fire crystals next to a freezing potion could wane its ice essences in favor of waxing its fire essences.

But how big of an issue was that really? Sure, there were stories of potions becoming unreliable under a blood moon, storms at sea, or crowded festival tents, but those events were incredibly rare.

Most potions stored the majority of the essences they needed to function safely inside of their patterns—again pushing the issue elsewhere—so it would take a delicate or old potion, whose patterns had begun to unravel, a long time, or extreme conditions for nature magic to critically influence the potion’s functionality.

Micah supposed you could try to market some sort of … crystal sleeves to wrap around potions? Like cooling sleeves for wine? He doubted those would be practical though. Crystals were clunky and expensive. They could break and deteriorate. You would have to match each sleeve to a potion and ask the customer to pay more money for relatively minor insurance.

Maybe if you worked out some sort of return system … Something to keep in mind for when he opened his own store? Micah underlined the idea.

That brought him to his final option: patterns. What the hell were those things?

They were a form of magic that was not essences, which was a bit of a head-scratcher for him. Maybe some part of him, deep inside his brain, had assumed all magic could be boiled down to essences? Because auras were generated by essences interacting with life.

But what made life so special? Why didn’t rivers generate auras? Wind and storms? Even just light essence continuously bouncing off the earth?

Or maybe they did. Micah didn’t know.

But patterns were like that: a form of magic that was not essences, but something shaped by magic interacting with matter that was again, for whatever reason, far more prevalent in living beings.

And if he likened essences to chemical elements, and auras more to chemical reactions or forces like electromagnetism, patterns were somewhere in-between. A chemical reaction you could separate from its component parts. A magnetic field you could transfer to a bottle of water. Something you could break down, combine, alter—

Preserve?

Patterns were the foundation of the Lilian school of alchemy—not whatever way the Towers used to create potions, but his way. The way of his people, and even Northerners.

How do I stop patterns from unraveling?

The patterns within living beings did not unravel. They were more malleable and durable both if what Lisa had told him was true.

So whatever force created patterns could also animate them, alter them, and sustain them.

Could he use that? He would have to delve into biomancy, create some sort of artificial organ that could sustain patterns, which … shouldn’t have been entirely impossible …

But would it be practical? Or sell? He doubted anybody would want to buy a potion with a beating heart inside of it … not without a major advertising campaign, at least …

Still. Not practical.

You could also use spells—structured mana—to manipulate patterns. Poorly. Trying to target patterns with mana was like trying to grab a slippery eel while wearing lubricated gloves. Or rather, every other paper he read claimed and bemoaned that fact in equal parts.

Micah was starting to understand some of the Guild’s weird obsession with formulas. They were the foundation of their craft but also an enigma, like if modern smiths hadn’t deciphered the secrets of metallurgy yet.

There was some sort of … disconnect, a divide, that separated mana and patterns. It was easier to throw area-of-effect spells in their general direction.

It was also easier to manipulate patterns indirectly through a physical medium. For example, a piece of something, like a drop of blood or a single scale, could only carry a fraction of the pattern of the whole—where a ‘fraction’ referred to quality and not quantity. It did carry the whole, but the pattern was stronger in some places, weaker in others, and so weak in some that it may as well not be. By grinding up ingredients into a fine powder, an alchemist could trick a pattern into grinding itself up as it tried to stay attached to each piece.

That was useful because it allowed them to dissect the parts of patterns they needed the most.

But there was an even better way to manipulate patterns, apparently: using other patterns.

When Micah cast [Infuse], he could smash two patterns together to consolidate them. And, apparently, you could use one pattern to freeze another one.

He consulted a small stack of copies he’d had made at the library. For the past few weeks, Micah had been going there to research methods of preserving potions. He had even asked the [Librarians] for help, and they were the only reason he’d found so much in such a short amount of time.

The freezing potions came from Ostfeld. They used a simple seed formation formula powered by ice crystals to condense another formula into a seed of ice, effectively preserving them for as long as that ice lasted.

Using an ice box to cool or freeze a potion was a common method to extend its shelf life, but its effectiveness was limited. It relied on that principle of indirect manipulation through a physical medium.

Using a spell to do the same could be better or worse. It depended on the caster and the spell. But this? Micah stared at the page. No divide. One pattern could freeze another. This should have been the answer to his quest, right …?

No. This wasn’t it.

What, when someone got hurt, were you supposed to say, ‘Oh, let me fetch my frozen healing potion. We can wait a few hours for it to thaw and then I’ll heal you. Please don’t bleed out before then, ‘kay, thanks?’

You couldn’t use a spell to thaw a pattern for the same reason that you couldn’t use one to freeze it after all.

If the point was to always have a potion on hand, instead of buying an emergency healing potion every two weeks, a person would have to buy a healing potion, freeze it, and then buy a freezing potion to refresh the effect and an emergency thawing potion every two weeks. Some potions, you couldn’t even freeze for fear of damaging them! This was just moving the problem around.

People in Ostfeld only used this method out of necessity and on their most valuable possessions.

Sure, maybe this could allow someone to invest in a quality healing potion, which they could then freeze and thaw when needed, but the ingredients for those came from dangerous areas in the Tower. Increasing their demand would risk lives and drive up costs. The result should be the same …

Do the math, Micah wrote down a reminder for himself.

He had to check if his assumptions were true. How much would a quality healing potion cost? Where would its ingredients come from? How much would freezing and thawing potions cost? When would the investment break even? Might there be any long-term health benefits if fewer people used cheap healing potions?

There was another thing Micah had to consider … What if he could remove the Towers from the equation?

If he continued to research aspects and promoted them to the point where they became commonplace, maybe they could replace some of those ingredients with their magic. [Minor Aspect — Life]? What about something like [Minor Aspect — Medicine]? Concept essences existed. His aero had properties that reached beyond the physical and dealt with the conceptual.

And that was only the beginning of it. Micah had access to another power, that burning intent inside of him.

Could he create a [Minor Aspect — Preservation] to replace the ice crystals in the seed formation formula? Maybe then the potion could still be usable and people wouldn’t have to buy a thawing potion at all.

And if he used that aspect to create primers he could share with others, maybe they could gain preservation aspects as well. What if everyone had one? His wind aspect had improved his breathing and stamina. What if people could live longer? Preserve their own pantries? Their homes? Their pets? Their Nanas?

Micah was burning. As if summoned by its name, that heavy furnace door had creaked open inside him. Connections snapped out from him across the room to the light crystals, the blue flames, and through the wall, to the Tower. Those threads burned with an ancient intent that—

—was useless.

Micah sighed and reeled in his chair as if he had stood up too quickly.

Yeah, yeah. ‘Preserve.’ I know, he thought.

He was starting to understand how Ryan had to feel about his perception Skill. Sometimes, [Sympathetic Catalysis] could be a real bother. He mentally waved his arms through the web of connections all around him. Is there any way to turn this off? It was distracting!

And useless.

Did he really want to do as his parents said? It would take years to do the research and earn enough respect to influence the Guild.

Did he really want to have to rely on this pact that haunted him? He already relied on it so much in combat.

If he was willing to do that, he might as well settle for getting an [Aura of Preservation] Skill like every other mediocre alchemist out there.

Micah wanted to create something that would last beyond his lifetime. A tool that any hand could wield, recreate, maintain. A legacy.

There was no way he could convince everyone to invest the time, resources, and effort it would take to get an aspect. It had only taken him less than a year because he had a Path and help from wind spirits and his Class.

Realistically, they would be more of a shortcut some alchemists used. Something masters shared with their apprentices depending on what was most profitable. Fire aspects for fire potions, healing aspects for doctors—not all of them would be preservation.

And then people would still have to buy a potion every other week, and Micah was right back where he’d started.

So?, [Purifying Flame] whispered. Is that so bad?

Micah drummed his fingers on the table and looked out the window.

The blue flame stopped gnawing on the bug repellant to face him with half-lidded eyes that veiled infinity.

Every day, you wake up, you water the plants, brush your teeth, work out, shower, groom yourself, check your mail, eat, drink, study, train, wash your clothes, buy new clothes, buy new supplies, clean your room, sleep, rinse, repeat.

If people had to add buying a preservation potion to their list of chores, they would. It would save lives.

Preservation requires structure, [Purifying Flame] whispered. It requires maintenance.

Not always, [Winter Cleaning] replied, and one of the light crystals on his desk flickered and drained to an even darker shade of blue.

The violin behind him missed a note and picked back up.

You cool food, freeze it, and dry it to preserve it for weeks or months. You create shoes to last for a year. You keep them away from the light and rain and the reach of pests.

Preservation requires shelter, [Winter Cleaning] whispered. It requires disuse.

A third voice whispered, and this one came from within. Micah felt it as the tension in his muscles, the pressure of his teeth pressing against one another.

You wash your hands, [Savagery] added its two cents, you eat breakfast, you poison the insects that eat your plants, you kill monsters before they can kill your friends. You keep the spider alive because it eats insects. Preservation requires subjugation. It requires destruction.

Micah considered and thought, You really are useless. He let out a mental huff. I already said I don’t want to move the problem around; I already said frozen potions are useless!

And you—he turned on [Savagery]. With no way to glare at himself, he glared at his distorted reflection in the window—what do you expect me to do? Destroy time?

The Skill shrugged innocently.

Micah kicked that furnace shut. The two blue flames winked out. The connections vanished, and his corner of the room was plunged into a shadow illuminated only by a scattered few light crystals, which returned to their original colors.

He still stared at one of them, exhausted and dissatisfied, and, slowly, he began to see the crystal for what it was.

You’re a crystal, he thought, light essence doesn’t normally come in crystal form.

… Why are you a crystal then?

‘Why.’ Not ‘how.’

Micah grabbed his pen to write something down when another lamp went out behind him.

“Micah?” Fabian asked. “Are you going to be up for much longer?”

The night was dark. Vladimir had packed up his instrument and was closing the windows. Lanh was slipping under his covers.

“Uh, no, I mean— Crap! I still have homework to do.”

Fabian stifled a yawn. “What do you got? If it’s Social Studies—“

Micah nodded. That was one of them.

His roommate leaned down to retrieve the notebook he had just tucked away. “I just finished that. You can copy mine if you want?”

He only hesitated for a moment before he accepted. “Thanks, man. You’re a lifesaver.”

“No problem. Just change it up a bit so the teacher doesn’t notice? Oh, and I can’t promise perfect.”

Micah shook his head. He didn’t mind.

Before he started though, he returned to his journal and wrote down his final thoughts before he could forget them. Which was silly. It was just one word, really: ANCHORS