The wind rushed through his ears and nose. The smell of fish and musky water pooled in his lungs. It built up to a deafening white noise until his ears popped and sound returned: Water lapping against stone, people calling over long distances, and damp rope lashing on stone or wood.

Micah could hear and smell it all more than he could see it, as most of it was blurry to his eyes right now. He'd switch back in a minute.

The smell still squirmed around in his puffed chest as he held his breath. The yawn pushed itself out of his throat and he only remembered to cover his mouth a second later while he deflated.

Early mornings. He shivered into his jacket, one hand holding his bedroll. A scarf was wrapped loosely around his neck and he kept up his pace to stay warm, but broke into a sleepy grin when he spotted a glimmer of cloudy blue and green that was clearer than the rest.

He checked over his shoulder to make sure David and Noelle were still there, and of course little Hannah, then rushed down the rest of the stone steps onto the walkway of the dock.

At the edge of a pier, a sailor had just undone the line tying her ship down to its berth. Another had set a small pail on deck and lifted the lid to reveal crystals, whose shine distorted as he poured the pail full of mana.

Micah had read about this; heard about this; he was excited to finally see it in person. He was excited to see this all in person.

Hadica’s harbor.

The invisible energy slowly turned to those same cloudy tones of color. The sailor lifted his mana out with invisible ropes and directed it. He dragged it up and shook it like laundry, then pushed it at the blurry sails his crew members let fall free.

The sails billowed into clarity and pushed the boat out into the open.

Micah blinked and imagined putting on another pair of glasses. He used a Skill and opened his eyes again. Wind essence rushed into the sails from the breezy day, a whirlpool of streams.

He wondered how it would look like to people who didn’t even have that. Just an invisible breeze?

The sailor leaned over the side of the ship to get a clear view and flicked his hand here and there. The essence shifted. He didn’t have to blink again. As soon as the zenith of their arc turned blue and green, he could see a flicker of the invisible grooves of influence in the air. Hints of those had stayed, afterward.

A cantrip, [Shape Wind] or [Lesser Wind Mastery] probably.

The captain steered the wheel and the boat turned onto the Great River proper, far in the distance. They were using magic to sail against its stream.

“Awesome.”

“You saw that?” an amused voice asked.

Micah glanced to his right. Lisa had her own bedroll in hand and spring clothing on. Her coat had earthy, colorful patterns and a striped torso. It made her look even older than she was.

Slow down, he thought. He wanted to catch up but, of course, that was impossible. It seemed to him more like the gulf was widening between them. For a few years, at least.

Ryan stood a few meters further along, closer to her age and height. They must have backtracked.

Still, he nodded. “You’re not the only specialist around here anymore.” Micah could contribute to this, now. He was a little more useful.

She raised an eyebrow with a hint of a smile. Is that so? the expression seemed to say.

Something shifted. He saw the flicker of cloudy colors at the last moment, and the rest of the arc that flowed back to her, and stumbled away. It would have been easier had he used his other Skill.

The breeze pushed up against his nose where his scarf would have been if he hadn’t moved. It made his nose itch as if he had to sneeze. He simply willed the feeling away and grinned.

Lisa returned the expression before she walked away, and he was glad he could spot cantrips now. He couldn’t wait for combat training this semester with another tool to use against [Mages].

But more than that, he couldn’t wait to find their own boat. Where was it? It would have to be huge, from what he had heard. He hurried up after them and followed the pier to its end, then stopped when he spotted the huge white brick on the water.

Ryan checked a slip ahead of them and kept on walking toward it, as if that … thing was their destination.

Three stories high with railings, doors on the upper floors, and chimneys for some reason instead of sails. A broad, guarded walkway led up to its stern where luggage and crates were stacked to the brim in its interior.

Micah stared up with an open mouth. Obviously, that wasn’t a sailboat. But his tired five-minutes-past-dawn brain couldn’t help but wonder, How does that thing even sail? … or float?

“Are you sure? Last chance,” Mrs. Burke asked, holding the etui out to him. “We won’t be practicing tomorrow.”

Micah shook his head. “No, thank you, ma’am. I think I have it.” He couldn’t rely on the glasses forever to bundle up the different sights. He wanted to do it on his own.

“We won’t?” Stephanie asked. She stopped spinning on her chair to look at their teacher. Others did the same.

Their mana manipulation course was already pretty lax. Three out of four of their lessons were practical, or mostly practical with a bit of theory scattered throughout. Actually, they reminded Micah of their art lessons in the classroom: They were given a subject and the freedom to pursue it however they liked, so long as they could show results after a few weeks.

That involved things like learning how to saturate areas in mana, envelop parts of their body in it, move it freely, make different forms and shapes, use it with items, or work with affinities.

But on the last week before Spring Cleaning? The course was scattered into groups and conversations, with loose traffic in-between.

Mrs. Burke didn’t seem to mind. Unlike other teachers, she didn’t exactly have trouble regaining their attention. She shrugged, put the etui away, and turned to Stephanie. “No, we will be discussing your homework for the break.”

“What? Spring Cleaning is homework,” someone else complained. Somehow, people listened to her even when they were distracted.

“For some of you, maybe. But not all. By a show of hands, how many of you have or will be working for someone who has [Spring Cleaning] anyway, next week?”

A few people broke off from their conversations to raise their hands. Others needed elbow bumps or refreshers to do the same. It was only about a third of the course, then.

Micah didn’t know if he should raise his. Did he know anyone who had the Skill? Yes. Lots of people at the bathhouse did. Would he be working for them? No. No, he would be going to Cairn with Ryan and his family at the end of the week to help them move into a new home. On a freaking sailboat.

That counted, right?

He raised his hand, excitement bubbling up from his chest. For the first time in his life, he would be leaving Hadica to go someplace else.

“Hrn.” Mrs. Burke looked over the course. “More of you than I would have thought, considering the school we’re in. Alright, then! I’ll go a little easier on the bunch of you—”

A few others raised their hands.

“—but I expect all of you to work over the break. It’s for your own good, as your grades will depend on it.”

A chorus of groans and complaints met her statement.

Spring Cleaning had been founded ages ago, combining many different festivals from diverse cultures under one banner: the boost of resolve and vitality the Skill gave people that time of year.

They used it to clean out the new year’s dirt and clutter of their homes, and the city never looked as clean as after the holiday—and never as dirty as during it, as the streets would soon be lined with brooms, buckets, ladders, and old furniture destined for reuse or the trash.

People would meet up in city centers for the possibly tamest festival of the year: only a few beer tents and grills, with sparse green decorations overhead.

Not everyone had the Skill, but enough people joined in anyway or hired those who did have it. It was tradition.

Some even had auras that would expand the Skill to others—their family, friends, and co-workers. He knew one of his aunts had one of those, but Prisha was cheap and only had one for Neil.

Stupid sister.

They had Ryan, who had signed up for a beginner’s aura manipulation in the community center and promptly quit after two sessions because he was too advanced for it. It was mostly targeted toward climbers who had gotten [Repel Lesser Pests] from their Class after all, and he had his from his Path.

Mrs. Burke started the course in earnest, then, and they all went back to their projects or conversations. This week’s theme was no theme, because they had just gotten out of their last exam—unintuitive movement of mana around the body, for which Micah had chosen rotational movement around the torso—and they hadn’t started anything new yet, before the break.

Mrs. Burke had offered him the glasses to train with as he usually did that after hours or when she was scheduled to oversee the meditation room, but he wanted to do it on his own now.

He faced his desk and focused on the various forms of mana influence he had seen in the last few months: Lines arcing off people like flares, shells surrounding them that ebbed and flowed based on their thoughts, hazy spores of mana, those flickers and shadows he saw more and more often when he watched people train, the ripple effect that followed a divination spell, the current that started at a point in the center of the back and flowed over the body, the tiny lines between [Summoners], [Witches], and even some [Beast Tamers] and their familiars, the flicker of skeletons in the air during summonings, the colors of affinities …

And so, so many more.

He tried to bundle them up into one lens, instead of having to flip through a dozen views whenever he wanted to see something, and it was even more than what he could see when he wore the glasses.

When he opened his eyes, it was all there. Well, mostly. Micah couldn’t be sure if he had managed to get all of them, not without seeing all at once. And even then, what he saw was difficult to hold, like shifting the focus of his eyes.

Steady.

He got out his practice cup and tried the first thing, “[Condense Water].”

He tried not to cringe when he cast it. He had seen his own spell properly for the first time by now, with the help of the glasses, and it really did look like something a toddler would make in his first pottery lesson. A bowl of lumpy clay with a hole in the middle. It was functional, yes. But … ugly. Especially compared to what proper [Mages] could do. Maybe he should have chosen one that relied less on form for his first spell.

Flickers of the cold clay funnel spun in the air above the bowl, next to his hand that held it steady. It became clearer as the spell gained its affinity: water, and a little something else.

Apparently, his version of [Condense Water] had slight filtering properties. Not enough to make a difference, but Mrs. Burke said it probably came from his practice with a filtering crystal and his [Winter Cleaning] Skill. Influences all around.

At least, something he could be proud of.

He kept it up until he could see the shape and color properly—blue with hints of light grey, both alternately paint-like and crystal-like where the sun shone through—then dropped it to conserve mana and humidity, and simply because he didn’t want to overfill his cup.

He needed it to be half-full for the next step. Micah took in a deep breath to collect as much wind essence from the room around him—

“Micah,” someone complained with a roll of their eyes.

—and cupped a ball of mana in front of his hands. Using his [Controlled Breathing], he breathed the essence into the ball in short puffs and let the mana absorb it toward wind affinity. It turned a cloudy green and blue, but was still see-through around the edges. It was probably less because the affinity was thin, which it was, and more because of the element itself.

Micah held the cup with one hand and pushed the mana out against it. The water sloshed up in waves against the edge and a little spilled over.

Yes!

The beginnings of a wind spell, aided by what he could do. He was no [Mage], but he could still add some tricks up his sleeve.

He used said sleeve to dry the table and focused on the next spell. His next spell. “[Chill].” He had gotten it a few weeks ago during a snowy day.

The trick was that you couldn’t just saturate an area with mana and will it to be cold, as he had done before. You had to add help: crystalline structures for ice, a hint of wind affinity to push the heat away, and then a boundary formation to keep it out, to insulate.

Micah had only managed triangle shards for the first part, and part of him had desperately wanted to make that last bit something more solid, permanent; a proper boundary that would keep out the heat. It probably would have given him [Chilling Orb] or some other variation if he had.

Instead, he had broken that boundary up into those shards and made the mana thin and flexible for ease of use. This way, it was easier to cast and control. It was important since he needed to adjust to the situation or recipe and didn’t have a lot of mana to work with in the first place.

He was working on something else for more rigid structures.

A blue haze pushed over the cup and flickers of shards swirled around inside of it, mostly around its border. He held it for a few seconds, then lifted up the cup and drank the ice-cold water.

He smiled. Three down, what could he do next?

He breathed in light essence and made a tiny wisp of light in his hand, similar to how he had made the gust of wind. He quickly shook it off, though. Apparently, it was easy to get the [Light] spell and Micah didn’t want to be stuck with another one on the quality of his first, especially not one that required essence to work in the first place. What use would that be in a dark cave?

Four.

He had to wait a little while to regenerate his mana and watched his few other course mates who were also doing affinity exercises. Somehow, he found mana easier to see when it had an affinity. Color, instead of being a semi-neutral force that hid so easily.

When he knew he had enough mana, he snuck his earth crystals out from his backpack, and his hammer, and quietly cracked them.

People looked, but it wasn't strange enough to elicit much of a response. At least, not after they had seen him do it before. He needed to make use of the hammer he’d bought for the last exam somehow.

He saturated the crystals with mana, let it sit to form a connection, and did breathing exercises to make sure his spirit lungs were clean enough. Breathing in earth essence was hard enough, he didn't need extra lint overcomplicating things.

Then he did breathe it in. Only a small bit. He managed to not cough this time and ran it through his lungs once to breathe back out again. He did it again and this time exhaled on his hand.

The table around the crystals became less and less blurry as the mana took on the earthy tones.

Micah flexed his hand, pushed a little bit of mana out of every bone extension line, and twisted it to form a crude lacework around his skin. It looked more like he had reached into a spiderweb and turned his hand around a few times. He didn’t need it to be good. He cycled through practice spells often enough so he shouldn’t get stuck with a bad version of one.

He breathed part of the earth essences onto that lacework a few times, just enough to make it stick. Then, checking the mana had subsumed enough of the earth essence on the table, he stuck his hand inside the mana there and pulled. As he physically pulled his hand away, the cracked and crumbling earth crystals on the table fell away until there were only shards left.

He needed them for the beginnings of a [Stone Skin] spell. Or maybe [Dirt Skin], considering the quality of what he was working with.

He molded the mana into a crude glove of earth affinity mana and tried to keep together. The moment it 'set', he held up his hand. Last step: He pulled again. This time, in. He tried to make the mana as skin-tight as possible while overlapping with his actual skin.

When he began to feel his hand stiffen fractionally, he let go and held it out: He wore a crude and lumpy glove made of earth light, then. It had a dirt-like texture and veins that reminded him of roots snaking though, with knubs like tree bark.

Micah smiled and leaned forward to wave at Stephanie. She gave him a thumbs-up. Mrs. Burke gave him a nod, too, when she spotted him.

Then … he didn’t really have that much to practice, himself. The spell only took a few minutes to cast, but it took a lot of mana and he couldn’t afford to use too many crystals.

He could try some other spells, of course, like writing with mana, or trying to get enough wood out of the tables to attempt a [Bark Skin] glove—though he doubted he would manage. It would be less a bark skin and more 'bark paint' glove.

Practice his ice spell? He also had to wait for mana for that, and he’d been having troubles.

He sighed, looked around, and ended up staring at his hand while the effect lasted. The whole point of this was to train his sight, but he'd been practicing for almost two months now without confirmed success. How was he supposed to move on to appraisals if he couldn’t even get [Mana Sight] down?

The worst thing was, he didn’t even think he was missing anything. Not really. He got better and better at seeing mana every day. If anything, his scope was too broad. He focused on things other than mana, like cantrips and other forms of influence. Working his way toward pure [Mana Sight] would already take ages since it wasn’t a part of his Path. But if he tried to fit other things under that banner? Things he hadn’t found a way to properly fit under his Path, either?

Micah had either to make a decision between one or the other, or … or he had to find a way to apply his Path to the problem.

Just, he had thought he was already doing that with manipulating affinities. They were basically essences. The witch hat they'd sold had basically confirmed it. Large concentrations of essences counted as affinities just like tainted mana did, and mana could subsume essences so …

So …

Micah cocked his head and looked at his glove made of earth mana. So … could it work the other way around, too? No, not mana folding into essences, though that was a good question of its own, but rather: could the process be reversed?

He focused on his glove, took a deep breath, and felt a tug on something in his skin, but nothing happened. He squinted and tried again, a little more forceful this time, felt the tug grow stronger. The third try did the trick, using his entire lung capacity:

The glove moved. A part of it bulged slightly upward.

Micah suppressed a small smile and even smaller cough, and picked at the bulge with his hand. It wouldn’t help nearly as much, but every little bit counted. He wanted to train that as well, anyway. Meanwhile, he kept on pulling on it with his breath.

The small hill rose more and more into an arch of its own until inevitably, a puff of earth essence escaped like a small flare. He saw a flicker, but then he only knew for sure by the change in color where the essence had been before. It wasn’t nearly as much as had gone in, but still …

Part of affinities really were essences. And a part, at least, could be taken back out again.

Then why could he see mana better when it had an affinity? He was focusing on mana, not essences. Or … was he focusing on the overlap between?

He turned to his backpack and fetched out another crystal, something the witch hat would have been sure to pick up on as an ‘affinity’. It was a blurry mess of brown. Micah focused on it and added one last thing to the collection he tried to see, beyond all those influences and mana.

Suddenly, the crystal wasn’t blurry anymore. And finally, he heard the words he had been waiting three years to hear:

[Essence Path explored!]

[Skill — Lens: Affinity Sight obtained!]

[Skill — Lens: Nature Sight obtained!]

The moment the course ended, Micah ran out of the room with the congratulations of his peers to go find his friends.

“Dammit,” Lisa said after he told her. They were speed-walking down the hallway to get to their next courses. “You finally get a Skill from your Path and I can’t even grill you on it because you’re running off with Ryan over there.”

She waved at him in frustration.

“Sorry,” Micah said, but couldn’t stop grinning. It reminded him: He couldn’t wait until he could tell his parents, and his own parents, and sister— Oh, and Ms. Denner. She would be glad to hear it, as well. And anyone who was willing to listen, really.

Ryan’s eyebrows sunk a fraction in thought. “If you want, y’know,” he started, “I could ask if you can come with?”