Amir Aal Majid, Prince of Sahbadia, helplessly knelt on the ground next to the scorched body of General Jiten Tohktras.

General Jiten was strong, wise, and brave. A veteran of many battles who had served the Kingdom of Sahbadia valiantly all his life. He had brought victory to their homeland and led the soldiers in harsh battlefields against many threats.

He had acceded to Amir’s request to accompany him to the Desert of Death, in search of what Amir hoped was a great help to the kingdom but could very well be an empty myth and even certain death.

And now that mighty General was dying, and Amir could do nothing but powerlessly watch.

Jiten had lost an arm and a leg, his remaining arm had been twisted and bone protruded from his remaining leg. The healers said that fractured bones had even ruptured his internal organs. Fragments of stone had pierced his back and he had suffered massive blood loss. His face had been disfigured by the explosion, his clothes torn and his torso scorched by the heat of the flames.

There were healers working together to mend his wounds. They had used expensive high-grade potions, healing spells and various Skills.

It was to no avail.

There was nothing any of them could do to save him. The damage was just too great. They were trying, but it was not enough. With each passing second it was more difficult to keep the General’s heart beating.

Suddenly, a cool breeze blew. Amir felt a shiver going down his spine. It felt unnaturally cool for such a hot day, especially because there were still parts of the buildings burning.

The prince looked around and found the multiple fires had extinguished. Had someone used a spell?

“Hey, what are you doing?”

“Lad, where are you going?”

Voices were raised around the Prince, calling for someone.

Perhaps in an attempt to distract his mind, maybe out of curiosity, Amir turned his head to look for the reason of the voices.

It was easy to find the reason. In fact, one could argue that it was impossible to miss him as he walked towards the wounded.

The tall young man with golden hair that showed a coppery tone when light shone on his head. He was wearing simple clothes, but those were in no way ordinary.

His short-sleeved shirt was of a bright blue color. The sleeves had black lines as decorations, perhaps they held some meaning or symbolized a rank, but their exact nature was unknown to the prince.

On the front of the shirt, there was a strange pattern drawn by black stake-like figures aligned to shape multiple cubic figures put together to shape some sort of ascending stair.

More importantly, Amir could not identify what materials had been used in the making of that piece of clothing.

But all that was secondary, because that young man, Ethan Bhreg, was walking while ignoring everything around him and moving his mouth without actually looking at any of the people that were calling out to him.

Amir saw some of the healers try to approach Ethan, but it appeared that they couldn’t get anywhere near the young man. Amir saw Ethan’s lips move, but could not identify any of the words nor hear what he was saying.

From out of nowhere, a cloud covered the Sun. It had been a clear day with almost no clouds in sight, where had that dense white cloud come from?

Then Ethan raised his hands and a formation of shining symbols appeared. Had he been chanting a spell?

What kind of spell would he-

A flash of light, and Amir’s thoughts came to an abrupt halt.

From between Ethan’s hands a huge bird made of flames emerged, growing in an instant to surpass the size of the boy. Proud, magnificent, and glorious. The bird extended its mighty wings, it opened its beak and its cry was like a thousand melodies in perfect harmony; flute, lyre, harp, and zither playing at the same time in a marvelous composition that soothed the soul.

The song of the Phoenix had no lyrics, it didn’t need any. Its cry and chirp were beyond sound and words, it was magic and wonder. It didn’t simply reach the ears but the soul, producing visions in all who were within range to perceive it.

The fiery creature shone with radiant splendor, with an intensity that was bright like the blaze of the Sun but didn’t harm the eyes to contemplate it. In fact, to look at that radiance was to be healed.

Golden light filled the world, then a myriad of colors.

An overflowing feeling of safety, warmth, relaxation, and calm filled him. It was as if he was being bathed with… love. As if the light was covering him, embracing him to nurture and protect him from all harm.

Amir felt his muscles relax, the stiffness of his shoulders disappeared, his sore throat stopped aching. From the tip of his fingers to the top of his head, the prince felt himself be renewed, he was certain that everyone around was experiencing the same.

It lasted for only a few moments, but the memory of it would remain in them for all eternity.

The brilliance ended, and every head was turned towards the boy. Amir saw Ethan stumble as if his strength had left him but stopped in a strange angle, it was as if he was being supported from the back, leaning on something that wasn’t there.

The boy shook his head as if to chase away the tiredness and looked around.

A sharp intake of breath by his side made the prince turn his head sharply, noticing with pleasant surprise that his body felt as if he had rested for a whole day and was now in top condition.

Then he stared at what he saw, unsure if he was seeing reality or illusion.

General Jiten had his eyes opened with a frantic look and turned his body to stand up. He was completely healed, not a trace of burnt skin, or broken bone on his semblance. His clothes were still torn, but underneath there was clean skin and not the mess of gore and ashes that had been there a moment before.

“Your Highness... what happened?”

The General said with uncertainty, as he examined his own clothes and body in numb confusion. Unaware of how he had gotten to the outside or what had happened after his vision was flooded by the flash of red.

Amir had no words, so he merely did the same as everyone else and turned his head back towards the boy who had stunned them all.

Across the city of Lauhr, people moved their heads looking for the source of the warm radiance and the beautiful song. Shouts of surprise and exclamations of happiness were heard on the streets and within the buildings.

This was a city predominantly visited by warriors and hunters, people who lived from fight to fight and earned money by facing dangerous encounters, be it against monsters or other people. So despite this being a place full of healthy and strong people, it was also a place where people had plenty of scars on them, some had missing limbs, like fingers or even arms, limping legs due to old wounds that were not treated properly, aching muscles and joints grown sensible due to a lifetime of hard beating and effort.

Adding to that all the people who were afflicted by sickness and ailments of varying degrees, the number of people rejoicing after the light passed through them was astonishing.

Wounds were healed, scars vanished as if they never existed, missing limbs were reformed in a show of flare and light, people were returning to perfect health all across the city. Exhaustion and sickness were washed away like the shades of night broken by dawn’s light. Upon realizing the miraculous situation, it was impossible for the people to not let out noises of surprise and joy.

Among the benefited were also three spies hiding inside a building, a safe location owned by one of the Feld-Ehian agents infiltrated in Lauhr. They were alarmed by the sudden wave of light, as their first instinct was to think that it was some kind of searching spell, but immediately relaxed upon feeling its effect.

Most glad of all was Larin Maprak, who until a few moments ago had his arms and legs heavily wounded. The Watchmen had taken measures to ensure he would not attempt to escape again, after his first attempt had made six guards lose their lives and another four get heavy injuries.

He stood up and grinned as he looked at his fellow clansmen. Unexpected situations were presenting one after another in this city, but at least this one was a strange but definitely welcomed thing.

Ethan’s body trembled, his knees almost gave up due to exhaustion. His Master didn’t mention anything about being this tired from using this thing.

He nearly fell on his back as a wave of dizziness hit him, but his teacher’s hand supported him until he managed to steady himself.

“Easy there, kid. How do you feel after wielding miracles for the first time?”

Up until a moment ago, he had been fine. Tapping on his Master’s power had been quite the experience, it was like being filled to the brim with something extremely powerful. It was really weird, but not exactly harmful.

Now, though, Ethan felt as if someone had kicked him in the nuts, turned him upside down and then spun him for five minutes. All of this, while being set on fire. Ethan had the impression that even if he tried to throw up now nothing would come out because everything inside him had been burned to less than ashes by the flame and light.

A vial of some liquid appeared in his hand, Ethan took the cue and drank it without much thought. Sure enough, the nausea went away.

“You are just tired. You’ll be fine after some sleep or a session of meditation.”

“Is it always like this?”

Ethan caught his breath. He still felt very tired but it wasn’t physical exhaustion anymore, he realized, not like when riding his bike for an entire afternoon; it was more as if he had been reading one of his mother’s advanced math books for hours and now just wanted to lie down and close his eyes.

“Usually the tiredness is more moderated, but you had no previous experience on this and also used all your Qi when guiding the spell. Anyways, good job on your first magic. Now my job it’s done, so I’m out of here.”

Ethan saw his Master smile and waving his hand lightly as if saying good-bye. Where was he going to? Even if the dizziness and nausea were gone, Ethan’s mind was still not working as normal, his reactions were a bit slower than usual, so he simply stayed silent as his teacher carried on.

“Actions have consequences, Ethan. Did you think that saving all these people in a flashy manner would be simply ignored?”

Navin looked at Ethan with a playful look in his eyes. Something in that look gave Ethan a very bad feeling.

“I can’t take you with me where I’m going, and you can’t leave this place. You just saved lots of people, they will want to speak with you, likely express their gratitude. I advise you to think of a good explanation, fast. Because I predict that you will be showered with questions by the people here, questions that you will not be comfortable answering.”

And with that phrase, his figure turned transparent as he walked backwards and vanished like a drop of water falling into a lake.

Ethan looked around to see his surroundings and saw the people getting out of the surprise and fixing their gaze to him. Prince Amir and his retinue, Edek and the Sword Dancers, Mister Kareb numbly rising his eyes after staring wide-eyed at his restored arm from which bits of bandages were hanging loosely, the group of healers had their mouths agape, numerous wounded who were waking up and standing up, the people who were helping and even those who had been simply watching the scene.

All were now looking straight at Ethan.

In an intense silence.

“You have got to be kidding me.”

As Ethan grumbled under his breath, sound exploded all around him. The healers reacted first, checking the people who were previously wounded. Those who had been healed exclaimed shouts of surprise, and their friends were hugging them and speaking fast and full of emotion. Then people started to rush towards Ethan, some bowing and even kneeling in front of him. Crying and shouting praises and blessings in thanks.

They also showered with lots of questions.

Ethan found himself in a strange and awkward situation that he had no idea how to deal with.

He closed his eyes and as he resigned himself to what was coming, Ethan mustered all his mental power and gathered it into a single word to express his feelings.

Fuck.

In response, Navin’s ethereal laughter sounded softly in his mind, somehow being right next to his ear and far in the distance at the same time.

Two hours and a lot of questions later, Ethan sat in a room within the City Hall of Lauhr City, letting his head rest against the back of his seat as the other people in the room paced about restlessly.

Despite the initial shock, they had enough people calm enough to remember that there still people under the rubble, but it only took a couple of minutes for them to return yelling that everyone under the debris was completely fine, those that had been trapped under rocks were now next to piles of dust. It didn’t take long for all the wounded to return to consciousness.

Unfortunately, there had been some deceased. The miracle had made everyone with any chance of recovering to be returned back to perfect health, there were even some that the healers were certain had been dead before the light bathed them, but there had been some guards blown up to tiny pieces by the blasts, so they had been beyond recovery.

There had been many questions afterwards, from nearly everyone. Then Prince Amir had managed to take charge and tell them to go to the City Hall and had dismissed most of the crowd. Which still left a lot of people.

Amir and his retinue were a given, General Jiten had bowed deeply in gratitude to Ethan after being told what had happened, making a vow to return the favor one day. The leaders of the Hunters had been here but left shortly after to search for the spies, leaving only Kareb behind, and finally the group of Sword Dancers, that at this point Ethan had figured out they were some sort of nobility or at least Edek was of enough status that everyone including Amir addressed him with respect.

“Are you certain that you can’t use that again?”

Amir asked again from the other side of the large table. Despite having visibly calmed down, the prince was still a bit shaken. That kind of massive healing was something unheard of as far as anyone here knew.

“I had never done that before either, as I just told you before. The power just came to me, and now it’s gone. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to do that again.”

Ethan replied while glancing at Amir and then closed his eyes again. It was probably very rude to do that to royalty, but Ethan was tired. He had tried his best to answer the questions but he had been nodding off for the better part of an hour.

The prince glanced at a ring on his left hand, as did some of the others in the room. They were exchanging glances and their minds were racing with questions and possibilities. But Ethan was too tired to care about what they were thinking, he would probably be in another city the next day, and if any of them had any weird intention to Ethan then his Master would protect him.

So as the room fell into silence, Ethan finally fell asleep.

As the golden-haired boy slept on a chair, the people in the room were not so relaxed.

Amir sat in a different table on the other side of the room, conversing with General Jiten, Veteran Hunter Kareb, Elder Edek from Thaliss, and the City Manager Roenn, who had left after a while to coordinate the different operations in the city and just returned after being gone for over an hour, there was a need to arrange for the funerals of the few guardsmen that had died, hunt down the spies, man the walls, give an explanation to the citizens, and arrange for many other things.

The prince glanced at the table where Ethan was sleeping. The boy was deep in slumber without a care in the world; as if he hadn’t just a couple of hours ago wrestled the life of dozens of people from the claws of the underworld with a single flash of unearthly light. Maybe the spell was taking a toll on his body and left him exhausted. Next to the boy was the heiress of the Klaidev Clan and around the two were the other three young Sword Dancers of Thaliss apparently distracting themselves in banal conversation, but their eyes never stopped looking around the room.

During the previous questioning, Elder Edek had been sitting just one seat away from Ethan, silently showing that the boy had his backing. No one was aiming to attack Ethan, Amir would never be such an ungrateful and dishonorable person as to harm someone who had just provided healing and saved the life of a General of the Kingdom, but the fact that the Elder had shown such protective attitude was important.

“What are your thoughts?”

The prince looked at the other people on the table and asked their opinion. General Jiten was the first to speak.

“That young man saved my life, that power of his is extraordinary. If the wounds I received are as grave as Your Highness told me, then his ability is invaluable.”

“He restored my arm in a second, that’s not supposed to be possible. Reattaching, yeah. But restoration? That’s unheard of. And my severed arm is still around, this arm was entirely made by that magic.”

Kareb spoke and tapped his left arm for emphasis. Everyone nodded. The City Manager cleared his throat and opened one of the many scrolls he was carrying.

“It’s not only that, reports had been arriving from all over the city. Everyone in the city was healed of whatever was affecting them, and I mean anything that could be considered an ailment. Scars had been erased, limbs restored, sickness cured, one of the Hunters felt an itch under his eyepatch and realized his eye was back. What’s more, the healers assure me that there were some guards that were dead at the moment of the light appearing. They say it wasn’t that they had given up on them, but that those people had already stopped breathing, their hearts had stopped, one man even had a hole on his skull. They all came back to life and stood up as if nothing was wrong, all wounds were gone as if they had never been there.”

All the men at the table muttered under their breath. This was beyond their expectation. Ethan hadn’t just saved people; he had resurrected them. If news about this spread…

“But he couldn’t save everyone, there were still some dead.”

Edek noticed the limitation of the phenomenon. Roenn nodded vigorously and pulled another scroll.

“According to the Watch Captain, the three guardsmen who died were blown away to pieces by the explosions, it seems the damage to their bodies was so massive that there was no body left behind, so I believe that's why not even that miraculous light could save them. They were simply too unlucky.”

Indeed, those guards had simply been too unlucky. If enough of their bodies would have been left behind, then they would be alive right now.

“There’s also that bastard, Otto. He blew himself up.”

General Jiten spoke with ire. The image of the Feld-Ehian commander was the last thing he had seen before a wave of pain had covered his body and he had been put on the brink of death.

“We are hunting for the spies, but not much has come up yet. It’s also possible that the light healed the escaped prisoner, so they are no longer slowed down by a wounded person.”

Roenn said with a grim face as he presented another scroll for Amir to read. The Watch had found one suspicious person and moved to interrogate him, but the man had swallowed poison when he found himself trapped.

The prince mentally cursed, it was indeed likely that Larin Maprak had been healed by the light that healed everyone in the city indiscriminately. This was dangerous, if the Feld-Ehian agents were still roaming around then they would take the information about Ethan’s existence to their superiors.

The spies needed to be hunted down, that was the top priority right now.

Ethan said that he didn’t think he could do it again and that he had never done it before. He had been telling the truth as far as the [Lie Detection] spells and Artifacts could tell. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t do it again. When one awakened new Skills it could be a completely new experience, something never done before.

They all agreed that this was likely the case for Ethan’s miraculous light.

The ability to produce such massive and effective restoration, enough to thoroughly cure everyone in a small city, was invaluable. It would be coveted by every country, the Kingdom of Sahbadia included. Steps would need to be taken to ensure that Ethan remained an ally of Sahbadia, they would need to protect him and prevent him from being snatched by other countries, especially Feld-Ehia.

Was that why Edek was so protective of Ethan?

Amir’s mind raced. Thaliss was not a vassal state of Sahbadia, even if from the outside it seemed that way, they had been allies for centuries and had a close relationship with the Kingdom, but they were ruled by themselves and had their own laws.

The prince noticed the red-haired young woman sitting next to Ethan and remembered the two youngsters had danced together and then left the plaza by themselves just the night before. It was a possibility, but there shouldn’t be anything concrete in such a brief time after their meeting.

It wouldn’t be much of a problem even if that happened, Thaliss was still Sahbadia’s closest ally, so if Ethan made ties with them then he would still be Sahbadia’s ally. He would still need to talk to Ethan again after the boy awakened, though.

So many things to consider. Amir caressed his temple and let out a sigh.

“Someone find us something to eat… and wine, lots of wine.”

It would be a long day, and likely a long night.