My time with Father Ewing was rather brief considering that I was trying to pick up 2 tier 3 skills from him, and considering that we had to time the skill training to work around his church schedule. We would meet up most days in the afternoon, and then we would begin the lessons. What exactly those lessons entailed varied of course, though luckily I already had some of the prerequisite skills, such as having learned anatomy while learning the Healer skill, and biology more broadly was sucked into my Erudite skill.

We started with Space and Time, which required exercising a lot more of the math and physics skills I'd learned while becoming a Erudite than I would have expected from a type of magic. I thought the ritual and summoning circles were precise, and I'd further believed that artificing and enchanting would be at the pinnacle of the hard science requirements, but artificing required little more than some advanced Algebra to learn the skill. Space and Time, though? The barrier to entry for those is definitely an affinity for math and physics.

Once those were learned, we moved into Telekinetic Manipulation, Taxidermy, Demisurgery, and Embalming, and finally we reached the skillset that Father Ewing believed would be the end of my path. Soul Magic. We started with guided meditation, which I found overrated but it was easy enough to unlock meditation despite my misgivings at essentially giving myself telekinetic massages in front of an audience while the meditation sessions were in progress.

For the record, there's no denying that my Aether point recovery speed was significantly increased by giving myself Aether massages along what I recognized were analogous to chakra points and meridians, but it was still creepy having a guy talking me through the process.

Once meditation was unlocked, we moved on to aura detection, which once again felt entirely too new wave hippy for me to be comfortable with, but with a bit of practice and comparison I came to realize I was just exercising a skill subset I already possessed, as we were examining Aether density, flow, and type, which was an observation skill I'd learned probably a decade or so prior. Honestly I don't even remember which of my many magical skills it first manifested under, but once I wrapped my head around the realization that the differences were essentially in preferred vocabulary, I explained we could move onto the next skill. Soul manipulation.

Father Ewing did his best to explain that I shouldn't feel bad about my upcoming failure here, that it's quite impossible to manipulate a soul, yes even your own soul, without faith. He explained that soul magic touches on the boundaries of the gods, and that without the permission of a deity no one would ever be able to progress on this front, and this is the whole reason that Necromancers have such a bad reputation. According to Father Ewing, Priests of Ishmael would never do things like create undead, so those who wish to follow the Necromancer path rather than using it as a stepping stone along the way towards the priesthood would need to swear themselves to one of The Four in exchange for their power. He then demonstrates what it looks like for a person to remove their soul from their own body, leaving their flesh to collapse.

It certainly was interesting to see; I'd never seen Aether of that type before, despite having done my best to separate Aether into the smallest and most varied components I was able to do. So why would it be present now? It looked and felt "light", even by the standards of Aether, but it was also clearly and easily identifiable now. When I tried to find that same Aether within myself, it only took a few seconds. I couldn't have overlooked it, it was hardly invisible, or too fine to see, or anything like that, so why was I only now seeing it? When I gave that Aether a light shake I was immediately overwhelmed by nausea and dizziness, and I promptly lost consciousness.

One try. This is the very first time in my life where my very first attempt to do a thing resulted in me learning the associated skill. Normally even if you have a technique to correctly practice a skill it will take dozens or even hundreds of repetitions before the skill officially unlocks.

Not this time though; when I woke up, I'd only passed out for a couple seconds, a rather distressed Father Ewing went on a long tirade about how many people he has seen attempt soul manipulation only to learn that they would never receive Ishmaels blessing, and that he has never seen, that he has never even heard of a non-believer learning soul magic. I can't explain it either. I've been quite thorough in my examination of Aether, that this Aether is suddenly visible is downright inexplicable. That I am able to manipulate it with ease after observing it for the first time is even more so.

This was supposed to have been the end of my path in his view, but since I really did learn soul magic he had to keep going. From there he continued on to teach me how to use purification magic to purge the minds and unravel the bodies of undead. According to Ishmael, purification requires Aether which is also firmly in the realm of the gods, and learning how to see and manipulate it to destroy undead was also supposed to be impossible for a nonbeliever like me.

Except that it wasn't impossible at all, and although it wasn't as dramatic as the speed at which I acquired Soul Manipulation, learning the three subskills took me only a single day. Honestly, that sort of learning speed is unnerving and concerning.

I'd long ago adjusted my mental gears to accept that it is normal for me to learn skills faster than others are able to do so. Up to now I have largely been attributing that learning speed to my past life and the knowledge I'd gained during it laying a firm foundation which I really only needed to apply Aether to… But this is too fast, and it's touching on areas that I've had no prior experience with, and using Aether that didn't even seem to exist until I was told to look for it just now is…

To be honest, rather than taking my ability to learn these skills as evidence that the church has been lying to us all along, instead this reinforces those claims in my mind. Their claims about deific intervention being a necessity, that without divine favor you wouldn't even be able to try to learn them…. I'd been very thorough in my examination. Soul magic isn't something that I discovered previously, and the purification Aether appeared out of nowhere as well… and if learning these skills really does require the attention and favor of a deity? I find that idea to be more concerning than I would have found being unable to learn these skills at all.

I would've preferred to have left on better terms considering we'd been seeing each other almost every day for the last 4 months, but he was bitterly shaken and thoroughly distracted, and he did his best to usher me out as soon as he could, informing me that he'd taught me everything he could of the skills I would need. I asked him about the divination skills I still needed, but he explained that he doesn't know anything more than I do about them, and that it's supposed to be something we figure out on our own. He then wished me luck, and practically kicked me out.

Honestly I felt rather bad about it. Space and time took the better part of 3 months, but handily breezing through all of the skills that he'd thought would be a problem may have caused a crises of faith in the man. He's a bit arrogant, but he's not a bad guy, and I take no pleasure in seeing this proud servant humbled. The emotional turmoil he is experiencing is real. I hope that he is eventually able to recover to a healthy emotional state, but he seems to be unraveling in a very real and disturbing way. If he turns into a serial killer or a rabid atheist after this, I'm going to get angry at the guy, especially since his fears are predicated on him accepting a conclusion that was nearly the exact opposite of my own.

I really don't feel like I have much to go on when it comes to learning the Divination prerequisite skills, little more than their names, vague references, and the description from the Archbishop about how divination manifested, but I did at least agree that it was well and truly time to move on.

I'd skimmed through the alchemy books, but space and time truly had taken up the vast majority of my time these last few months, so even though I'd kept up with my daily attribute training, I'd not made noteworthy progress in any other areas, not even parsing prospective methods by which I might develop alchemical subskills.

I take a seat and review what I still needed to be able to get the tier 4 skills that were on my list of known tier 4 skills which I might be willing and able to pursue.

To get the Tier 4 Saint skill I already had the Healer, Infusion Priest, and Necromancer tier 3 skills, and only the Tier 3 Diviner skill remained. To learn Diviner I've already learned the tier 2 space and time subskills for it, but I still needed divination, and divination required Scrying, Fate, and Luck. I also have very little information to go on when it comes to learning those skills.

To get the tier 4 skill Ranger I'd already learned the Ranged Fighter and Survivalist skills, but I still needed the Tier 3 Pilot skill. I'd already learned the tier 2 pilot ground craft skill, but I still needed to learn how to pilot a minimum of 3 craft each from 2 out of 3 between aerospace vehicles, flying vehicles, and naval vehicles to be able to create matching tier 2 skills and take advantage of there being multiple options for learning the pilot skill.

Clearly Aerospace would be the hardest of these requirements to meet, so I'd need to learn to pilot air vehicles and water vehicles. I've been able to locate some towns and villages on a map that are near water, which would make boats and ships accessible, but the only methods I can think of to access flying vehicles are to either join a larger organization, or to create my own using my artificing skills. Unfortunately, I'm painfully aware of how expensive and time consuming that option will be, so aircraft are temporarily out of my reach. And yes, I did think saying aircraft are out of my reach was rather punny.

Finally, I still plan to learn the tier 3 Enchanter skill. For this I've already learned the tier 2 Artificing and Disenchanting skills, but I still needed Alchemy, and to learn alchemy I would need at least 3 among Herbalism, Potion Brewing, Poison Crafting, Transmutations, and Alchemical Infusions. Herbalism I expect to be the easiest to learn, but it is also likely to be the most time consuming as it would almost certainly require growing some relatively rare herbs. It may also count as I skill I already have based on my Survivalist skill, so prioritizing it may not be the wisest choice.

Unfortunately, each of the other skills requires expensive equipment, and accidents may be dangerous. I think I can get them eventually via trial and error, but to really progress on these I'll need to be in a single area for an extended period, buy the lab equipment piece meal, and then purchase or test materials as time and money allow for. I will also clearly not be able to set up any more than the most rudimentary of labs in one of my shelters, so I'll likely need some form of consistent employment.

In other words, each of the remaining skills I am pursuing has a number of blockers impeding noteworthy progress.

I carefully pack up my gear and my books, and I pick up a mile eating jog following the road eastbound from Hialeah.