Micah opened his eyes, the taste of jasmine tea with a hint of lemon still on the tip of his tongue. He lifted a hand up above his head, his skinny and childish wrist clearly visible in the early dawn light streaming through his parent’s window.

With a brief prayer to Mursa, he closed his eyes. Nothing. No red glow. No swirling vortex. He’d shed the unnatural taint of Elsewhere along with his old body.

Micah sighed as he swung his legs over the edge of the bed before placing them on the cold wooden floor. At least that was something. He’d have to restart, and this time he wouldn’t be able to rely on summoning to solve all of his problems. He couldn’t count on Mursa saving him each and every time.

He stood, stretching his back and frowning slightly at his scrawny limbs. It would take months of repetition and mindless exercise to return his body to its former shape. Again.

The door to his room opened quietly and Esther crept inside only to notice Micah already standing in the center of the room. Her brow furrowed in disappointment.

“Micah,” she asked, her voice childish and containing just a hint of a lisp, “why are you up. You’re never up this soon?”

“It’s good to see you too,” his smile was genuine, perhaps a bit out of place on a thirteen year old that probably should have been annoyed with seeing his kid sister, but the months of worrying about Esther’s condition had worn him down. “Maybe I got up early because you keep sneaking into my room to surprise me?”

“Mom says you won’t come to breakfast on time if I don’t,” Esther pouted at him, fishing for sympathy now that she’d been caught.

“Tell Mom I’ll be down for breakfast shortly,” Micah chuckled, unphased by her antics. “By the way, do you know if Trevor is around?”

“He’s trying to pick flowers for the neighbor girl,” Esther giggled, her tiny hand covering her mouth. “He doesn’t know that she has a crush on Warrick.”

“Warrick the new baker?” Micah raised an eyebrow. He barely stopped himself from pulling out the Folio on instinct. Instead he thought for a second, trying to recall the gossip and day to day occurrences that were the center of his life over a decade and a half ago.

“He awakened an Uncommon blessing, right?” Micah asked, struggling to recall the exact details. “Something about imbuing yeast with mana so that the bread he makes can have healing properties? That sounds like a good fit for someone as pretty as Anna.”

“Yeast?” Esther asked, scrunching her nose slightly. “All mama has been able to find out is that he has an Uncommon blessing. Mama says that Trevor hasn’t even been blessed yet so he’s going to have a hard time competing with the only single boy on the block with an Uncommon blessing, even if he does have acne.”

Micah shook his head, a half smile on his lips as he took in Esther’s tiny form. Her back was straight, and her hands were on her hips as she tried her hardest to hide her lisp while imitating their mother’s voice. She was doing everything she could to look important, like a serious source of news and information. Of course, in a couple of years her and his Mother would be two of the biggest gossips in the neighborhood.

“You’re too young to worry about who Trevor ends up dating,” he chided her slight smile. “Just let him know that I’m looking for him. I found a book when I was interviewing with Keeper Ansom that I think could help Trevor with his blessing. The sooner I can talk to Trevor about it, the more likely he is to awaken to a blessing that will eclipse Warrick.”

“Eclipse?” Esther frowned, lisp returning as she tried to sound out the unfamiliar word.

“Don’t worry about it,” Micah replied, walking across his small room to put on a pair of sandals. “It just means that he’ll be even cooler than Warrick if he pays attention to me.”

Esther’s eyes grew wide. She grinned back at Micah.

“You mean he won’t have to pick Mom’s best flowers from the garden only for Anna to make up an excuse to go to Warrick’s?” Esther’s grin was a bit sadistic for Micah’s taste.

“I’m assuming this has happened a couple times now?” He asked, sighing.

“The last time she said she needed to brush her dog,” Esther giggled again. “Momma tried to sound stern when she said it was ‘the worst excuse she’d ever heard’ but she ended up laughing too when she found out that Trevor believed it.”

“It’s not nice for either of you to make fun of Trevor like that,” Micah fought to keep his face wooden as he imagined his brother besotted with the slightly pretty but not overly interesting Anna. “He just has a lot of hormones running through his body right now.”

“Hoor-moans?” Esther asked, face scrunching up once more.

“Never mind,” Micah shook his head. “I’m up and I’ll be down for breakfast in a second. You did your job waking me up, but I’d better change before I head out for the day.”

The precocious girl nodded sagely before opening the door. Briefly he heard her bare feet running back down the short hallway toward the kitchen. Micah rolled his eyes before calling up his status.

Age 13 [ERROR] / 28

Class/Level Divine Candidate 1

XP 0/50

HP 20/20

Attributes [Free Points 2]

Body 5, Agility 4, Mind 10, Spirit 9

Attunement

Moon 20 Sun 1 Night 10

Mana

Moon 54/54 Sun 16/16 Night 34/34

Affinities

Time 10

Wood 6

Air 5

Blessings

Mythic Blessing of Mursa - Blessed Return, Ageless Folio

Skills

Anatomy 7

Arcana 11

Enchanting 16

Fishing 1

Herbalism 5

Librarian 5

Ritual Magic 25

Spear 11

-Wind Spear 8

Spellcasting 30

He choked slightly. The unfair ‘gifts’ of attunement aside, the attribute gains from his new class were absurd. Frantically, Micah called up the Folio searching for his stats after the first Blessed Return. One point in each attribute and two free points per level.

This was insane. Micah tried to avoid hyperventilating. His new class granted him more physical stats than most close combat classes all while providing him with more points for mind and spirit than even Thaumaturge, a class that the rich and powerful would kill to prevent from resurfacing.

Images of his time in the academy flashed through his mind. The isolation and paranoia settled over Micah like a heavy winter blanket. For a brief moment, he lost control.

His hands shook. Micah shoved them in his armpits to try and steady them, biting his lip in an attempt to center himself with the pain.

A couple of seconds later he was calmer. Able to think rationally despite the iron taste of blood on his tongue. He smiled wryly to himself.

He was more scared of the Royal Knights finding and enslaving him again than he was of the Durgh invasion. The Durgh he could fight. It was just a matter of leveraging his knowledge to become strong enough to beat them back while assuaging their honor. The Royal Knight?

He snorted to himself, taking his hands out of his armpits. They were more monster-like than any of the subterranean warriors. At least the Durgh had honor and could be trusted to keep their word. The Knights were only driven by power and eliminating any threats to that power.

Micah’s only chance was to become so powerful, that by the time the Knights learned of his existence, eliminating him would be more trouble than it was worth. He sighed. All while relying on the normal limits of summoning. Even with his raised Arcana skill, he wasn’t going to risk a sojourn into Elsewhere itself anytime soon.

He tapped his teeth, sorting through and eliminating his options. Even with his insanely advanced class Micah wouldn’t be able to solo the Durgh on his own. There were just too many of them.

His finger stopped, just shy of his mouth. Micah smiled. He didn’t need to defeat the entire Durgh army. Just the Khan. Krosst himself had said that any being could challenge the Khan’s judgement in a test of strength. If Micah won, he could force the Durgh army to reverse course then and there.

Of course, his expression soured slightly, that meant he would have to defeat a being over level sixty. He had five years to level, but that didn’t seem like enough. His apprenticeship with Keeper Ansom would slow him down.

What he needed was to train without interruption. He’d already learned everything that Basil’s Cove had to offer. Keeper Ansom still might be useful as a source of cover, but spending time with the congenial old man would provide no other real benefit to Micah.

“MICAH!” His mother’s voice shocked him from his reflection. “Esther said that you were awake. Breakfast is ready and getting cold. Get out here if you want breakfast, otherwise you’re just going to have to do your chores hungry!”

He opened the door, his face screwed up in a frown. That was another issue. Until his apprenticeship was set to begin, Micah would have to do chores around the house.

Hurrying to the kitchen, Micah made up his mind. He might not be able to get out of chores around the house, but he certainly could cancel his apprenticeship with Keeper Ansom. There wasn’t any requirement that a youth take on an apprenticeship. In fact, many such as Trevor didn’t.

If a youth knew they wanted to pursue a martial path, there was no real need for an apprenticeship. They could practice skills on their own until the time of their blessing. Of course, more than one youth spent their apprenticeship years training to be a master swordsman only to be forgotten or to gain a blessing related to farming or sailing. They risked a stable career and set of skills on the dream of earning a blessing that they could use as an adventurer.

Foregoing an apprenticeship was a risky prospect, but enough children grew up listening to bards’ tales about powerful and virtuous heroes to make it a far from uncommon path. For Micah, who already had a class and blessing, it made sense. As much as he wanted to hide from the Royal Knights, sacrificing his free time for the next three years would set him back too far.

If he was going to defeat the Khan in single combat, he needed to start training now, and this time his training couldn’t just be magical. Mursa granted him a class that improved his physical characteristics. It would be a senseless waste for him to ignore that.

Micah stepped into the warm light of the kitchen. Esther and his father were already at the table while his mother shuttled plates laden with food from the hearth. He stopped for a second, letting the laughter and idle chatter wash over him.

“Micah,” his mother didn’t even need to look around to notice his presence in the doorway. “Wash your hands in the basin and sit down for breakfast. We don’t want you to be late for your interview with Keeper Ansom. An apprenticeship at the library will go a long way toward you receiving a powerful blessing.”

He hurried over to the wash basin with the longest strides his young legs could take.

“Actually,” his voice wavered slightly as he submerged his hands in the ice cold water, “I was thinking of training with Trevor. I want to be an adventurer and I’m not sure I need to work an apprenticeship to learn what I need.”

His mother stopped ladling food onto his plate, the spatula in her hand dropping to the counter with a clatter that silenced the room.

“No,” her voice was slightly ragged as she set his plate down. “I love Trevor, but that boy can’t focus on anything without a pretty smile for more than a second. It’s a shame that he doesn’t want to work an apprenticeship, but let's be honest. If his grand dreams of stabbing monsters with a spear don’t work out, he’d have been stuck scrambling for a job anyway. It really is the only thing that suits him.

“But you’re different,” her face was slightly wistful. “Micah, you have so much potential. I’m not going to let you flush everything away just because you don’t want to sort books. This apprenticeship could set you up for life. Even if you don’t earn a spellcasting blessing from it, the kingdom needs accountants and scribes.”

Micah opened his mouth to respond, struggling to justify his decision without giving himself away. After all, she was right. Foregoing an apprenticeship, especially one as useful as Keeper Ansom’s was objectively a fairly dumb idea unless you’d already read all of the books in the library.

“Anna turned me down again,” Trevor’s voice filled the room as he closed the front door, forlorn and holding a bouquet of flowers. “I keep asking her out on a date, but she’s always busy. This time her mother needs her to pick up a purple snipe from the market on the other side of Basil’s Cove. I offered to walk with her to the market, but she said she needed to hurry.”