There wasn’t anything special going on the day that it happened, it just did.

  Society has this concept that the pivotal moments of life come paired with dramatic flair to match the way things change. But really? They were just things that happened.

  Like anything else, there wasn’t a universal qualifier for when things changed. Perhaps it was because life didn’t centre around the people those events affect the most, perhaps someone favoured by the gods would have a life filled with signs and epiphanies to match the attention they’d gathered.

  Or perhaps it wasn’t worth consideration at all, and all I could do when things changed was to keep moving forward. Because that was one of the few things I could control, wasn't it? To move or to stay, and in my case to stay was to die. So I kept pushing.

  Further and further through a series of hardships all compounding until—

  A change.

  Something new.

  It happened while I was sitting in my inn, mending the daily bruises Xae had delivered. Soothing stings and hematomas. That girl was getting better, not at the same speed as me, but she was doomed to get less from our spars from the beginning. The strong might benefit from training with those weaker than them, but not nearly as much as the weak benefit…if they payed attention. That and my heritage gave me an edge when it came to learning, so slowly the gap was closing.

  But not fast enough for me to receive anything other than a royal ass kicking.

  It was frustrating, my pride was starting to be a barricade to good sense, and I was getting more and more reckless in a bid to deliver the same pain I received. I had to reign that in on plenty of occasions and focus on what the training was actually for. Which wasn’t some juvenile competition.

  We were easily the best swordfighters amongst the apprentices though, by miles. Perhaps a proper soldier, trained as they are in person-to-person combat, could’ve matched us. But we weren’t amongst soldiers, and our fellows cared more for their skill against monsters, so the only training we found beneficial was against each other.

  Then, when I was meditating in my inn, filling my body with mana to heal, it happened.

  I learned a Word.

  MEND.

  What was it to mend?

  I thought I knew, thought I understood such a simple concept despite the ever growing knowledge that came with using the word with my infusion of mana. It wasn’t a word now, it was a Word. Infused with meaning beyond what I should’ve been capable of understanding, filled with depth and certainty and knowledge.

  To mend was, colloquially, just another word for healing.

  But was it really?

  It implied the presence of imperfection. Whether damage or fatigue or-

  Anything that wasn’t in its natural state, anything that needed a guiding hand to return to optimal condition. I…could see those imperfections, not with anything so benign as eyesight. It was like an itch that grew alongside my soul as the word infused itself into my being.

  Did I mention I was having a seizure? Yeah, again.

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  Not as bad as with the droplet of power, I could tell when it would end. I just had to wait for my soul to stop growing. Because it was growing. What was once a thing that the imp could perhaps half-stretch through was growing, already it was double what it was and—

  It had only just started.

  But I wasn’t focused on that, I was focused on meaning.

  Mending a wound was to understand that there was something wrong, and to take actionable steps to rectify the error. Normally this was in the form of first aid and if one was particularly rich, then elixirs. An external intervention to fix something internal.

  For magic it meant that the mana was being directed to act as something to soothe, something to fix, something to aid.

  Mending fatigue was not the same, at all.

  In that circumstance it was something that needed time and a proper environment, nothing else could suffice (except for, again, elixirs, but that shit's cheating). For muscle fatigue the environment was nutrition and rest, for mental fatigue it was sleep. Both could be substituted with mana. Which begged the question, if mana could substitute nutrition for muscle fatigue, could it be a replacement for general nutrition?

  Perhaps, perhaps not.

  I decided I’d try and see, in the far away part of my mind that was observing all this with fascination.

  Implications, so many implications.

  The Word was molding to my soul, but not its full meaning, just what might affect my body. I could theorize plenty of things that could be mended that didn’t involve me specifically, but that wasn’t part of the meaning the Word was giving me, and why was that?

  Would fixing a blade not be a form of mending?

  What about emotional pain, I knew chemical reactions were involved with the process, so surely some kind of magic substitution could affect it.

  But no, nothing that could affect the mind, nothing that could affect anything other than the physical state of my being.

  I didn’t know if I cared to examine it further, what I was receiving right now was too much, stretching my soul to heights that simply weren’t imaginable before. My soul was growing, sure, but never at this speed and to this extent. It didn’t hurt, not in the sense that would make sense.

  More like a painless burning? Something like that. I didn’t know.

  But I was getting more than a chunky soul and strange knowledge infused into my being. Like I said earlier, I was starting to get a sense of which parts of my body could be mended. Another aspect added to my being alongside my other senses.

  It was an itch, just an itch.

  It had so much more utility than I gave it credit for at the time.

  To be fair, I was about three seconds from passing out by that point, and spending most of my time ruminating on the strange certainty that flooded my being pushed aside most other contemplations.

  “Mending, huh?” Healer Ken mumbled. “I don’t have that as part of my repertoire…the closest thing would be heal but…hmmmmm.”

  “Wait, you’re a healer, isn’t this your whole thing?” I said.

  He waved me off with little interest. “It’s something I could add to my lexicon, but It’d be difficult since I have other Words that have similar effects. I’d have to intentionally cut off all their effects to get what sounds like would be a minor addition to my abilities.” I scrunched my brow at him and he raised a hand. “Don’t get me wrong kid, every word has depths that make them worth exploring alone. But I have to divvy up my time. I’m not so far into magic where I have forever to learn.”

  “So what does it mean?” I asked.

  “You tell me.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” I sighed. “What does it mean to learn a Word, other than making the use of it more efficient?”

  He shrugged. “Other than for forming spells and getting some weird additions to your soul? No idea.”

  “Wait, hold up, what do you mean for forming spells?” I said.

  “Exactly how it sounds,” Healer Ken raised a brow. “Collect enough Words and you can form spells by speaking to the World with mana. You know how to form mend with mana now, don’t you?”

  I blinked at him…I hadn’t tried that.

  He gave me a knowing look and a slight smirk. “Try it out, it’s pretty cool the first time you do it. Though a Healer's word being your first might mean you’ve put yourself on a variation of my path!”

  “Unless I become an archmage,” I pointed out. Purposefully omitting the fact that I already knew a spell and it…most likely set my path for something else.

  For the first time I since I met the man, I got to hear Healer Ken snort