“Hey!! What do you think you’re doing?!” Eve reeled when Feather grabbed the first snake he saw and held it up to his arm, smiling like the maniac she’d learned him to be, the blond lunatic not even flinching when the snake’s poisonous fangs pierced down on his flesh. It scared her, but she couldn’t even snatch the snake away because he just raised it above her head, almost like he was trying to taunt her. “Put it down!! Why are you injuring yourself?!”

  “Haha, well, you need to practice your healing on something, right?” Feather giggled, Eve not able to process that statement as she watched red blood drip down his arm.

  “What? Just how much are you planning to injure yourself so I can learn?”

  “As much as it takes? Obviously,” he spat back with a proud grin. An awfully stupidly proud grin.

  And that truly dumbfounded her. Was this guy some sorta suicidal maniac? No… it didn’t look like he wanted to die. Well, he was definitely a maniac, but maybe not a suicidal one. Maybe he was just a maniac that wasn’t phased by pain. Though that wasn’t much better. “Ugh! No, just let me injure myself! I don’t want to put you through that!” she yelled, lifting herself up on the tips of her toes to try and overcome Feather’s height. Damn it, why were men so tall? Granted, he wasn’t as tall as Cirrus, but he was taller than Jayce… this made things so difficult. “Why are you like this?! Just put the snake down!!”

  “Ahhh, no, I’m just trying to help! Stop grabbing me!” Feather whined, the snake twisting in his hands as it continued to bite up and down along his arms. “I can heal myself any time, it’s really not a big deal! I also have pain numbing magic! And since I can also control poison, I can stop the poison from spreading in my body, so the bite isn’t even lethal! Trust me!” he pleaded, looking down at her with big round eyes as Eve grimaced.

  “You’re so weird…” she winced, finally backing away from him as he revealed a happy smile, despite the snake that currently had its fangs lodged in his wrist. It really was weird. Feather seemed to let his guard down a lot more recently, ever since they came to this town. He was still clearly insane when you got him into situations like these, but he felt more humane when he was talking with the Kavrill family or other town residents. It was like he toned himself down. Or maybe it was more similar to they were anchoring him, keeping him down to earth so that he didn’t lose it completely. But she still didn’t like what she saw. “Why are you so quick to injure yourself as your first solution, anyway? That’s not a good thing, you know, and it’s not healthy,” she frowned, visibly upset as Feather blinked down at her, smile twitching.

  Huh? She was upset because he injured himself? Why? That didn’t make any sense, it wasn’t like she was the one who got injured. Ah, how should he answer this… was getting hurt something to worry about? Maybe for normal people. For normal people, getting bitten by one of these snakes would kill them in around an hour… but it really wasn’t a problem for him. Feather had been telling the truth, he had pain nullification and poison control, so it didn’t hurt and wasn’t threatening. What else could he possibly say?

  “Um, well. I don’t care how much I get hurt as long as it doesn’t kill me,” he relented awkwardly, voice somewhat stiff as he tried to rehearse the comforting words he’d come up with in his mind, raising up the snake to point at it. “This won’t kill me, so I don’t care. It doesn’t bother me. I just want to help you, so I don’t understand why you won’t let me,” he spoke mechanically, smile still crazed and forced on his face as Eve stared at him.

  “Okay. Then will it kill me? I’m a healer too, and since Achitha also has a poison concept, I’ve grown very proficient at healing and getting rid of poisonous injuries,” she explained, Feather staring at her like she’d grown a second head, his smile twitching up one side of his face.

  “So?”

  “So, if your only basis for not caring if you get hurt is because it won’t kill you, then it shouldn’t matter if I get hurt in the same way, right? Since it won’t kill me.”

  And she watched as Feather’s smile finally faltered a bit, like he was desperately trying to process that concept in his mind that was so averse to outside philosophies. “Ummm… but I don’t like that.”

  “Exactly. I feel the same way you do. I don’t want you to get hurt, either, see?” Eve offered honestly, Feather’s stare starting to turn a bit incredulous.

  What was this woman going on about? He didn’t understand what she was saying at all. By all the logical steps he was taking in his brain, they clearly weren’t even comparable. It led him to spiral, upset by being faced with something he didn’t understand, and he started jerking the snake in the air, clenching it so hard it died in his grasp. “You don’t get it, Eve!! It’ll still hurt you, because you don’t have pain nullification! That’s why it’s not okay for you to do it, but it’s okay for me to do it! Because you know, I’m the most powerful being to ever exist, so whatever I say goes! Hah! Take that, you puny weakling!” he laughed with a smug grin, Eve’s expression turning somewhat defeated as she took that in.

  This guy’s only cover for any kind of vulnerability was really just arrogance and mockery, wasn’t it? How was she supposed to get through that? Was there anyone who could? In the first place, she didn’t like the fact he had the concept of pain nullification… because the qualifications for someone to develop that concept weren’t anything nice to hear about. In order to be able to null your pain, you must have experienced so much of it in your life that you no longer cared if you were hurt. That’s how that concept was made. After torture, countless near death experiences, or anything of the sort… maybe that hinted at why Feather was so unhinged in the first place. But she didn’t think he was a bad person, either… he clearly cared a lot about other people, and he didn’t want her to get hurt. He could be sweet, when he wanted to be.

  “Hahh… alright, whatever. Let’s just move on to your lesson. Are you wanting me to practice healing you?” she offered, Feather’s sparkly blue eyes immediately lighting up when she changed the topic.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “No, not quite! I want us to work on combining your two concepts together to make one concept!” he announced happily, extending his injured arm to her before he finally took a look at the limp snake that was no longer hissing or writhing in his grip. “...oh. Did I kill it? When did I do that?”

  “Pfft. You’re so stupid,” Eve laughed, Feather giving her a petty glare as he threw the snake away without another word.

  “I’m not! I’m the smartest being in the Udimeia! Now how much do you know about concept fusion, Eve?” he questioned naggingly, and it really did feel like he was her teacher nagging his student. Honestly, he probably could pass for a good teacher if he wasn’t so childish. Ahh, but, concept fusion…

  “To be honest, I don’t know too much,” she admitted, scratching nervously at her cheek as she recited all the information she’d read from books. But honestly, those books weren’t very interesting… and she wasn’t like Achitha, with a photographic memory. So she wasn’t even sure she was recalling the information correctly, but she tried her best. “I know that people will often try to fuse their concepts into one so that they can hold more later. It kind of cheats the system, since the max number of concepts the human brain can handle at once is six. But by fusing two of your concepts, and by coming to view them as one, you create more room for yourself to develop an extra concept later. I have no clue how it actually works though,” she offered, Feather nodding along smoothly as he nonchalantly wiped some of the blood off his arm with a swift breeze of wind. And she couldn’t help but stare at him, because… like she’d just said, the human mind could only comprehend six concepts at a time, and just how many concepts had he displayed since she’d met him? He’d gone far, far past the limit! How had he done this?

  Although she didn’t think he’d ever be honest about that, so she didn’t speak her mind, instead watching as he nodded along with what she’d explained. “Yeah, that’s part of it. Making room for an extra concept is definitely why some people go down that route. But you know, fusing concepts usually makes the two concepts stronger in the first place. It helps you become more flexible,” he smiled, Eve listening to him earnestly as she absorbed everything he said. She’d learned her lesson to not be skeptical of his wisdom from the last time. She hadn’t held much merit in his words and had at first brushed it off as a psycho’s teachings, but it really did work better. Her concepts were easier to use again, and she was finally improving at a faster rate. Her concept of snow was especially strengthening, to the point she could easily summon a blizzard on command. She would never have been able to do that if Feather hadn’t guided her down the right path.

  And the miracle man happily continued explaining what he knew, happy to share his knowledge and happy to see someone eager to listen. “Well, let’s take a look at your two concepts, and how combining them would help make them better! You have the concepts of snow and healing, as we know. My goal here today is for you to start trying to create snow that heals what it touches. Because think about it! Right now, all you can do is heal people you touch, right? Physical closeness is always a necessary thing when it comes to healing, long distance healing is extremely difficult and can’t be done easily, and it definitely can’t be done on a large scale. But Eve, if you gave your snow healing properties, you could do just that! You know when you guys first met me, and you came across that town of sick people? Admittedly, I healed the whole continent back then, but if you managed to give your snow healing properties, you could easily heal that many people just like I did by making it snow and telling everyone to come outside! That’d be pretty amazing, right? If you fused your two concepts like that, it would already bump you up to at least a mythic healer, and with more refinement, you could definitely make it to the level of a holy healer, as well,” he grinned excitedly, Eve watching him in slight shock, her ears not believing what they were hearing.

  …really? He really thought she could do that? Someone like Feather, who was truly amazing and the epitome of power… thought she could be something like a holy healer? That would make her part of the top class, a truly indispensable companion. Right now, she was only an advanced healer. The stages started with beginner, then moved on to intermediate, and then to advanced healer. And after that, once you really began to excel, you became a legendary healer. Moving on from there was mythic healer, and then onto holy healer. There was one more after that, but currently, no one in the entire Udimeia fit the description, so holy healers were the most sought after, and there were only a handful of them in the entire multifaceted world.

  Eve had always wondered why she’d been the one chosen to follow prince Cirrus on his quest to find the miracle worker. She was very young, only two-hundred and ninety-four years old, and she wasn’t even a legendary healer yet. Queen Nadia surely had access to holy healers, being the queen of most of the Udimeia that was under her alliance. And Eve had always wondered why someone like that hadn’t been assigned to Cirrus’ group instead. Surely the prince destined to save everyone would need someone who could better protect him, right? And, thinking about it, back on the shipwreck where they’d first met the mythical beast, she’d also been willing to abandon him and follow Feather instead. She’d only done it because she had a feeling Feather could help make her stronger, but still… abandoning the prince she’d sworn to serve wasn’t a good thing, even if Cirrus didn’t seem to remember it or think much of it himself. When she thought of all her faults, it really did seem obvious that she was so far behind where she needed to be. Where she was expected to be… why had Nadia even recruited her in the first place? The Queen of Lilino herself had personally come to recruit her on her small, lonely planet covered in snow all year round. Why?

  Though maybe the answer was right in front of her face. Maybe she was destined to be great. Eve was willing to work hard and fulfill that destiny, she wouldn’t accept anything handed to her for no reason. Maybe running into Feather and becoming his student wasn’t a coincidence. Maybe, with his help and guidance, she was going to grow and evolve into the healer Cirrus needed. Maybe that’s why she was here. And truly… how long had it been since she’d had a purpose like this? Protecting her family, protecting her tribe… that had always been her drive, her reason to live. After she was taken to Lilino, she was driven by making enough in a year to support them from afar so that they didn’t succumb to her planet’s harsh conditions. She was driven to make money so that she could buy the most powerful healing potions and send them in by the dozen every month. And after being introduced to Cirrus, Jayce, and Achitha… the people she would be working with… her drive was lost and replaced with competitiveness.

  Eve always viewed herself as a passionate person, so losing that passion… wasn’t the best feeling. But if she could become a holy healer, imagine all the people she could help! She would earn her place in society, in her group. She would earn her place in Queen Nadia’s eyes, because Eve refused to accept all these opportunities on a golden platter just handed to her for no reason at all. No, she would grow. She would do just as Feather asked. She would become the greatest healer this world had ever seen. And if she failed to do that, to live up to the expectations of those around her… then there was no point in her being here.