Whis nodded his head excitedly, “Yeah, you! How did you become a White Mage?”

  Gymgrei nodded, “Aye, elf, we’ve told our stories. Don’t go thinkin’ a little thing like child abandonment gets you out of it.”

  Helene shouldered Gymgrei, furrowing her brows at the distasteful jab as she scolded him under her breath.

  Whis looked between them and Edoix in confusion. “Child abandonment?”

  Edoix sighed, rubbing the back of his neck, “It is not as bad as it first sounds. Allow me to expin . . .”

  ***

  Living in the Pinsfield Monastery of Light was simple. Every day, the students would rise and rest with the sun. Their days were filled with study, practice, and chores.

  Ever since Ragnarok, when the gods died, the practice of worship had rgely fallen out of favor, turning these once religious temples, abbeys, and monasteries into schools of devout research. The primary focus of Pinsfield was the research of White Magic, medicine, and surgery.

  It was here that Edoix Mienard had been raised from infancy. He had worked tirelessly, studied diligently, and practiced carefully every day of his life. Now he was fifteen years old.

  At fifteen, all students had to begin their pilgrimage, which would st them twenty years of service to the world. Before they could begin, however, they had to receive their Job. The Job you received was no mystery. It was by design that all students of Pinsfield Monastery would become White Mages.

  In the shared dorm where Edoix slept, he sat hunched over the desk that sat against the window in the back of the room. Around him, towers of books stacked high. Under his hands sat one more tome, opened wide and well cared for. His fingers traced the lines of ink on parchment, mapping every detail to memory.

  The door opened into the room. Standing in the frame was the white-robed figure of Master Haseux, the head of this wing.

  “Student Mienard, it is time. Come with me.” Master Haseux’s voice was warm, quiet, and soft. There was no shouting or yelling or rise of volume in the Monastery, save for newcoming infants who knew nothing else but to scream and cry.

  Edoix marked his page and sighed as he stood. As a student, he wore gray robes with a thick white sash about his waist. Today he would earn the full white robes of a pilgrim. When he returned in twenty years he would receive the silver trim of a master. If he worked hard and did expertly, he may even earn the gold trim of a grandmaster and the privilege of leading his own monastery.

  The young elf followed Master Haseux, their steps soft in the well-polished halls of the monastery as they made their way to the examination room where Edoix would complete the tasks and receive his job as White Mage.

  The examination room wasn’t like a surgical theatre; it was a surgical theater. Everyone viewing the exam was in another room with gss walls, watching as Edoix entered the staging zone.

  Without any prompts or noise, the exam began. Edoix moved to a bowl of clear liquid and removed his top. Underneath was a simple white sleeveless shirt. He dled the liquid over his arms, letting the run off drip from his elbows into an empty basin. He repeated this several times before beginning to scrub his arms up to the elbow and then rinse them in the clear liquid.

  This had to be done thoroughly, as the liquid left the skin cool and sensitive. Once he had finished washing his hands and arms, Master Haseux draped him in a white smock and covered his mouth and nose with a white mask.

  The center of the room had a table, and on that table was a Flesh Golem.

  Flesh Golems were products of necromancy. Not true resurrections or death raising, but the simple autonomous puppeteering of assembled tissues. Normally this would be heavily illegal, but the Temple of Light had special permission to produce and work with these golems as cadavers for medical research and practice.

  Edoix stopped at a line of tiles on the floor, waiting with his hands in front of him. The test was simple. The flesh golem, animated to be a functioning body, would receive simuted combat damage at the hands of the proctor. The exact damage was random and sometimes mortal, but the examination was all the better for the unpredictability. All Edoix had to do was his best.

  The proctor, dressed in a full bck drape to hide his identity, produced a sharp silver wand with no decoration to it. He pointed that glimmering needle at the humanoid body and several fshes of light illuminated the room.

  When the light had cleared, the body y shivering, twitching, and spasming on the table as blood pooled in open wounds and bone protruded through bruised skin.

  It was entirely on Edoix now.

  For three hours, he utilized cmps, sutures, medications, and even magic itself as he fought to treat the golem’s deadly injuries.

  He did his job. Every bleed mended, every fracture fixed, and every opening closed. It had become automatic for Edoix, who had studied this for his whole life. His thoughts drifted from the surgery to his book.

  Did the golem feel Edoix cmp the arteries? What would happen if he used cauterization instead of a styptic before applying the Dosis spell? Did his own intestine look like that?

  Edoix performed each operation exactly as the textbooks instructed, those bck and white lines burned into his memory. This was not to say that he could not handle the complications that did arise, such as a surprise herniation that let the lung fall into the abdominal space. But he did not ad lib or do anything creative whatsoever.

  That was how he had lived his whole life. The most creative thing he had ever done was make his own bookmark.

  The golem was stabilizing. Edoix stitched the hernia closed and used Dosis to make the seal permanent. All that remained was to set and heal the bones.

  By the third hour, the golem was stable and sealed up. Every tool was pced on a sanitation rack and accounted for. Everything had served its purpose.

  The observation room lit up with the appuse and cheers of an audience enraptured in a masterwork performance.

  The blue box lit up above the golem’s body, and Edoix read its content.

  Congratutions!

  You have earned the Job [White Mage]!

  You are Level 1.

  Edoix stared at the screen pinly. It was a foregone conclusion that this surgery would end in that message. He had worked his whole life for this very moment. Studied every journal, book, manual, and read every chart, map, and schematic reted to it.

  His hand drifted to his chest, feeling nothing but the now dirty smock. With no purpose being in that theatre, he tore the smock away and left, leaving the now bloodied garments in a waste bin. There were answers to discover.

  Edoix returned to his dormitory and pced himself in front of that old tome once again. He brushed his fingers over the cover. Mechanics of the Humanoid Body and the Purpose of Organs.

  Opening the book, he continued his reading, focusing heavily on the chapter that covered how the brain was believed to be the true source behind emotions and memories.

  That night, when all the students sat to eat dinner, the test results were announced. Grandmaster of the monastery, Grandmaster Mosant, stood and read name after name of passing students.

  “Loitoix Bruigucins, Priyent Caubie, Daipoix Dunebond . . .” The list continued in alphabetical order; a good twenty students had been decred passing. “. . . Edoix Mienard. Those who did not pass will be remanded to a year-long study program to improve yourselves. Enjoy your dinner everyone.”

  Edoix tried to, but the meal of buttered porridge, water, and an apple left much to be desired—like coffee.

  Returning to the dorm, Edoix found that the stacks of books had been returned to the library, repced with his new robes, a journal, a silver wand, and a note from Master Haseux listing his duties as a pilgrim and their expectations.

  For the next twenty years, Edoix was expected to spend his life healing, treating, and studying the sick and injured. He was to always wear his pilgrim garb, and any money earned would be spent only on simple foods, resources for his pilgrimage, or otherwise sent to the monastery as funding.

  His journey began in the morning, a traveling White Mage and schor.

  ***

  Whis held his head in his hands. When the story was told by Edoix, the usage of so much medical and scientific terminology made the poor cat’s head spin and his stomach churn.

  Helene sat amazed at the description of the surgery. She was a mage herself, albeit a Bck Mage, so the detailed story of the treatment had captured her more academic imagination.

  Gymgrei had fallen asleep.