In the book, Dimitri writes that the Elder opens with this line. A microcosmic nucleus appearing where nothing was. The Elder was a deep knower of medicine and a knower of the sacred, and he refused to keep these in different rooms. Dimitri writes that this single image set the register for everything the Elder would go on to teach him.

What follows is harder. The Elder taught that freewill, empowered by Divine Power, can alter even the information held in that minuscule entity. Dimitri does not soften it. He sets it on the page the way the Elder set it on the table in front of him, and lets it stand.