I had originally commented that I was a bit suprrised to see that Jin's father didn't seem particularly taken aback to see his son scratching at his hands until they bled and crying from the pain. Then I realized that he did seem concerned, but even though your prose there suggests that he reacted right away, the fact that Talven's reaction comes a couple of paragraphs after makes it seem less immediate than I think you were going for.
I was also surprised that Talven ordered Jin to start over again, despite his apparent concern for Jin (who, we must remember, is very young). I don't want to just say that this is unbelievable or erroneous characterization, because it isn't
necessarily so. However, I'm not quite sure what to do with it. And the reason I'm not sure what to do with it has o do with my largest critique for this chapter:
I have no idea what the stakes are. I get that this is somehow dealing with religion and that that's important, but while that suggests some interesting conflicts that might happen down the road, between the scientests and the religious folks if nothing else, those conflicts aren't clearly explicated here. We don't know what the scope of this conflict might be, for one thing; whether the scientests and religious folks are just getting into academic spats or whether this might incite people to violence. (As corollary to that, we have no idea how this dispute is regarded by the people of your world at large, or IF it's regarded. For all we know this is an academic dispute only and not even a blip on the common man's radar.) Furthermore and maybe more importantly, aside from the potential conflict between the sciences and religions, I don't know what the immediate consequences of all this are. Other than potential crises of faith or whatnot, how does this affect the world around Jin and Talven? does it affect the world around them?
This is why I'm not sure how to characterize Talven right now, as I mentioned above. I can believe that he's willing to make his eight-year-old son do something obviously painful and potentially dangerous, I suppose, but it should tell me something definite about Talven. Right now, I don't know if he's doing this simply because he's a man of science who is devoted to his research before all else, or if there is some consequence to this research that will have definite effects on the world. I don't know this, and so I don't know how to correctly characterize Talven.
This also means that this chapter is not as interesting as it could be, because again, I don't know the stakes. Other than the fact that this is apparently an interesting research question, I don't know where the conflict lies or why any of this is important. You do explain some things, but you raise far more questions than you answer, and because the answers and the questions are both so narrow--nearly all about the magic system and not much else--I don't really feel that these are adequate hooks. It just feels like you're explaining some parts of a magic system to me, but I don't really know why it matters, and with the exception of Jin kicking the dagger at the very end (which was admittedly cool), all I've seen it do is make sparks. Also, once again I think you can trim this down a fair bit when you go to revise; this scene drags on a little long for what it does.
I certainly don't think this chapter is as hopeless as I've probably just made it sound; all I mean is that in order for this chapter to work, I think that we need to know more about the stakes than we do know. I assume that because we've spent so much time here that there WILL be consequences (other than Jin whatever happens when Jin kicks the knife; I think we need to see consequences to all the study that went before that) so we need to know, or at least have hints of, what those consequences are. And if nothing else, I think it will really help with the characterization of Jin's father, because at the moment I'm not too sure what to do with him.
Responses to what others have said...
I was also a little puzzled as to why they let Jin's father running free since free men are apparently so uncommon. I can wait for this to be explained though, particularly since I think my opinion in this has been coloured by the treatment of men in the earlier chapters. This may mean that the extremity of the later chapters may come as a bit of a shock to your readers, though. We see the guide's treatment of the slaves, but they barely appear, and in the relationship between the guide and Jin's father there's absolutely no indication of the extreme sort of relationships we see in the chapters you've already shown us of Jin. However esteemed Jin's father is, if their views of men are that ubiquitous, some of it will bleed through in Orlisa's treatment of even anomolous men like Jin and his father. It doesn't here.
I was thrown off by him not knowing the word "confused" too. I think most eight-year-olds would know that. Unless it's a language issue? Given what we;ve seen of your earlier materials, that would be possible, but if so it's not at all clear here.
I don't think you can paint a mosaic either, but I was under the impression that they were typically glass.
I have no idea what the Shroud is either. I wasn't going to comment on it because I figure that's one of the things I could wait for, but depending on what it is and its importance to your story, telling us a bit about it may be an opportunity to help clarify the stakes.
I'd also assumed that Talven was a single dad, but since there was nothing in the text about a mother before that, I didn't find it a huge stumbling block. Surprising but not necessarily a problem.
You were asking about showing vs telling here and I don't think your problem is that showing somehow automatically makes things more confusing. I just think that in chapters like this the scope is too narrow to effectively show us what's going on. Remember also that you don't need to give us all the answers right away. It's okay if we leave your chapters with some questions, or are not quite clear on some things, as long as we get answers later.
I was also a bit surprised when Talven started in on his political beliefs. It seemed out of place. I almost wasn't going to comment at first since he obviously believes strongly in this (as well he should) and since he's obviously outspoken. But since others have commented on it I'll add my agreement to the pot. And I think I've figured out why it seems out-of-place here: aside from being more dialogue in a chapter that already has a lot of dialgoue, I think it was surprising because Talven is otherwise so focused. He's here for the science and the learning and not to go on a political rant, or so it seems to me.
So, um, this critique kind of went all over the place. Hopefully it makes some kind of sense.