I was crying in my brother's arms. Someone from the crowd approached. She had long black hair and appeared middle-aged. Her eyes held greed, masked by a veil of sympathy. I could see clearly—she had something to advertise, something to extract from us, maybe from my brother who, despite having above-average intelligence, couldn't even notice the change in me. His intentions and thoughts lay bare before me like an open book.
"Let's go home," I said softly to my brother.
We were just about to leave when she stopped us by saying, "Wait."
I looked at her with tears in my eyes and said, "Elder, we will meet you again. For now, we want to be alone."
Then I took my brother's hand, and we stepped onto the floating land we had arrived on. As it began to drift back toward home, I began noticing the energy around me—it was thick, dense, and chaotic, overloaded with various conflicting laws. It felt alive, vibrating with layers of meaning I couldn't yet understand.
I thought, *I should start reading the history of this world. Even if most of it is fake, it will give me a basic idea of where I am. If humans can lie, why wouldn't their histories?*
When we reached home, I glanced at my brother. He seemed like he was trying to comfort me, hesitating. *Beauty is dangerous,* I thought. *Ugliness is vulnerability. But both can be twisted, flipped, and wielded as weapons depending on the moment.*
"Brother, please leave me alone for now," I said as we entered the house.
He nodded, and I walked toward one of the rooms. Its door looked the same as the others, but something about it felt different—it pulled at my instincts. *A library,* I sensed.
I stepped inside and closed the door behind me. Yes, it was a library. Shelves stretched across the room, full of aged tomes and scrolls. My intuition was still good.
I pulled out a random book and began to read. It spoke about how children in this world could control elements. Some were born with an ember in their soul, and for others, it appeared after the age of ten. It was described as a manifestation of their deepest desire. This ember only appeared in those with strong souls who could endure the sacrifice of a fragment of themselves.
Some children were extremely lucky to be born with one. Others were reincarnators—oh, so metaphysics is also central here. Does this mean consciousness never truly dies? I don't know.
The text continued: the ember had no rank, but its power could be gauged by the ability it manifested. *Interesting.*
*Should I try to manifest mine?*
I closed my eyes and focused on the desire for perfection. A surge of joy and craving overloaded me. Then I imagined a human standing in my way—suddenly, wrath erupted from within. I envisioned a race of humans reduced to nothing but breeding stock, eating each other, devouring themselves—a chaotic, liberated ecosystem.
Suddenly, I felt something stir within my soul.
I turned my senses inward and, surprisingly, I could see it—my soul. There, floating within, was an ember. It was violet, pink, and white, shaped like a crystalized halo.
I tried to activate it through thought.
Instantly, my thought speed and calculations increased by **1269x**, the limit of what a human body could withstand. My cognitive compression increased as well.
If this ember was a true fragment of my soul, born of my desire, then it was vulnerable to theft. If someone could steal a soul, they could surely steal an ember.
I thought of fusing it with my subconscious.
And it worked.
Now I could think at 126.9x the normal speed—my subconscious and conscious in harmony. A perfect rhythm. From experience on Earth, I know how powerful subconscious fusion can be. I now had **humanly possible harmony** with my subconscious.
I began thinking about my brother again. *Will he betray me?* Yes, he can. Family and friends are conditions, not absolutes. If they remain loyal, it means the situation where they would betray hasn't yet arrived.
The people in this world seemed... off. Everyone looked like enemies, even to each other. The surface culture of empathy was a mask—each face a trap. Maybe they thought of justice as something flat, a platform everyone can walk on, even while pushing others off.
I thought again about the language. *How do I understand it?* Maybe the brain of this body already had neural pathways formed for it.
Also, I could feel it—my brother had his ear pressed against the wall of the library.
Now considering my body: it had the frame of a petite female, though I was male. Long hair, blue eyes—it was a fusion of dualities. *Should I call it transduality?* But even that holds a duality. When light and dark merge, there's still a difference—some shades lighter, some darker.
A transduality holds infinite dualities. And maybe even infinite non-dualities. Like light—one of its non-dualities is heat.
*Did I just create a new theory?*
I should start reading more history. I haven't even begun.