wo weeks passed—slow as erosion, deep as days of silent rain.
Issac had moved away from the crowds. He now lived near the outer walls of Flavia, in a zone caught between nature and stone. A place where wandering travelers sometimes camped, where shadowy merchants sold their goods without a word. He had built a makeshift shelter between two twisted oak roots, covered with a gray cloak. His daily life was guided by meditations, readings from the mysterious book, and strange exercises born from his own ideas.
He avoided glances. He avoided questions. And above all, he avoided... thinking too much about what he was becoming.
One morning, as he trained to feel the flow of Spiritual Energy, a calm voice rose behind him.
— "You hold your breath like your father."
Issac turned instantly, brow furrowed. A man stood there—older than most, with a scruffy beard, a worn cloak, and dusty boots. His eyes weren't threatening. Just… curious. And wary.
— "I've been watching you for several days now," the man continued. "At first, I thought it was a coincidence. But you look too much like them. Both of them."
Issac stayed silent.
— "You don't know them, do you? Your parents?"
He slowly shook his head. The man sighed, dropped his bag by a trunk, and sat down casually.
— "I knew a couple like that… long ago. At the Academy. They didn't make much noise, but they shined. Not through words—but through their actions."
He paused.
— "You have their eyes."
A strange knot formed in Issac's chest. The man didn't seem to be lying. But he didn't know anything. And neither did Issac.
Without asking, the man came back day after day. Sometimes sharing a piece of bread, sometimes a training technique, or an old method of Spiritual Energy awakening. He didn't ask questions. He didn't expect anything.
One day, he showed Issac a deep breathing exercise, coupled with a full-body tension posture.
— "This isn't in any book. But your body knows more than you think. Listen to it."
Issac obeyed.
He inhaled deeply.
He closed his eyes.
He sank within himself.
And suddenly…
Everything disappeared.
The wind. The rustling leaves. The ground beneath his feet.
There was nothing left... except him.
Or rather… everything.
He felt every movement around him, every pulse from the earth, every vibration in the air, every breath in the forest as if they were part of him. His thoughts were gone. He wasn't "thinking" anymore—he simply was.
For two seconds, he touched something vast. A full emptiness. An infinite silence.
Then… he came back. Abruptly.
He dropped to his knees. Breathing hard. Hands trembling.
— "What... was that?" he whispered.
The man watched him—unsmiling.
— "You went somewhere, didn't you?"
Issac looked up, shaken.
— "It wasn't… real."
— "If it changed you, then it was real. Even if you can't explain it."
But the man had no answers. He had never experienced it himself. He had only recognized the look Issac had... once before, long ago, in someone else.
In the days that followed, Issac searched for answers in his book. He flipped through every page. Looked for diagrams, annotations, hidden symbols. But nothing. No mention of such a state. No description matched what he had felt.
And it drove him mad.Because he felt like he had brushed against a forbidden truth.A truth still being kept from him.
Eventually, the man left. No warning. No explanation.
Issac didn't ask why.
Because even if it was only a passing moment, the encounter had left a mark.
One evening, while wandering the city to buy bread, he passed a group of children laughing and running. An old man, seated on a crate, watched the scene with a smile.
He murmured quietly—unaware that Issac could hear him:
— "They say the Academy is reopening this year. Looking for gifted youngsters. Or so they say..."
Issac stopped for a moment.
The word echoed gently in his mind