After a few tries, Florent confirmed that passing other objects through the sheet marked with a door required more spiritual energy than passing through himself.
Comparing even more precisely, he noticed that clothes of the same weight consumed less spirituality than other objects. The test with identical volumes gave the same result.
Florent concluded: the more familiar and close an object was to him, the lower the energy consumption. Conversely, for completely foreign objects—and even more so for a human body—the expenditure must have been much greater.
"The Apprentice consumes less energy when passing through what is connected to him," he noted.
Although "Open Doors" had no offensive power, Florent thought he could turn this ability into a weapon, thanks to the leaf he inherited from his family. After searching for a while, he found a sharp dagger.
The black, oval-shaped handle was designed to reduce bulk. The blade, icy to the touch, showed that this was no mere toy.
Forged from meteor iron and a few other extraordinary materials by a craftsman in training, this dagger possessed no special supernatural powers. But it remained extremely strong and sharp, and had never required maintenance. Even after years, it still looked brand new.
It was the only family heirloom that could be considered a truly extraordinary weapon. Florent had often seen it in the hands of his father, Martin Freeman , who wielded it out of habit. As he grew older, Florent himself had taken to keeping it close to him.
He sheathed the dagger and tucked it under his clothes, against his chest. The cold metal bit into his skin. Fortunately, he preferred loose clothing: the blade's presence remained invisible.
But when he wrapped the dagger in spirituality several times, his skull was suddenly pierced by excruciating pain.
Indistinct whispers, sometimes close to a scream, echoed in his head like the incessant buzzing of a mosquito. As he listened closely, the noises became so loud that they threatened to inspire destructive madness in him.
He felt as if needles were being stabbed into his brain. As if he'd stayed up three sleepless nights in a row playing, only to find himself forced to go to class under the stern gaze of a teacher, never able to sleep.
On the verge of madness, Florent staggered to his room, collapsed onto his bed, assumed a meditative position, and gradually his thoughts drifted away. He eventually fell into a deep sleep.
The next day he woke up in a mess.
His clothes were wrinkled, but he'd had the reflex, even in his confusion, to sheath the dagger. Without it, it likely would have injured him in his sleep. Even so, the scabbard had pressed against his stomach, leaving a painful red dagger-shaped mark on his torso.
He placed the dagger on his desk and made a promise to himself: never to completely drain his spirituality , especially until the Apprentice potion was fully digested.
After washing his face and quickly getting ready, Florent returned to his desk and sat down. There was an elegant calendar on it. July 6th was circled. Strangely, Florent had no memory of drawing the circle on that date. He didn't yet understand its significance.
Seized with doubt, he decided to consult the small secret cabinet adjoining his library, where numerous works on astrology were stored. There, he discovered a handwritten black notebook, with neat letters. Opening it, he read on the first page:
"Martin Abraham's Astrological Journal — A Gift for My Beloved Son, Florent."
Seeing these words in the newspaper, warm memories and images came back to him: a learned father, a lawyer by profession and an amateur writer, and a son dreaming of bringing the Abraham family out of the shadows to become as strong as their illustrious ancestor Bethel Abraham.
Every evening, Florent asked his father to tell him the glorious story of their lineage during the Fourth Era.
Martin, who did not want his son to experience the pain of an extraordinary destiny, nevertheless agreed to protect him from foreseeable dangers—like full moon days or their ancestor Bethel Abraham screaming.
To support his son Florent's childhood dream, Martin, who until then had been content to play the vague role of astrologer, began to seriously study the stars every night. He read everything he could find on the subject.
But paternal love carried little weight in this mystical world. After accurately calculating the full moons for the next five or six years, Martin began to study the blood moons, caused by the "Old Moon."
Once he had completed his calculations, he carefully noted all the dates at the end of the notebook. Shortly after, tragedy struck.
One evening, in silence, Martin killed himself by strangling himself with his own hands. Florent immediately understood that it was the influence of external entities, because the blood moons were linked to the Old Moon. He didn't even dare to think about the details, for fear of suffering corruption himself.
Florent, raised alone by his father, had since carried a mixture of gratitude and hatred towards him. These feelings had gradually locked him into solitude, leading him to live as a recluse for several years.
It pained him to see his happy memories shattered like this. But he could do nothing but think of his own survival, without complaining or dreaming of revenge.
(End of chapter)