The days turned into weeks. Sencer settled into a routine that balanced studying, helping, and tending to the strange world inside him.
Every morning, he woke before dawn. He performed his ablution with water that was still cold enough to steal his breath. He prayed. Then he sat at his desk and studied until the sun was fully over the mountains.
The AI app on his phone became his constant companion. He used it for mathematics, for physics, for chemistry, for biology. He used it for Turkish grammar and literature analysis. He used it for history timelines and geography maps. Whenever he encountered a concept he did not understand, he asked the app to explain it differently. Sometimes he needed three or four explanations before the idea settled in his mind.
The spring water helped. He drank from it two or three times a day, always a small amount. Each time, the fog in his mind lifted. Each time, he could study longer and remember more.
But he was careful. The spring produced only one bottle per day. If he used too much, there would be nothing left for the plants, nothing left for his family.
---
One afternoon, after a long session of solving calculus problems, Sencer went to the orchard to help his father. The twenty fruit trees stood in neat rows, their branches heavy with leaves but light with fruit. The harvest had been poor for the last two years, and Mahmut worried that the trees were dying.
"The old apple tree looks better," Mahmut said, pointing to the one Sencer's grandfather had planted first. "The leaves are greener than they've been in years."
"Maybe the rain was good this spring," Sencer said.
"Maybe." Mahmut rubbed a leaf between his fingers. "Or maybe something else."
Sencer did not answer. He had been giving a small amount of spring water to the orchard trees every few days. Not much. A cup here, a cup there. He rotated through the trees so that each one received a share every two weeks. The water was too little to make a dramatic difference, but the trees seemed to respond. Their leaves were greener. Their branches were stronger. And some of them were beginning to form tiny, hard fruits that would grow into apples and pears and apricots by the end of summer.
He did not tell his father about the water. Some things were too hard to explain.
---
That night, he entered the inner world and checked on his tomato plants.
They had grown taller than his knee. Their stems were thick and green, and small yellow flowers had appeared on the branches. In a few more days, those flowers would become fruits.
The spring was still the same size. He measured the water with his bottle: one full bottle, plus a little more. Perhaps a cup extra. Not enough to call two bottles, but more than before. The increase was so small that he might have imagined it.
He watered the tomatoes carefully. Then he walked to the edge of the field, where the grey smoke still stood like a wall. He reached out his hand. The smoke was cool and damp, like fog on a winter morning. It did not burn or push back. It simply waited.
He returned to the hut and sat on the stone bed. The sword floated above him, rotating slowly, pulsing with that soft golden light. He had grown used to its presence. It was like the warmth in his chest: always there, always steady.
He left the inner world and returned to his desk.
---
The next day at school, Sencer noticed something strange. His classmates were tired. Their eyes were heavy, their movements slow. The pressure of the upcoming exam was wearing them down.
But Sencer was not tired. He had slept only four hours the night before, yet he felt alert and focused. The spring water had cleared his mind and restored his energy. He could study longer than anyone else. He could remember more than anyone else.
He did not feel proud of this. He felt grateful. And he felt a little guilty.
During the lunch break, he found Cem sitting alone in the courtyard, staring at a history textbook with blank eyes.
"You look exhausted," Sencer said, sitting down beside him.
"I am exhausted," Cem said. "I've been studying until two every morning. But nothing sticks. I read a page, and five minutes later I can't remember anything."
Sencer thought about the spring water. He thought about offering some to Cem. But how? He could not say, "Drink this water from another dimension." Cem would think he had lost his mind.
"Maybe you need to take more breaks," Sencer said. "Studying too much without rest is useless."
"Easy for you to say. You understand everything."
Sencer did not argue. He simply sat with Cem until the bell rang.
---
After school, Sencer stopped by the home of an elderly neighbor, Fatma Hanım. She lived alone since her husband died. Her children visited once a year, if that. Sencer had known her his whole life. She used to give him walnuts when he walked past her house as a child.
"Auntie, how are you?" he asked, knocking on her door.
"Who is it?"
"Sencer. Mahmut's son."
The door opened slowly. Fatma Hanım was small and bent, her back curved from years of working in the fields. Her hands trembled as she held the door.
"Come in, come in," she said. "I was just making tea."
Sencer stepped inside. The house was clean but sparse. Old furniture, faded curtains, a single photograph of her late husband on the wall.
"I brought you some tomatoes," he said, pulling a small bag from his backpack. They were from his inner world plants. He had harvested a few that morning.
"Tomatoes? In this season?" Fatma Hanım's eyes widened. "Where did you get these?"
"A friend gave them to me. Too many for us to eat."
She took the bag and held it close. "God bless you, child. God bless your hands."
Sencer stayed for tea. They talked about the village, about the weather, about her grandchildren in the city. When he left, he felt the familiar warmth in his chest. Not a surge, but a steady glow. The sword had noticed.
---
That night, Sencer sat at his desk and opened the AI app. He had finished reviewing all the mathematics topics for the exam. Now he needed to work on problem-solving speed. The exam had forty mathematics questions, and he had only eighty minutes to answer them. That was two minutes per question. Not enough time to think slowly. He needed to be fast.
He set a timer on his phone and started a practice test.
Question one: derivative. Solved in forty seconds.
Question two: integral. Solved in fifty seconds.
Question three: trigonometry. Solved in one minute.
He continued through the test, answering each question as quickly as he could. When the timer went off, he had finished thirty-five questions. Five were left unanswered.
Not good enough. He needed to be faster.
He drank a small amount of spring water and tried again. This time, he finished thirty-eight questions. Better, but still not enough.
He tried again. Thirty-nine.
Again. Forty. All questions answered, with thirty seconds to spare.
He leaned back in his chair and exhaled. The water was helping, but it was not magic. He still had to work. He still had to practice. The water cleared his mind, but it did not fill it with knowledge. That was his job.
---
Over the following days, Sencer continued his routine. He studied, he helped, he prayed. The inner world grew slowly. The tomato plants produced more fruit. The spring produced a few more drops each day. The grey smoke retreated a little at the edges.
One evening, he gave a small amount of spring water to Elif. She had been coughing for two days, a dry cough that kept her awake at night. He put a few drops in her drinking water and watched her drink it.
"Tastes funny," she said.
"It's just water," he said. "Drink it all."
The next morning, her cough was gone.
He gave water to Ömer when the boy had a headache from studying too hard. The headache disappeared within an hour.
He gave water to his father in the tea he brewed each morning. Mahmut's joints had been aching less. His energy seemed better. He did not mention it, but Sencer noticed.
The water helped. But there was never enough. One bottle per day, plus a little more. That was all. He could not heal everyone. He could not even heal everyone in his own family. He had to choose.
He prayed for wisdom to choose well.
---
At the end of the fifth chapter, the inner world had changed, but only a little.
The field was still one acre. The grey smoke still surrounded it. The spring produced perhaps one bottle and a quarter each day. The tomato plants had given their first harvest—about twenty small, sweet tomatoes. The pepper plants were flowering. The fruit trees he had planted from seeds were still tiny saplings, no taller than his finger.
Sencer sat on the stone bed and looked at the floating sword.
He left the inner world and went to sleep. Tomorrow, he would study again. Tomorrow, he would help again. Tomorrow, the exam would be one day closer.