The exam was six weeks away.
Sencer had stopped going to school. The final year students had been given permission to study at home for the last month before the university entrance exam. The teachers had said, "Use this time wisely. Do not waste a single day."
Sencer did not waste a single day.
He woke before dawn, prayed, and sat at his desk. The AI app on his phone was open to a new topic: electricity and magnetism. Physics had always been difficult for him. The concepts were abstract, the formulas were many, and the problems required multiple steps.
But he had the spring water. And he had time.
He drank a small amount from the bottle he kept hidden in his room. Then he began.
The AI app explained Ohm's law first. Voltage equals current times resistance. Simple enough. Then series circuits. Then parallel circuits. Then combinations of both. Each explanation came with diagrams and examples.
Sencer worked through each example on paper. He drew the circuits, labeled the resistors, calculated the total resistance. When he made a mistake, the app showed him where he went wrong. He corrected it and moved on.
After two hours, he had finished the chapter on direct current circuits. He set a timer and solved twenty practice problems. He answered eighteen correctly. Not perfect, but better than before.
He drank a little more water and started the next chapter: magnetic fields.
---
His father knocked on the door at noon. "Come eat."
Sencer joined his family at the kitchen table. Elif was drawing pictures of birds. Ömer was reading a comic book. Mahmut had made lentil soup and bread.
"You've been in your room all morning," Mahmut said.
"I'm studying. The exam is close."
"Don't forget to eat. Your brain needs food."
Sencer ate two bowls of soup. The lentils were soft and warm. The bread was fresh from the bakery in Genç. He had not realized how hungry he was.
After lunch, he played with Elif for fifteen minutes. She wanted him to draw a horse. He drew a shape that looked more like a dog, but she did not complain. She colored it purple and hung it on the wall.
Then he returned to his desk.
---
The afternoon was for Turkish language and literature. The exam had questions about grammar, about sentence structure, about the meanings of words in context. It also had questions about Ottoman poetry and modern Turkish novels.
Sencer used the AI app to review the grammar rules. Noun cases. Verb conjugations. Sentence types. He had learned these things in middle school, but he had forgotten many of the details. The app explained each rule with examples, and he wrote them down in a notebook.
Then he read a chapter from a novel by Reşat Nuri Güntekin. The novel was called Çalıkuşu, and it was about a young teacher who worked in villages across Anatolia. Sencer had read it before, but now he read it differently. He paid attention to the sentence structures, the word choices, the ways the author showed emotion without stating it directly.
He took notes on the characters, the plot, the themes. Then he answered practice questions about the chapter.
The AI app graded his answers. He had scored eighty-five percent. Good, but not excellent. He needed to do better.
He drank a little water and read the chapter again.
---
The evening prayer came. Sencer performed his ablution and prayed. He asked for success in his studies, for health for his family, for patience in the days ahead.
After the prayer, he helped his father in the orchard. The old apple tree had grown more leaves. Small green apples were forming on its branches. Mahmut stood beneath it, looking up with wonder.
"I don't understand it," he said. "This tree should be dying. Instead, it's growing like it did twenty years ago."
"Maybe it's not as old as we thought," Sencer said.
"Maybe." Mahmut touched one of the small apples. "Or maybe something else is helping it."
Sencer did not answer. He picked up the pruning shears and began cutting dead branches from the pear tree.
---
That night, after the night prayer, Sencer entered the inner world.
The field was still one acre. The grey smoke still surrounded it. The spring produced about one bottle and a quarter each day. He measured it carefully and wrote the amount in a small notebook he kept in the hut. He wanted to track whether the spring was growing.
The tomato plants had more fruit. He picked five ripe tomatoes and put them in a basket. The pepper plants were flowering. The eggplant plants were small but healthy. The fruit tree saplings were still tiny, no taller than his hand.
He watered everything. Then he sat on the stone bed and looked at the floating sword.
He thought about the exam. He thought about law school. He thought about the city, where he would meet new people, face new challenges, do more justice. The sword had given him the spring. The spring had given him clarity. But the work was still his.
He left the inner world and returned to his desk.
---
The clock on his wall showed eleven at night. He had been studying for fourteen hours. His body was tired, but his mind was not. The spring water had cleared away the fog, but it could not fix everything. He needed to sleep.
He drank one last sip of water, prayed the night prayer again, and lay down on his bed.
Sleep came quickly.
---
The next morning, he woke before dawn and started again.
Mathematics. Physics. Turkish. Literature. History. Geography. Philosophy. The subjects cycled through his days like the seasons through the year. He studied each one, reviewed each one, tested himself on each one.
The AI app became his teacher, his tutor, his practice examiner. He asked it thousands of questions. It answered each one. He made thousands of mistakes. It corrected each one.
The spring water was his fuel. He drank it in small amounts throughout the day, never too much, never too little. His mind stayed clear. His energy stayed high. He slept only four or five hours each night, but he did not feel exhausted.
His family noticed. His father said, "You never seem tired anymore." Ömer said, "How do you study so much?" Elif said, "Your eyes are different, brother."
Sencer did not explain. He could not explain. He simply smiled and continued.
---
One afternoon, he received a message from Cem.
"I'm failing," the message said. "I can't remember anything. The exam is in five weeks and I'm going to fail."
Sencer thought for a long time. He wanted to help Cem. But how? He could not give him spring water. He could not tell him about the sword. He could only offer what he had always offered: time and attention.
He called Cem.
"Come to my house tomorrow," he said. "We'll study together."
"What's the point? I'm too far behind."
"You're not too far behind. You just need someone to explain things differently. I'll help you."
Cem was silent for a moment. Then: "Okay. Tomorrow."
---
The next day, Cem came to Sivan. He arrived on the afternoon minibus, looking tired and worried. Sencer met him at the stop and walked him to the house.
They sat at the kitchen table. Sencer opened his phone and showed Cem the AI app.
"This app explains everything step by step," Sencer said. "We'll start with the topics you find hardest."
Cem pointed to mathematics. "Calculus. I don't understand any of it."
Sencer opened the calculus section. He read the first explanation out loud. Then he worked through an example on paper, showing Cem each step.
"Do you see?" Sencer asked.
"Maybe. Can you do another example?"
Sencer did another. Then another. Then he asked Cem to try one on his own.
Cem hesitated. Then he picked up the pencil and wrote. He made mistakes. Sencer pointed them out. He corrected them. He tried again.
After an hour, Cem solved a derivative problem correctly. He stared at the paper as if he had seen a miracle.
"I did it," he said.
"You did it," Sencer agreed.
They studied together until the evening prayer. Cem learned more in that afternoon than he had learned in the last two weeks alone. When he left on the evening minibus, he looked less tired. A little hope had returned to his eyes.
"Thank you," he said.
"Study hard," Sencer said. "And sleep. Sleep is important too."
Cem nodded and climbed onto the bus.
---
That night, Sencer entered the inner world. The spring had grown slightly. He measured it: one bottle and a third. Not much, but more than before.
The tomato plants had given another harvest. The peppers were almost ready. The eggplants were flowering.
He watered everything. Then he sat on the stone bed. He did not look at the sword. He looked at the soil, at the plants, at the water bubbling from the ground.
He thought about Cem. He thought about the help he had given. He thought about the warmth in his chest that had glowed steadily throughout the afternoon.
The warmth was still there. It did not speak. It did not understand. It simply was.
Sencer left the inner world and returned to his desk. He studied for two more hours, then slept.
The exam was five weeks away. He would be ready. And he would help others be ready too.