After two hours of commenting on every scene, every line, and every detail of the movie, Kael had finally driven his mother insane. She had gone to bed, utterly exhausted, muttering something about a “sewn-shut mouth” and “watching a movie in peace.”

  Kael, on the other hand, felt as fresh as he had that morning.

  He made his way to his bedroom with a light step, almost eager. Ever since he’d returned home, he hadn’t stopped thinking about the books. Not for a single minute.

  He had simply kept those thoughts on hold—like holding one’s breath before diving.

  But now… no more restraint.

  He was going to dive headfirst.

  He sat down at his desk. In front of him lay the three black books, austere, understated, almost silent in their presence.

  He switched on a strange lamp resting there—a sort of oil lamp… that very clearly did not run on oil. Yet it lit up without a sound, casting a soft, warm glow.

  Under normal circumstances, he would have lingered on its mechanism, taken it apart out of sheer curiosity.

  But tonight, nothing mattered more than those books.

  He opened The Fibonacci Sequence and the Golden Ratio

  and began to read.

  From the very first lines, something happened.

  His mind aligned.

  He slipped into a strange state—somewhere between tension and calm—as if every sentence were a note, and he himself a string ready to vibrate.

  He wasn’t reading the way one reads a novel.

  He was reading to understand.

  To feel what lay beneath the words.

  Each paragraph was a door. He opened it gently, peeked behind it, turned the handle, noted the sound it made.

  Sometimes he read slowly. Other times, very fast.

  He went back.

  Mentally underlined an idea.

  Turned it over.

  Questioned it.

  Accepted it.

  Then doubted it again.

  He read with his eyes, his mind—but also with his instinct.

  The golden ratio became more than a number.

  It became a way of seeing.

  A filter. A hidden code woven into reality.

  He closed his eyes for a moment, imagining the spiral in a snail’s shell, in the architecture of a temple, in the formation of a galaxy.

  Everything seemed to dance to the same logic.

  Order within chaos.

  Harmony within the unexpected.

  Then he moved on to The Perfect Shadow Theorem.

  Here, the tone was different.

  Less mathematical. More… enigmatic.

  Almost poetic.

  But Kael didn’t let himself be unsettled.

  He hunted for meaning between the lines, the way an investigator searches for clues at a crime scene.

  He treated every sentence as either a trap—or a revelation.

  He knew this book demanded something else.

  Not knowledge.

  Not pure logic.

  But a gaze.

  A way of listening to what is not said.

  And Kael, precisely, had learned how to listen to silence.

  He turned the pages gently, almost reverently.

  Sometimes, he stopped. Stayed there for a few seconds, staring at a word. A single word. Weighing it.

  Other times, he reread an entire paragraph several times, as if trying to extract its true flavor—like slowly chewing a rare delicacy.

  It was like walking through a dark room with a lamp in hand, discovering a wall covered in inscriptions that only become visible when the light hits at just the right angle.

  Kael wasn’t reading.

  He was translating.

  Decoding.

  Drinking in knowledge.

  Then Kael stopped short.

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  His hands trembling, he rubbed his eyes.

  He had lost all sense of time.

  He pulled his phone from his pocket.

  1:46 a.m.

  Outside, the night was deep and black. A few stars drifted lazily across the dark veil of the sky. But he paid them no attention.

  His gaze settled on the third book.

  Cause.

  The one he had been waiting for.

  The one he had wanted to read from the very beginning.

  The one he had almost opened—before the man stopped him.

  With an almost religious slowness, he took it in his hands.

  He placed it gently on his desk, like setting a sacred object upon an altar.

  Then he turned the first page.

  Nothing.

  The page was… blank.

  “What?” he whispered, confused.

  He frantically turned the next page.

  Then another.

  And another.

  All of them.

  Blank.

  Not a word.

  Not a symbol.

  Not even a trace of ink.

  He jumped to his feet, still holding the book like a trapped object.

  “Why?!”

  He flipped it over, shook it, checked every angle, every edge, every seam.

  Nothing. Absolute nothingness.

  And then, the mysterious man’s words came back to him like an echo:

  “This book will not speak to you… as long as you do not know how to listen.”

  “I didn’t think you meant that literally…” Kael muttered, stunned.

  He slowly sat back down at his desk.

  Elbows planted, hands buried in his hair, his eyes stayed locked on the book’s black cover.

  Something was wrong.

  No… everything was wrong.

  He sprang up again and began pacing his room. Back and forth. Restless. Speaking out loud, as if trying to piece together an impossible puzzle.

  “What are these books, exactly?”

  He stopped, eyes unfocused. Then he began listing things aloud—methodical, but shaken.

  “First… these books.

  They’re not supposed to be there.

  Even the librarian said it herself:

  ‘These volumes have no place in a high school library.’

  So why were they there?”

  He resumed pacing, faster now.

  “And then… why did I notice them immediately?

  I was drawn to them. Literally.

  It wasn’t just curiosity. There was something else.”

  He stopped again.

  “And that library…

  Honestly.

  A building like that, in a quiet residential neighborhood?

  With its black stone, its stained glass, its atmosphere straight out of another world…

  What the hell is that thing doing there?”

  Kael let himself drop onto the edge of his bed, looking more lost than ever.

  “And the man… he wasn’t there when I arrived.

  I searched the entire ground floor. I checked everything.

  But when I came back upstairs… two cups of tea.

  Why two? Who prepared them?

  And why did he know exactly which books I was looking for?”

  He stood up again, restless.

  The pressure was building.

  “He asked me to play chess.

  As if everything had already been planned.

  And then he explained everything I wanted to know.

  Without me even asking.”

  Kael clenched his fists.

  “And then there was that feeling.

  The shiver. The Elan. That visceral sensation.

  That guy… he’s not an ordinary human.

  He’s either an Elan wielder… or something very close to it.”

  He drew in a deep breath, as if he were running out of air.

  Then he snapped.

  “I need to go see him again.

  I have to clear this up.

  He’s definitely connected to the Trial.

  But how?”

  He let out a heavy sigh, rubbing his face roughly.

  “My head hurts like hell…”

  He nearly staggered from exhaustion,

  and sat back down on the edge of the bed, breathing hard.

  “I thought this Trial would be simple…

  That I could just observe. Gather information. Calmly.”

  He shook his head, bitter.

  “What an idiot…

  I let myself get pulled in.”

  He closed his eyes, breath short.

  “I need to sleep.

  I’m losing my grip.

  Things will be clearer tomorrow.”

  He let himself fall back onto the bed, eyes fixed on the ceiling.

  But the black book on the desk—empty—

  was still watching him in silence.

  Kael closed his eyes.

  His mind was still screaming.

  Thoughts collided, overlapped, repeated themselves endlessly.

  But his body had already made its choice.

  Exhaustion caught up to him all at once.

  Without realizing it, his breathing slowed.

  His eyelids grew heavy, his brow relaxed.

  The last tensions left his muscles.

  And he sank.

  But the black book resting on the desk—empty—was still watching him in silence.

  …

  A crackling sound.

  Feathers scratching on paper.

  Voices. Young. Calm. Distant.

  A diffuse, muted light. Blurred shapes. A blackboard.

  A composed, mature voice:

  “Can anyone tell me what a cause is?”

  Kael’s eyes flew open.

  His heart was pounding.

  He blinked.

  His breath caught.

  A classroom.

  Uniforms.

  Sheets of paper.

  A voice called out to him:

  “Mr. Kael?”

  He slowly straightened in his chair.

  “Can you tell us what a cause is?”

  A freezing shiver ran up his spine.

  All eyes had turned toward him.

  His name had just been spoken.

  He was sitting in his seat again.

  As if nothing had happened.

  But everything inside him screamed the opposite.

  He was supposed to be asleep.

  In his room.

  Just a second ago.

  How had he ended up here?

  He remained silent.

  Panic flickered in his eyes.

  A tremor at the corner of his lips.

  A bead of sweat on his temple.

  He slowly turned his head toward the window.

  Same sky.

  Same light.

  Same moment.

  No… no, that’s not possible.

  His breathing quickened.

  Everything overlapped in his mind—the library, the man, the books, the pizza, his training, the fatigue… sleep.

  He remembered collapsing.

  He remembered the sentence he had thought just before sinking under:

  I need to sleep. I’m losing my grip.

  And now… he was here.

  Back at the very beginning.

  Same place.

  Same hour.

  “This is a joke,” he muttered under his breath, his gaze hollow.

  He pushed his chair back slightly.

  His clenched fingers dug into the edge of the desk.

  It was starting again.

  The day.

  All of it.

  Again.