Silas, following the evaluation incident, began to have very vivid dreams, which reached their peak one night, capable of giving him a glimpse of a truth that was cluttered in his mind.

  Silas opened his eyes and saw the wooden ceiling of his old house in Lampone. The smell of earth and dust from a seldom-cleaned room replaced the antiseptic stench of the recovery room.

  ?Am I home??, he thought, though a deep part of his mind knew that this was a memory... or perhaps, the life he should have had.

  In this timeline, he hadn't left for the city at twelve. He had spent a whole year more in Lampone. The routine was simple and comforting: attending his Scholar classes in the morning and, in the afternoons, taking refuge where he was truly happy.

  He had forged a solid friendship with Don Alfonse. The Molder had lost his last students halfway through the previous year, as one had been offered a scholarship in a larger town. Silas's life now revolved around sneaking into Professor Richard's classes, attending Don Alfonse's workshop, and, of course, showing up for the tests in his own Scholar classes.

  For some reason, Silas couldn't manage to make friends in his own class. The environment was toxic; young Scholars covered their notes with their arms so no one could copy, and study groups were nonexistent. On one occasion, he saw a student burn the notebooks of another who had achieved better grades. To Silas, that was simply pathetic. His grades were excellent, he never dropped below eighty out of a hundred, but his real interest lay outside those four walls. He firmly believed that fighting and molding classes would open more options for him to leave the village and reunite with his friend Roque.

  That day was special: new first-year students were arriving, and Silas would become one of the "seniors." As usual, the numbers didn't vary much: the Scholar class was overcrowded, with students sitting on the floor, while the Molder class was a desert.

  That year, however, a new Molder student arrived: Ervina. She was a girl with light brown hair, brown eyes, and slightly tanned skin. Silas already knew her; from time to time, she would join him and Roque to play, since there were few children in the village, for Ervina —or "Vin", as she preferred to be called— it was either that or stay alone.

  Upon arriving at the Molder workshop, Vin found Don Alfonse and Silas, who was already acting almost like a formal student. —Hello, Vin! How have you been? —Silas greeted her. —Good, Silas, but... weren't you baptized as a Scholar? —Vin asked, confused. —Yes, I am a Scholar, but I wander here and there to learn whatever is useful —he replied naturally. —Ah, I understand. But if you make the class go slow or something, I'll give you a Mana punch! —Vin warned, raising her small fist.

  Silas knew she couldn't channel Mana yet, but he played along and laughed. Days and weeks passed. Vin progressed, albeit slowly. Don Alfonse revealed her specialty after testing her with a special machine: Gas Molder.

  —They gave me this broken device as part of a payment —Don Alfonse commented to his two students—. These machines, even damaged, are quite expensive, so I just had to repair it.

  Normally, villages didn't have this technology, and Molders spent their first year experimenting blindly to discover their affinity element. The process involved placing a belt at chest height, which contained an ultrasensitive Mana crystal and sensors for pressure, viscosity, and load. Upon channeling, the crystal reacted and determined the path: pressure for gaseous, viscosity for liquids, and tension force for solids.

  The machine, however, did not detect Plasma Molders. Like the Devouts of Grace, Plasma Molders were considered the royalty of magic and the original Baptism Machine usually identified them at birth due to specific fluctuations in their Primordial Energy. They were an anomaly: while solid, liquid, and gaseous were interconnected, plasma possessed no affinity with the other three.

  —Look, Vin, your specialty is gas —Don Alfonse explained to her—. Of the three, it is the most complicated because you can't see it. I'll have to buy some gases with different weights so you can get used to it, but it will still be difficult. Don't get discouraged, Gas Molders are highly sought after; besides, when you master it, you'll realize that almost ninety percent of the world is gas. Don Alfonse tried to prevent her frustration, but Vin suffered. Silas didn't actively participate in those lessons, but he watched with close attention. He wanted to help her, not only because it hurt him to see her fail, but because if she progressed, he could learn more too.

  Over time, during their daily walks by the river, Vin and Silas forged a deep friendship. One day, Vin confided her real problem: —This Mana channeling thing isn't that hard in theory. It's as if Mana were a pencil and gas a piece of paper... but when I want to write something, I can't find the paper. It's invisible. She stopped and looked at him. —Silas, do you already know how to channel Cognis?

  Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

  —Yes, I learned in the first few weeks, but I ignored the Scholar teachers. It helped me more to listen to how Richard taught the Legionaries —Silas replied. —How so? —Well, Cognis is similar to what you say about Mana, but it's more diffuse, because you have to imagine something that doesn't exist, like physical thoughts. —Silas... could you channel Cognis, please? I have an idea —said Vin, with a sparkle in her eyes. Silas nodded and sat in a meditation position. Vin sat right behind him, back to back. When Silas began to channel his mental energy, something impressive happened.

  —Silas, I see them! I finally see them! —Vin exclaimed. Silas opened his eyes. He didn't see anything different, but he felt how the environment became malleable. —Vin, I feel something too. It's very weird, as if just thinking about something could create it —he said, cutting the flow. —Oh, no! I don't see them anymore! —Vin complained. —I have a better idea, but don't get mad —Silas proposed. —What? You want to hold my hand? You're acting like that bandit Roque! —she shouted, blushing. —No, Vin. It's so the energies flow from one to the other in a closed circuit. The other option is for you to bring my head close to your chest, which is where the Mana comes from —Silas explained with clinical logic. —Okay... the hand is fine. But don't think anything weird —Vin accepted. They held hands and both began to channel their respective energies. —I think I know how to do it now, but you won't be able to see it, Silas. I made the air denser —Vin whispered. —Can you make air with more oxygen? —Silas asked. —What is oxygen? —she questioned. —Right, you don't have chemistry classes. Just take the biggest particles in the air and multiply them —he simplified. —Okay, I think I did it. I have them concentrated in my hand. —Don't get scared —Silas warned. He passed his free hand over Vin's and, using a spark of pure logic, launched a small flame into the air. The fire burst with force, fueled by the concentrated oxygen. —But what the hell did you do, Silas!? —Vin shouted, genuinely surprised by both the flame and having let slip a curse word. —Vin, this is what I think: Mana and Cognis are compatible energies. When they join, they make it so you can "see the paper to write on", but for me it was like having the paper and being able to handle your Mana as if it were my ink. I thought about how fire is created, and my mind completed the equation because there was fuel in your hand.

  Unknowingly, they had discovered an advanced principle of Battle Scholars. For them, it was as if someone had taken an impossible mathematical equation and simplified it to a sum of two plus two. Silas's Cognis acted as a focusing lens for Vin's raw power.

  The next day, they ran to show their discovery to Don Alfonse. —Look... I didn't know Cognis could be used for that —admitted the master, scratching his beard—. It will serve you well, Vin. It would be good for the academies to know about this, although I doubt those hard-heads will accept a Scholar helping a Molder.

  Weeks and months passed. Silas stopped attending Legionary classes to dedicate all his free time to Vin. Although every week she needed his help less to "see" the gas, she kept asking him to be there. And Silas, happy, accepted.

  In the middle of the second semester, Vin broke the silence. —Silas, I know you realized I don't need your Cognis anymore... why do you keep coming? —Because you asked me to. Besides, time is more entertaining when I'm by your side —he replied honestly. —For me too —Vin whispered, lowering her gaze—. Silas, I have something to tell you... I'm leaving the village at the end of the year. Silas's world stopped for an instant. —My mother thinks I have talent and wants me to go to another city to reach my maximum potential —she continued—. I told her it's all been because of your help, but she thinks I'm lying. I feel bad... my idea of learning about mana ends up causing me to go far away from everyone. From Don Alfonse. From you.

  Silas experienced a mixture of pain and hope. He felt bad about the departure, but happy for her future. And an unprecedented warmth invaded him upon hearing his name on Vin's lips with such sadness. That night, in the dream, Silas fell asleep feeling a new emotion, one his logical self had never calculated: love.

  —Vin, don't go! —Silas shouted, waking up with a start. —Silas, my name is Jean and I'm not going anywhere. But get dressed, we're late for class —his roommate told him, looking at him strangely. Silas blinked, disoriented by the light of the room in the Jared Academy. ?What happened??, he thought. Little by little, the fragments ordered themselves. It wasn't his life. They were memories of an alternate life, of when he was thirteen or fourteen years old in Lampone. —Jean, you go first. I feel a bit sick, I'll arrive later —Silas said. Jean nodded and left. Silas remained sitting on the bed, his heart oppressed. He remembered that the dream-version of Sister Lucia had told him those visions were "memories of a sad life". However, something didn't add up. Almost all his memories were tinged with a golden and kind light: Richard, Lucia, Alfonse and, above all, Vin. Then he formulated a terrifying hypothesis.

  If he had been granted a "second chance" with powers of a Devout and Scholar, it meant that the original life —the one in the memories— had ended in absolute tragedy. For fate to intervene like that, that happiness with Vin must have had a horrible ending, plagued by death.

  Silas tried to push aside those dark thoughts, but a philosophical burden invaded him.

  In this new life, in this reality where he was a "Legionary" in the city, neither Don Alfonse, nor Richard, nor even Vin knew who he really was. To Vin, Silas was just a boy who disappeared from the village at twelve. The deep friendship, the afternoons connecting Cognis and Mana, the affection... none of that had happened for her.

  It was a heavy burden for a child's mind. The people he loved in his dreams existed in reality, but they were strangers. And the versions he remembered, the ones who loved him, were dead, lost in a timeline that he himself had erased by coming to the academy.

  Silas clenched his fists on the sheets. He knew he had to do something. He had to return to Lampone. He had to reconnect with them before that "sad life" that fate wanted to avoid, found another way to manifest itself.