Nearly seven months have passed since the start of classes at Anzenwald. The peninsula is currently in Kishmari, the eighth month of the year. Most classes are already approaching their final stretch before the first examinations, and at this time of year, the majority of students temporarily abandon extracurricular activities such as clubs, sports, or optional subjects like Zisuda.

  Just before noon, in one of the areas most commonly used by students for lunch, the shouts of anger and desperation from at least a dozen girls could be heard. Immediately after, a large explosion rang out.

  Matthis lay against a wall in which his body appeared to have created a large hole. Blood poured down Matthis’s forehead like a cascade, and he visibly had several broken bones, twisted and out of place.

  “Reverse it. Now,” Leofrik’s voice ordered coldly. Behind him stood twelve girls, their expressions filled with anger and despair—completely bald.

  “haha.”

  “HAHAHA.” Despite his condition, Matthis began laughing uncontrollably.

  “I don’t know how it never occurred to me before, HAHA,” he managed to say between fits of laughter.

  Leofrik’s face filled with even more rage, and with a kick, he knocked Matthis to the ground and, without holding back, stepped on his head.

  “Matthis, reverse it. I’m not going to repeat myself.”

  “You should kill him. He’s an idiot,” said Matthis, who was standing beside Leofrik, staring down at Matthis lying on the ground.

  “Yes, you’re right,” Leofrik nodded.

  Leofrik pressed down harder with his foot, but after a few seconds—during which his mind seemed unable to properly process his surroundings—he realized there were two Matthises.

  “Damn clown,” Leofrik growled, quickly grabbing the Matthis standing beside him by the neck.

  In that instant, the Matthis being strangled turned into a cloth dummy. The Matthis lying shattered on the ground turned into a Nekku—a small, one-eyed animal with hind legs larger than its front ones, two fluffy tails, and three pointed ears. This little creature was extremely common in Anzenwald, almost to the point of being a pest. Then, one of the twelve bald girls turned into Matthis, raised both thumbs, and ran off.

  Leofrik was not surprised, as if he were already accustomed to this kind of thing. He angrily threw the cloth Matthis aside and ran after the real Matthis.

  The chase lasted several minutes. Leofrik was limited to using only air Heka, since the other elements would damage the facilities too much to be excused merely by his title as prince, as had already happened with the earlier damage to the wall.

  Matthis ran toward a small forest bordered by two paths. Inside it, he sprinted between the trees, and at one of them, he grabbed a couple of branches and a Nekku, which he stuffed into his jacket. Exiting the forest, Leofrik continued chasing Matthis into another of the university’s lunch areas—this one far less crowded.

  “Brother!” Matthis shouted, running toward a blond boy leaning against a table at the edge of the lunch area.

  When Matthis reached him, the boy—whose bored expression mixed with exhaustion upon seeing Matthis—stood as Matthis positioned himself behind him. Moments later, Leofrik arrived, grinding his teeth in fury upon seeing the blond boy standing in front of Matthis.

  “Adrian, if you’re not going to control your brother, you need to stop covering for him,” Leofrik said, still slightly out of breath from the chase.

  Adrian’s expression became even more bored. “What did you do this time, Matthis?”

  “He shaved a dozen girls,” Leofrik answered for him.

  “Adrian, he has to reverse it. Not even you can cover for him with the board after something like this.”

  Adrian frowned and, with an exaggerated expression of exhaustion and boredom, stood up in front of Leofrik, who unconsciously took two steps back.

  “I can’t?” Adrian asked, hands in his pockets, leaning slightly forward.

  Leofrik clenched his teeth, forcing himself not to speak without thinking. “He can’t do something like this.”

  “That’s true,” Adrian nodded.

  “Matthis, you’ve had your fun. Reverse it,” Adrian asked his brother, without much effort.

  Matthis’s body fell forward, striking the ground with a dry thud, like a sack of stones. As it did, it turned into tree branches, and a Nekku slipped out of them. In the dining area where the commotion had begun, one of the eleven bald girls who were still there turned into Matthis, who slipped away through the large crowd of students toward a remote, almost untraveled area of the university at this time of year.

  Matthis walked along one of Anzenwald’s paths, laughing to himself, a laugh that at times turned into outright cackling. Knowing he still had one more trump card left, something that would allow him to stretch the prank just a little longer, he looked around for a target and spotted two girls—one with black hair and one with red hair—sitting on a bench while having lunch.

  Without thinking too much, Matthis fitted two pieces of stone into his necklace, and a blue mist began to surround him. When the mist faded, Matthis was no longer there. Instead, he had become one of the trees standing behind the bench where the girls were seated. Carefully, he extended his arms from one of the tree’s branches and rotated a triangular stone on his bracelet.

  “I don’t understand anything… I don’t know how I’m going to pass this,” Elyne lamented, pouting as she read her notes.

  “I’m not even going to sit the final for that subject. It’s way too complicated to take in the same term as Heka I,” Iskra said, stretching her back sleepily.

  Before Matthis used the Zinar on his bracelet, he froze upon seeing Iskra. He felt an unfamiliar sensation—something that shut his brain down for a moment—and by the time he came back to himself, he instinctively abandoned the tree and ran off.

  Matthis didn’t quite understand what had just happened. He felt something strange—something that wasn’t that constant urge he had to create chaos through pranks. It was a sensation that seemed to have been dormant in his mind. And he wasn’t even sure it was a pleasant one. Then, someone grabbed Matthis by the collar of his jacket, stopping him dead in his tracks.

  “Old Xu! Excellent intervention!” Matthis applauded.

  “Reverse whatever you’ve done. We need to talk, and I don’t want the prince looking for us,” Weilan said as he began walking toward an even less traveled path.

  Matthis sighed with exaggerated, theatrical disappointment and rotated one of the stones on his necklace. Then, nine of the bald girls recovered their hair, and the tenth—the missing one—turned into a cloth Matthis.

  Matthis followed Weilan along one of the paths that led deepest into the forest, walking far enough in that the cobblestone paths gave way to dirt trails, the sky became hidden behind the treetops, and the forest began to cease being a forest and instead turned into jungle.

  “The board will not approve the use of the university’s solid Nigzar reserves to conduct functionality tests on the device,” Weilan said, stopping and looking toward the forest.

  “Tsk… those old bureaucrats,” Matthis said, kicking a stone into the woods.

  “So… we’ll use my blueprints?”

  After a moment of thought, Weilan nodded. “We will.”

  Matthis couldn’t help but break into a wide smile. “When?”

  “Tomorrow. I’ll make sure all members of the class attend tomorrow, and you’ll explain the changes you want to make in front of everyone.”

  “haha… haha… HAHAHAHAHA,” Matthis burst into uncontrollable laughter.

  “I can’t believe I’m actually about to do this, HAHAHA.”

  Weilan frowned in confusion. “Present in front of the class?”

  “What’s special about that? You’ve done it many times before.”

  “No… no, that’s not it,” Matthis said, shaking his head, still trying to contain his laughter.

  “Relax, old Xu.”

  “Even if with my blueprints you can’t use the device for what you wanted, once everyone is using it, we’ll have the resources to build one using the original blueprints.”

  “haha… see you tomorrow, Xu.”

  Matthis brought the palms of his hands together, the fingers of each hand pointing in different directions, and slowly slid them apart. As he did, he began to fade away. In a tree in the garden in front of Anzenwald’s main building, a Nekku began to grow and distort until it took on Matthis’s form. He jumped down from the tree and started running eastward.

  After nearly half an hour of running, Matthis crossed the entire capital city, reaching one of its outermost districts—a place with far less infrastructure than the city center and barely any people on the streets.

  In this district, Matthis walked northeast for several minutes until he reached the last square of the kingdom in that direction. There, he approached the statue at the center of the triangular square, pulled a Nekku and a pair of sticks from his jacket, and placed them atop it.

  Matthis made sure there was no one close enough to the area, then began removing the stone slabs that served as flooring, located at an angle of fifty-seven degrees relative to the statue’s thumb, at a distance of four meters.

  After removing two of the stones, he discovered a tunnel in the ground, into which he partially slipped. He then closed the entrance again by dragging the stones back into place before finally letting himself drop completely into the tunnel.

  Matthis descended through the tunnel for nearly twenty seconds until he finally reached a dark corridor, lit only by a single torch positioned in front of the point where he had arrived. This corridor was very similar to the one used by the students attending the Zisuda class to reach their classroom, but with walls far more worn down.

  The catacomb system of Anzenwald was ridiculously vast and complex, extending, at the very least, throughout the entire capital. Its exact origin is unknown, though it is believed to have been constructed as a place of lodging and storage during the construction of Anzenwald, back when Ferhafen did not yet exist. However, these explanations are nothing more than poorly substantiated speculation.

  From the era in which Anzenwald was built, many books and records remain, but they are written in a language that is now extinct, which—despite the considerable resources the university invests in deciphering it—remains largely unreadable.

  As for the catacombs, there are several maps from that time, but most are in terrible condition. Unlike the books, once the catacombs fell out of use, no new maps were made, nor was maintenance given to the existing ones. As a result, most current maps of the catacombs are modern maps, and they cover no more than fifteen percent of them.

  Matthis walked through the catacomb corridors, delving deeper with every step. Only the echo of his footsteps and the crackling of the torch he carried could be heard. After walking for several minutes, Matthis arrived at an old, rusted iron door, from beneath which a faint light seeped through. Without much hesitation, he pushed the door open and entered the room beyond it.

  “Weilan gave in,” Matthis said seriously, placing the torch into a wall-mounted holder near the entrance and closing the door behind him, which produced a metallic sound that reverberated throughout the room.

  “I know,” a voice replied from the other side of the room.

  “I can’t believe you actually managed to make the board refuse to invest in a project like this,” Matthis said as he removed his uniform jacket and draped it over an old chair.

  “Now I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I always thought you were just a madman with amusing artifacts. I never thought you’d actually follow through on what you said.” Matthis sat down at the table, facing the man from whom the voice had come.

  “So… well, I never really paid attention when you spoke.”

  “You should repeat the plan if we’re truly going to do this.”

  “Relax. I didn’t expect you to pay attention while you were destroying my artifacts to build what you call accessories,” the man laughed, referring to Matthis’s necklace and bracelets.

  The man stood up and walked toward a shelf of polished, varnished wood. From it, he took two scrolls and a red crystal. His footsteps echoed through the small room as he slowly walked back to the table, the smell of burnt oil permeating the air.

  The man unfurled one of the scrolls across the table. “So, how much do you know?”

  “Well, I actually remember most of the plan—you know, all that stuff about putting obstacles in Xu’s way through the board so he can’t use the original blueprints and ends up using yours, or well, mine according to him. And then the artifact spreads everywhere because it’s really amazing and blah, blah, blah,” Matthis explained.

  “What I never really paid attention to was what your goal with all this actually is, and what the artifact really does.”

  “And… how this is going to destroy the gods.”

  A cynical smile spread across the man’s face. “Well, let’s say my objective is to bring him back.”

  “And precisely that is your method of divine annihilation.”

  “Bring him back? That’s not very specific,” Matthis leaned back in his chair.

  “Unfortunately for you, you are not worthy of knowing his name. But I can give you an idea of what—or rather, who—we are talking about.”

  The man fell silent for a moment before continuing. “Tell me, Matthis. When did the world begin?”

  “Huh? A little over ten thousand years ago, when the gods created everything.”

  “Matthis, what year are we in?”

  “In 10178… what does that have to do with anything?”

  “No, Matthis. No.” The man shook his head.

  “10178? Since when? Since the founding of Ferhafen? Since Creation? 10178 since what?”

  “After the sealing,” Matthis replied, confused, not understanding the point.

  “After the sealing…” the man confirmed.

  “To be honest, the current level of humanity disappoints me greatly… even so, it seems that I must illuminate you even in the obvious,” the man lamented to himself.

  “Matthis, what was sealed?”

  Matthis thought about it for several seconds. “I don’t know… nothing?”

  “It’s just a date.”

  “No, it isn’t,” the man denied.

  “10178 years ago, there was a conflict on a universal scale—but not between factions or kingdoms,” the man began to explain.

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  “In fact, everyone was allied, fighting against him.”

  “He is not only the epitome of everything, but he is also the only being with a soul still in existence who existed before—before Nigzar.”

  “Before Nigzar? Hasn’t it always existed?” Matthis asked, somewhat incredulous.

  “Nothing has always existed, Matthis. There is always a before.”

  “That doesn’t make sense. There must always be a beginning,” Matthis replied confidently.

  The man placed the red crystal on the table, to the left of the parchment bearing the blueprint.

  “Well, you’re right—but the only one who knows what existed before Nigzar is him. As far as the rest of us are concerned, he is the beginning.”

  “As far as I’m concerned, the beginning was when I turned nine,” Matthis said sarcastically.

  The man raised an eyebrow. “Well, that’s a very specific point of view.”

  “In any case, we’re drifting off into ridiculous philosophy,” the man said, tapping the parchment twice with his fingers.

  “Ridiculous philosophy? For your own safety, don’t say that near Ayanokooji,” Matthis said, straightening up in his chair.

  “So, returning to where we were,” the man continued.

  “What you now known as Heka, Zisuda, and Khektemak—the perfect fusion of both—were created by him.”

  “Khektemak? Inventing words is currently my monopoly,” Matthis laughed.

  “How humanity has declined…” the man shook his head in disappointment.

  “Well, maybe I’d take you more seriously if you weren’t describing this guy like someone lying on his interview to get into Sylvareth,” Matthis mocked.

  The man couldn’t help but laugh at Matthis’s ignorance. “Well, believe me, I’m simplifying things.”

  “For example, in the books of Velmoraaz, the history prior to the sealing is recorded fairly well, although they fail quite badly in translating names. And if you do the math based on what’s recorded there, you’ll find that almost sixty percent of all existing uses of Nigzar were created or perfected by him.”

  “Please tell me you didn’t just use Velmoraaz as a source of information,” Matthis said incredulously.

  “Those people can barely breathe without difficulty.”

  The man paused for a moment to think. “I admit they have rather strange customs, but I assure you they keep good historical records. I’ve lived through many of the things documented in their books.”

  “Just admit you like albino girls,” Matthis mocked.

  “Well… maybe a little,” the man laughed.

  “But once again, we’re straying from the main topic—basically, as always when I try to talk to you,” the man said, pointing again at the parchment on the table.

  “I’ll summarize everything important as best I can. Don’t interrupt.”

  “Sure, sure.”

  The man cleared his throat and continued. “So, about eleven thousand years ago, he decided he wanted to reset existence. So, our world, the other worlds, and even those far beyond united to kill him.”

  “Predictably, they failed. He simply killed them all.”

  “Even so, surprisingly, they managed to weaken him to the point that, through the use of a Nig?ura, they were able to impose a seal upon his soul.”

  “I must say, of the few seals as complex as his that I know have ever existed, his is among them. His soul is everywhere, yet at the same time nowhere.”

  “Which makes any attempt to locate it and connect with it through conventional means impossible.”

  “Since then, the world has infinitely regressed in every possible aspect. The strongest surviving species—the one you now know as ‘the gods’—imposed their history, and the rest you already know.”

  “You never paid attention in history class.”

  The man nodded, ignoring Matthis’s comment.

  “After the sealing, very few of us survived—mainly those too irrelevant for him to bother killing in battle, such as the gods, or myself.”

  “All right, all right,” Matthis applauded.

  “Easy there. Even though we all know you’re irrelevant, that doesn’t matter. What matters is self-love,” he mocked.

  “Well, the fact that I was irrelevant back then and am now considered a god compared to everyone else speaks worse of you than it does of me,” the man shot back.

  “Sure, sure. You always say you’re incredibly powerful and all that, but I’ve seen an Akhem using Nigzar—and not you,” Matthis replied.

  “In this era, I don’t need to use it to obtain what I want,” the man clarified.

  Matthis shook his head amused. “How convenient…”

  “Returning to what matters—for the tenth time—after the sealing I spent about six millennia enjoying life, and enjoying just how overwhelmingly superior my power was compared to the rest of the surviving species,” the man said.

  “But I grew bored faster than I expected.”

  “Every time I wanted to do or have anything, it no longer existed. It had been lost to the progress of the world, and all that remained around me were stupid animals who considered themselves thinking beings.”

  “So, since I’m nowhere near powerful enough to return the world to its former glory on my own, I decided to bring him back.”

  “You’re certainly a great thinker,” Matthis applauded.

  “I get it now. This artifact is meant to unseal this ‘him’ of yours.”

  “Fascinating, Matthis. You managed to think,” the man replied sarcastically.

  “And did you also graduate in comedy?” Matthis mocked back.

  “But why do you need Xu? You already have the blueprints—just build the artifact yourself.”

  “I can’t.” The man unrolled the second parchment on the table, revealing the previous blueprint with small but crucial modifications.

  “You see, souls—when they are not in their physical bodies—exist in the realm of the Lords of Death. There, they have a location, just as we do here in the physical realm.”

  “Which means it’s possible to locate them, and consequently, to connect with them.”

  Matthis leaned forward slightly, clearly paying more attention and showing more interest than before.

  The man paused for a second, unsettled by the lack of interruption.

  “So, I began searching for ways to bring someone back from the realm of the Lords. I learned a great deal about Zisuda and collected hundreds of writings from engineers of my era.”

  “Over time, I acquired extensive knowledge in the field, but I never possessed the creative or innovative capacity required to create something like this. Nor were there any blueprints to follow, because meddling with the Lords was strictly forbidden before the sealing.”

  Matthis thought for a moment. “Seems like you managed it anyway,” he said, looking at the parchment on the table.

  “Yes, I did.” A satisfied smile spread across the man’s face.

  “You see, once I realized I wasn’t capable of creating a device that could do what I needed on my own, I spent the following millennia searching for someone who could.”

  “And, not unexpectedly, I didn’t find them.”

  “But that doesn’t mean they didn’t exist.”

  “Two hundred and seventeen years ago, during the Great Canal War between Tarnwick and Ferhafen, the engineers of Tarnwick developed a device they named ‘The Hades Crown.’”

  “Huh? Wait, wait—are you telling me you couldn’t create a device like that, but those idiots from Tarnwick could?” Matthis said, a mix of disbelief and amusement in his voice. “Disappointing.”

  “Unfortunately, years grant wisdom and knowledge, not intellect or genius,” the man replied.

  “And to create something of that caliber, a great deal of intellect and genius are required.”

  “Still, something doesn’t add up. If Tarnwick had invented something like that, they would’ve used it in the war,” Matthis questioned, confused.

  “Well… the device they created allowed them to latch onto a soul—like with a hook—and pull it into the physical world. That way, they could extract Nigzar from those souls and use it to amplify their own.”

  “But, to the misfortune of those leading the project, their methods for determining a soul’s position within the realm of the Lords were far too complex.”

  “A miscalculation, and they brought in the soul of someone they were not prepared to contain.”

  “Everyone died, and the project was shut down.”

  “Wow… great. They were from Tarnwick—probably deserved it,” Matthis said.

  “So one of those engineers gave you the blueprints before dying?”

  “No. Unfortunately for me, when I learned that someone had managed to create something similar to what I needed, I was far away on the continent, and the journey to the peninsula took me nearly a hundred years.”

  “By the time I arrived, the war had already ended.”

  “Even so, I managed to recover the archived blueprints and refine them slightly,” the man said, placing a finger on the first parchment on the table.

  “A hundred years just to get here? Is the continent really that large?” Matthis asked, curious.

  “Yes. This continent is quite large.”

  “But then why do you need Xu?” Matthis asked.

  “Why didn’t you assemble the device yourself? Even if you found the blueprints late, enough time has passed since then.”

  “Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to,” the man admitted. “I made dozens of attempts, but I never managed to make even a single component function.”

  “What? Are you serious? You couldn’t assemble it even with the blueprints?”

  Matthis crossed his arms, incredulous.

  “I’m starting to doubt you’re really who you claim to be.”

  “Matthis, all those artifacts in your necklaces are essentially Zisuda usage instructions. Can you form those Zisuda?”

  Matthis glanced at the stones and devices on his bracelets. “I can’t. I only inject Nigzar into the artifacts.”

  “Why can’t you? You have the blueprints.”

  “I’ve tried, but—”

  “It’s not the same,” Matthis complained as he realized where the man was going with this.

  “Having the blueprints doesn’t qualify you to actually use them.”

  “I suppose that makes sense,” Matthis conceded reluctantly.

  “Still, the time I spent searching for someone like Xu—someone capable of assembling the device—I used to apply the necessary modifications to the original blueprints,” the man said, pointing to the second parchment.

  “As I said, the original device can retrieve someone whose soul’s position is known. But he is not a normal entity within the realm of the Lords of Death. He didn’t arrive there like the others—he is merely a guest.”

  “And his sealing causes his position to change constantly, making it impossible to locate him. Which means a device that functions like a hook is useless.”

  “You’ll have to tell me later who these Lords of Death are,” Matthis said, studying the modified blueprint on the table.

  “Believe me, you don’t want to know anything about them. In any case, you’ll meet them when you die—best not to rush it.”

  A faint chill ran through Matthis, but it didn’t come from him—it rose from the ground beneath his feet.

  “Sure…”

  “So then, what change did you make to solve that problem?” Matthis asked, suddenly uncomfortable.

  “In simple terms, the device stops functioning like a hook that fishes for a specific soul, and instead functions like a net cast into a small, random area of the realm.”

  Matthis paused, considering the implications.

  “So if we get Xu to assemble this device while still believing it’s meant to increase someone’s Nigzar—something completely unthinkable to everyone—it would be an enormous breakthrough.”

  “And since one of Xu’s goals is to give Zisuda greater relevance within Anzenwald, he’ll take advantage of something like this to secure significant funding for his class from the administration.”

  “Exactly,” the man nodded.

  “And because the opportunity to increase Nigzar would be revolutionary—the first method in this era that allows Nigzar to be increased without spending years in the process—the device’s use would spread at an incredible speed.”

  “So we’d have millions of nets being cast constantly into the realm. And even if we can’t know his position, he does have one. Which means it’s only a matter of time before, purely by statistics, one of those nets encounters his soul,” the man explained.

  Matthis nodded excitedly, eager to put the plan into motion, when a troubling question crossed his mind.

  “What happens to the souls the device captures?”

  The man fell silent, staring at Matthis seriously.

  “Does it matter?”

  “No,” Matthis denied, without much concern.

  “If they are stable souls, they simply lose some stability temporarily. If they are very strong souls, they can completely nullify the device’s effect on them or… use it as a tunnel into the physical world—which is exactly what we want him to do. And if they are very weak, they disappear,” the man explained seriously, never taking his eyes off Matthis, as if watching for the slightest hesitation.

  “HAHAHA.”

  “How fortunate that Xu is convinced it’s a device that collects Nigzar from the environment.”

  “Selling it as a device that gives you the chance to erase your grandmother’s soul from existence in exchange for a bit of Nigzar wouldn’t be very profitable,” Matthis said, picking up the parchment with the modified blueprint.

  “This isn’t the blueprint with the modifications I suggested… it’s the same one you showed me when we first met,” Matthis complained with visible displeasure.

  The man rolled up the parchment containing the original blueprint that was still on the table.

  “No. It isn’t.”

  “I analyzed your suggestions, but they were too risky. They could get us into trouble,” the man explained seriously.

  “Too risky? You’re starting to sound like Xu,” Matthis said irritably, placing the blueprint back on the table.

  “What kind of trouble could they cause us? For someone who never stops saying how powerful he is, you’re awfully cautious.”

  The man’s expression turned stern.

  “Matthis, if I say we won’t use them, then we won’t use them.”

  He walked forward, his footsteps echoing through the small room, until he stood directly in front of Matthis.

  “We will use the blueprint without your modifications.”

  The atmosphere suddenly grew dense. Eyes seemed to form within the walls, watching Matthis’s every movement, and the ground beneath his feet turned sticky.

  “Fine,” Matthis relented.

  The man nodded, satisfied, and stepped back. As he did, the atmosphere returned to normal.

  “I have something for you.”

  He approached the table and picked up the red gemstone resting on it. The gem began to glow brighter and brighter in his hands, until the light became unbearable and the room was swallowed by white. After a few seconds, the glow abruptly vanished, and in the man’s hands there was now a piece of stone with something carved into it—very similar to the ones that made up Matthis’s accessories.

  “Here,” the man said, tossing the stone to Matthis.

  Matthis caught it and examined it for a few seconds.

  “Well, how romantic,” he said sarcastically.

  “It’s a Zinar specialized for your Nig?ura. You’ll need it if I want you to be able to locate the person who finds his soul.”

  “For my Nig?ura?” Matthis’s eyes widened in surprise.

  Without waiting for an explanation, Matthis infused the stone with Nigzar. As he did, the carving glowed faintly with a blue light. Immediately afterward, four shadows burst out from Matthis in different directions. They slid across the floor for two meters before rising and forming three-dimensional figures—each one shaped like Matthis, but made entirely of shadow.

  Matthis stared at the shadows, confused, unable to connect them to his Nig?ura. He then turned his gaze toward the man, waiting for an explanation.

  “Your Nig?ura allows you to leave a fragment of your Nigzar inside another being that possesses Nigzar, and then use them as portals, correct?”

  Matthis nodded uncomfortably.

  “Yes… that’s right. How do you know that? I never told you.”

  “I know many things, Matthis,” the man replied, walking among the shadows surrounding him.

  “At present, what you use most are Nekku, which you trap inside mental cages using sticks—just like I once casually mentioned you could do.”

  Matthis nodded again.

  “Are you spying on me?”

  “Oh, of course not. But you’re not exactly discreet. You always leave a Nekku outside,” the man laughed.

  With a slight gesture of his right hand, one of the room’s solid stone walls melted, turning gelatinous. The rock-like gel began to swirl toward the center of the wall, forming a vortex. Moments later, the wall displayed a clear image of the square through which Matthis had entered. At the base of the central statue, a Nekku stood surrounded by sticks.

  “It’s a good precaution, I’ll give you that,” the man said sarcastically as he observed the image on the wall.

  Matthis stared at the wall in disbelief for several seconds. Seeing the Nekku perched on the statue struck him as absurdly funny.

  “HAHAHA.”

  “I’ll admit, you have some impressive tricks.”

  The man moved his right hand once more, and the wall returned to its normal state, leaving no trace of its previous gelatinous form.

  “When you create shadows using the Zinar embedded in the stone, you do so by using your Nigzar, which means the shadows themselves use part of your Nigzar.”

  “Basically, you can use your Nig?ura through them.”

  Matthis listened closely, and as he grasped the potential of his Nig?ura combined with this Zinar, a wide grin spread across his face. He walked toward one of the shadows, brought his palms together—each hand’s fingers pointing in different directions—and then slid them apart. As he did, Matthis vanished, reappearing within the shadow opposite the first. The shadow from which he emerged dissolved into black smoke that seeped into the ground.

  A smile of pure fascination filled Matthis’s expression.

  “HAHA.”

  Matthis slid his palms again, over and over, until only a single shadow remained and he could no longer use his Nig?ura.

  “This is amazing!” Matthis exclaimed, euphoric.

  “I knew you’d like it,” the man laughed.

  “Each shadow permanently consumes a portion of your Nigzar until you dismiss it.”

  “That is, you can leave an indefinite number of shadows in a place for an indefinite amount of time, but each one will consume a portion of your Nigzar that you won’t be able to recover until you dispel them.”

  “HAHAHA! You can’t be serious! HAHAHA!”

  “I can already think of at least a hundred ways to mess with Leofrik using this,” Matthis said, laughing in pure ecstasy.

  After fine-tuning the last small details of what Matthis would need to do during his presentation the following day in the Zisuda class, he took the parchment with the blueprint and left the place, walking through the catacombs until he emerged five squares away from the one he had used as an entrance.

  On the afternoon of the following day, when nearly all mandatory classes had already ended and only the few optional courses still attended at this point in the year remained active, Matthis stood at the front entrance of Anzenwald’s main building—the one closest to the catacombs housing the Zisuda classroom. Beside him were two other students who also attended the class, all waiting for Professor Xu Weilan to arrive.

  As the minutes passed, Anzenwald’s facilities grew increasingly empty, some of them already closed. Weilan arrived exactly at the scheduled start time of the class and ushered all the students waiting outside into the catacomb classroom.

  There, Weilan gave a brief summary of the device the class had been working on for the past few months—a device whose blueprint they had casually and conveniently found in one of the library’s sections.

  After quickly explaining the issue of the device’s excessive Nigzar consumption, as well as how the board had denied their request to use solid Nigzar from the university’s reserves, he asked Matthis to step forward and explain his idea for solving the problem.

  Matthis stepped to the front with a confident smile and hung a long parchment in front of the board—clearly newly purchased. On it was the same blueprint the man had given him the previous night, though with a slight modification Matthis had made while transcribing it onto the new parchment.

  Matthis delivered an extensive and highly technical explanation—entirely fabricated—of the device’s operation and the changes made to it, carefully tailoring his words to match what everyone in the class believed the device to be.

  As was typical of Matthis, he made use of his natural talent for giving speeches that said many things while saying nothing at all, not only convincing the class that the changes were meant to save energy, but that they were also an improvement over the original design. In doing so, he ensured that even if the board were to suddenly change its mind, the majority would still support using his blueprints regardless.

  When his presentation ended, all the students were impatient and excited to begin working on the construction of the device—a task they might even be able to complete before the final exams.

  And in fact, that is exactly what happened. The atmosphere of discouragement that had surrounded the project among the few class members—caused by the obvious impossibility of realizing the original blueprints—was replaced by overwhelming excitement to finish it. As a result, just three weeks later, the class had already completed the first prototype of the device.

  All the students in the class were gathered in the classroom, silent and intensely focused on Professor Weilan, who stood at the front, ready to carry out the prototype’s first test.

  The device rested on a desk at the front of the classroom. At first glance, its design was simple: a base of black stone upon which four interlocked rings were mounted, with a purple gemstone suspended at their center.

  “Today, on the 4th day of Tirzesh of the year 10178, we will conduct the first test of the device we have named Wǎng,” Weilan said as he began preparing the device for use, unlocking the movement of its rings.

  “If I had to guess, this day will be remembered for decades, alongside your names,” Weilan added, visibly excited.

  As he unlocked the final ring, all four began to rotate along their own axes, creating the appearance of a sphere surrounding the gemstone floating at the center.

  Within seconds, the rings were spinning so fast that they generated a breeze inside the classroom. The gemstone began to pulse intermittently, resembling the beating of a heart. Weilan brought a Nigzar Cell—a cylindrical device used to store Nigzar—close to the desk where the Wǎng was operating. If the cylinder filled, the device would be deemed a success.

  The glow of the Wǎng became constant. Then, from the purple gemstone, a pinkish light burst outward in all directions, piercing the walls of the classroom and extending beyond the catacombs themselves, becoming visible even from Anzenwald’s main building.

  Suddenly, the light vanished completely. Then, just as abruptly, a few seconds later, it reappeared—only to collapse inward at tremendous speed toward the purple gemstone. The gem swelled in size, its color shifting into a deep blue.

  Weilan carefully picked up the gemstone, using gloves so as not to be the one to absorb the collected Nigzar, and placed it onto the cylindrical device. As he did, the gauge indicating the amount of stored Nigzar filled completely in half a second—and half a second later, the device overloaded, producing a small explosion on the desk.

  “The first test of the Wǎng has been a complete success,” Weilan declared, applauding with pride and excitement.

  The entire class followed suit.

  Matthis, standing at the back of the room, couldn’t help but burst into uncontrollable laughter.