Knowledge

Days settled into an uneasy rhythm as they waited for word from Pantax. The temple's quietness became both refuge and torment.

Mokai, restless, threw himself into trainings at dawn. His slow-motion forms were a hypnotic spectacle, each deliberate movement carving abstract shapes from the air. Fengyu found himself lingering nearby, drawn by the way the ritual soothed his own racing thoughts. There was something grounding in it - a fleeting illusion of control.

Their days revolved around the library, combing through the temple's vast collection for anything that might grant them a clearer understanding of what had just happened and what may happen in the future. Meals became the time for exchanging discoveries – sometimes debating, often sitting in weighted silence.

Master Gun visited them regularly. Each morning, as they entered the library, he was already there, waiting to direct them to scrolls aligned with their goals for the day. Each afternoon, he returned to answer their questions, correct their misconceptions, and provide even more scrolls and tomes to deepen their understanding.

The change of stance was very dramatic. No more evasive answers.

Did they pass yet another test?

First, they delved into concept behind the mechanics of the gates. How their coordinates aligned within the vast expanse of 16 dimensions. 

The subject was indeed very complex and the calculations overwhelming. Because the 16 dimensions were non lineal and all different. Possibly even changing in time.

Fengyu felt satisfied with mere understanding of the calculations leading to precise gate travel incantations.

Mokai, however, was determined to master them striving for both speed and perfection. There was a certain frustration with which he attacked the problem. He was plagued with the irrational feeling that it would have helped him somehow to prevent current situation, if he had learned it before.

Seline soon gravitated toward the section of the library dedicated to mythical beasts and the applications of their life force. Fengyu noticed but chose not to comment. Her fascination with the subject was still a question mark for him. She also tended to observe him, as though she suspected he was also hiding something.

He listened intently whenever she shared her research summaries. He secretly - at least he believed so – followed Seline's steps through the vast amount of scrolls in the library. He read the ones she found interesting.

Unfortunately, the library did not hold a second copy of the comprehensive beast dictionary - the 'stolen' one was the only one. This piece of news was a bit of a disappointment for him. He managed to identify the other mythical beasts, he had seen in the storage room back there, but not the one he was carrying with him all the time.

That gnawed on his nerves.

Strangely, he could not bear parting with the bracelet even for a moment now. Without it, it felt bare and lonely.

And then there was Kaelyn.

Her research focused entirely on Mytharok - its history, its origins, and the mystery of why it had suddenly reemerged publicly in the charted worlds. Why it remained in its self-inflicted isolation for a century to reappear only now? Was it really isolated? Or it simply did not seek public attention?

The first thing she delved into was the tapestry - and the book resting on the pedestal beneath it.

The tapestry, which they had already all noticed on their first day, was more than an intricate piece of woven art. The muted threads were shifting. The threads did not depict static history but living motion. With enough patience, one could trace the fluctuations in the weave and predict when and where threads might brush against each other, diverge, collide or merge – like currents in of incomprehensible tides.

"It's a visualization of 16 dimensional space," Master Gun said.

"Or rather, one seer's attempt to express it - collapsed into two dimensions. This is what the seer sees."

"In most paintings, we reduce three dimensions onto a flat surface," he continued. "Here, the same principle is applied… but to something far more complex."

"These threads... they behave like torrents of fate, like cosmic tides pulling at the worlds. At least, that's the metaphor we've learned to use. The truth is, we don't really know what it is we're looking at. We try to describe it with language, but as humans, we weren't built to perceive all 16 dimensions. This tapestry isn't just strange because it's beautiful - it's strange because it points to a structure of reality we aren't equipped to understand. What we call tides or threads might be material or may be energy or something else entirely like alien consciousness..."

"If this is what the seers see," Mokai asked slowly, "can they predict what's to come?"

Master Gun gave a faint smile, one that didn't quite reach his eyes. "Sometimes. With effort. And never completely."

He gestured to the shifting threads. "These movements are vast, layered. By the time a seer recognizes a pattern, the world may already be in motion to fulfil it."

"Had they seen what would happen to Pantax? The collision with Firme? Had they seen Firme there?"

Master Gun's gaze lingered on the tapestry, as if searching for the answer in the shifting threads.

"They saw something," he said slowly. "A disturbance. A ripple and a shadow. But Firme… Firme is different. It isn't part of the weave they know."

"So they didn't recognize it."

"Worse," Master Gun admitted silently. "They misnamed it. Interpreted it through what they wanted to believe. And so, the warning was lost."

"Still Master Lira had come prepared with the Inverter," Mokai challenged him.

"Yes, we thought that prudent. She was prepared for many other things as well. Some of these artifacts are really small."

"So what was that the seers thought they saw?", asked Fengyu.

Master Gun hesitated. The candlelight flickered across his face, casting deep lines beneath his eyes.

"We saw," he said at last, "the movement of tides. Like the ones described in this book here." He pointed on the thick tome on the pedestal beneath the tapestry. "The tides that moved when the Temple was founded. The same great patterns of shimmer and collapse, the ones that accompanied the enlightenment of our Founder, before he was called a Founder. The Great Seer Elarion."

The silence felt heavy.

Elarion. The Founder of the Temple!

That was a revelation!

If they had seen the signs that a similar individual would emerge that would explain all that trials and searches and sudden public activity of the Temple. They could not afford missing this kind of an individual! 

Fengyu was sure this piece of information would be followed strictly by Kaelyn. 

And yet, all in all, it turned out to be 'just' Firme.

Was it all? Was it finished?

"That were also the times when the First Gates were created, when the charted worlds formed their connections. That were the times of chaos in the 16 higher dimensions that but resulted in a great prosperity in our universe."

Was he now trying to cover or dilute what he had just revealed?

"We have been seeing a lot of these recently. After a century of stability, there is chaos in the tides." He continued.

Master Gun looked at them hopefully, but also with some sort of empathy, as if he imaged they would be burdened by the understanding of the challenges the charted worlds were facing.

But they remained silent.

"Normally, the shifts and tides are connected to some kind of significant events and indicate a higher usage of magic. With some effort we can plot them to real historical records. But what we have been seeing recently is just too much."

Fengyu decided to play along to get some answers on more intriguing questions.

"Why?" asked Fengyu. "Why the change? Can these shifts mean that there is someone or something creating events that simply overshadow our comprehension? Can some entity be causing all this? Can something control it?" he asked with sudden feel of urgency or panic.

Master Gun recognized the direction of his thoughts. "No force can truly command the tides of the dimensions."

"How do we know that there are no more worlds out there we don't know about?" he asked again. "How do we know that they cannot command the tides? The seers can see so many things. Cannot they predict the existence of other worlds?"

Master Gun hesitated - just for a second. Barely noticeable.

"Prediction is not the same as recognition."

Fengyu narrowed his eyes. "What does that mean?"

Was it the return to evasive answers?

But Master Gun turned back to him with a level gaze.

"The truth is, we have touched something outside there. We just didn't know what it was. After a consideration we chose not to pursue."

"Why?"

"We are there like blind children in a dark forest. You can stand it when the forest sounds and smell familiar, but when it does not, you have to choose. The Temple has chosen." He finished firmly.

Then, Master Gun, dropped on them thick tomes of records. Their pages meticulously preserved, contained records of past cosmic shifts, calculations explaining the tides and currents alignments, and all kinds of cryptic notes that hinted at different interpretations.

"If you wish to understand our place in the tides, start here."

"Look through the annals, let me know what you see."

As they pored over the records, they confirmed that the dimensional tides had been remarkably stable for the charted worlds. It was far more mundane and uneventful compared to the parts of the multidimensional expanse outside. But still every so often, there were spikes in turbulence - small, brief disturbances that interrupted the steady.

As they jotted down all the moments of disruption and began to compare them with the historical annals of the charted universe, they could cross-referenced the turbulent spikes with events recorded in the annals. It was tedious work, but also very intriguing. There were occurrences that seemed to align with certain historical events, brief flashes of chaos in the tides that coincided with significant developments in the charted worlds.

Master Gun supervised them satisfied, a slight smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

"The disruptions in the tides… they're not random. They align with the most pivotal moments in our history - the great leaps forward, the monumental achievements. And those achievements... they required tremendous amounts of magical fuel."

He tapped the leather cover of the oldest ledger. "The earliest one we've recorded - the creation of the First Gates."

Fengyu froze. Then his eyes widened, as if the air itself had just turned against him.

It clicked - horribly, undeniably. Every recorded spike in turbulence, every inexplicable twist in the tides - it hadn't been chaos. It hadn't been some natural fluctuation of arcane energy.

It had been history. Progress. Civilization. Written not in triumph, but in extraction. In pain.

The tides weren't just power - they were the scream beneath the silence, the residue of life forces torn from their sources.

That was the price!!! That had always been the price!!!

His breath caught, and he looked down. The bracelet on his wrist had begun to itch - no, not just itch. Crawl.

"What are these tides? What are the higher dimensions!" he whispered.

Master Gun considered them for a moment, before he stated: "I think you're ready to visit the Seers' Department."

He told them to come and seek out the place the next day.

The Seers' Department lay deep within the temple, past winding passages and corridors that sloped gently downward. The entrance was unmarked - no grand doors, no carvings - just an unassuming archway in a small yard.

When they arrived, they found they were not alone.

Other newly accepted guardians had also gathered, their expressions ranging from curiosity to thinly veiled scepticism. Some whispered among themselves, casting doubtful glances at the entrance, while others stood in contemplative silence.

Fengyu and the others felt out of place among them. Their time in Pantax and Firme had already set them apart.

It was a strange sensation, as if in the span of mere days, the foundation of his world had shifted beneath him. The things he once took for granted - what was real, what was myth, what was possible - had unravelled, revealing deeper truths.

He still had no idea what to do with these truths.

The Seers' Department seemed shrouded in an air of quiet mystery. As they stepped inside, the muted light and strange, lingering scents set an immediate contrast to the structured order of the library. The chamber was circular and windowless, its walls of polished black stone catching the flicker of their movements in warped, ghostly reflections.

Scholars stood in quiet clusters, draped in simple undyed linen robes, their brows adorned with thin silver circlets.

Fengyu noticed how their gazes never quite settled on anything in the physical space, their eyes unfocused, flickering as if seeing something just beyond the veil of reality.

Master Gun led them deeper, into a side chamber. As the group settled into the eerie stillness, a figure in the same undyed linen robes stepped forward.

"We are the Seers," the lead figure began, voice steady and clinical. "We study impact. We examine what has already happened - where the fabric of the world has been stressed, broken, or bent. Every major working, every large-scale magical event, leaves a trace. Some are minor - barely noticeable against the background noise. Others leave deep, measurable distortions. Residual pressure. Fractures. Patterns of disruption."

"This isn't prophecy. It's analysis. We chart what's already been done. The greater the force applied, the deeper the impression. And when too many impressions overlap or collide, they create chaos. With instability, the tides turn unpredictable."

There was a brief pause. The seer glanced at Fengyu and the others, eyes sharp with something more than curiosity.

"You've come to get to know about Mytharok. About the recent disturbances. We can show you what's been recorded - what's still reverberating. But understand this: once you've seen the shape of it, you won't be able to pretend it's random anymore. Or harmless."

The weight of the seer's words settled heavily in the chamber.

Just a few days before that would have been another cryptic and annoying speech. But this time Fengyu didn't scoff. He didn't roll his eyes. Now, he had already seen.

The other guardians shifted. To them, the words were still just words, an initiation into another obscure branch of temple.

"Come," the seer continued. "Let us show you. It depends on you whether you can see."