When I woke up, Alvin was already sitting by our fireplace, gently kindling the flame.

  The smell of smoke filled my nostrils as I approached the fireplace. As Alvin's lively frame noticed me he greeted me with a smile. I reciprocated his smile as I sat down opposite him, feeling the warmth of the fire.

  We began our Aldovian language practice. Both of us spouted some weird noises, trying to pronounce the foreign words. Only by practising and using the language will it become familiar. Our session lasted until the sun was at its orbital peak.

  Alvin left for a few minutes, before coming back with a hare, that had been trapped by one of the snares we had placed around our camp.

  Blood dripped down its hide. It was clear that the hare hadn't died to our trap and had to be finished off by Alvin himself. Alvin seemed completely unfazed by the fact that he just took a life, he just hung its corpse upside down, while the blood streamed out of its slit throat.

  How death impacts someone is completely subjective. If something completely unrelated to someone died, they would be unruffled. If someone faintly known to them died, they would merely let out a shocked sigh. If a person died who shared a deep and complex bond with someone, the remaining person would be devastated and they would bawl their eyes out in grief.

  There was no absolute being that judged the worth of a life. We humans decide a person's worth by their social status. Someone important to the functioning of a society was deemed more important than a person who is burdening that society. It is us humans that do decide the worth of the living. In nature, the strong prey on the weak. The weak's lives were in constant threat of extinguishing on a mere whim of the strong.

  In my past life, I killed insects when they disturbed me, swatted spiders when I saw them and lived on unfazed by my killing.

  A single life holds no inherent worth. Even the sum of all life that ever existed amounts to nothing in the eyes of the universe. Even if all living beings died one day, the universe would still exist regardless. It is as if life all along was something the universe accidentally conjured up one day.

  It is tragic.

  Morals and ethics are nothing more than the thoughts of living beings. In the face of the grand, uncaring universe they are insignificant, fleeting and ultimately irrelevant.

  With the past being long gone and the future something uncertain, I could only act in the present.

  Alvin stared at me, confused what I may be thinking again. He waved his hand in a motion that asked if I was present. I noticed his hand and broke out of my chains of thoughts.

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  Alvin opened his mouth while pointing at the fire.

  "Aren’t you hungry, Nestor? Let’s eat."

  Alvin was a good friend. Because of the time we spent together, we grew close. The beauty of bonds lies in aspects like trust, worry, and affection. Bonds could also create cruelties like betrayal, hate, and disgust. After living with each other over the course of a few weeks, I decided to trust Alvin. I thought I had figured out what character Alvin possesses.

  While we both ate one leg of the hare, Alvin initiated a conversation by coughing a bit whilst looking at me. In response I made eye contact with him. He gulped the last remaining pieces of meat down his throat. His mouth then opened and he said:

  "Nestor, could you do me a small favour?"

  I was visibly perplexed. What does Alvin need from me? I answered his question with another question.

  "What favour?"

  Alvin pulled something out of his pocket. While holding it in the air with a smug smile on his face, he spouted:

  "Could you check the traps later? My afternoon will be used up unlocking my first circle."

  I was surprised as I didn’t think Alvin was such a person. Maybe I didn’t know him as good as I thought I knew. I stood up and nodded at Alvin, while I grunted.

  He wanted to be alone during the process—perhaps to focus, perhaps to avoid embarrassment if he failed.

  So I left him to it.

  I wandered the woods with slow steps, checking the snares as promised. A few were empty, one had been triggered by nothing, and the last one held a dead fox—already cold and bled out. I took it and strapped it on one of my shoulders, my thoughts wandered more than my feet did when I made my way back.

  Alvin was trying to grow stronger. I truly admired that.

  But with strength came change. That much I remembered. People changed when they grew strong. Some for the better—most not. I could speak from experience. In my workplace I had a colleague who was kind to me. When he got promoted he felt that we were lesser beings and oppressed us. Authority makes people think they are in power. He was satisfied with the way things were and did not even try to improve anything anymore, while constantly bickering down on us. But the truth was, that he and I were merely living in an illusion, created by the ones truly in power to keep the weak from revolting.

  Was Alvin one of the few that did not grow complacent and stagnate?

  I wanted to believe so.

  When I returned, Alvin still hadn’t come back. The sun was already dipping low. I sat by the fire again and stared into the flames, remembering another fire, in another life. A conversation I once had with someone I no longer remembered vividly. I only remembered the feeling: a quiet longing, an unresolved wish.

  Then, I felt it.

  A pulse.

  Like the impact in stagnant water, vibrating through the earth.

  It was faint, yet magical. Subtle, but real.

  A shift through the air, a ripple in the world.

  Moments later, Alvin stepped out of his hut. His eyes were wide open, not out of shock but intensity. Sweat glistened on his face. His posture was straighter, his steps surer. He chanted:

  "Water Nails"

  A dozen translucent nails appeared out of thin air. Alvin pointed his index finger toward a massive pine tree. The nails immediately struck and penetrated the thick bark. A dozen small holes appeared when the nails couldn't hold their form anymore. If a human got struck by that spell, they would be lethally injured.

  He then sat down beside me without a word. For a while, he just stared into the fire.

  Then he said:

  "I have formed my first circle now. That spell is the one that is engraved into my Runestone. The spell didn't use any of my mana. It's kinda like a battery—rechargeable. I have to use my own mana to fill the Runestone. That means that if my mana pool is full and I have charged the Runestone. I would possess one extra spell."

  He didn’t smile. He didn’t boast.

  I looked at him with concern. He seemed like he wasn't satisfied. I asked:

  "Did the size of your mana pool increase?"

  Alvin finally looked in my eyes, before standing up and frantically chanting spells.

  After spending all his mana he revealed an expression full of joy. He then finally answered me:

  "It did not increase in size... But water spells now use up less mana!"

  I smiled at him, and he smiled back. That night, after we shared the fox, we had a long conversation, theorizing on what circles were truly capable of. The fire had turned to embers. Alvin fell asleep quickly, with joy engraved into his cheeks. I remained awake a little longer and looked up to the moon.

  I thought about power. About what I had to become. About the road ahead.

  The world didn’t wait for anyone. Neither would I.