A boy is inspecting the field. The fields are made by making trenches in the slope of hills and span all around it. For the growth of these crops, they must be in the water. He is wearing a shirt and pants made from leather with a long gumboot. His hair is withered white, but they sometimes show little vitality. His grey eyes and face are round. He looks 13 -14 years old, with a little tanned skin. Overall, he seems naive and numbskull.

In the right hand is a spear of his height, about 1.4m and on his back is a big basket. His every step stirs the surface of still water. The waves move the leaves and sometimes create new waves. For the boy, it is fascinating and something to lose in it.

Due to this, his speed is unhurried, and as he moves forward, at one place, he stopped, and a red symbol glow on his gumboot. The symbol produces ample heat to increase the temperature of the surrounding water. Suddenly, a slimy black creature about half of his size shot from the water towards him, but it stops in midair because the spear skewered its body. The curves of his toned muscles are now visible due to his posture.

When it stops wriggling, the boy opens the basket and then puts it in it. The creature is a parasite that obtains its nutrition by sucking on a plant, beast, or even human. When the boy sent energy to his boot, it activates the symbol and produces heat which warms the surrounding water. The sudden heat agitates the creature, due to which it comes out of the water and then becomes an easy target. After that, the boy once again starts his inspection in the field.

When the sun starts setting, the boy stops his work. During the whole day, he was only able to collect five such creatures. Then he began to climb up the hill. On his way to the top, he can see that other boys of his age are also climbing the mountain.

When he reaches near the top, he can able to see a wall. It is big, about 15m in height, and made of white stone, and as he gets near to it, he can feel its majesty. The wall has many symbols, painting painted on it, sketches of the hunt, farming, smithing, alchemy, nature are more peculiar. The wall is depicting the story to the people who can see her, the tale about the city that she was protecting, how it grows, and how the people struggle to stand up against adversities.

As he gets near the wall, he can see the group of boys surrounding a lame man. A middle-aged man with black hair and golden eyes. with a towering body of height of 1.95m, but he has a leg missing from downward of his knees. As he sees the boy, who is walking like strolling in the park. He shouted

“Abraham, why are you so slow? Come fast already.”

“Coming Teacher, Abraham replies and increases his pace.”

The middle-aged man is Edgar. A teacher in the academy of their small city. Their city is situated on top of the hill, surrounded by two walls. The first inner wall is on top of the and the second wall is at the bottom, protecting the crops. Food for the people mainly comes from hunting. Agriculture is done by old, injured; children and anyone who has not gone on hunting.

The city is governed by a chief who is assisted by the council of elders. In the town, there is a school in which every kid is mandatory to enroll. In school, the kids below 14 were taught little about hunting, but mainly about their body and mind, and there are fake hunting practices.

Fake hunting is nothing but to inspect the fields and to killed various pests infecting them. Abraham still remembers the first day to hunt those leeches. A boy before him had failed to dodge it, and the parasite had stuck on his back, sucking his blood. The boy got dehydrated at a visible rate and then fell unconscious. That was the time when he was eight years old. After that, such an incident even happened to him also, causing great pain. At such time the teachers remove the parasite but do not give medication for recovery as a punishment.

Just now, they were doing the same fake hunting practice in which the children have to hunt those parasites. The children participate in it, thinking that the one who will kill the most pests can become the future leader of the hunting party.

The children surrounding Edgar are of only 13-14 years, but they already surpassed the height of 1.5m and, there is someone who has even reached 1.8m. In comparison to their muscular physique and taller height, Abraham looks like a malnourished person. As Abraham comes near the group, one boy, the tallest one, approaches him quickly and lifts him from his neck like a cat.

“HaHaHa, Abraham, you should do less daydreaming and instead do workouts more.”

“William put me down”.

Abraham shouted and, others began to laugh. William is his cousin and the most developed person physically in the group.

As William lifted Abraham, he jumps from his place to near Edgar, and put him down.

“That is how you should run, Abraham.”

“Well, now everyone, time to show your hunt.”

As Edgar announced, the children put down their basket and start opening its lid.

Some have half of the basket, some have three-fourth, and for William, one can say that the basket is overflowing with all different types of pests. The most pitiful amount is of Abraham, which contains only four leeches and nothing else.

“Hey, Abraham has got four Leeches.” One of the boys shouted.

“Unbelievable.”

“It should be a lie,” Others Shouted.

And shortly, everyone, including Edgar, surrounded his basket. They are astonished because Abraham has catch four leeches which is the highest, he has ever brought until now.

“You have done well Abraham, keep it up.”

Edgar starts praising him, but Abraham believes that they are sarcastic again.

But from Edgar's eyes, one can see that his praise is sincere. When Abraham was eight years old and first enrolled in the school, he stares blankly into space while thinking something. First, they had believed that he had gone mad. But little by little, with constant persistence, Abraham had begun to pay attention to his classmates and then to other things. On the first day of his fake hunting, he was standing in the field all day long and watching other children hunting and got hunted. When others have learned to kill pests, Abraham just used to watch them all day long in fascination but, one day Abraham killed one but, after that, he still stared at its dead body all day.

Edgar still remembers that day when Abraham killed the pest and asked him.

“What is life? What it's value? Why once gone, it never came back?”

At that time, Edgar had many answers to give, but he knows that none of them can convince the little kid in front of him. As he was in jeopardy of what to say, the chief had come and rescued him. He replied to kid.

“There is no definite answer to it because, for everyone, the question has different meanings and values. Will it be interesting to find your answer and then tell us what you feel is correct?”

“Okay, I will find it.” That is what Abraham had said.

“Hey, a teacher should not be sarcastic to their students.” Edgar's mind turns back to the present because of the tugging he felt on his clothes.

“What sarcasm? I am genuinely happy that you can catch something.”

Hearing those words, other boys again started to laugh due to this, Abraham pouted his mouth.

Watching such vivid expressions on his face Edgar's heart becomes warm. He then begins to ruffle his hair and enjoying his reaction to it.

After inspecting those pests, Edgar gives a signal to the guards who take the baskets away, and then he gestures them to reach the door of the wall. The door has a height of 10m and is made of some unknown metal with various symbols and circles inscribed in a pattern. On top of the door is a bell, almost the height of one-third of the door. Abraham had heard that only when someone attacks the city, the bell rings. The door and the bell give the impression of the sleeping behemoth. Right now, the door is open for the people and will be close down after the sunset.

Abraham always feels amazed whenever he enters the city. There is a large center road made of neatly carved stones with buildings lining both sides of it. The people are walking on the road. Some have finished their daily practice, while some have returned with prey from a nearby forest. Some women are carrying big baskets filled with herbs. The little children are playing around these women happily, and their smiles are blooming, as they have waited the whole day for their mothers to come back.

The hides of different beasts are on the slanted roof for tanning. Many peoples have still adorned the gears for hunting and haggling in various shops. Watching the vitality of the city always makes Abraham feels happy.

The primary occupation of the people is mainly hunting. Almost everyone in the city has done hunting in some part of their life.

The chief source of the food is the meat of the ferocious beast that lives in the wild. The people do not like the flesh of domesticated animals, so no one rears them. The beasts are domesticated only for hunting or for economic purposes.

In the middle of the city stands a mighty tower, gleaming white under the sun, made of bones. He had heard the story that when the ancestors founded the city, they had fought with the tsunami of beasts, only after killing the monarch of the beast in the territory, they had able to settle in this place. To make the fear of symbol for other beasts, they had constructed the tower made of bones in the center of the city, in which the council and chief hold their meetings.

As Abraham is watching his surrounding, his thoughts are interrupted by the boy name Richard.

“What do you guys think about tomorrow?”

“It will be fun and will make us eligible to go on the hunt with the hunting party.” Replied William.

Hearing these words, everyone gets excited.

Today is the last day of their fake hunting class, and tomorrow they will learn to use energy. Energy is present everywhere, and how one uses it depends on their talent. When they were eight years old, they were thought to harness the energy from the surroundings and its simple usage. Until now, they can nourish their bodies with energy and use simple tools powered by energy. Boot used for fake hunting is one of the examples.

On those boots, a symbol is drawn, which on triggering via energy produces heat. Now they are already accustomed to using them and can use them fluently. But now they will be thought much more.

They had learned that with energy, one could do anything. Can change physics, control elements, and much more. The limitation is their own will, their own choices.

The path depends on one own enlightenment and perception of the world. To achieve it on your own without any help, sometimes even a whole life, cannot be enough. So, they only know that tomorrow a ceremony will be held to help them achieve enlightenment.

Everyone walking with Abraham has begun to think about their future while Abraham's mind has lost in the rustling of leaves.

"Whatever it will be, I will learn it. I want to use fire just like my father to become strong and then can go out from these damn walls to fight those strong beasts". Speaks Kaylin.

He is about 1.7m tall with a muscular body, blond hair, golden eyes, and a sharp face who likes to provoke and fight with everyone. He is a self-proclaimed rival of William after losing on the first day of school.

“Shut up, you idiot, you will be thought the most suitable path, you will find it in the ceremony held tomorrow, and you will have no choice but to accept it.” Replied Ragnar coldly.

Though he is shorter than Kaylin and William, the sharp aura around him always makes the people avoid him.

“Whatever, if it will help me in a fight, I do not care.”

Everyone in the city belongs to the same clan, Barca. Instead of the branch or head family, the clan is divided into lineages. A child doesn't need to be born with the affinity of fire if their parents have it. Its affinity can be anything as it depends on a person's enlightenment. That's why whenever the academy held the ceremony, many gathered, as everyone is eager to have a new member in their lineage.

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“That's the right attitude.” Replied William amusingly.

After that, they begin to separate their ways to reach their respective homes.

Abraham lives with his uncle and grandmother from the maternal side, aunt and his cousin brothers, William and Kyrios. Kyrios is the firstborn and has already become a full-fledged hunter, while William is two months older than Abraham.

Their mansion is near the center tower of the city with an outer wall made of red stone.

The mansion is built of cream stone blocks, and it resembles a T alphabet. There is a garden in front of the house, in which many flowers bloom all year round. His aunt loves to do gardening. His uncle, as current chief, rarely comes home.

From the outer wall gate, a path leads to the door. The door is gigantic, almost 5 meters tall and made of Ironwood, and is at the start of the vertical section of the house.

Earlier times, Abraham curses the door because he had to spend considerable strength to move it, while William could do it effortlessly.

The house is divided into east and west wing. A hallway followed by a living room is behind the door. On the east side of the living room, there is a dining room and on the west side is a parlor from which they can see the training field. A pool is built behind the mansion to raise fish and marine plants. A brick oven and barbeque grill are built, near the pool, in the rear garden.

But today, as they enter the hallway from the big door, they are greeted by the laughter which is from none other than his uncle.

He is standing in the hallway. With a hulking physique and a height of 2.5 meters tall, it will be not wrong to call him a giant.

He has black hair and deep red-colored eyes. A beard covering his chin and black cloth made of animal hides decorated by black feathers over his shoulders. He looks heroic.

Beside him, a woman with crimson hair, golden eyes, and downing a white gown made of silk with flowers drawn on it looks gorgeous. She is 2m tall, but against her husband, she still looks short.

"William, Abraham, it is good that you also have come early." His aunt Sylvia's voice echoed in the large hallway.

William first gets shocked and then runs towards his father to hug him. Adam also gets on one knee to hug his son in return. After their reunion ended, Adam paid attention to the boy standing a little far away from him.

As Abraham feels gaze on him, he says awkwardly

"It's been a long time, uncle…."

His sentence is cut short when Adam appeared in front of him in a blink of an eye, then lifts him and hugs him.

"Oh, my dear Abraham, you still look so cute."

"Isn't he, I still regret that he is not a girl." Sylvia chime in between.

"Why can't you hug me just like William?"

"Aah! William is heavy." Replied Adam and then again tightly hug Abraham.

"Aunt… save… me." Abraham felt like he will die from suffocation due to such a hug.

"Adam put Abraham down at once." A loud dignified voice echoes in the hallway, which makes Adam flinch, and he hurriedly put down Abraham at once.

The voice came from an old lady standing beside the door, she is about 1.8m tall, her hands are thin, and her hairs are white, but one can see endless vitality from her red eyes and straight back. She is Maria Barca, the mother of Adam.

"Jeez, you are a chief, and you still like to bully a little kid."

"Mother…!"

"Shut up, and you Abraham, why are you still behaving like a child, tomorrow will be the day of your enlightenment, and I still hear from others that you still waste your time in observing some nonsensical things."

Maria then lifts Abraham from his neck like a kitten and then drags him towards the back garden. For Abraham, this has now become a routine.

"Sylvia, today we will eat in the open, I had met Kyrios on the way, and he had hunted a big python, it's been a long time since I had eaten barbequed snake meat also Adam, prepare the fermented meat of poisonous fish, it will also be nutritious for kids."

In the rear garden of the house, near the pond, tables and chairs are arranged for dinner. Sylvia is standing near the barbeque grill, situated in the corner of the garden. In her right hand is a big knife of length 20inches. The coals are burning below the grill. A tall skewer is laid horizontally over the grill, and a giant skinned python is coiled around it. The python is about 20m in length and 1m in diameter. A young man is standing beside Sylvia, rotating the skewers periodically. The brick oven is energy powered.

The flame temperature in the oven depends on the quantity of energy supplied to it.

The inscription in the form of patterns made such a thing possible. The sizzling sound from the cooked meat and its fragrance has spread in the garden.

"Kyrios, rotate it uniformly and maintain the temperature, or you will burn the meat," Sylvia advice Kyrios.

Hearing his mother's words, Kyrios lowers the intensity of the fire. He has a slender, muscular body with a height of 2m and black hair with red eyes.

Sylvia is stabbing and slashing at various parts of the python so that heat can penetrate the inside meat of the snake. After some time, she dices it in equal sizes, arranges it on the big plate, and carries it toward the round table beside the pond.

On the table, Adam is making sashimi of fish meat. The fresh flesh is poisonous, so they are first stored in a dark enclosed space to drain out the oozing poison and then are hung in an open environment for more than a year.

Then also, the peculiar smell, which feels like it is stabbing your nostrils, does not make it appetizing. But the flesh is rich in energy and is an excellent medicine to remove the accumulated toxin from your body. Sylvia sits on the left side of Adam while Maria is on the right side. Besides Sylvia, the sons are sitting in the order of their age, so Abraham's seat is beside his grandmother, which he always wanted to change but has never succeeded.

Everyone begins to take the slice of the fragrant snake meat from the plate, among which Abraham has taken the smallest one, which also he feels is quite large for him.

As he was thinking of cutting the piece and putting half of it back into the plate, his eyes meet his grandmother's, and a chill runs down his spine.

He understands that if he will not eat it completely, the amount can become double on his plate. But Abraham still tries out.

"Grandmother……" as his mouth opens, a fillet of the fermented fish is pushed into his mouth by Maria. The strong taste of ammonia is making his mouth in fire, and he wants to spit it, but again get stared at by her. After chewing it some time and swallowing it, he frantically starts drinking water. Watching how her grandson is so delicate, Maria can only sigh.

"You should eat more nutritious things, even in cleaning those pests; you are slow, you eat so less and look even more delicate than a girl." His grandmother started nagging him again. It has become almost a daily routine for him. But today, someone else entered the conversation, who is none other than William.

"Grandmother, you don't know, today Abraham has killed five leeches." As William says those words, the family becomes silent.

"What?"

"Really?"

"Fu…" Adam unconsciously swears but stops midway, due to the stare of his mother. He then clears his throat and spoke melancholy.

"It's a good day, at least my sister will not worry in her grave."

Abraham doesn't know why they are making such a big deal from nothing. Since today is the last day, so he thought, he should be diligent and able to kill 5 of them, which is much higher than his usual contribution of 1, 2, or sometimes zero.

But it never comes to his mind that his habit of gazing and thinking while standing for hours has branded him as a mentally slow person or simply mentally retarded.

When he was younger, his habit was much severe, which made Maria exhausted due to the sorrow of the dead daughter and mentally ill grandchild. But she and her family had not lost hope and continued to pay attention to him, and now he is 14 years old, he at least behaves normally most of the time.

"That let me remember, when he had killed that parasite the first time, he was staring at its corpse for a long time and had asked some good questions." Adam acts like he is reminiscing something long back, but there is a smile on his face.

So, Abraham

Have you found the answer?

What is life? What it's value?"

The red eyes of Adam are shining like jewels in the night sky, asking him for his answer.

"My answers? They will be of no importance, Hehehehe…..." Abraham replies and begins to laugh idiotically.

But he has to stop his laughter because his uncle, who normally would have laughed along with him, is still looking serious.

"My answer, do you want to hear it?"

"Yes, we will gladly hear it." The reply is from Maria.

"Ok…... I am thinking for many years, but still, I can't define what life is? But I know one thing that life is….. worthless."

As Adam hears the answer, his smiling face remains still, but an invisible pressure developed around him.

"Are you sure?" Abraham feels like Adam has suddenly become a high mountain, pressing him down. Then also he answers what he thinks is right.

"Yes."

"Does it mean that everyone's life here is also worthless?"

".......Yes.."

"Does it mean that if someone here will die, you will not feel anything?"

"No…. I will, but everyone has to die one day, so why so much sorrow?"

With each passing question, the pressure around Adam increases, and the surrounding become more and more silent.

The noise of crickets, night bats, and other insects has stopped. Suddenly the garden is devoid of life.

"It also means that your own life is worthless."

"…Yes."

"Husband!"

"No Sylvia, I would have tolerated it if he had said something idealistic like all lives are equal, but his answers are….

"Adam enough." Maria cut Adam in between.

"I know, how are you feeling, but shouldn't we ask him the reason. Our meal is already getting cold, and I don't want its flavor to get ruined. Abraham meets me after dinner in my room."

Abraham doesn't know why he gets such an intense reaction from Adam due to one answer, and he also wants to ask about this from his grandmother.

William doesn't know how Abraham begins to think like that, do it because they sometimes tease him? but he is always beside Abraham, his eyes don't contain any hatred or anger, for William though he sulks on it for some time, then he will start again, to play with them and forget about teasing.

Sylvia is cleaning the table after dinner, but her mind is tangled around the events during dinner. Even she got astonished after hearing his answer, Abraham is like her own child, Abraham's mother, and she was childhood friends, and she is still reminiscent of the memories which they had spent together. At first, she thought that he was joking, but his firm eyes, under the pressure of Adam, had made her believe that what he is saying comes from his heart. She knows that the most shocked is Adam as he believes that the life of every clansman is invaluable and should be protected, the loss of even one tribesman is a matter of grief.

Whenever the hunting party returns, Adam was always waiting for them anxiously and praying about them and when his nephew, who is raised like his own son says that the life of everyone around him and even his own is worthless, this should have even made Adam doubt himself that had he failed to raise his children.

Abraham is standing in front of a wooden door; various patterns of birds and flora are carved on it. As he is hesitating to knock on it, his grandmother's voice comes from behind the door.

"Just how long it will take for you to come inside?"

After hearing his grandmother's voice, Abraham enters the room. The floor is made of wood planks which are polished till they become glossy, while the walls are made of marbles with different patterns drawn on them. In the center of the room, the snow-white fur of a giant animal is used as a carpet, and several big black mattresses are laid on it. On one of them, approximately at the center of the room, his grandmother is sitting and waiting for him.

As Abraham enters the room, Maria signals him to sit on the mattress opposite her.

When Abraham sits down, she starts saying.

"You are already 14 years old and tomorrow will be your first enlightenment ceremony. A person's enlightenment depends on many things, but one thing is important, and that is how a person perceives its world. So….my dear grandson, why do you think life is worthless?"

After Maria finishes her sentence, silence lingers around the room. After some time, Abraham lifts his head.

"When I had first killed that leech, at that time, I don't know anything about death. I had watched others doing the same and thought they just stop moving after we skewer them with our weapons. But after doing the same for the first time, I sat beside it, I want to know that how much time it will take to move again. But even after sitting beside it for a long time, it didn't move. I had asked Edgar, and he replied that it is dead. I had asked him what does it mean? He said that the leech will never move, its life is gone and after some time, its body will cease to exist. So, I asked him that what is life? And if life exists, it should have value, so I asked the next question that, what it's value? And will it ever come back? At that time uncle had said that I should find my answers…."

After speaking so much Abraham becomes silent, gazing into the eyes of his grandmother. For Maria, his eyes which always show naivety is now showing some determination.

"So how you reach such an answer." Maria's eyes become sharp, and Abraham feels like she is trying to peek into his soul. He feels like his tongue is jammed under her gaze, but he knows that his grandmother will not let him go without an answer.

"After that, I started watching everything around me, the killing of pests, the harvest of the crops, the death of hunters when they go hunting, how the people live…"

"Come to the point Abraham." Maria's voice is frigid cold.

"We killed animals for food, we eat plants for food, we kill pests because they harm our crops, we kill certain things just for some medicine. Does their life worth or they are of worth. For us, their death has value. Life is itself worthless unless there will be something which gives importance to it."

"…."

"Uncle is a chief, so what he will decide when he will have to choose between his family and clan, or if he has to choose between brother Kyrios and William, obviously he will choose the one which he thinks have more importance. Isn't it laughable?

Do you know? From the whispers of the people, I had compiled a story.

There was a woman, a powerful one, she married and got pregnant, her husband and her family loved her very much, but something happens which I don't know, but I know the consequences which are that the woman will die if she will give birth and if she kills the child in her womb than she can live. Everyone, including her husband, had agreed to kill the child, but she refused, her husband had even tried to kill his child in her womb to protect her life, but she refuses and at last, gave birth to a child and died.

A father was ready to kill his child to save his wife because, for him, the life of a child is worthless as compared to his wife.

The child's life is expendable because there is the absence of something which gives it value, here the thing absent is memories. Since there are no memories of the child's life, it's worthless. After concluding everything, I can only say that life is worthless unless there is something that gives it some value.

After talking so much, Abraham begins to gasp as he has climbed the mountain. He has said everything in a single breath, everything that has accumulated in his mind during all this time, he let it out.

Maria hears everything, but there is no change in her facial expression, but if Abraham had paid attention to her eyes, then he could have noticed them trembling at one point.

She stands up and turns towards the door behind her, which leads to her bedroom.

"I like to add something. For that mother, she could have discarded that child, but she insists to give birth though she knew that she will die. She also doesn't have any memories for the child but then also she insisted because for her, in her belly, there is a life whose value is far greater than hers, even without anything to give that life importance. Life itself is valuable. And about the choices that your uncle will make and the reason for it, you will only understand when you will see the world in a more colorful manner rather than in black and white."

Abraham wanted to say something in return but is stopped by his grandmother, who signaled him to go out.

After Abraham left, Maria opens the door and enters her room. Their Adam is standing and waiting for her. There is a sad expression on his face, and it looks like he is contemplating something. Seeing Adam in such a condition, Maria sighs.

At last, he finds out, do not be sad, now prepare that crystal for tomorrow.

Hearing this, Adam becomes baffled, but then determination filled his eyes.

"OK." Then he left the room.