6 months later.

Silence. Deathly silence.

A dreary silence covered the atmosphere while darkness reigned in this place. Such hair raising silence would make any living being shiver in fear and go insane. There was absolutely no noise here whatsoever. No chirping from the insects, no howling in the distance, no roars from the nocturnal animals, no wind blowing noises. Just absolute silence.

Suddenly!

*drop*

A drop water falling from somewhere created an ear piercing echo in the silent atmosphere.

*Gulp*

Following that sound was the sound of gulping. It seemed that the water drop was drunk by someone. And following that silence reigned.

This place was as desolate as earlier. There were no humans, no animals, nothing in this forsaken place. There was no activity of any sort of existence. Just pure darkness and its intimate partner, silence.

Time passed by and golden rays tore through the atmosphere to land on this land, vanquishing the darkness, sadly it could not eradicate the ever-engulfing, choking silence. As if this place was cursed by God to suffer from silence forever.

The rays of light now, made the insides visible. It was still the same cave. Same outline, same walls and ceilings, same uneven rocks and minerals. But three things weren't the same.

The pitiful infant that was once there sleeping and crying, it was still there sleeping peacefully, naked without a cloth on itself. It was a healthy boy. He had grown up considerably.

Some rays fell upon his face, making his eyelashes flutter. Slowly he opened his eyes and used his hands to rub his eyes. His hands and his face were plump indicating the presence of baby fats. His skin was slightly red indicating a healthy blush. It seemed in this desolate place devoid of living beings the boy was actually able to remain really healthy.

As he rubbed his eyes he stood up, as if it was only natural. He stood up straight, still continuing to rub his eyes. He didn't wobble or sway when he stood up. It seemed he was pretty experienced in walking at this age. A wind blew by, refreshing him and he stopped rubbing his eyes. He looked outside at the source of the light. There from the opening of the cave, a shining sphere-like object could be seen. It was supposedly called a star. The source of energy for beings inside of a landmass. He stared at the golden ball of light fixedly.

There was something frightening about this situation. The boy had a very calm disposition as if the situation he was in was normal. And that was not all. What was most frightening was this little boy's eyes. These eyes did not belong to a child of 6 months old filled with curiosity and happiness, they were filled with wisdom and indifference. Such eyes should have never appeared on a 6 month old child. This, was it a blessing or a curse?

After looking at it with a fixed gaze, the boy turned its eyes away and looked up at the huge object.

This was the source of his food, energy and his entire existence. The gigantic cube was still hanging mysteriously just by touching a single tip of it with the ceiling. And the opposite tip now faced him. Some liquid could be seen gathered there. It seems they were in the process of converging again to fall down.

The second change, that could be noticed was actually the size of cube. Before it had the length of a hubdred meter, but now it had reduced to around ninety to ninety-five meters. The difference wasn't that much big, but still the question arises, why did the cube become smaller?

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His dark pupils reflected the small bits of water that was stuck in the tip of the cube and was in the process of being produced and converging together. His expression showed as if he was doing some mental calculation. Such an expression shouldn't have appeared on a 6 month old child. He shouldn't be thinking of calculations, he should have been worry free and full of joy, marveling toward the various aspects of life. But unfortunately for the boy he wasn't allowed to be carefree.

He touched his chin, thinking really hard. And suddenly had a bout of realization. And so he looked down. At the ground below.

And that led to the third change. The ground 6 months ago had been smooth, even and spotless. But now the ground was filled with dirt and unevenness.

The ground wasn't covered with the boys excretion or anything. The liquid that the boy drank did not produce any residue, so as to say the boy had never peed, and had never even excreted.

With the illumination of the light one could make out lots of cryptic symbols in the ground. The symbols were crude and uneven. One look at the symbols and anyone would realize that these were written or maybe drawn by someone who either was not experienced at drawing or it was someone whose hand would tremble when doing something. And considering the boy was only 6 months old it seemed that the reason was both. After all, a six month old child would not be an expert and would certainly have problems when he tries to write.

All being said, this wasn't the least bit concerning whether the writing looked crude or professional, what was astonishing was this was written by a six month old child! A six month old child writing and doing calculations, it was beyond odd.

After thinking for a bit, he took a nearby sharp stone and started to write more and more symbols, but it wasn't like writing a paragraph. More like he was doing some sort of calculations.

His writing speed was slow. His strength also seemed to be lacking. After all, writing with stones in a cave ground, the surface of the ground was bound to be hard. It was already a miracle that he had the strength at this age to leave behind marks.

It was a slow and steady process. His hand would tremble from time to time. Many times the stone would slip out of his hand. But he did not get flustered. He kept a steady face and kept doing calculations at his own pace.

A long time later, the boy had finally reached the end of his calculations, and he wrote some last symbols which seemed to be the result. With a satisfied face he looked up at the cube and saw the liquid had almost congealed into a drop and was going to fall. He unhurriedly stood up, went below the cube tip and opened his mouth. The drop fell straight into his mouth and then into his stomach.

The boy then looked down at the result he had written. And then looked up at the cube with a calm expression.

He uttered words.

Words, that meant: "twenty nine thousand five hundred and sixty five cycles left before the cube is finished"

....

14 years later,

A portal opened and a huge stream of people passed through the portal. This portal was located in the vast space outside of a huge floating city. This portal was one of the many portals that surrounded this huge floating city. A bridge connected this portal with the floating city. People that came out of the portal would pass through this bridge and the many checkposts located in this bridge and then get inside the city.

Among the many people there was one boy wearing a pale shirt with a white jacket and grey pants. He seemed to be around fourteen years old, he had an above average looks, a medium and lean build. What was strange about this boy was his unusual black hair. His hair was so dark that no light was reflected from them. Usually, black hairs would be shiny and when light fell on them they would reflect the light. But this hair was pitch black. It seemed to absorb any light that fell onto it so that the outline of his hair and the hairstyle could not be figured out.

As if to compliment that unusual hair the atmosphere around him was also a bit dark. It wasn't the visible sort, it was more like a feeling. The boy gave off a very dark and gloomy aura as if to scare away any people to not come in contact with him. A natural born atmosphere that pushed people away.

Slowly the stream of people started heading toward the bridge.

The boy was also among them. As the boy kept walking he looked ahead. Ahead at the big monstrosity of a city.

The boy thought, "So this is Arcmania, the city of knowledge. It is said that millions of races, their history, their culture, their hard earned knowledge all can be found in this place. Any person who enters this city to earn knowledge will return as the greatest and wisest sage no one can compare to. Let's see if it is true."

The boy's black eyes flashed with great splendor and for a moment it seemed those pupils of his eyes looked cubic instead of circles. But no traces of such shape could be found again. His eyes were as normal as anyone else's would be. Was it an illusion? Or was it reality?

Slowly, the boy was drowned by the sea of people, lost in the gigantic and dreamy city.