Elkon remembered the last time he felt this type of deep despair. Despite his young age, because of the various circumstances surrounding the village, Elkon had no choice but to experience scenes and actions done by other villagers or done to other villagers.

He felt no definitive sadness toward his long-dead mother, mostly because he had never even seen her face before. He envied other children who's mothers survived child birth but that was all. He didn't hold dark emotions or thoughts toward the children and fortunately for him he wasn't seen as an outlier because of his mother. That's mainly because deaths attributed to child birth was too common.

The experiences he had to go through were related to raids from surrounding villages, disease, slaughter of livestock for food in desperate times, and other things. The smell of blood and death was already ingrained into his brain, just like all the other children. That was normal for them since the first time they were able to be completely self-aware. After enough time, they all didn't even blink an eye to seeing an animal being cut into pieces.

Not only that, but the children begin their training in hunting and butchering from a young age. Around twelve years old is when the adults dictated was the right age for it start, so Elkon still had a few years to go until was forced to do those acts personally. Of course, if everything went according to plan.

But now, Elkon was trapped underground. He had already been slumped onto the ground wallowing in his self-pity for several minutes. He was scared of the long, lonely years ahead of him. He was too scared to kill himself and thoughts of being unlucky that he survived swam through his head. He felt useless, so he sat there. Tears streamed down his cheeks as he fell to his side. He completely forgot about the blue light, the skeleton, and the dead villagers as he was completely swallowed by his despair...

He fell asleep after he had cried his eyes out. The light calmed and healed his swollen eyes yet it was unable to influence his emotions whatsoever. Elkon slept on the hard ground for a long time before he opened his eyes once more.

He sat up and looked around, realizing once again that he was in reality. He started to cry which caused his healed eyes to swell. His head pounded with pain from the stress. The light slightly calmed it, however, it couldn't do much immediately. Elkon held his head in his hands, and after half an hour of continuous crying, he fell asleep.

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After an unknown period of time, Elkon went through the same cycle again and again. His emotions of despair were too strong for him to counter immediately. The pressing weight of complete loneliness for who knows how long was too much for an eight year old to handle. However, he had experience despair before and was able to pull himself through with his father's help. This time, though, he only had himself.

He lost count how many times he had fallen asleep. However, Elkon slowly grew resistant to his despair. Finally, he had woken up without slowly beginning to cry.

"I need to stop..."

His voice was hoarse and tired. He chose to speak aloud because he needed to hear at least something other than running water.

Elkon stood up and smacked his cheeks a few times before walking around.

"First, I need to think. If this cave was intentionally created, then it needs an exit. The only one I see is where the water flows into. I don't really like water..."

Elkon looked toward the table to distract him from thoughts of drowning.

"Unless it was intentionally created without one. Whoever that skeleton was, they let themselves die here. Who was that person and why did he allow himself to die here? If he wanted to die, then why did he create this healing light..."

What Elkon saw was a mystery that made no sense. To hide down in a cave just to die but to die slowly? Elkon couldn't understand the logic behind the decisions that were made. Yet there must have been a reason. Elkon already learned in his short life that everything has an explanation, regardless of how ridiculous it seems.

He knew that his people weren't normal. They somehow awakened abilities when they reached a certain physical maturity, usually around the ages of eleven to fourteen. The ability is completely random. For example, someone could be able to run three times faster than a normal person while someone else would be able to create fire from nothing. Others are able to control the hair on their body or even just walking on water. The randomness of the abilities is baffling but there had to be a reason for it.

Elkon had seen from raids that there were people with truly powerful abilities. For example, he saw his father fighting against a person who were able to grow two arms from his back. His father himself had the ability of controlling anything earth related, though it was quite weak. The strongest person Elkon had seen was able to suck the air out of anything that had lungs. The raids themselves were rare, however.

Of course, Elkon's view and experience of the world was quite small. He couldn't imagine what other abilities might exist. His world only spanned to a few neighboring villages. He once asked his father what was beyond the villages and his father only said that they were within the borders of a kingdom called Magrar. His father didn't go further into detail, saying that Elkon would learn when he grew up.

Elkon had no way of knowing what ability he would have but he didn't have much hope for anything good. Just obtaining an ability like manipulating earth was extremely lucky, regardless of the strength. He knew if he got a useless ability that he would become a useless person who's only worth was plowing the fields until he died. But if he got a more combat-centered ability that wasn't pitifully weak, he would have a far better future.

However, his father was already the third strongest person in his village despite his earth manipulation being so weak. The main reason why his father was considered strong was because he mostly manipulated earth into weapons that he wielded instead of using them as projectiles. Though he also uses earth to shoot at people, his main skill is hand-to-hand combat.

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Elkon had only ever seen his father use his ability once. The people in the villages usually don't have a use for their abilities, depending.

Elkon pushed those thoughts to the back of his mind. He had no way of figuring out the mysteries so he decided not to pursue it for now. He looked at the blue light screen and decided to try it a few more times. He walked over to the chair once again and continued to reread the markings. He tried over and over yet he failed every time. He eventually lost count how many times he had tried to break past the barrier.

Time and time again, Elkon stared at the markings on the chair. It just didn't make sense to him. He had tried every combination he could create but still nothing worked. Elkon let out a frustrated yell before he shoved the chair to the ground along with the skeleton.

The skeleton softly hit the ground, turning to ash. Followed by it was the sound of the chair cracking under the force of Elkon's push. It too easily broke apart as it hit the floor. The only sound was the soft cracking of material and the thump of ash. Yet, hidden within that sound was a very soft clack. However, in the deathly silence of the cave, Elkon was able to detect it.

"The markings!"

Elkon gasped. He didn't realize what he did until after he did it. He secretly reprimanded himself for letting his emotions control him.

He knew the markings were gone. Only pieces were what remained of the chair. He didn't forget the hidden sound within the ash, so he knelt down next to it.

"I still remember what the markings looked like, so I should be fine..."

Elkon consoled himself before he dug his hands into the ash.

After he reached into the pile, he felt something oddly different within it. Grabbing it, he pulled it out and held it before his eyes.

Within his grasp was a small square. It had a light shine to it despite its darker color. It was about as a big as his thumb and about half a millimeter thick. Elkon was completely intrigued as he looked at it, not knowing where the hell it came from.

"It was inside the skeleton the whole time? The skeleton broke down so easily, yet this thing is still completely intact."

He placed it carefully next to the board on the table. Elkon decided to just continue trying to get the password correct. This time, however, he compared the symbols on the board to the ones he memorized. The symbols just didn't match but the similarities were definitely not coincidental. After thinking about it for so long, he slowly worked out each symbol and matched it the one he thought resembled each one.

Eventually, he figured out why the symbols looked so different yet similar. The symbols marked down by the skeleton were mirrored then turned upside down. Elkon himself didn't have the vocabulary to describe the difference between the symbols, so he just thought that the skeleton did something weird to them.

Elkon pressed each square and watched the symbols appear on the blue screen. After he pressed the fourth square, the blue screen instantly changed.

Several lines of symbols appeared. None of them made any sense to Elkon, obviously, but he knew he had succeeded.

"Yes! Hahahaha! I did it! That took so long!"

Elkon pumped his fists into the air and did a little jig as he celebrated. It felt like a long time had passed since he first tried and now he had finally succeeded. A weight was released off Elkon's shoulders as he turned back to the blue screen.

"It changed?"

The previous symbols were replaced with new ones. However, the thing that surprised Elkon the most was the small square floating in the air. There wasn't a sound signaling its ascent but there it was. The only thing on the blue screen was a line of symbols then two individual symbols underneath it. The two symbols were spaced apart intentionally, almost as if they were options.

To Elkon, that didn't make a difference since he had no idea what they meant. So, he just pressed whatever symbol correlated with the symbol on the left of the blue screen.

The arms in the wall instantly moved and grabbed Elkon off the floor.

"What the?!"

Smaller arms sprouted from pockets inside the arms and stretched toward Elkon. They stabbed their sharp ends into his body and injected minuscule machines inside him. They formed a connecting system within his body and there were two main positions the system focused upon: Elkon's heart and brain.

The machines painlessly covered his heart and began to mimic its movement. Inside his head the machines covered several points on the outer layer while others moved to plant themselves on the inner layers. All of the machines simultaneously produced a relaxant inside Elkon's body alongside a liquid that caused him to go unconscious.

Two of the smaller arms moved to just above Elkon's head. Two blades appeared and effortlessly cut into his skull. They moved parallel to one another, smoothly cutting a perfect square in his skull. Machines from inside his head pushed the square up before a small arm carefully retrieved it, placing it within a sterilized container.

Blood slowly seeped out of the missing piece in Elkon's head. However, due to the interference of the arms and machines, it was controlled.

Smaller arms held the square and slowly placed it on the exposed area of Elkon's brain. The square neatly changed to fit the curve of Elkon's brain and the machines within his body secured it. The material the square was made of seemed to copy the folds and structure of Elkon's brain, merging with it while still being its own object. The machines connected with the square to make a secondary system within the many folds of his brain.

A few seconds later, the small arms retrieved the cut out skull and placed it back into the spot it was removed from. An unknown substance was placed on the sides of the piece of bone, helping to heal and secure it. Machines from the inside sealed the lines while the arms on the outside did the same. The procedure was finished so the arms gently put Elkon back onto the ground.

Elkon was still unconscious and remained so for a long time. His body was completely relaxed as he slept, unaware of the silence that returned once more.