Aquiles proceeded to offer the two students a green book, as he said:

—Throughout today, we will spend the whole day reading the first page of the book without pause. Afterward, we'll jot down the words from the book, and then I'll ask you to come to a conclusion. Both books tell the same story; the only difference is the language they use. So, pay close attention at all times.

The teacher began to read aloud the first page of the red book, then he read aloud from the yellow one, and finally, he read aloud the first page of the green book. Just as the teacher had said, in all three languages, the first page told exactly the same story and was pronounced in the same way, even though the written expression of the words varied. The story was about a young hero, and the first page was his introduction.

—Perfect...—said Aquiles with a smile after finishing the reading— If you open the drawer under your desks, you should find various tools for studying. If you run out of any, just open the drawer again, and the missing tool will reappear.

Adam followed the instructions and opened a drawer under his desk, where he found pencils, pens, ink, empty papers, rulers, and a bunch of other tools. The most interesting part was that all the tools were perfectly organized, making the drawer very aesthetically pleasing.

—Now, let's play a game...—Aquiles began giving instructions— Each of you must take a piece of paper and start jotting down the words from the first page of the book, but the rule is that they should not repeat. The one who writes the highest number of unique words wins. And one more thing: Use a pencil, don't use ink!

Adam nodded and began copying the words from the book. The boy could only remember the meaning of some words thanks to reading, but he didn't recall the meaning of most of the words, so he didn't know if he was writing some of them twice.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

After trying hard to remember, Adam realized that he could write very few words compared to his classmates. It was then that a thought crossed Adam's mind, and as if it were a eureka moment, he started writing like crazy.

It seemed like Adam had discovered a great secret that would lead him to victory:

Every distinct word in the book was made up of mini-words, very short ones that could be written in a single stroke. Even more interesting, these mini-words were always repeating. It was as if there was a limited number of these mini-words.

And depending on the order in which one placed these mini-words, one could create a different word. Thus, the key to this game wasn't to remember the meaning of the word; rather, the key was to see if the mini-word repeated its sequence with one that had already been written. Unbeknownst to him, Adam had rediscovered: The characters.

Finally, the time given by the teacher ended, and from the results, Adam realized the sad reality: he came in last. The other two kids somehow managed to write almost three times more than he did.

—All three of you are winners: Congratulations!—Aquiles said with a smile on his face— All of you wrote a great number of words, and it seems that none of you repeated any words. What conclusion did you come to after doing all this?

Both Bianca and Franco remained silent for a while, pondering, but they didn't quite know what to answer. To them, it was obvious that they only had to make sure the words were not repeated; the existence of characters was evident. However, Adam took his time to elaborate on his 'revolutionary' discovery about the concept of mini-words.

—Yes, indeed, Adam—Aquiles said, noticing the boy's explanation—Those mini-words are what we call characters, and there are a total of 30 of them. All the words in all languages are composed of these 30 characters, and what changes is their sequence to form a word or how they are drawn...

—So, if I remember these 30 characters, do I get my black robe?—Adam asked with much excitement.

—Hopefully...—Aquiles said ironically—But you're closer to achieving it, and that's what matters. In the following weeks, we will learn what these mysterious 30 characters are and what they are called. For homework, you have to review your book until you find the 30 characters. You can take the school supplies from under your desks home to do the task.