Vreil hesitated at first, but this offer was too good to pass up. If he were to stay alive, power was an absolute necessity. Sting, on the other hand, thought differently.

“Sorry, but I will pass”, he said.

“Why?”

“Because I have sworn that, besides magic that can enhance my fighting abilities, I will never use any magic.”

“Can I ask why that is?” the Joke asked, curious. Vreil hadn’t asked anything about Sting’s past, out of discretion, but it too was curious to know the answer to this question.

“No.” Sting declined, but that question opened the gates of memory in his mind, and memories he would rather not think about flooded his head. Sting, as a young boy, watching his father’s ship fade in the horizon. His mother crying when they learnt that the ship had sunk. His oath to conquer the sea for the sake of his father. His fury when, ten years later, the White House didn’t allow him to join them. The darkness in his heart when he asked some pirates that were in town to take him with them. The hellish training under the Black Beard captain. The terror he felt, when the pirates tried to forcefully enhance his body with magic.

“Very well”, concluded the Joke, interrupting the flow of Sting’s memories. “I can’t force you. Vreil, will you come?” Vreil turned at the rest of them and asked if they could wait for him.

“Sure”, answered Jeffrey. “I don’t think some hours will change anything.”

Vreil turned to the Joke. “Then I will come with you.”

“Excellent”, replied the Joke. With Vreil right behind him, he disappeared back into the forest.

“Do you know what magic is, Vreil?” asked the Joke as they were walking through the forest, in a route different than what Vreil knew. There were small houses on either side of the road and the Wanka Wanka waved at him as he passed by.

“It is some sort of energy that circulates the body and gathers in the stomach, I think.”

“Yes, it is that too. But there is more, much more. Magic is not just energy. It is the power that changes the world, it is life and it is death. The world would have no reason to exist without magic.” Earlier the Joke had seemed genderless, or rather without something to identify its gender. They had only been calling it "he" because they couldn't imagine a woman with such bad humor. But now, for some reason Vreil couldn't pinpoint, the Joke exuded the atmosphere of a male.

“You mean that without magic, the world would collapse?”

“No. I mean that even though the world would continue to exist like it does today, it would slowly wither. Meaningless things tend to disappear. Don’t worry, you will understand in a while.” He looked up, then back at Vreil before continuing.

“Magic exists in every living creature, be it a human, animal, plant, or even a god. But some beings, mostly humans, have the ability to store it inside their bodies. You are one of them.”

They were now approaching a house bigger than the others. It was shaped like a dome about seven meters high and with a circular floor of a seven-meter diameter. But its most impressive feature was the windows. Tens of windows, small and big, in many shapes, some with glass and some without. The windows were so many that Vreil could see through the building. It had a mystical air about it, as though it was a sacred temple. This feeling got more intense when they entered through an opening in the wall that functioned like a door.

Vreil noticed that there was one more window he couldn’t see before, right at the top of the dome. On the inside, the building was painted in pure white. The whole thing was designed to make you feel like you were outdoors but, when Vreil took a closer look, he noticed unknown symbols carved into the white walls; and those symbols weren’t still.

They were constantly flowing over the walls, and the sight of them filled Vreil with a feeling he had never felt before, like he was looking at something so big in size that he couldn’t even comprehend it. It was truly an awe-inspiring place.

“This is the Sanctuary of Revelation”, said the Joke. “For thousands of years, it has been used to teach the nature of the world. Before that, it was used for rituals to long forgotten gods, by ancient civilizations. But it existed long before that. It is said that it once used to be the residence of a powerful god, in an age before ours, in the Time before time. Come to the center, Vreil.” Vreil moved to the center as he was told, until he was standing right below the window at the top of the dome.

Suddenly, he noticed that all the sounds had ceased. He could hear only the sound of his own blood in his temples, the sound of his heart beating and the sound of his breath. No, it wasn’t just his breath. He could hear the sound of many breaths, some louder than others, but all of them peaceful. He looked outside the windows and saw the Wanka Wanka, hundreds of them, sitting around the temple. Vreil hadn’t seen any animals in the forest but now the Wanka Wanka were surrounded by numerous creatures, not all of which were known to Vreil. He could see deers with their heads lowered sitting next to tigers, fierce and proud. He could see birds carrying their young offspring on their backs, and monkeys helping their elders approach the building.

He could see small, unknown animals, with many legs and heads, he could see a big pack of wolves approaching from far away, and he could see insects, thousands, tens of thousands of them surging the place.

All the animals were just waiting there, without minding predators and prey, not fearing each other. And they were all looking at him. And then Vreil realized that the breaths he was hearing were not coming from them. The animals and the Wanka Wanka numbered thousands, but he could hear more, many more breaths, coming from every direction. In almost complete silence, he could hear the pulse of the forest beating at the very point he was standing on. He was at the heart of the forest, a holy sanctuary.

“Close your eyes”, whispered the Joke, and now he was not smiling. Seeing him without a smile for the first time, Vreil noticed some human traits on his face. That impression went away when he closed his eyes. And so did the world.

He was all alone, lost in darkness. All his senses were blocked, he couldn’t see, hear, smell, taste, or touch. All he could do was think. His body wasn’t there with him. He was just a thought.

“You are seeing the abyss, what existed before the creation of the world.” Vreil felt something, and now he had a body again. He opened his eyes and closed them again. In front of him was a sight so unbelievably big, that if he tried to think about it he would get lost.

“Be not afraid. By diving into depths unknown, you grow stronger.”

He opened his eyes again. What lied before him was a spiral, one made up of many sparks, like fireflies, with a gentle light that didn’t seek to harm him. But it was so unbelievably gigantic, and infinitely far. Looking around, he saw many more things like that, even farther. Not all had the same shape; some were like an egg while others had an indecisive shape, like clouds. The spiral came closer, crossing that enormous distance in seconds, and he was lost in it. He headed somewhere near the edge of the spiral, and what seemed like fireflies now looked larger than he could even imagine. The difference between himself and those balls of fire threatened to crush his mind.

He moved more, approaching a specific one of those balls, a bit smaller than most of the others. He got almost next to it, and he saw the vast forces on its surface, he felt the blazing heat, he was touched by a blinding light, so strong that he could still see it after he closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he was flying over a blue and green sphere.

His eyes adjusted by themselves, and with a sight that no human could ever achieve he saw himself, through the window on top of the dome. He was perfectly still, with his eyes closed.

“This is the world, as it is now”, said the Joke’s voice again. “There are billions of billions of spheres like this one. They are called planets. But why is it that only this one, particular planet, has life on it? Why is it the only one that changes, and evolves, and gives meaning to the world all by itself? It is because it has magic.”

Vreil blinked, and now he was surrounded by water. There was water in every direction, as far as his eyes could see, enough water to swallow all the mountains and towns he had seen in his life. But it was water insignificant, repulsing, and terrifying. “A world without magic, without life, is a dead world. Now look again”. Now the water was brimming with life, with fish of all kinds Vreil knew of and millions more. He could feel joy in the water, as if it was happy to be inhabited by so many lives.

Now things were different again. He was surrounded by everything.

In a paradise for the senses, Vreil could feel everything that anyone had ever felt. Every emotion, every sight, every sound, all of them were rampaging inside Vreil’s head. But it wasn’t ugly. Feeling the greatest pain, tasting the greater joy, Vreil felt more alive than ever. It felt like he understood the world, and it was the most beautiful thing he had ever witnessed.

“The world is life. The world is magic. It is this flow of magic that makes up all life, and it is life that gives birth to magic. Life is magic, and magic is life. All is one, and one is all. Know that, and there will be no limit to what you can and cannot do.”

For a second, Vreil realized that everything, the revolution, even death itself, had no individual meaning. Changes in the world were like waves in the sea. But that realization disappeared as fast as it had appeared.

This time he was floating in an enormous current of raging water. No, it wasn't water, it was magic. Magic so thick and strong he could feel its physical pressure on him. It was nothing like the flood of magic he’d felt when Ashter was fighting the memory wolves, this was so unimaginably grand it was almost impossible to compare. The magic was swirling and moving around him. Then it started to revolve and Vreil felt that he was its core, he could feel and control this power.

What king? With this power, he could easily make the entire elven Kingdom disappear in the blink of an eye. Vreil felt the magic and now he knew this was the magic of the gigantic blue and green sphere he was living on. He felt how this magic was constantly pouring outwards, in the void between worlds, struggling in vain to fill it all, and yet it didn't seem to lessen at all. Vreil also felt that physical and non-physical were only an expression of the same energy, just like magic was, although this energy at its core was nothing he was familiar with and nothing he could interact with. In this way, this magic of the sphere he felt was the sphere itself, just seen in a different way. He himself was not different, an expression of this same type of energy just temporarily limiting itself to having mass and differentiating itself from the rest.

As soon as he thought that way, Vreil was no longer surrounded by magic, he was magic, he was part of the current. And the amount of the current that was him was something he could freely adjust, so he allowed himself to expand until he was a significant part of this raging current which no longer felt like a current but rather, an ocean. It was only the limitations in his mind that were limiting him to being something and prevented him from being everything. Thinking that, Vreil willed himself to expand and take over the entire ocean. He would be everything. But then he felt a strange ripple, as if he wasn't alone, and suddenly a raging current pushed his mind back.

Vreil opened his eyes again, and he was back to his real body. He felt the magic around him and, remembering it was all one and the same, he willed it to become part of him; the magic gladly complied. His magic increased in a way very different and much more efficient than that of meditation.

Maybe that's why Ashter never taught me meditation, came the realization. What a fool I was to mistrust him. Then all of a sudden, it stopped, as if he had been saturated.

He didn’t know how much time had passed, but it was dark outside. The animals had all left, leaving only the Wanka Wanka around the sanctuary. But they, too, left when Vreil opened his eyes. The Joke was still in front of him, and he opened his eyes at the same time as Vreil. The sound of breaths had disappeared, and silence had taken over. Vreil was not the same person. He could feel the world around him in a way that cannot be described by words; it was just different.

“You tricked me”, he told the Joke. “Now I can’t go back.”

The Joke smiled again. “You didn’t get anything that wasn’t already in you. You just realized some things. When the impression fades away, you will still be the same Vreil you were before. But now you understand more about the world, and you are better at magic. You see further and higher than most. And unless you work on this vision, that’s all the change you’ll see.”

Then, the Joke taught him one more thing.