Down the hill, they could see a glade filled with grasses waving in the wind and patches of flowers of every sort: red poppies, close-bude moonshiners and full white suncatchers—but Nefaaya know that the dull color of suncatchers was a lie, because later at night it, after catching sunlight it would glow in bright blue phosphorescence. At the center of the glade, a small stream was cutting through.

Nafaaya walked almost giddily at the prospect of another steeam. Behind him, Nelrue stood silent. She looked back and saw him, looking at her in a manner that made her uncomfortable.

After he had thrown his question at her, Nefaaya was almost about to say the truth about her. It was only stopped when he heard Etrran groaning in his sleep.

Not her or Nelrue spoke after that. She tried to maintain her composure, pretending to be giddy that earned her a suspicious look from Renaeril

She stopped before the stream and brought out the water containers in their bag. As Nefaaya was filling it with water, she asked," How did you do that? Those bursting lights?"

The truth is she wasn't really interested in it at all. After learning that she was someone who wasn't part of the Flow. She didn't know what to feel after learning about it, but she felt uneasy knowing that she was the only person in this world who has her own free will.

"Merging?" Nelrue casually said, uninterested.

But Nefaaya insisted, she wanted to lighten the mood between her and him.

"But how's mine and Renaeril different?"

Renaeril nodded and Merge to show the point, "I barely have Pieces around me."

"They could slaughter you with that dim light of yours," Ettran said on the side.

Renaeril retorted, "not as fast as they could kill you."

Nefaaya wasn't expecting it from him, because after all the two of them were supposedly older than Ettran. And it wasn't right to respond cruelly to a kid like that. And why in the hell does Renaeril behave like that at Ettran. The kid has his face burned already. Nefaaya sighed inwardly, reminding herself that she had to do something about Renaeril sooner.

Nelrue nodded, "there are three types of Merging."

"I hadn't read about that," she said, more eager than she intended.

"Your book perhaps was old," he said. "It was some new technique that they had discovered."

"Just like I said, there are three types of Merging. First was Soaking, this is when you just lightly touched the Creation, enough for you to see the Flow," he said as his eyes glowed in faint violet, almost unnoticeable under the glare of the afternoon sun. Around him, small pieces the size of her fingernails appeared around him, slowly moving as if a leaf that had fallen from a tree.

"Soaking was usually used for light Pulling for example, when we're running, what I used is Soaking since we're trying to avoid being noticed by a possible Seeker. This was usually used for scouting and light Pulling that requires the intervention of the Flow."

"The next one is Half-Merge," he said and closed his eyes, this time the glow was noticeable. Nelrue raised his hand and moved his finger toward him slowly, starting from his little finger up until his index finger. As he did this the water in the stream slowly bubbled and rose, just like a fountain.

"This is what you too, usually do," he said and stared at Renaeril. "Especially Nefaaya. Since Renaeril's Merge was something you couldn't call Half-Merge. The difference in Half-Merge and Soaking was not just in the amount of Pull that a Mage could do but also in the intensity of Raw Colors they could see. In Soaking, the Raw Colors were just slightly visible, you could still make out its shape. But in Half-Merge, the colors are different and it was dancing like flames."

He pulled back from the Creation and walked backwards.

"And lastly," he said and burst out in violet flames. His body was covered in it as if he was burning in fire. His eyes didn't just glow, but it was also leaking in violet light as if he was crying. "This was known as Submerged, the highest of all Merging. Where a Mage could do much more in reshaping the Flow around. Submerged literally vary from person to person, others saw it as if all the things were burning, others said everything around them were swirling."

"How about you?' she asked.

His brows knitted as he looked around, "Bright and noisy, the trees there where we came from look like some misshapen green inferno. There are new studies that suggested that Submerged wasn't the last level, others insisted that Submerged could still be divided into two since Submerged vary from Mage to Mage. But it was something to be studied further."

Renaeril walked forward, "how could I break from Half-Merge?"

The glow in Nelrue's eyes vanished as he looked at the kid. "It was something that just happened but I believe trying to stay longer while in Merge was the key to increasing your stages in Merge."

Renaeril nodded.

For the rest of their stay in the river, the boy was in Merge, surrounded by Pieces as if he was a sun being revolved around by planets. But he was also tripping most of the time. She was worried he would make himself blind or injured because of what he was doing.

As they finished their stay in the stream, Nefaaya asked as Nelrue started walking.

"Where are we going?"

Nelrue looked at her and said, "you said you needed to go to a village, yes? I'm bringing you to one."

Nefaaya looked at the tall trees behind them, much darker even from here.

"Why is it dark here," she said.

"That kid was the Forest Of Light," he said as he started walking forward.

She followed, behind her Renaeril was having a hard time to keep up as he tried to see his way while in Merge. Ettran was bickering at something Renaeril had done. What he did to shame himself was less of her concern as the darkness of the Forest Of Light started enveloping her.