What is Scientist's Duty? My Duty is... was to leave a Scientist's Legacy for the sake of the world's "bright future". I failed. I want not to fail this time.

I want to fulfill his last wish.

The last wish of the Observer was the desire to "give back knowledge". But I didn't need this knowledge at all, because I already knew more than 60% of what he knew. The older I get, the harder it is to retain my memory.

Oh, so it was the Observer's Legacy. What was mine? No, what will it be?

I have to finish my work. Although, I didn't even start it. People of this world must know its truth. Where should I start? Oh, of course. One should always start with the headline.

"The Beginning of Everything: the truth behind this world."

In the very center of the planet's core, lies the Heart of the World. Beating the rhythm of eternity, It pulsates, passing through billions of souls. Every creature with a grain of intelligence has a soul. But what is the "soul"? The consciousness, memories, and personality of the creature, or perhaps its astral body? It's not for me to find out, and certainly not for you.

Like hell I am going to tell people about such a terrible truth yet! Let them guess for themselves about the nature of a "soul".

Although no one knows what a soul is, many people already know about its properties. It can be damaged, fragmented, copied, transferred, created, and destroyed. Also, the soul can store information such as memory, or the essence of a being.

After death, at the end of the life cycle, the subject's soul leaves the physical body and goes to the Heart through the mana veins. Inside the Heart, the soul disintegrates into particles that travel along the aorta of mana to the surface, to the Worldbearing Tree. There the particles are being "digested" and released from the beautiful flowers that are whiter than white, in the form of life energy for the biosphere and mana for the manasphere of the planet. The life energy is spent on the very emergence of life. An intelligent organism acquires a soul with its first thought.

But what happens if the particles of the evil soul do not reach the roots of the Worldbearing Tree? In this case, through the mana arteries, they are directed to special geological formations that resemble simple caves (or a network of many caves), where they are concentrated in their deepest parts, synthesizing a pathetic semblance of the Heart of the World — the core of the dungeon.

Instead of passing souls through and returning them, it absorbs life energy, which it then distributes unevenly throughout its dungeon, giving birth to monsters without a soul and will, but with the instinct to kill for the life energy for the core of their mother dungeon. Some of this energy distributed by the core can reach surface, which has serious consequences for its inhabitants, including not only world races, but also monsters born naturally.

When the Heart was first formed, the world had no pulse. The planet looked like a hell of an ocean of magma with islands of volcanoes, which made it impossible for intelligent life to emerge. So it was for 4 billion years in a row, until finally the first souls passed through the Heart, "starting" It. The pulse of prehistoric world was thunderous, as if hearts of people of all the ancestral nations were beating in unison. But eons have passed, and people now hardly remember Its rhythm.

Ah, my fingers are aching. It's high time to buy a new, more comfortable pen, otherwise this one will probably fall apart soon. Nah, I'll continue anyway.

When the souls disintegrated into fragments inside the Heart, the memories, principles, desires, and feelings written on them had nowhere to go, and they accumulated in the Heart until Iu had a soul of Its own. It had no desires, because such a phenomenon as this had nothing to desire.

Time passed, and the Heart learned. Every memory, every knowledge received by an individual became a part of the Heart of the World. Many thousands of years passed, and now the Heart decided to do the unimaginable — to talk to one of the passing souls. What for? Heart was simply curious, that was all.

Feeling the approach of a highly noble, generous and powerful soul, the Heart looked forward to a dialogue with it. It has already become familiar with the concept of life and death, good and evil, based on absorbed information. Finally, the moment came. The Heart protected this soul from disintegration so that It could talk calmly without worrying about their fragmentation.

— Welcome to the end of your life cycle, — the Heart initiated the dialogue.

— Excuse me, I am... I am dead, right? —an elderly voice asked.

— This is an acceptable outcome of any life. Ordinarily, all the souls that passed through me were filled with bitter dying regrets. And you... Don't you regret your death?

— I have nothing to regret, — the soul responded peacefully, to the Heart's surprise.

Such an answer could not satisfy the curiosity of the Heart. It asked Its question again, but in a different way.

— Do you feel regret, or sadness?

— I feel neither sorrow nor regret. Only pride for my two sons, who will inherit my two half-kingdoms, and joy for my people, who have never known neither hunger nor disease under the hand of their king. My life ended with the last decree I issued, the last cry I uttered and my eyes closed...

Why did the Heart start this dialogue at all, if It would have received all this information during the fragmentation of the soul? It doesn't know Itself...

...As the First Tsar did not know. Also, he did not know that the twin tsarevichs, Blagosvet and Mirozar Vladimirovichs, having lost their father, the main teacher of political affairs, divided the Human Kingdom into two opposing sides by a wall of hatred for 1417 years, but this is a completely different story...

The 3rd year of the Age of Reconciliation. Written by: D█████████████.

Damn it, my fountain pen is leaking! Well, this is fine. Anyway, the people of this world are not ready to realize the whole truth. Another sheet of paper turned into a ball... No, it's better to burn it, like all other writings. It's a pity. Not pitiful enough to be sad about it.

Well, after so many years I have already forgotten how to write articles: it turned out to be some kind of mess. So many years... So many years have passed since I heard the voice of the Heart...