PROLOGUE

  She had never imagined that her grandfather had once been a Luxian. Until just after her thirteenth birthday. For thirteen long years, she had watched the quiet corners of his being; his stillness, his pauses, his unspoken words. There were times when her gaze would wander far beyond the room, not just out of pain but also out of the weight of memories too secret to name.

  And now, as one called to serve Aurelia, she was beginning to understand. She had been chosen. And her first year at Mindstone Celestial Academy was just beginning.

  Then she understood—she had not truly grasped where she was.

  Not truly. Not profoundly.

  One Sunday morning, as a soft light slowly spilled onto the front porch of their house, she and her grandfather made coffee together. Soft, warm, and delicious. The way Grandfather had recently preferred it—not as harsh as it used to be. They sat side by side in silent companionship, the world around them falling silent. Birds stirred in the trees. A cat jumped wordlessly on a fluttering leaf. The breeze moved the morning clouds with careful hands.

  They just sat there. Two steaming cups. A sleepy street. And a head full of questions it didn't know it was finally ready to ask.

  Turning to him, she said quietly,

  “Grandpa… Mindstone. Celestia Vertex. How did all of this begin?”

  They weren’t allowed access to the Historical Genesis section in The Infinite Lexicon Library yet. This was her first year at the Academy. But Aln had turned toward her grandfather anyway, her voice steady with the kind of urgency that had no time for permission.

  “I want to know, grandpa!” she said. “I need to know.”

  He didn’t respond right away. Instead, his gaze drifted toward the quiet street in front of them, his expression far away—like someone silently repying a memory that only he was cleared to witness. And then… he started to tell the Mindstone Incident:

  “You see, Aln… not just anyone could enter the Mindstone. Not even by chance. It all started in 1969. A research ship set sail from the Port of Nova Lumera to Lisbon, carrying 150 brilliant scientists on their way to an international summit. It was never meant to happen on purpose. No code, no button, no ritual. But that night, as the first digital signal jumped from UCLA to Stanford...the minds of 150 scientists—restless, brilliant, and unguarded—crossed a boundary no machine had ever touched. The ocean didn’t crack. The sky didn’t split. But something did. A pulse. A rupture. A doorway. They would ter call it the Mindstone Incident.” .

  Aln blinked, her brow furrowing.

  “Wait… UCLA and Stanford? The universities? What did they have to do with it?”

  Grandpa Sam gave a slow nod, as if she’d just stepped onto the first rung of a very, very long dder.

  “Not the schools themselves. The connection between them. The first digital message ever sent from one computer to another. That signal—it didn’t just travel through wires. It rippled through minds. Through time. And through whatever veil separates here… from there.”

  Aln sat forward slightly, eyes narrowing with curiosity.

  “What did the message say, grandpa?”

  He smiled faintly, eyes distant.

  “Just two letters. They meant to send ‘LOGIN’… but the system crashed after ‘L’ and ‘O’. That was all. L–O.”

  “Lo?” Aln repeated, puzzled.

  “Yes” he said.

  “As if the universe only needed to say one thing that night:

  ‘Lo—behold.’ And someone… something… answered.”

  Grandpa Sam picked up where he left off:

  “A violent storm arose and threw the ship into chaos. When the skies cleared and the waters calmed, only 40 scientists and 30 crew members were left alive. They weren’t shipwrecked. They were downloaded. At first, they did what humans did: They built shelters, counted casualties, distributed supplies.“

  Grandpa Sam leaned back slightly, his fingers still curled around the rim of his coffee cup. The steam had long faded, but the warmth between them had not. And then he continued, his voice softer now, like he was reading aloud from a half-buried scroll in the back of his own memory…

  “You see, from that moment on, things began to… echo. Not on Dunya. Not right away. But in Mindstone. Those scientists—the ones who survived the shipwreck—they began waking up in a pce that follow its own rules. Not of just physics, not of just how time works. They called it madness at first. But then… they all began to dream the same things.”

  He looked at Aln now—not just as her grandfather, but as someone who had already made the journey she was only beginning.

  “You asked how it all began,” he said and added

  “From now on, I want you to listen to what I have to say without interrupting. Damn those drugs, Aln! They are very good at detaching me from the past, but I took a break from them this morning. I can't support you enough in these matters! I wish I could be the same as before! But as, I will now try to collect my thoughts and remember what I have to say to you. Please just listen, Aln! Ok?”

  “Ok grandpa!” said Aln

  “This is how. Not with an explosion. Not with a prophecy. But with a crash… and a whisper. The dreams the scientists experienced each night were unusual—strange, vivid, and far too real to ignore. Some described wandering through vast libraries; others of wandering through vast courtrooms; still others of wandering through endless corridors where voices whispered in ancient nguages. Some of the survivors had begun to enter the Mindstone, albeit unintentionally; a sentient dimension yered over reality. And unlike other dreamers before them, these scientists experienced being there not just dream… but by being there. Something had changed. They were alive, and aware of everything inside the Mindstone pnet.”

  “The Axiom Divisions, which were affiliated with the Mindstone Military and Security Forces, had begun tracking the scientists down—one by one—as they awakened in different regions of the Mindstone pnet. Each time a consciousness emerged, it was intercepted, restrained, and taken into custody. The Axiom agents transported them to secure vaults and holding chambers deep beneath the surface, where they remained confined until the day they would stand trial. During this entire time, the scientists’ physical bodies—still asleep somewhere on Dunya—showed no signs of distress. The duration of their stay in Mindstone never exceeded their natural sleep proses in the physical world. And then, they weren’t invited to court. They were… summoned… “

  “All 40 scientists were captured at different times in different regions of Mindstone and brought before a court in Celestia Vertex, the administrative heart of the Mindstone realm. – Mindstone Celestial Court of Appeals – was governed by three realms: Aurelia (light and creation), Acheronys (chaos and strategy), and Vorthanger (bance and fate). There were three judges representing the three different realms, and one independent judge.”

  “They were asked only one question: “You could only vaguely experience this in your dreams on Dunya! How did you come to be fully aware now?”"

  “The scientists, who looked quite scared and terrified, defended themselves by saying that they did not know how this happened and that they were here unwillingly. During their interrogation, a joint decision and statement was made in the Elyndoris and Xar'Kuth regions, two mysterious regions of the Mindstone that no consciousness in the Mindstone had direct access to. - One represented eternal light and peace, the other eternal darkness and chaos...”

  “The independent judges were waiting to make a decision about the scientists because they expected a mutually agreed message and a joint decision to come from these two regions. And this message was usually sent with a Morse code that the independent judges had. Even before Morse code, messenger crows were used. The long discussions ended with a joint decision sent from the regions of Elyndoris and Xar'Kuth, and the court began to expin the decision to the scientists one by one in different rooms: Scientists could not travel freely in any time zone and pce, at any time. This was the first decision...”

  “The Mindstone was filled with consciousnesses who had completed their lives on Dunya with their own free will. They were called Lumenians. The realms of Elydoris and Xar'Kuth decided to turn the opening of the door between the living and still functioning consciousnesses on Dunya and the Mindstone into a great opportunity and even a great test for humanity.”

  “Their second important decision was as follows: On the nd where the library and archive buildings called The Infinite Lexicon were located, it was decided that an academy called Mindstone Celestial Academy would be established so that talented and intelligent minds in the world could receive the necessary training. In this way, they would be trained to influence the ideas and decisions of other normal people living in the world - Gravians. During their training and after their training, those who could guide the most people to light, goodness and peace in a year would be compared with those who could guide them to darkness, chaos, ambition and greed or to be banced and impartial. And so every year, the political administration of Mindstone would be transferred to only one of the three regions for a year.”

  “The Mindstone was not a paradise. And it was not entirely a dream. It was the Dunya's ever-felt but unidentified source of endless existence where over 120 billion consciousnesses continued to exist, not as souls, but as shaped echoes. Lumenians were no longer citizens of Dunya's different ethnical and cultural geographies. They were just Lumeniens, and citizens of Mindstone. they looked the same as they had when they left Dunya - same face, same eyes, same age. Not as punishment… but as proof. This memory, not matter, is the true form of the soul.”

  ”The portal was now open, and intelligent and talented scientists and people who were good at influencing other minds could easily - most likely - enter the Mindstone. The only way to maintain bance was to make an agreement and a protocol with the people living on Dunya who could pass through the portal. And thus, the minds that would pass through the portal could be easily controlled. In addition; which side humanity would choose to stay on in the face of this new mental evolution would be turned into a kind of competition. Because the regions of Elyndoris and Xar'Kuth, which existed as representatives of the universe and the divine order in the Mindstone, emphasized that the universe had a bance based entirely on free will and that every consciousness had the right to make decisions with their free will against things that affected their perceptions.“

  “Because you see, Aln!” said Grandpa Sam taking one more sip from his mug

  “Elyndoris and Xar'Kuth have always held fast to one belief: The universe was built upon free will alone. Every soul—no matter the weight of influence— chooses its own path in the end”.

  Grandfather Sam then turned to him, his gaze a little sharper, as if the morning itself were holding its breath.

  “And so, Aln,” he said, his voice low but firm.

  “If you choose to fight for good and truth—to defend them in ways that st, that move hearts and awaken minds—then you will serve Aurelia well. And in doing so, you will strengthen the light in the world.”

  He paused for a moment, then added:

  “But if you are someone like young Dorian Bckwood—the youngest son of the Bckwood family who lived in the mysterious and dark mansion at the end of the street—whose ambition and fire, who always seeks more, you will live out the philosophy of Acheronys and help fan the fmes of chaos.”

  “Or perhaps,” he continued,

  “You can be a mind in the service of Vorthanger, like Elsa Thornfield, the daughter of Nancy and Timothy Thornfield, our next-door neighbors, who is only a year older than you. And even if you do not lead the world toward light or shadow, you can at least leave it unharmed.”

  He exhaled slowly, then met his eyes with silent certainty:

  “Fortunately,” he said,

  “Your path has long been clear . . . Isn’t it Aln?”

  “Do you really feel like you belong where you stand?”

  Aln had stopped trying to figure herself out from that moment. Not because she didn’t care—oh, she cared plenty—but because the whole thing had become more confusing than a maths problem written in mirror writing. She knew she lived on Dunya. That part was easy: toast crumbs on the kitchen table, squeaky floorboards, and a dog next door that barked at absolutely nothing.

  Now she existed somewhere else, too. A pce that felt like Dunya, but quieter, as if a pnet were thinking rather than speaking. Every time she closed her eyes at night, it was like she was . . . slipping through a crack in the wallpaper and ending up exactly where she should be. It wasn’t another pnet. It wasn’t, really. More like Dunya’s reflection in a very deep, very still ke.

  She couldn't decided whether that made her special, unlucky, or just slightly haunted. But one thing was clear: no matter where she went—Mindstone or Marynd—she was still Aln. And that, it seemed, was enough to turn both pces around…

  In Mindstone there wasn’t a wild, reckless freedom. There was a freedom that came with rules. She had both the Dunya and the Mindstone, and somehow she felt powerful enough to be with both of them…

  However, this curious little girl could not yet take into account that when she started to apply the training she would receive at the Mindstone Academy to the real world, she would have to remain strong, calm and patient in all circumstances and in all situations, no matter what.

  Aln said: “Actually granddad! I’m honestly not sure which one I am belong to?”

  What she meant was, ever since Celestia found out that the Vertex and a pce called the Mindstone actually existed, things had gotten a little… messy. Apparently, she was going to continue living on Dunya and in the Mindstone. It was crazy, because they both felt real. She meant, real in a weird way. And—plot twist—they both felt kind of like home. So maybe finding out who you were wasn’t about choosing one side or the other. Maybe it was more like:

  “Yeah, I have two homes. It doesn’t matter. I belong in both—and somehow, they seem just like fine with that.” she said.

  She belonged to both Dunya and Mindstone. And for now, that felt like enough.

  But there was something she couldn’t see. A shadow she hadn’t noticed. A truth her grandfather hadn’t shared. Not yet. He hadn’t told her about the real danger. The one growing in the silence between dreams. Not because he didn’t trust her. But because she wasn’t ready…Not yet.

  So all he said was this:

  “For now, Aln!… this is enough. The rest—you’ll learn through the choices you make, the lessons you live, and the echoes you leave behind. Just remember one thing, and never forget it— Nothing is ever quite what it seems.”

  But it was unfair. Grandpa Sam had left out the most enjoyable and valuable experiences of being at Mindstone Academy. For example, he hadn’t mentioned the unforgettable Mindball Shift tournaments held in the past, which featured legendary pyers. For example, he hadn’t mentioned that you could buy a ticket in line with the spirit of the times from the “Time Traveler” ticket booth at the entrance to the Archive of Civilizations, Settled Life and Political Structures, the 4th building of the Infinite Lexicon Library, and experience unforgettable moments in the legendary Lexicon Bazaars. In fact, you could wander through the bazaars, which featured a rich variety of products exhibited by artists or craftsmen from every century…

  Anyway..

  Now it was the true time to tell the whole story from the beginning…

  ***