Chapter 5: Richard Alexander
Lumen was shocked by what had happened. He had not expected the table to transform into the axe, which made him think, "How did it transform? I touched it a moment ago, why... how did it transform now when I did not hold it?"
"Did it transform because I thought it should transform? Will it turn into the m... if I think of it?" Lumen recalled what had been said before the axe transformed and figured out the reason.
Lumen sighed and said without touching the table, "Axe."
He waited for a while, but as he expected, the table did not change into an axe, which pushed him to speak again: "Transform into an axe."
Immediately, the table changed into the axe that Lumen had bought from the hunting club and fell to the floor.
Lumen picked up the axe while thinking, "I think it is connected to me. When I am holding it, it will turn into anything I think of, and if I do not touch it, it will transform provided that I tell it to transform."
"Rod," Lumen thought of a rod, and the axe transformed into the shape of a rod burnt on one side.
He put it in his right pants pocket and began searching inside the guest room for the slightest changes.
After he finished searching, he picked up the Castle Man card from the wreckage of the broken table on the floor.
He tried to find anything on the card that might help him, and tried thinking of his tools, but he failed. He spent a lot of time experimenting until he finally decided to put the card in his right pocket.
He left the room into the hallway and turned his gaze toward the front door without approaching it, as he was annoyed by the person outside, who did not stop knocking on the door for a moment.
After Lumen kept staring at the door for a while, he decided to open it after he finished examining the house.
At the stroke of five o'clock, Lumen finished searching the entire house. He found nothing mysterious or new beyond what he remembered from six months ago.
But he had noticed the disappearance of the Castle Man card that used to float above his bed.
Lumen did not tire himself by thinking about the reason, and believed that the card's disappearance was the will of the Castle Man.
While he was walking to open the door for the person knocking outside, he spotted a person sitting in the guest room.
The moment he saw the man sitting in the room, he heard the voice of an adult man coming out of the castle card in his chest pocket: "Please come in."
Lumen realized that the voice was for the man atop the castle, who was the same one in the guest room, so all he could do was think before entering the guest room: "You enter my house and tell me to please come in?!" He sighed and continued thinking, "If my sister were here, she would have screamed at you."
The Castle Man wore a black robe over his white suit. He had graying brown hair and a brown beard. The robe he was wearing covered his left hand, hiding the obvious burn in the card.
The Castle Man raised his hand toward the armchair opposite him and said, "You may sit."
Lumen nodded and sat down.
Lumen remained silent for a few seconds until the Castle Man said, "You can ask me whatever is on your mind. I will make sure to provide answers that help you."
Lumen took some time before starting to speak to arrange his questions properly and in a way that would benefit him: "What is your identity?"
The Castle Man said, "I have many identities. You can call me Castle Man or Richard Alexander for now, but be careful, and do not call me that outside this place."
Lumen continued his questions after hearing the Castle Man's answer: "Then how can I address you and contact you if I want to?"
"You can address me as Mr. Castle or Castle Man, or anything else such as teacher."
The Castle Man clicked the ring finger of his right hand against his index finger. A Castle Man card emerged from nowhere, floating above the table. He took it and continued speaking.
"Hold the card in your right hand and intend to speak with me using one of the three identities I told you, and I will hear you then."
The Castle Man stopped speaking for a moment before continuing: "But I do not guarantee that I will answer you immediately."
Lumen stayed silent as he stared at the card in the Castle Man's hand.
The Castle Man understood what was on Lumen's mind and laughed before speaking: "Ha ha ha, do not be afraid. I cannot hear you unless you intend to speak to me."
Lumen sighed and continued: "May I know where we are?"
The Castle Man replied immediately: "No."
Lumen could do nothing but smile and laugh at himself before speaking: "Why?"
The Castle Man did not speak and remained silent, which made Lumen ask another question.
Lumen took out a rod from his pants pocket before saying, "May I ask about this burnt rod?"
The Castle Man nodded and said, "Of course you may. There is no problem."
Lumen said, "Where did the rod come from?" Lumen wanted to ask about the rod's origin before asking about it, in order to get more of these extraordinary rods.
The Castle Man remained silent for some time before speaking and saying, "This rod came from the core of a walker from the Path of the Link. I do not have much time to explain everything from the beginning."
"But you need to know that there is what we call Paths, and each Path gives its owner non-human abilities."
"For each Path there are six stations. Imagine that the Path is the road you choose, and the station in this case is the place and level you are in. The Path of the Link begins from a station called the Link, and it is the weakest station."
"Each station grants you something new in power..."
The Castle Man stopped explaining and fell silent, which prompted Lumen to ask, "What are the abilities gained from the Link station?"
Lumen thought quickly before the Castle Man started talking: "He said that for each Path there are six stations, and from what he said there are many Paths. I might be able to get my sister back in a..."
Lumen's thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the Castle Man speaking: "At the Link station, you can link yourself with three things at once. If you link yourself with an arrow, the arrow will become stronger and you will be able to feel it as it moves toward the target and can slightly manipulate its path."
"And another example: if you link yourself with a rifle, you will be able to fire bullets by moving your finger even if you are far from the rifle. You will also gain at the Link station a clear increase in your five senses, in addition to a fair amount of spirituality."
Lumen was amazed by the abilities he would obtain, and immediately decided to ask about a way to save his sister before anything else: "Teacher, is there a Path in which I can restore my sister to her previous form?"
Lumen chose to address the Castle Man as his teacher to gain his trust, and he did not speak about the state his sister was in in order to find out whether the Castle Man had any connection or knowledge of what had happened or not.
The Castle Man said, "Now your speech is becoming more lively. Yes, you can. There is a Path in which you can restore your sister to her previous form, and it is the Path of the Link."
Lumen remained silent and thought about what he should do. It took some time before he asked, "How can I become part of the Path of the Link?"
The Castle Man drew a slight smile on his face and said, "There is a ritual written behind the paper. Just do as written in the ritual and you will tread the Path of the Link."
Lumen asked directly, "Can I change Paths?"
The Castle Man replied, "In the paper."
Lumen understood from the Castle Man's answer that the paper summarized everything about the Path of the Link, which pushed him to ask about the Castle Man.
"Teacher, are you from the Path of the Link?"
The Castle Man was silent for a few seconds before saying, "What made you come to that conclusion?"
Lumen honestly replied, "I think the card will connect with me like the rod. The rod has a special property, and the card has other properties, such as the fact that I will be able to talk to you through it. Is this not because of the connection between you and the card? You are connected to the card, and I will also be connected to it, right?"
The Castle Man nodded and said, "Your analysis is based on a correct foundation. Yes, I am from the Path of the Link."
Lumen sighed before asking, "Teacher, can you not help my sister?"
The Castle Man replied, "I cannot help her at the moment because..."
The Castle Man stopped speaking for a moment before continuing, "I simply cannot... let us return to the rod. You still do not know all of its abilities."
"The rod is called the Rod of the Interlinked. It has three abilities without any negative side effect. The first ability allows it to transform into anything its owner has possessed, which means it will not transform into anything shared between you and another person."
"The second ability of the Rod of the Interlinked allows you to switch your place with the rod. This ability may benefit you in critical situations."
"The third ability you can consider as two abilities. You can draw the rod toward you in the position that suits you, and you can draw yourself toward the rod."
Lumen spoke after the Castle Man finished his words: "Thank you, teacher. Can I return to the real world?"
The Castle Man replied immediately, as though he had expected this question from Lumen: "Yes, you can return whenever you want. You just have to sleep."
Lumen was stunned by the way he would return to the real world and thought, "Does this mean I am in a dream? When I asked about the place, he did not give me an answer..."
The Castle Man interrupted Lumen's thoughts and said, "Sleeping is the ritual that connects reality and this world."
The Castle Man continued without giving Lumen any time to think: "It seems you have a guest waiting outside. I think I should leave now."
The Castle Man clicked his ring finger against his index finger and disappeared immediately from the guest room.
Lumen remained stunned by the Castle Man's sudden departure. It took a few seconds before he thought, "Did he say guest? That means there is no problem letting him in... No, I must not lower my guard in front of him."
He took the Rod of the Interlinked out of his pocket and thought, "Axe."
In an instant, the rod in his hand transformed into the axe. Lumen left the guest room and approached the front door.
He remembered his past when he accidentally broke the previous door while playing with Deco. His father forced him to help install the new door and prevented him from leaving the house for two weeks.
Lumen opened the peephole to see who was outside... Outside the door stood a young man shorter than Lumen. He had a sharp face and sharper eyes, and his long hair fell down to the beginning of his back.
Lumen adjusted his stance to see more details through the peephole.
He found that the young man's left hand had been cut off a little above the elbow.
At this moment, the young man outside noticed that a gap of light had appeared. He raised his right hand to greet the person inside the house. He did not know whether it was a man or a woman, as he could only see Lumen's eye through the peephole.
Lumen felt chills from the handless young man, closed the peephole, and walked to his sister's room.
As he climbed the stairs, he thought to himself, "The house is protected... the door lock was not closed, but he kept knocking on the door all this time and did not enter... It must be because of Mr. Richard, he has something to gain from me..."
When Lumen reached his sister's room, he noticed that the young man had stopped knocking. He ignored this and tore a new sheet from the notebook on which he had written his analysis, and took a quill to write with instead of a pen because he was afraid of losing it, since it was expensive compared to the quills.
Lumen returned to the ground floor and approached the door. He lowered himself and pushed the paper with the quill outside.
He waited on the floor until the young man returned the paper and quill inside.
Lumen picked up the paper. He found it completely blank; nothing had been written on it.
He stood up from the floor and went back to watch through the peephole again. He saw the young man slowly raising his hand.
He lowered all his fingers except his index finger, and pointed it at his mouth.
He slowly opened his mouth and stuck out his tongue, which shocked Lumen, for the young man's tongue had been cut off!!
Lumen realized that everything had turned against him. The man outside could not write or speak, which meant Lumen would not be able to know which of his previous options was correct.
Lumen stood for minutes, thinking about what he had to do, until he finally decided to ignore the young man and go to his bed to sleep. He wanted to try the transition ritual instead of risking letting in the handless young man.
As he was on his way to the stairs, Lumen noticed that the young man had returned to knocking on the door.
The young man continued knocking with increasing force, but Lumen ignored him and placed his foot on the stairs.
He returned his gaze to the door before climbing, and noticed from a distance that he had not closed the peephole.
He was disturbed by the gaze of the young man with the severed hand and went back to the door to close the peephole. He approached the door, and before reaching the peephole he heard a heavy, sharp sound synchronized with the sound of lightning from outside: "I... I... am watching you..."
A terrifying aura surged toward Lumen from outside, an aura that made him slowly step back.
Lumen tried to take a step forward, but he heard the Castle Man's voice coming out of his chest: "Do not approach the door."
Lumen stood in place for a few seconds, before deciding to go back upstairs and refrain from approaching the door.
He placed his foot on the stairs, and before climbing he noticed a smell behind him, and it was not strange to him: "This smell... blood!"
He turned his head toward the door and found a crimson red spot on the floor, a spot of blood.
The sound of knocking on the door disappeared. Lumen focused his gaze from where he stood toward the door peephole, without approaching, fearing the aura that had surged over him a moment ago.
He noticed that the young man who had been watching through the peephole had disappeared.
He kept watching from his spot for a few minutes, and noticed nothing except that the blood on the floor belonged to the young man with the severed hand.
He took the card out of his chest pocket with his right hand and said, "Teacher... will I be safe?"
The Castle Man's voice came from the card and said, "You will be safe if you do not go out."