After a series of experiments, Furen successfully confirmed that when passing objects through the drawn sheet of paper, the spirituality consumption was indeed higher than for himself when passing through it.
Furthermore, after more precise tests, he found that, for the same weight, clothes consumed less spirituality than other objects of the same weight. He then repeated the experiment with objects of the same volume: the result was the same.
Furen thus confirmed that the closer an object is to oneself (in the sense of intimacy or personal use), the less spiritual consumption the crossing consumes, even if the object is inanimate. As for the bodies of other people, although he has not yet been able to verify this, he assumed that the spiritual consumption would be much greater.
From these simple experiments, Furen deduced that:
"For an Apprentice, bringing an object that is closely related to him requires less spirituality than for an object that is not."
Although the "Open Door" ability wasn't inherently offensive, that didn't stop Furen from imagining a devious, even aggressive, use for it. The most important tool for this was this leaf passed down in his family.
After searching the house for a while, he finally found a very sharp dagger.
The dagger's handle, black and oval, reduced the weapon's bulk, and the cold, sharp blade clearly showed that it was not a decorative object. It was said that this dagger had been forged from a meteorite fragment and some extraordinary materials, as a test by a craftsman. It possessed no supernatural properties, but its blade was incredibly hard and sharp, and required no maintenance.
Even after all this time, taken out of the bottom of an old drawer, it still shone as if it were new.
This dagger was the only "offensive" object Furen's family owned. As a child, he often saw his father, Martin Freeman, absentmindedly handling it. Later, Furen himself developed this habit.
So he slipped what he could barely call an extraordinary object into its scabbard and placed it against his skin, beneath his clothes. The cold metal bit into his flesh. Fortunately, Furen preferred loose clothing, unlike the current fashion for tight-fitting garments; the presence of the dagger was therefore not at all noticeable beneath his shirt.
After wrapping the dagger in spirituality several times, his head was suddenly assailed as if by hammer blows. A voice rang out of nowhere in his ears, a whisper or a howl, hard to tell.
When he tried to ignore these sounds, they became mere annoying whispers, like the buzzing of a mosquito after trying to ignore the voice which was a total failure he made another approach.
He couldn't help but listen carefully to the source of the nagging sound. If he listened closely, he would find that the sound suddenly grew louder, as if transmitting something destructive to his mind.
It felt as if a thousand needles were piercing his skull. He felt as exhausted and dizzy as if he had spent three sleepless nights before having to sit through a lecture under the stare of a professor who kept him awake. Overcome by a nauseating, inescapable dizziness, Furen felt madness take over him.
Resisting panic as best he could, he staggered to his room, fell onto his bed, and automatically assumed the meditation posture. Little by little, he gathered his thoughts... then fell asleep, without even realizing it.
The next day, he awoke in a state of confusion, discovering his clothes in disarray. Fortunately, even in his drowsiness the day before, he had had the reflex to put the dagger back in its sheath—otherwise, he might have killed himself in his sleep. Nevertheless, the dagger had left a painful, blue and red mark on his stomach.
After placing the dagger on the desk in his room, Furen massaged the mark on his abdomen for a long time and engraved in his memory an essential lesson:
"Never completely exhaust your spirituality—especially when the potion you have absorbed has not yet been digested."
He washed and brushed his teeth hastily, then returned to his desk. On it was an elegant calendar, with the date July 6th circled. Furen was certain he had never circled that date himself, and didn't understand why.
He thought for a moment, then decided to go to the secret study to consult tomorrow's stars. If his suspicions were correct, he had been lucky to have crossed over yesterday because if he had done so today, he would probably have died.
Opening a mechanism hidden in the bookcase, he discovered several shelves covered with neatly arranged books. He took a black notebook from the upper left corner.
It was a notebook written entirely by hand, in fine, neat handwriting. On the cover page, he read:
Martin Abraham's Astrological Journal a gift for my beloved son, Furen.
Immediately, Furen relived in his mind that warm image of father and son. His father, a learned man, a lawyer by trade, and an amateur writer, and he, the child dreaming of leading the Abraham family out of decadence and becoming a great man, like the legendary ancestor Bethel Abraham.
In the bedtime stories Martin told him, Furen still awaited the glorious tales of their line's fourth age. Martin, although he did not want his son to endure the suffering of an extraordinary being, continued to help him protect himself from predictable dangers, especially the full moons, calculated each year.
To support his son's naive dream, Martin, who until then had only been a casual astrologer, changed radically: he began to observe the sky every night and assiduously study astrology books.
But in the world of mysteries, paternal love carries little weight. After calculating the full moons over five or six years and thoroughly assimilating the "Astrologer's" potion, Martin turned his attention to the blood moons. When he had finished his predictions and noted all the dates on the back of his notebook, tragedy struck.
One night, without a sound, Martin killed himself with his own hands. There was no doubt that this had something to do with an external entity, for blood moons were caused by the "Primordial Moon." Furen didn't even dare recall the details related to this entity: to remember this was to be contaminated, and hatred would only render his father's sacrifice in vain.
The child Martin had raised alone thus grew up between gratitude and guilt, gradually withdrawing into himself, until he became the recluse he was today, locked away for four or five years.
Furen could only feel deep sadness at the destruction of what had once been beautiful, but he did not dare to complain or even think about it, for fear of risking his own life.
(End of chapter)