Eight months had passed since the night when the stars had spoken to him.
Arjun Mehta's body was whole again. His steps no longer trembled, his lungs no longer burned, and the dull ache that once haunted every bone had faded into memory. From the outside, he looked like a young man blessed by recovery and discipline; only he knew the truth — that a silent power pulsed beneath his calm exterior.
Every morning before dawn, he sat cross-legged in his room, breathing in rhythm with the quiet of the world. Meditation had become his ritual, the thread that tied his ordinary existence to the extraordinary reality that waited behind closed eyes. Yet the Library remained sealed. Its corridors stood in darkness; the glowing books he'd once seen were locked behind invisible walls.
He knew now that knowledge from the Library came with conditions. What those conditions were, he could only guess. But each time he grew restless, he reminded himself: patience was also a form of intelligence.
During one such morning, as the first light filtered through the window, a thought bloomed in his mind — vast and audacious. He saw humanity not as it was, but as it could be. Cities powered by clean energy, machines that learned like living minds, ships that glided silently through the void between stars. The vision was so vivid it made his chest tighten.
He wanted to lead humanity there — to the stars themselves.
That evening, while reading an old astronomy book Anaya had brought from the city library, he came across something called the Kardashev Scale. It described the measure of a civilization's advancement based on its ability to harness energy:
Type I — the energy of a planet.
Type II — the energy of a star.
Type III — the energy of a galaxy.
Humanity, the book said, was still far below Type I, barely able to manage the resources of a single world. It struck him deeply. With all their wars, greed, and division, humans had not yet learned to live intelligently on one planet, let alone reach others.
That night, he wrote in his notebook:
"To help humanity rise from Type 0 to Type I — and beyond — will be my purpose."
But dreams needed form. He couldn't save the world through meditation alone. He needed to create, to build, to invent — and for that, he needed money. Not riches for himself, but resources to shape the future.
He decided to establish a company one day — a high-tech enterprise of his own making, with no partners, no masters, and no political interference. He would use it as a vessel to bring the knowledge of the Library into the human world — carefully, responsibly, for the benefit of all. Every rupee earned would feed new research, new invention, new hope.
For now, though, he needed the foundation — a skill that could earn him his first pot of money, enough to set things in motion.
The answer came easily: computers.
If he could master programming, he could create software, applications, and systems that could fund his ambitions. In this age, information itself was currency.
So he began to study.
Anaya helped by borrowing books from the hospital library and from a few of her friends in the city — heavy volumes on programming, algorithms, artificial intelligence, hacking, system security. Arjun devoured them all. His small desk became a mountain of papers, handwritten notes, and diagrams. He had no computer, but that didn't matter. His mind simulated every process perfectly; he could visualize programs running, debug them mentally, optimize them in seconds.
Day after day, month after month, he read. By the end of the eighth month, he had read over three hundred books — textbooks, manuals, research papers — and integrated every word into a flawless internal system of understanding.
Yet the Library remained silent.
At night, after each long day of study, he sat in meditation, waiting. Sometimes he thought he felt a hum in the distance, like a heartbeat beneath water. But no light appeared, no voice spoke. He began to wonder what condition the Library demanded. Knowledge? Understanding? Or something deeper, something spiritual?
Still, he didn't stop. His resolve had only grown stronger. Each sunrise found him seated cross-legged on the same mat, spine straight, eyes closed, mind still. He vowed that for as long as he lived, meditation would remain the center of his being — not just as a practice of calm, but as the bridge between what he knew and what he might yet know.
Then, one evening, it happened.
He had just finished the final pages of a dense book on neural network architectures. His body felt tired, but his mind hummed with quiet satisfaction. He set the book aside, extinguished the lamp, and sat for his nightly meditation.
As his breathing slowed, the darkness behind his eyelids deepened. The stillness grew thicker, almost tangible. The hum returned — stronger this time, resonating through his thoughts. Then, from that silence, a faint whisper:
"Condition fulfilled. The gates of computation open."
The words reverberated through his being like a chime struck in another universe.
He saw it — the Library. It unfolded before him once more, infinite and radiant. A new corridor of light branched from the center, its walls shimmering with symbols and glowing code. Shelves upon shelves of books lined the path, each radiating with energy and intelligence far beyond human comprehension.
Arjun stepped forward slowly, his heart pounding. These were the books of computation, the sacred archives of universal logic. He could not simply absorb them; he would have to read, understand, digest. Only then would the knowledge truly become his.
He reached for the first book. Its cover pulsed softly, responding to his touch. As he opened it, lines of living code swirled across the pages like streams of light, reshaping themselves into patterns he could almost — but not yet fully — comprehend.
Somewhere deep within the Library, the unseen voice whispered again:
"Learn well, seeker. For what you read here will one day shape worlds."
When Arjun finally opened his eyes, dawn was breaking. The stars above the horizon faded one by one, retreating before the rising sun.
He sat still for a long moment, letting the quiet fill him. Then, almost to himself, he murmured,
"It begins."