Autonomous Learning

Mors leaned back in his rattan chair, slowly sliding down its back to adjust his view and take in the exquisite murals on the ceiling.

He detected a flavor of olive branches and Attic temples in the mural style of the Lokos palace.

Dameks had arranged the best guest rooms for his distinguished visitors. When Mors was bored, he glanced with his psychic energy into Dameks's living room and found it even more austere than this place.

Then, with a creak from the rattan chair above his head, a pair of young, damp hands pressed down on the chair, drawing his attention.

"What will it take for you to teach me forging, Mors?" Peturabo asked. He had bathed, received a new gray silk robe, finally put on sandals to save his weathered toes, and stubbornly cut his own hair—his black hair had grown a bit too long, and Peturabo refused to accept any more commonalities between himself and the person before him.

It had taken him considerable courage to voice the question; Mors could read the boy's unease from his furrowed brows.

"You're testing me. The reasonable price I can get from you is far too little."

Mors said cheerfully, and halfway through, a bored thought popped into his mind. He casually told a joke only he understood: "You need to provide some surplus value."

Peturabo clearly felt there was some hidden meaning in his words. He frowned and said dryly, "I don't want you to give me a hammer anymore. Teach me to forge iron."

Mors said sharply, "You want to exchange my gift for my knowledge?"

Peturabo gripped the top of the rattan chair. His persistence, under Mors's gaze, gradually became fragile and pale, like a thin sheet of iron that, while appearing silvery and unbreakable, was not actually difficult to bend.

"I..." His words caught in his throat. Those who have nothing do not fear challenges, only fear giving.

Mors continued to look at his ceiling. By the time he had mentally rearranged all the patterns on the ceiling and drafted a unified design in his mind, he still hadn't heard Peturabo's next words.

This child's mind sometimes veered off course; not slow, but unable to turn.

He no longer tormented his own dwindling patience, which was as thin as the morning mist, with Peturabo's performance. He raised his hand and snapped his fingers in front of Peturabo, bringing him back to attention.

"That was a question," he said. "Not a rhetorical question, not an accusation, but a simple inquiry. Are you trading or not?"

Peturabo's eyes lit up. Truthfully, his eyes were more beautiful than the jewels adorning the decorations in Dameks's palace, making it incredibly difficult not to feel genuine admiration for the craftsman who created him.

"It's settled then, I'll trade." He agreed immediately, showing no lingering attachment to the hammer Mors had promised him. This directness made Mors sigh.

After the deal was made, Peturabo relaxed a bit, tossing aside the cushion of the Lokos palace seat and sitting on the hard chair, his back straightened in the most comfortable way.

He was still somewhat confused: "Mors, do you think this trade is fair?"

"Why wouldn't it be?" Mors was curious about Peturabo's line of thought.

"I didn't offer anything in exchange for your gift first."

"Gifts are special terms outside the laws of fairness. The giver has no right to demand a price from the receiver," Mors grinned, sliding unnaturally upwards against the back of the rattan chair until his gaze was level with Peturabo's.

"What about a return gift?"

"That depends solely on the receiver's conscience. I don't mind if you don't have one." Mors said, then brought his hands together in front of his chest, clapping his palms. "Alright, I'm going to throw you into the training workshop. My direct teaching methods are not suitable for the general public with weak psychic abilities, and besides, teaching forging without creativity would damage my mental health."

"Wait..." Before Peturabo could finish speaking, his mind was immersed in a space constructed by psychic energy.

Dense darkness outlined a cavernous stone chamber. A ray of firelight was cut into several bright fragments in the depths of the darkness, which in turn sliced through the pitch-black visual field.

He cursed Mors under his breath—not for any particular reason, just a vague sense of pent-up frustration—as he walked towards the light source.

Statues of various sizes lay scattered in the corners of this mental space. Some showed skilled craftsmanship, others showed clumsy execution, and some works displayed an artistic style somewhat incompatible with Mors's own. His curiosity drove him to bend down and reach out, but the darkness surged and spread like mist, transforming into a fluid barrier.

Peturabo had to temporarily abandon his attempt to study Mors's secrets and moved closer to the light source.

A complete set of blacksmith's tools, imbued with a lifelike vitality, breathed in the scorching flames and scalding wind, awaiting Peturabo's command.

Beside them, a peculiar black metal cube hovered in the air. As Peturabo approached, its surface lit up.

He curiously tapped the illuminated surface with his finger. A small square unfolded and expanded, filling the entire rectangular bright surface. Within the rectangle, a small, humanoid imitation appeared out of nowhere, facing him and speaking introductory forging knowledge. He also discovered that if he asked questions, this thing could even provide answers, as if it possessed life and thought.

Peturabo stared at the strange silver trinket, which was neither human nor not, and gave up trying to understand this curious creation that surpassed conventional forging knowledge, focusing instead on listening.

In the real world, Peturabo's body toppled to the side, overturning the entire chair with a clatter, then crashing into a nearby clay pot. With immense force, it pressed down on several rolled-up documents inside the pot, and the chain reaction almost immediately affected the heavy bookshelves several stories high next to it.

A wave of cold spread rapidly, ice crystals stealing the moisture from the air. In the blink of an eye, all the chaos was terminated as if time had stopped, and then everything spontaneously returned to its original place.

Except for Peturabo, who had unfortunately fallen to the ground and was left unattended.

Mors didn't think that an uncomfortable lying position would affect the normal development of such an exquisite creation.

He sidestepped the boy blocking his path, picked up the clay pot, took out the scrolls, and began to read.

It was worth noting that although these items were called scrolls, they were more like a layer of soft screens that automatically emitted light, not truly made from tree fibers.

The scrolls contained popular novels and poetry anthologies from Lokos. Compared to the not-so-backward technology of the region, the selections were particularly ancient: they all explored themes of heroes at sunset, warriors blessed by the gods, and love affairs gone wrong due to misunderstandings. At the beginning of the scrolls, Mors found the festival play numbers, indicating which years and for what occasions these stories had been performed at the Lokos Grand Theater.

After finishing the scrolls, he returned to his forest dwelling, first placing the finished silver plate photographs in a more obscure secret storage room hundreds of miles away, then picking up the Perseus statue he was re-carving and carrying it on his shoulder. Afterward, he found Peturabo's recently self-developed small-scale dual sculpture from a corner and brought them all back to the Lokos Royal Palace.

As he left, he snapped his fingers, and the entire residence collapsed and crumbled.

Returning to the palace, Mors used his imagination and stared at Peturabo's unfinished work for a long time, thinking it might be a carving of a boy performing a great feat by twisting off a man's head.

As for the origin of these stones that had suddenly appeared within the palace walls, Mors believed that the tyrant Dameks would devise his own answers.