An Opportunity

Under his grandfather's and Teacher Anderson's astonished gazes, Kraft took out the badge, the black robe from the Medical School, and the book the professor had given him, then pushed them all across the table.

He didn't know how to explain it, either. It was better to let the evidence speak for itself.

Ryan said nothing beside him. He didn't believe Kraft's story about "reading some book from Grandfather's collection" for a second, but he didn't want Kraft to be left without an explanation, either. After getting things started, he simply fell silent and let Kraft do the talking.

"Anyway, after I treated a student from the Law School next door, their Professor Calman may have overestimated my abilities and invited me to teach at the Medical School."

Everyone knew that when something was outrageous enough and already set in stone, with so many things to question, people often didn't know where to begin. Old Wood was already stunned by the possibility that his grandson might be a genius. All he knew was that lecturers at Wenden Port Academy were highly educated people, but he couldn't tell just how accomplished they were.

He knew Anderson was a lecturer at the Literature School, for example, but only that Anderson read and wrote fluently and had beautiful handwriting that looked rather ornate. As for the finer points of poetry, history, and literature, Old Wood knew nothing about them.

Fortunately, Anderson had latched onto the important part. "You can treat illnesses?"

He knew his student's abilities well enough. He deserved a third of the credit for Kraft's fluency in reading and writing; the other seven-tenths were all thanks to Old Wood's stern discipline. The idea that Kraft had taught himself was so ridiculous that even the fish in the river below the mountain would laugh themselves upside down.

"Oh, right. I picked up a stack that was almost complete from among the scraps Grandfather bought on the cheap last year and read through it." Kraft's eyes wandered as he scratched his head to hide his embarrassment.

"How come I don't know about this? Bring it out and let your teacher have a look." Old Wood did like buying things like that. Then again, most minor nobles these days had some version of the same habit.

Whether they bought them to fill their bookshelves and look impressive, or, like Old Wood, were enthusiasts of the occult, they were all loyal customers of this market.

Complete, revised books were far too expensive, but loose pages gathered from various sources were another matter. They might have come from books that had gone without proper care for one reason or another, or they might simply have been casual writing exercises. Their contents were all over the place.

There were stories and novels, scholars' notes, poetry collections, picture books, and even medieval versions of I Love Inventing Things. Once scattered, they were disjointed and disorganized, but even that didn't do them justice. They were little more than the remains of books, stripped of their original value.

People who bought them to impress others had them rebound however they liked and put them on their shelves, so that no one would catch on if they were taken down; occult enthusiasts without much money, meanwhile, sifted through them for any legacy left behind by their predecessors.

Aside from the occasional proper old book, the bulk of what Old Wood bought and studied with Anderson consisted of these scattered "books." Since they hadn't expected to find much, and were only doing it for fun, they hadn't kept a close eye on them.

"I don't know. I didn't think they'd be any use, either, and then I couldn't find them." Kraft was determined to make sure there was no evidence to contradict him, but when he saw the irritated looks on his grandfather's and Teacher Anderson's faces, he caved a little. "But I did memorize it."

"You memorized it?" Anderson, like Ryan, felt as though his intelligence had been insulted.

"That's right. I memorized all of it." With Kraft's abilities now, it took only a thought to pick a passage from an old textbook and combine it with material from a modern treatise. He immediately gave Anderson a lecture, blending anatomy and pathology.

How wonderful! This was what they meant by returning home in glory—otherwise, it was like wearing fine clothes in the dark. Back in this world, Kraft had never once managed a fluent recitation in front of Anderson. At last, he could show off his "superpower" in front of his teacher and family.

For ten whole minutes, he spoke without pause: how yellow fluid was produced in the liver, concentrated and stored in the gallbladder, and how it related to jaundice and liver disease. Anderson, who came from the Literature School, was left dizzy and confused. He began to wonder whether there was something wrong with his teaching, that he had wasted such a talent over all those years.

When Kraft finally stopped, still wanting to say more, everyone present had been thoroughly convinced. They believed the Wood family had produced a medical genius.

"Wonderful. I have no objections. Kraft, hurry back to the Medical School and take up your post." Old Wood was the happiest of all. It wasn't just because this raised the standing of the whole family; he was also glad to see that his years of steering Kraft toward a different future had paid off.

When Kraft eventually took over the family, at least he wouldn't get carried away and lead a group of men to the battlefield to win glory. He could use the Academy to build a network among the city's great nobles and merchants, and help the family establish itself in the city. As far as Old Wood could see, that was the best path forward.

He was a noble who had earned his title on the battlefield, but he hadn't let that bind his vision to war. His son's death had only made him more certain of that. Old Wood wanted nothing to do with something so unstable.

"Come on, there's no need to rush. I'd like to rest in the castle a little longer." Kraft wasn't as eager as his grandfather. He thought he might need some time to himself to sort through everything that had happened lately.

"That's true. I know the Academy; there's no need to hurry." Anderson picked up the badge and examined it, then set it back on the neatly folded black robe. "I'll write to a few lecturers I used to know, too. When you get to the Academy, remember to get acquainted with them."

Over the next few days, Kraft, who had spent so long rushing around on the road, finally got a chance to rest.

Every morning, he rose early and joined Ryan in the castle courtyard to get back into the swing of his two-handed sword windmill technique. He enjoyed vegetable soup with milk and ham, and pored over the professor's books, Humoral Theory and Human Anatomy.

Along with this wonderful life of strengthening his body and cultivating his mind, Kraft set aside long stretches of time to lie on the grass on the hillside and think.

Now that things were quiet, he finally had a chance to reflect on everything that had happened recently.

His inexplicable transmigration, the fusion of souls, the indescribable thing in the darkness, the "gift" it had left him—consciousness freed from its limits—and the "price" that remained in the deepest part of him, beyond his understanding.

No, he couldn't call it a "price." He had a vague feeling that it was the true "gift."

His situation was like that of the prisoners in Plato's Republic, trapped in a cave. He had spent his entire life inside a cave where he couldn't see the outside world. Now and then, sunlight streamed in and cast the shadows of objects onto the cave wall.

The prisoners had seen nothing but the shadows of objects, so they believed those shadows were the essence of things, the truth of the world.

Then one day, for reasons unknown, he, too, had been dragged out of the cave for a brief time. He had seen sights he had never encountered in his life before: dazzling light, the rich colors flowing across the land and sky, and plants, animals, and rocks appearing before him in three-dimensional forms he had never heard of or seen. His mind, which had only ever known the flat shadows on the rock wall, was utterly incapable of making sense of any of it.

Unfortunate, yet fortunate, that the poor man had fallen back into the familiar cave after that brief instant, with a rose hanging from him.

He thought the shadow that this rose cast on the cave wall was a precious memento, but the rose itself frightened him. He couldn't understand three-dimensional things at all, let alone pick one up. Even trying to touch it would leave him bleeding from its thorns.

He would probably never understand what it was, or know whether he should reach out and touch that "truth."

But he knew that, to an ordinary person, the thing that had come with it—his liberated consciousness—was already precious enough. It let him search through every corner of his memories and gave him extraordinary powers of thought.

With it, he could become a decent lecturer, an excellent heir to the family, a good doctor, a professor someday, a disseminator of knowledge.

At least for now, he had a fine opportunity to become someone that both souls wanted to be.