Lucien kept returning to the new world.
He never stayed long enough to become part of it, but he watched.
The first intelligent being learned quickly.
At the beginning, almost everything fascinated him. Water. Fire. Shadows. The difference between soft earth and stone. He spent an entire afternoon dropping different objects into a stream simply to see which ones floated.
Lucien found that surprisingly entertaining.
As the months passed inside the accelerated world, curiosity became understanding.
The being learned which fruits could be eaten and which animals should be avoided. He discovered how to sharpen stone against harder stone. When the weather changed, he began seeking shelter before the rain arrived instead of only reacting once he was already soaked.
There was no implanted knowledge guiding him.
He learned because experience remained with him.
That mattered to Lucien.
It also created a problem.
One intelligent being alone was not the beginning of a race.
