Wednesdays had a rhythm to them, the kind of rhythm that both calmed and unnerved Oculus. The rain had long stopped, leaving Nuvol's streets wet and gleaming in the afternoon sun. The smell of old wood, parchment, and coffee guided him to the small, cluttered shop where Eison, the shopkeeper, waited.
Eison had seen Oculus grow from a lost boy into a young man of twenty-three. He never asked why Oculus came, never pried. Instead, he spoke in riddles, in quiet truths hidden between ordinary words.
"Ever wonder what lies beyond all this?" Eison asked one Wednesday, handing Oculus a cup of bitter tea. His eyes were dark, almost like he carried centuries in them.
"I… sometimes," Oculus replied, letting his gaze wander out the window. He had always known there were other lands, other countries beyond Nuvol, places people spoke of in hushed tones. Yet there was one place he could never name, a place he could never imagine.
Eison's lips curled into a faint smile. "Some truths are not told. Some lights are hidden… until you are ready."
Oculus' gaze drifted to the horizon. And then he saw it. Faint, flickering, almost like a reflection dancing on the clouds in the Southeast. No one else noticed it. No one else even paused. But Oculus' chest tightened, a pull deep in his soul. A whisper of something calling him forward, beyond maps, beyond borders, beyond everything he had ever known.
That afternoon, he went to the library. The library was a cathedral of knowledge, with towering shelves that reached for the ceiling and dust motes dancing in beams of sunlight like stars. Oculus spent hours sifting through thousands of books, tracing every mention of distant lands, every myth, every story of places beyond the horizon.
Then, he found it. A leather-bound tome, gilded letters engraved on its spine:
"Paradise: Its all abouts — Written by Lord Ferrum"
The moment his fingers brushed the cover, a pulse of curiosity surged through him. He opened it, and the pages whispered promises of lands untouched, secrets hidden from the eyes of men, and the path to reach something… extraordinary.
But as he read, his excitement faltered. Some pages were missing. Entire sections ripped out, leaving only hints and questions. Maps ended abruptly. Instructions stopped mid-sentence. Oculus' mind raced.
So this is it… he thought. The answers aren't given. I have to go find them.
It was not just curiosity anymore. It was necessity.
And yet, the world reminded him of his limits. The elite of his generation, the "heroes" born to wield Navitas, had rejected him. Oculus had no Magnus Terminus. A technical anomaly, an error in the flow of power itself. To them, he was a misfit, a flaw. They whispered, laughed, pointed, and dismissed him. "The outcast without a limit," they said.
But Oculus did not falter. He looked at his brothers... Auris, whose courage burned like a steady flame, and Nasus, whose innocence belied his sharp mind... and found hope there. They were his anchor, his tether to the world, the only ones who understood what it meant to be whole despite being different.
He closed the book, heart pounding, eyes alight with determination. The missing pages, the whispers of distant lands, the faint light in the Southeast... it all became a single, undeniable truth: he had to leave. He had to find his father. He had to discover what lay beyond the horizon, no matter the cost.
The wind rattled the library windows, and Oculus felt it as a challenge. The first spark had ignited. The voyage would be long. Dangerous. Unforgiving. But for the first time in his life, he felt ready.
He tucked the book under his arm and stepped into the streets of Nuvol. The sun had begun to dip, and the faint light in the Southeast glimmered again, stubborn against the encroaching night. His brothers were waiting. The horizon was calling. And Oculus—the outcast, the anomaly, the boy without a Magnus Terminus—was ready to answer.