It was on that endless clear ocean – I found my consciousness stand still.

‘What is this place?’

The horizon seemed frozen within an endless time. The azure sky perhaps silent for eternity. The bright blue ocean, was it hiding a secret?

‘So, the last time I was here, it was not a dream? Or perhaps this is a dream? If so, what a strange one it is.’

My consciousness took the form of an adult body. This body stands still, just like how everything unmoved around it.

Even this stillness felt like forever, and somehow there was a connection that I felt between myself in the whole dimension. Like I was it.

Suddenly, I sensed something, a small dot in some remote corner of the horizon, it so little that I failed noticed before. And I felt I could take it closer to me.

I raised my hand, I somehow knew this feeling, then I ‘pulled’ it toward me, and in a flash, it appeared before me.

It was a tome with a golden cover, titled ‘Book of Pono,’ somehow – again – I could read this ancient-looking text.

‘Wasn’t this the book that mother mentioned before?’

But instead of a book, it was a very, very thick tome.

‘I wonder why it is here, hmm…, what is it?’

I saw something within this time. I opened one of the pages and found I paper-like vellum, from the text within, I know it was an imperfect translation of part of the tome.

The tome was in some unknown ancient tongue, yet I understood them, and the vellum was written in a language that similar to what I use today.

Wow, suddenly I felt like a master of languages right now, should I call myself Eiwa – the Rainbow Tongue? After thinking awhile, nope!

From my crude deduction, this vellum should come from a nearer era, while the tome was perhaps dated back to the primordial era if there was one. Since Mother said that ‘half-step into Saint Mage’ old man only has a part of the scattered Book of Pono’s chapters, then this vellum should be what he gave me.

Then, again, I flipped the tome from the very beginning, I don’t know, but this content doesn’t seem so strange compared with no book that I’ve ever read.

The tome consists of ten grand chapters, each chapter has a specific topic, they are the first five parts: (1) The Way of Ethereum’s Genesis; (2) The Way of Soul’s Equilibrium; (3) The Way of Mind’s Perfectum; (4) The Way of Body’s Supreme Excogitator; (5) The Way of Space & Time Continuum.

The second last pieces: (1) The Way of Three Realms; (2) The Way of Mystery’s Mastery; (3) The Way of Twilight; (4) The Way of Eternal Void; (5) End of the Way.

It said the first five are the inner core of the way of Pono, and the last five are the outer shell of the idea of Pono.

Everything in the Three Realms was governed by law, there are many names for this law, one of the most primordial names for it was Pono.

For those who understand the Great Law, he or she shall able to govern at least the whole Three Realms.

What an exaggerated statement.

Well, whatsoever, I just continued to read it. After a while, I got fascinated. I forgot the time and continued to read it.

I didn’t know for how long, I finished reading the whole tome, eh, if I told people about it, they must say I exaggerate things.

I knew that the vellum was part of the Way of Twilight Grand Chapter.

Not like how it named, the Way of Twilight didn’t connect with days and nights. Its way of weapons, blacksmith, alchemy, apothecary, medicine & poison, both for the dark style and the brilliant way.

What written on the vellum was part of the way of alchemy, called the Vast Sky of Ten Thousand Compounding, and it was far from a perfect copy.

‘Doesn’t it mean that out there were more than hundreds of small chapters? Why mother only said ten?”

I put back the vellum into the tome, but suddenly the book shuddered.

‘What? Are you allergic to it? How can a tome get allergic to vellum?’

It seemed that the tome didn’t want to accept as an imperfect copy of itself.

‘Okay, I’ll take it out then.’ I just knew how to take the thing out from here.

I closed my eyes, and when I opened again, I found my self within this small body again just exactly as mother took me up from the bed.

“Ara, did I wake you up, Sweetie?”

A small giggling voice came from another side.

“My Lady, I am afraid little Master just about to wake up when you pick him up.”

“Really? O, Eiwa, you know Mom will pick you up?”

“A…, Aaa…, Aaaa.”

“See My Lady.”

“So, it is like that.” Mother put me into her bosom. “Eiwa, how about we went out for sightseeing this afternoon? We’ll see this before we leave for Ione.”

‘Ione? Where is that? What I did miss when I was napping?’

A dozen minutes later, four of us were walking through the main pedestrian city lane.

From the three sides’ conversations, I captured the details of this city, its people, culture, architectures, culinary. Around two or three million people live here, more than half are native, and the others are travelers or merchants. Within one and a half thousand square kilometers of the grand city wall, presented a colorful picture of daily living.

There was simple housing to sky-high towers with their belfries. We enjoyed our time until near sunset.

But on the way back to Silver Swan Inn, there was commotion not far away from the inn’s front door.

I suddenly thought this was not a good sign. It was an omen, it was not a promising one, it not just worst, a supernova perhaps a better outcome than what I felt right now.