The island woke up early that morning, glowing in shades of soft blue and gold. Mist drifted low over the silver tree while the air carried the scent of fresh rain. For several days, I had wandered through the forests and ruins, discovering little secrets of Aarvak Island, but that day felt different. The twenty masters had called me to the central clearing.
It was time for my training to begin.
As I stood near the silver tree, my heart thumped in my chest. The twenty figures surrounded me in a wide circle, silent as statues. Then, one man stepped forward.
He wore a long dark-green robe with silver embroidery at the edges. His hair was black, streaked with white, and tied neatly behind his head. His eyes were sharp and narrow like an eagle's but filled with a calm intelligence that made me lower mine out of respect. His presence was quiet, yet the air around him carried authority.
"This is your first master," Elder Aarion announced. "Master Arken Veylan, the Sage of Logic."
Arken bent his head slightly. "You may call me Master Arken," he said, his voice deep and balanced—like the sound of flowing water.
Even before he spoke more, I sensed something different about him. His aura wasn't heavy or frightening but steady—like standing before a great mountain that would never fall, no matter how many storms came.
Arken walked toward me slowly, hands clasped behind him. "So, you are the one marked by the Seven Stars," he said softly. "Tell me, boy—what do you fear most?"
I hesitated. "Being alone," I said honestly.
He smiled faintly. "Good. Honesty is the first step to understanding any problem."
Aarion spoke again from behind, "Master Arken was once known across worlds as The Seer of Systems. He has studied both ancient rune codes and modern machine networks. In the realm of men, his mind could control entire data webs; in the realm of scholars, he solved mysteries even the stars kept hidden. He is not only a master of knowledge but also of adaptability."
Arken nodded slightly, as if hearing old memories. "In your world, you would call it hacking," he said bluntly. "But here, it is much more. To break a system, one must first understand it—to enter every layer, every rhythm, every law behind it. Whether machine or mind, that is what I master."
I blinked up at him in surprise. "You know hacking?"
He chuckled. "More than just codes, Mukul. The term may be modern, but the principle is ancient. When the first men carved runes on stone, they too were breaching boundaries—unlocking hidden meanings. To hack, or to decode, is to see truth where others see only walls."
From that day, I became his student.
Master Arken's hut stood near the cliff, surrounded by strange glass orbs hanging from trees. They glowed softly at night and hummed whenever he worked. Inside his hut were endless books, scrolls, and even devices I couldn't recognise—ancient tools mixed with modern technology, sparks of magic and science fused as one.
"Sit," he said the first day. "Before you learn to change things, you must learn how they work. To hack is not to destroy—it is to understand what connects everything."
He began to teach me three kinds of understanding: the physical, the mental, and the spiritual code.
The physical code, he explained, lived in the structures around us—the world of tools and machines. He showed me how currents of energy flowed like rivers through metal veins. He made me trace patterns on stones, touch strange glowing screens carved from crystal, and listen until I could hear the hum of invisible rhythm between them.
The mental code was harder. "Every thought is information," he told me. "Every lie is an error line. Every truth is a command." He made me play small games—puzzles, riddles, even what looked like gambling with strange glowing stones and silver cards. "Sometimes fooling the system requires fooling the players first," he said, smiling slyly.
And finally, he spoke of the spiritual code, the one that connected all realms. He would meditate by the sea, eyes closed, while energy shaped symbols in the sand. "Here," he said one afternoon, pointing at one symbol. "This is the code of destiny—the same energy written in your bloodline, Mukul. When you learn to read it, you will no longer ask what comes next. You will write it yourself."
Days turned into weeks. Under Arken's teaching, my young mind began to open. He never raised his voice or scolded me. Instead, he spoke softly, letting me fail until I learnt from the mistake myself.
"Every error is a path of growth," he said once. "Before you rebuild, you must understand why it broke."
One evening, the entire sky turned orange-red, and the silver tree's leaves began to rain down light. That day, Arken stood by the beach with his arms folded, watching the horizon.
"Do you see that line?" he asked. "Where the sea meets the sky?"
I nodded.
"That line exists only because of your eyes," he said. "In truth, there is no line. Only continuity. Remember this—what separates heaven and earth, knowledge and power, and ancient and modern—is illusion."
He looked down at me with a faint smile. "That is my greatest lesson to you, Mukul. Combine the ancient with the modern; embrace both heart and mind. Only balance can open the true code of creation."
When I asked him why he was here on this hidden island, he turned silent for a long while. Then, in the quiet voice of someone remembering both pride and regret, he said, "I came here to fix what knowledge once broke. I hacked too deep into the structure of time. To balance that mistake, I now teach the next generation to make wisdom serve life, not rule it."
That night, as I left his hut, I looked back and saw him standing alone under the silver moonlight, his hands glowing faintly, working on invisible streams of data flowing in the air. Ancient symbols and glowing holograms danced together—old and new, side by side.
In that moment, I realised who he truly was—not just the Sage of Logic, but the bridge between past and future, between human invention and celestial truth.
And that was how I met my first master—Arken Veylan, the man who taught me to read the world like a language, to see meaning hidden in silence, and to understand that truth isn't found—it's decoded.