Purpose

As we made our way through the slum city towards its town centre, where the energy storage unit was located the I saw the residents as they poured out of their building. The Buildings looked futuristic. They had metallic exteriors and tinted glass, which would normally be considered a feature of high-end buildings on Earth, but here, apparently, they are just slum buildings. The residents weren't showing any particular emotion, but they were staring at Luna. I thought that they would show gratitude, but it seemed as though they didn't think anything of her at all; they didn't feel as though they owed her anything. They didn't even step onto the street.

The kids kept their heads down as they walked through the streets, as if they were ashamed to look at them or afraid, maybe both.

“Ungrateful bastards,” Kron grumbled as he walked next to me.

I thought it was odd that the people showed no gratitude for the person who was sustaining their energy, which I assume, from what I saw, was also their livelihood. There were many workshops on the street that all looked like they used electricity to function. There were machine parts and weaponry in all of them.

“Why are they looking at us like that?” I asked Kron with curiosity,

“They hate us, that's why. They think that Luna shouldn't be here because of her power, even though she helps everyone here live,” replied Kron with a hint of anger in his voice. Then his voice softened,

“She is kind to everyone and always helps people, even if it hurts her; she never complains, but everyone around here treats her terribly. If she weren't here, this entire city would die out.”

Now it made sense why the people were acting that way. Luna was an outsider, someone different, and they thought less of her for it. Even if everything here looked different, the people were the same as Earth.

As we walked, my head cleared a bit, and now that I had some information about where I was, I felt a sense of calm and started gathering my thoughts. I was unsure about the events that had led me to this planet, as far as I remembered through my pain and fear, the lab and everyone were destroyed, but I am here alive, which meant that there was the possibility that I was wrong and the others are still alive. My objective here should be to obtain more information about the planet and its location so I can find a way to get back to Earth and find the others, but because of the mage situation, it'll take time.

There are still a lot of questions, but I don't think this would be an appropriate time to ask them, seeing as the city has stopped. The curiosity eats away at me. Why do these people look like humans? If they are humans, then how did they even get here? How can the star cause gene mutation that leads to fantastical changes in anatomy, and that too, only me and Luna, why not the others? And what's the deal with the Golden City and the alien mages? How did they evolve differently then the people here? Is it because of the dome? If so, who created it? Too many questions that I don't know the answer to, it's very annoying going from knowing everything to not knowing anything in a matter of hours.

I looked up, and the sky appeared abnormal; it looked like tinted glass, there was no light coming through, but I could still feel the warmth of the star. I could still see the star, and as I looked closely, I realized that the star had not moved at all in the sky. Which meant that the planet was tidally locked. This half of the planet was the day side, and the night side must be separated by that huge wall of silver. I wonder why they built it.

The dome makes more sense now, if it's always day outside the dome and the planet can't shield from the stars' radiation, the dome must act as a magnetic field and a filter. It would be interesting to see how it is generated, but they talk about Neo Gaia as if they hate the place and probably wouldn't want to go near it, much less inside.

We walked for about fifteen minutes to reach the energy storage at the town centre. The storage unit was a metallic cylinder that extended from underneath the ground to about seven feet above the ground. There was a panel in the middle of the cylinder, and below it, there was a port, to charge it, I assumed. I couldn't understand what type of storage it was; it was small, too small to power an entire city for months on end. It must be an advanced quantum storage unit.

“You use the same type of storage where you're from?” asked Kron

“No, this looks far more advanced.”

“It's a quantum storage cell.”

“I thought so.”

As Kron and I were discussing how the storage unit worked, Luna started to convert her mana into energy and fed it to the cell. It looked marvelous, free-flowing energy that almost looked like an alien fluid turning into a stream of electricity. I was in awe of what I was seeing, but when I turned to look at Kron, he was almost in tears, and so were the other kids.

They cared a lot about Luna; from what it looked like, the kids are orphans, she was probably their caretaker, and seeing her exert herself to the point of exhaustion every month had to be very hard for them.

I need to find a way to get back to Earth, but I owe my life to these kids, and I have to help them. It's not as though I have anything better to do, even if I returned to Earth, maybe this is my purpose, something I can live for.

“It's alright, Kron, we can help her. She won't have to do this another time.”

“What makes you so sure that we can do it?” asked Kron

“You are a smart kid, and I'm a fast learner. If I understand how your technology and mana work, we can surely unite them. You just have to teach me about your technology.”

“I will, but we have to be as fast as possible,” said Kron as he started to walk towards Luna.

The screen above the port was now displaying a percentage; it was ninety-nine percent charged. As Kron reached Luna, the screen showed a hundred percent, and Luna stopped. She stumbled a but Kron was there to help her. I walked up to her to lend a shoulder. As I got close, I could see how strenuous this was on her body; she was sweating profusely and could barely stand, her face turned pale. I carried her back to their house along with the kids, as we walked through the stress, this time there was no one around, no one was showing gratitude, and that made me angry. She was exerting herself greatly every month, and no one cared except for the kids.

“Why do you keep doing this when no one here seems to appreciate you?” I asked

“I don't need them to appreciate me, I have to help whenever I can,” whispered Luna with great effort

“But why?”

“Because I feel responsible for them.”

I didn't want to continue the conversation with Luna being in this state. We reached the house, and Luna fell asleep on the bunk. All the kids, except for Kron, sat beside Luna.

“Let's go, mister, we only have a month,” said Kron as he turned to leave the room

“Call me Syrus Kron,” I said, realizing that I hadn't told him my name yet, and started walking with him.

The house they stayed in was far away from people near the dumping grounds on the outskirts. It was a small building with only two rooms, one with the bunks and the other with the kitchen. As we walked behind the building, I realized that what looked like a junkyard was actually Kron's workstation. There were piles of machinery stacked on top of each other, which encompassed the entire backyard. I didn't recognize any of their functions, which was a fascinating feeling. Attached to the house’s back wall was a large table with many blueprints on it, and there were shelves above the table with worn-out books.

Kron walked up to the table and put on a metal glove. He reached the bookshelf, and I walked towards him to help him get the book, thinking that he couldn't reach it, but to my surprise, the metal glove he had on emitted a beam that levitated the book into Kron’s hand. He gave me the book, the book was titled: Basic Engineering Guide, vol.1. It was a large book of around fifteen hundred pages. It was worn out but still usable. I opened the book with skepticism due to the book's title, I thought it wouldn't have anything in it that I don't already know. I was wrong. The book titled ‘Basic’ didn't have anything that could be considered basic.

The book contained blueprints and guides to complex machinery, which I had no understanding of.

“Start with the appendix, it explains the parts, and then you can learn how they work from the book,” said Kron, clearly he had noticed how lost I was.

I took his advice and started studying while he worked on more blueprints of a possible energy generator using mana. It was hard to understand anything from the book at the beginning, the basics of this world's engineering had not even been discovered back on Earth, but I did start to catch up and understand. I was a physicist because I thought it had the most possibility for me to achieve something great, but I was good at most sciences.

There wasn't a day-night cycle here, but I could tell that it was time to sleep. The day was exhausting, the most exhausting day of my life, perhaps. I wanted to go and sleep, but seeing Kron work made me push through and keep studying. After a while, Kron stopped working, and we walked back into the house. All the kids were sleeping next to Luna on the floor.

“You can take this bed, Syrus,” said Kron as he yawned, pointing to the bunk at the right corner of the room from the entrance. He climbed to the top of the bunk opposite me. I fell into sleep.