When Joel was able to enter a city again, the experience was new and revealing. Thanks to the medallion, he was able to experience what it was like to be a simple, ordinary citizen: invisible to others, without the constant oppression of being hunted by the agents of the empire.

  His initial appearance, that of a decrepit old man dressed in rags, did not make dealing with the merchants any easier. Many looked at him with disdain, some even ignored him completely. However, a brief stop at a tailor's shop transformed his situation. There, he found a modest but dignified outfit, with which he blended in better with the crowd.

  The first thing he did was find out his location. He soon discovered he had arrived in one of the easternmost cities of the Duchy, which placed him several hundred kilometers from his true destination: the forest where his hideout was located and where Aria, Liam, and Nana were waiting for him.

  Initially, his plan had been to return as quickly as possible. But something inside him, exhausted from so much running and constant danger, rebelled against that urge. As he observed the daily lives of the common people—the crowded markets, the laughter of children, the smells of traditional local foods—he felt a strange, almost forbidden longing: the desire to experience, for once, the peaceful life that had always been denied him.

  On Velthara, his homeworld, civilian life was harsh, particularly brutal on the poorer continents, where hunger killed more than conflict. Here on Myrrial, however, the bounty of the forests provided food for almost everyone. Death lurked not so much from starvation, but from wild beasts, bandits, or epidemics brought by parasites and poisons.

  Every world had its own face of danger. But according to the consensus of many within the Cult of the Dawn, no place was as conducive to life as Myrrial. And for the first time, Joel was beginning to understand why.

  Joel didn't stop his journey, but he took it all with a newfound calm. He walked the roads, unhurriedly, stopping in every town and city he came across. He slept as much as he wanted, ate what he wanted, and indulged himself in luxuries that would have previously seemed trivial.

  Many times, he simply sat in squares or markets, watching the people coming and going. Like a true old man, he fed the birds with bread crumbs and laughed softly as he watched the children play, chasing each other without the slightest concern for tomorrow.

  At times, he felt the weight of his own past. He had never truly enjoyed his childhood: just a handful of memories in the orphanage, marked by loneliness and hunger. And then, a path filled with conflict and death, a life of struggle that never gave him respite. It was impossible, even now, to say he had lived a full life.

  But it hadn't all been darkness. His refuge in the forest was a treasure of calm in his memory, a place where he had finally found companionship and purpose. And there were also his dream lives: alternative realities that, although they didn't have the same impact as his real life and often ended in tragedy, had allowed him to savor impossible joys. Especially those in which he had relatively normal childhoods, where he was allowed to run, laugh, and have parents or friends that he never had in real life.

  Looking at ordinary people, their routines, their trivial arguments, and their small daily triumphs, Joel thought about something that bothered him and attracted him at the same time: Perhaps his destiny wasn't just to survive. Perhaps he was destined to bring about change.

  Because it was impossible to dream of entire civilizations, of tools capable of making life easier, of cities resplendent with science and art... without thinking of copying them and bringing them, even in part, to this primitive and harsh reality.

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  His strange personality, harsh and introverted most of the time, was nothing more than a defense mechanism. A necessary shell to keep him from breaking under the constant pressure of a harsh and hostile world. However, that wasn't his true personality. He had proven it with Liria, and also with Aria and Liam: few had seen the kinder, almost selfless side that Joel hid beneath his silence and cold gaze.

  Inside were the memories and experiences of countless experts in all kinds of fields: architects, inventors, strategists, doctors, and so on. It was like carrying a living library of humanity. And although he rarely paid attention to that knowledge—for in most cases, it was useless to his survival—he knew that, if he exploited it intelligently, he could contribute something that would forever change the course of human civilization.

  The problem was "how." Where to start? How to take the first step? A single person could never build the infrastructure necessary to sustain a modern industry, not even with all the memories in the world at his disposal. He needed trained personnel, disciples, allies... people he would likely have to train from scratch. An arduous, slow task that would consume years of his life.

  Joel sighed as he watched a group of peasants carrying sacks of grain pass by. The answer seemed to slip through his fingers, like sand in the wind.

  Then he remembered a fact that, at times, his dream lives made him forget or confuse him: his life expectancy was much longer than that of an ordinary human. At the level he had reached, he could expect to live at least three hundred more years, and that didn't even consider that he didn't seem to have reached the limits of his magical potential. That gave him something very few could afford: time.

  Time to plan calmly, to build a solid foundation instead of rushing to erect hollow towers. He could teach, transmit, and gradually cultivate the foundations for real change.

  And in that instant, remembering his experience with Ariel and Liam, he knew that the future lay in children. Specifically, those abandoned to their fate: orphans.

  He had experienced it firsthand; he knew hunger, cold, and the indifference of a society that only paid attention to those who aroused power. For everyone else, the prospects for the future were miserable, barely surviving until poverty or violence consumed them.

  Myrrial, perhaps, had a kinder face in the big cities, where the Church reached out to take in some. But in the villages, on the roads, it was still possible to find children living off the benevolence of others, begging for a piece of bread. They were fertile ground, not for faith or war, but for education.

  Joel couldn't help but smile with a hint of irony. What better way to change a world than to raise its forgotten ones and teach them what no one else would dare?

  Joel was a man of action, and he decided to begin immediately. His plan was simple: buy a large carriage and recruit orphans during his journey, especially in rural towns and villages. The younger the better, as they could be given a well-rounded education from the start.

  Acquiring the carriage wasn't difficult, and he soon set off again. This time he avoided cities, plotting a route that passed through as many villages as possible. In the first town where he noticed children wandering the streets, he knew the time had come to act.

  He didn't approach them directly; kidnapping them or simply persuading them would have been too suspicious in a still-primitive society plagued by individuals with dark intentions. His method was different: he went to the local authorities, presenting himself as a benefactor of the destitute, someone interested in providing shelter and education to orphans—in other words, a traveling orphanage.

  The village chief greeted him with a mixture of distrust and reluctance. He didn't seem to have any concrete suspicions, but he also showed no willingness to cooperate. Joel then resorted to the most reliable resource: money. And that did catch the man's attention, although he began to ask awkward questions. But Joel dispelled them naturally, assuring him that his business consisted of training children from an early age as refined servants and stewards, and then offering their services to nobles and high-ranking merchants. A lucrative and well-regarded occupation, at least on the surface.

  Convinced, the village chief informed him of several orphans he himself occasionally helped. And with the help of two local men, Joel met the first ones. They were young, barely over six or seven years old, with untidy hair and hands stained with dirt. They regarded him with suspicion, but not fear. They had learned to distrust all adults, and yet the possibility of a roof and food was enough to ignite a spark of hope in their eyes.

  Joel spoke to them calmly, without the condescension of a nobleman or the harshness of a soldier. He told them they could travel with him, learn new things, and live better lives. And although they didn't fully understand his words, they understood his tone: he wasn't promising them miracles, he was offering them a way out.

  And so began another phase of Joel's life, one in which he saw himself transformed into a kind of savior of the dispossessed, albeit with the clear intention of transforming them all into a new hope for humanity.