He recognized the children. Hao and Kai were two names he hadn’t forgotten from elder monk Chen’s ames, beside them were two girls he recognized them from monk Chen first class but he hadn’t gotten their names. They hadn't noticed him awaken, still absorbed in their play. Gabriel watch them at first amused by their antics but the longer he observed them, the more he noticed, one of the girls had heterochromia, one eye was golden brown while the other was blue. The boy, Hao had his right hand limp at his side. The other two looked outwardly normal but he was certain they were not. He had heard about this before, a temple that gathered and catered for victims of void anomalies.

  He had always thought the stories untrue or highly exaggerated and there was a reason why, the victims were troubling to deal with in the best of days and virtually crippling at the worst, their conditions so debilitating that it locked them out of any and all forms of aether usage or manipulation and in this world, that was a cruel fate. And for a group of people to go out of their way to gather this ‘victims’ and cater for them spiritually and physically despite the difficulty, well you could see how that could sound….. well, like a fantasy.

  Of course he had seen other people in the week since he had arrived and he had taken note of some of their disciple's more notable condition but it hadn’t really clicked to him until now. Besides void anomalies were rare but common as well, in the same way as you know there exist people in the world with photographic memory but to actually meet someone with it is rare.

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  “Brother Gabriel” the call woke Gabriel from his musing.

  “Uh….. yes?” Gabriel replied, a little startled

  “Brother Gabriel, master Chen said we should come to you if we have a problem when reading.” the girl without heterochromia answered

  Gabriel chuckled ‘so this what the monk meant by teaching assistant’ he thought with a shake of his head. He had wondered about it throughout the week, it was a little unnecessary to need him as a teacher’s assistant, just to have him collect questions.

  “Should we go?” the girl asked, unsure.

  “I told you” Kai was saying “we shouldn’t have come, teaching assistant? There is no sure thing.”

  “But, he told us?” the girl hesitated looking between Kai and Gabriel.

  “…..No, no, don’t go. I just recalled something different, it was why I laughed.” Gabriel said “Let me see the problem.”

  The girl a little too eagerly brought out a notebook from her bag before handing it to him, the others followed suit after a moment, bring out their notebooks as well. Gabriel took the book from the girl and opened it and was stumped. O, he coud see the numbers, he understood it was basic mathematics but that was where his understanding stopped. It was one of those obscure mathematics topic that he hd been taught and had known it then but now….. well, in his defense middle school was a while ago.

  “Do you not know where it is? Let me show you where it is” the girl motioned for the book eager to put him to shame with her innocent smile.