---
The Hall of Lost Sight was a place most Sensariel avoided.
Not because it was forbidden, but because it was uncomfortable—a memorial to those who had lost their vision yet gained something in return. The statues lining its marble walls were carved without faces, their hollow eyes reaching toward something only they could perceive.
Cirel stood at its entrance, hands folded behind his back. His pale eyes swept the chamber—not seeing beauty or reverence, but structure. Stone density. Air circulation patterns. The faint thermal signatures of bodies that had passed through hours ago.
"You summoned me, Matriarch."
The woman emerged from behind one of the statues, her presence steady as always. She wore the deep blue robes of her station, marked with silver threading that formed the constellation patterns of the Sensariel Clan.
"Three months have passed since your Blooming," she said. "Your calibration scores are... unprecedented. Your control over Idle Rewrite continues to develop. By all metrics, you are progressing faster than any child in our recorded history."
Cirel waited. Compliments were often preambles to complications.
The Matriarch's expression shifted—not quite a frown, but a tightening around her eyes.
"Which is why," she continued, "I have arranged for you to meet someone."
"Another prodigy?" Cirel asked.
"Not quite." She gestured toward the far end of the hall, where a side door stood open. "Another anomaly."
---
The meditation chamber was bare.
No ornaments. No echo. Just smooth stone walls and perfectly regulated air. Cirel's Lojun scanned it automatically:
Temperature: 21.3°C. Humidity: 45%. Structural integrity: flawless. Occupants: one.
A boy sat in the center of the room.
He looked perhaps the same age as Cirel—thin, pale, with white hair that fell unevenly around his shoulders. His posture was relaxed, legs crossed, hands resting palm-up on his knees.
But his eyes were covered.
Not with medical bandages, but with ceremonial cloth—deep gray, marked with symbols Cirel recognized as causal notation from ancient Sensariel texts. The fabric was tied carefully, obscuring his face from nose to brow.
"Cirel Nazrawre," the boy said without turning his head. "The boy who sees physics."
Cirel stopped walking.
"How do you know my name?"
The boy's lips curved into a small smile. "Because you're here. If you weren't, I wouldn't have said it."
"That's circular reasoning."
"Is it?" The boy tilted his head slightly. "Or is it simply the consequence of you walking through that door?"
Cirel frowned. His Lojun traced the boy's respiratory rate, heart rhythm, micro-movements in his muscle fibers. Everything was calm. Controlled. Yet somehow, the boy had identified him without seeing, hearing footsteps, or any clear sensory input.
The Matriarch entered behind him, her footsteps deliberately audible this time.
"Cirel Nazrawre, meet Elyrus Vale. He is from the Vale Branch—our sister clan, known for producing... unusual sensory mutations."
Elyrus stood smoothly, his movements precise despite his blindness. He faced Cirel's direction with unnerving accuracy.
"Unusual is kind," Elyrus said. "They call us the Blind Seers. We're what happens when the Sensory System realizes sight is optional."
"You have no visual perception," Cirel observed.
"Correct."
"Then how do you navigate?"
Elyrus's smile widened. "I don't see the world, Cirel Nazrawre. I see what the world is about to do."
---
The Matriarch stepped between them, her tone shifting to formal instruction mode.
"Today's trial is simple. A training construct will engage both of you in combat. Your task is to evade its attacks for three minutes without sustaining injury."
A panel in the floor slid open. From the aperture rose a sleek, mechanical humanoid—matte black plating, featureless face, limbs designed for speed and precision. Its joints hummed with kinetic potential.
"One rule," the Matriarch continued. "You may use your Biological Systems freely. However, Divine Techniques are forbidden. This is a test of perception, not power."
Cirel's eyes narrowed. A test of perception.
He glanced at Elyrus, who remained perfectly still, head tilted as if listening to something Cirel couldn't hear.
The construct's optical sensors flared red.
"Begin."
---
It moved.
Cirel's Lojun activated instantly, flooding his vision with data:
Velocity: 18 m/s. Trajectory: 47° angle. Rotational momentum in right arm. Strike pattern: overhead descending arc. Impact point: cranial region. Time to contact: 0.8 seconds.
Cirel stepped left.
The construct's fist crashed into stone where he'd been standing, fracturing the floor into a spiderweb of cracks.
Follow-up: knee strike. Velocity: 12 m/s. Angle: upward 63°. Target: torso. Time: 0.4 seconds.
Cirel pivoted, letting the knee pass through empty air. His body moved with mechanical efficiency—every motion optimized, every step calculated to the millimeter.
Sweep kick. Low angle. Counterclockwise rotation. Speed: 15 m/s.
He jumped, clearing the arc by exactly three centimeters.
The construct was fast. Relentless. But Lojun saw every variable, every force vector, every kinetic possibility. Cirel didn't need to think—his Sensory System processed combat like reading a textbook.
He glanced at Elyrus.
The blind boy hadn't moved yet.
The construct pivoted toward him, detecting the stationary target. It lunged—faster than before, adapting its speed.
Cirel's Lojun calculated: Elyrus has 0.6 seconds to evade. Insufficient reaction time for a blind opponent.
But Elyrus moved.
Late.
By Cirel's measurement, Elyrus shifted his weight a full 0.3 seconds after he should have. His body turned at the last possible instant, his torso rotating just enough—
The construct's strike missed.
Not because Elyrus dodged it.
But because the construct's trajectory changed.
Cirel's eyes widened.
He watched it in perfect detail: the construct's elbow joint locked mid-swing. Balance faltered. Momentum redirected downward instead of forward. The fist slammed into the floor beside Elyrus's feet.
Error in prediction? No. The variables were correct. The construct should have hit him.
Then why—
The construct spun, launching a horizontal slash toward Elyrus's midsection.
Again, Elyrus moved too late. His body tilted backward—slowly, almost lazily—and the construct's arm swept past, missing by a hair's breadth.
But Cirel saw the anomaly again.
The construct's wrist joint flexed mid-strike, altering the angle by two degrees. Just enough to miss.
That's not evasion. That's... interference.
The construct adapted, cycling through randomized patterns. Strikes came from every angle—high, low, feints, combinations. Cirel danced through them with flawless precision, his perception ahead of every motion.
Elyrus barely moved.
Yet every attack missed.
Joints locked at critical moments. Balance shifted unpredictably. Momentum bled away into the floor. It was as if the universe itself conspired to place Elyrus in the exact space where harm couldn't reach him.
Three minutes passed.
The construct powered down, retreating into its chamber.
Cirel's breathing was steady, controlled. Not winded—just alert.
Elyrus hadn't broken a sweat.
---
The Matriarch observed them both, her expression unreadable.
"Cirel," she said. "Analysis."
Cirel turned toward Elyrus, his Lojun still active, still searching for an explanation.
"His timing was incorrect," Cirel said flatly. "He moved 0.3 seconds late on every strike. By standard evasion metrics, he should have been hit seventeen times."
"And yet," the Matriarch replied, "he wasn't."
"I know." Cirel's voice carried an edge of frustration—rare for him. "The construct's joints malfunctioned. Balance errors. Momentum decay. But those aren't random. There's a pattern, but I can't see it."
Elyrus chuckled softly, brushing dust from his sleeve.
"That's because you're watching the wrong thing, Cirel Nazrawre."
Cirel turned sharply. "What do you mean?"
Elyrus faced him—or rather, faced the space Cirel occupied, his bandaged eyes somehow focused.
"You see the world as it is. Forces. Motion. Structure. You calculate what will happen based on what is happening."
He stepped closer.
"I don't see motion. I see consequence."
"That's not—"
"Not physics?" Elyrus interrupted, his smile widening. "I know. That's why I don't see physics."
He gestured vaguely toward the space where the construct had attacked.
"You saw its fist moving toward me. You calculated velocity, angle, impact. All correct. But you didn't see what the fist was about to do."
"It was about to strike you."
"No." Elyrus shook his head. "It was about to miss me. Because if it didn't, I would have been harmed. And I wasn't meant to be harmed today."
Cirel's Lojun flared, trying to parse the statement. Trying to find the logic, the equation, the rule that made this possible.
There was none.
"You're not evading," Cirel said slowly. "You're… standing where the attack won't be."
"Exactly." Elyrus tapped his bandaged eyes. "I was born in darkness. I've never seen light, color, shape. So when my Sensory System Bloomed, it gave me something else."
He spread his hands, as if presenting an invisible gift.
"I see causality. I perceive cause and effect. I see what actions lead to, not what they are."
The words landed like stones in Cirel's mind.
Causality.
His Lojun could perceive every law of physics—motion, force, energy, time. But causality wasn't a force. It wasn't a vector or a field. It was the relationship between events. The thread connecting action to consequence.
And his eyes couldn't see threads.
They could only see the objects threads connected.
"You're saying…" Cirel's voice was quieter now. "You perceive the future?"
"Not the future," Elyrus corrected. "The consequence. What an action will cause. Where motion will lead. What choice will result in."
He tilted his head, as if listening to something beyond sound.
"When the construct attacked, you saw its fist. I saw what the fist's movement would cause—which space it would occupy, which outcomes it would create. I didn't dodge the fist. I simply stood in the outcome where it missed."
Cirel stared.
His perception—his perfect, all-encompassing sight—felt suddenly incomplete.
"You see the 'how,'" Elyrus continued. "I see the 'what.' You see the equation. I see the answer."
He smiled, a strange mix of sympathy and amusement.
"You were born seeing everything, Cirel Nazrawre. I was born seeing nothing. So your system gave you physics. And mine gave me fate."
---
The Matriarch stepped forward, her voice cutting through the silence.
"Elyrus's Sensory System is classified as a Causal Perception Pathway—an evolutionary branch so rare that the Vale Clan has produced only twelve documented cases in three thousand years."
She looked at Cirel.
"Your Lojun perceives the laws that govern reality. His perception reads the outcomes those laws produce. You see the structure of the present. He sees the shape of what comes next."
Cirel's hands clenched at his sides.
"But causality is deterministic," he said, his voice sharp. "If he sees the consequence, then the consequence is already decided. Which means there's no choice. No change. No—"
"No rewriting?" Elyrus finished.
The silence stretched.
Cirel felt something unfamiliar coiling in his chest. Not fear. Not anger.
Doubt.
"If the consequence is already determined," Cirel said slowly, "then what I change with Idle Rewrite… was always going to be changed. I'm not rewriting reality. I'm just… fulfilling it."
Elyrus said nothing.
The Matriarch's gaze was heavy.
"That," she said quietly, "is why I wanted you to meet him."
She turned toward the door.
"You both have four days to prepare. At the end of the week, you will face a joint trial together. Not against a construct. Against something real."
She paused at the threshold.
"You see the present, Cirel. Elyrus sees the consequence. Perhaps together, you will see something neither of you can perceive alone."
She left.
The chamber fell silent.
Cirel stood across from Elyrus, his Lojun still active, still searching for a pattern, a rule, a law that could explain this.
Elyrus spoke first, his voice soft but clear.
"You're wondering if you're free, aren't you?"
Cirel didn't answer.
"You can change the 'how' of reality," Elyrus continued. "But if I see the 'what'… then was your change always meant to happen? Or did you truly choose it?"
He smiled faintly.
"I've been blind my whole life, Cirel Nazrawre. But you…"
He turned, as if to leave, his steps unnervingly precise despite the lack of sight.
"You're only just beginning to see."
---
That night, Cirel sat in his chamber, staring at his hands.
He raised his right hand slowly.
Around it, the air shimmered. Gravity shifted. A small object on his desk—a training sphere—floated upward.
He'd transfigured its physics. Changed the equation. Rewritten the rule.
But now, for the first time, a question gnawed at him:
Was this my choice?
Or was this always the consequence of who I am?
His Lojun replayed the moment: Elyrus standing still. The construct's fist missing. Not dodged. Not blocked.
Simply… avoided by fate.
Cirel lowered his hand. The sphere dropped.
"If evolution has no end…" he whispered into the darkness.
"…then understanding has no beginning.
He closed his eyes.
And for the first time since his Blooming, he felt blind.
---
[END OF CHAPTER VII]