Silver woke early, eager to put his latest ideas to the test. The night before, he'd scribbled out half a dozen diagrams, each showing a different mechanism to filter water more efficiently. His Planet Mind practically hummed with anticipation. He could picture it now—a cluster of continents representing mathematics, engineering, and the magical energy he'd begun tapping from the forest. The synergy between them gave him a sense that he could solve anything, if he just thought about it hard enough.
He set up his experiment in the back of the house, propping up pieces of wood and metal he'd scavenged from Marlen's workshop. He tried to summon a trickle of that forest magic, just enough to see if it could help purify the water. Closing his eyes, he focused on the swirl of energy he visualized in his mind, something bright and alive. Yet, as he tinkered with the apparatus, he kept forgetting the exact numbers for how the gears should mesh. He paused, frustrated, because he knew he'd memorized these details from a carpentry manual.
Marlen soon joined him, curious. Silver explained, feeling a twinge of embarrassment, that he'd gotten stuck because he couldn't recall the gear ratio. Marlen offered to help, but Silver insisted on doing it himself. The boy had always been proud, perhaps too proud, and he hated the idea that he couldn't keep every piece of knowledge right at his mental fingertips. After all, wasn't that why he'd created the Planet Mind?
They fiddled with the contraption for another half hour, but Silver's frustration swelled. Every time he thought he'd locked onto the memory of that gear ratio, it slipped away like a fish darting underwater. Eventually, the contraption jammed, a gear popping off and clattering to the ground. Silver stared at the broken piece, heat rising behind his eyes. He snatched it up and stomped off to the workshop, refusing to look at Marlen's sympathetic gaze.
Inside, he threw the gear onto his makeshift worktable and sank into a stool. His breathing felt sharp. For the first time in a while, he was confronting the reality that even his Planet Mind had limits. But he refused to accept it. He'd visualized entire continents in his imagination to store knowledge. How could it fail him now? He pounded a small fist onto the table, feeling tears threaten to spill.
Elena entered quietly and sat beside him. In her gentle voice, she reminded him that forgetting was human. She said everyone, no matter how intelligent, sometimes lost track of details. Yet Silver didn't find comfort in her words; he felt only annoyance at the idea that he was just an ordinary person. He'd believed so strongly in the Planet Mind as a perfect solution that being reminded of his own humanity seemed almost insulting.
She suggested he take a break, get some fresh air, maybe work on something else for a while. Silver didn't reply. He just stared at the gear, thinking about all the times he'd read or heard something, only to have it slip away. He thought about how, even as a toddler, he wanted to remember every interesting fact forever, and the frustration he'd felt when his memories faded. That frustration now hammered in his chest like a warning bell.
At dusk, he ventured out alone, following a small path that led to an overgrown field. Fireflies glowed around him, drifting lazily through tall grass. He moved slowly, letting the hush of the coming night soothe him. In the distance, he heard frogs croaking by a creek, and that subtle tapestry of sound eased his angry thoughts. Sometimes, being out in nature reminded him of the quiet energy he'd felt with Mira, of the gentle power flowing through living things. It calmed him.
He sat on a rock and closed his eyes, imagining the Planet Mind again. He walked through its continents in his mind's eye, checking each library, each city he'd built inside himself. That's when he noticed something peculiar: certain structures in this mental world looked cracked or incomplete, as though they'd never fully formed. He'd been dumping so much knowledge in so quickly that maybe he hadn't integrated it properly. He realized he needed a more organized approach, or else entire sections of information would keep crumbling away.
The next morning, he woke before sunrise, determined to fix the cracks in his mental world. He spent hours in a form of meditation that he invented on the spot: systematically "walking" through every corridor, verifying the details of what he knew, and patching up holes with slow, methodical focus. It was exhausting. By the time Elena knocked on his door for breakfast, he felt dizzy, like he'd run miles in a dream. Yet a spark of hope lit his eyes, because it seemed to be working.
A few days later, he tried reassembling the water filter contraption. This time, he had all the numbers correct. The gears fit snugly, and when he poured water through the device, it emerged on the other side visibly clearer than before. The delight in his heart felt like sunshine bursting through clouds. Marlen, who had been observing with caution, let out a relieved laugh and ruffled Silver's hair.
But a nagging question loomed: how would Silver handle the next wave of new knowledge? He was learning so quickly, absorbing science, engineering, bits of language from old books, and even the forest's mysterious magic. At some point, his mind might buckle under the sheer volume of it all. He feared losing important pieces of information again.
Later that afternoon, Elena found him poring over more advanced scrolls that spoke of meditative techniques beyond simple mindfulness. She recognized the determined line of his jaw and felt a mix of pride and worry. She wanted him to be happy, to love learning and exploring, but she also feared he was pushing himself too hard. She gently reminded him that life wasn't a race, that he was barely eight, and that he had plenty of time to learn.
Silver couldn't quite accept that. If anything, his young age felt like a disadvantage. In his mind, a thousand new frontiers beckoned—he'd read about entire civilizations where people built wonders like flying machines or towers that scraped the sky. If such marvels existed, why shouldn't he be the one to figure them out? All he needed was the knowledge, and enough space in his Planet Mind to hold it.
Over the next few weeks, he practiced a rigorous daily regimen: a mixture of meditative introspection, reading, and practical tinkering. He'd jump from a scroll about basic magical theory to a manual on carpentry, then try to weld those two ideas together in an invention that harnessed a hint of magical energy to refine a standard tool. It worked in small ways, but no major breakthroughs happened—yet. Still, he felt the potential building like a coiled spring inside him.
That coiled spring became more noticeable physically. Sometimes, when he was especially focused on a new idea, he'd feel a surge of strength or clarity, like he could run faster or see tiny details that others missed. It didn't manifest all the time, but often enough that he realized his mind and body were merging in new ways. If knowledge was truly fueling him, then maybe he was on the verge of forging the most overpowered path imaginable—one where the more he understood, the more unstoppable he became.
He tried explaining this sensation to Marlen, who listened politely but found it difficult to grasp. Marlen had always valued practicality. He reminded Silver that real power came from years of practice, skill, and sometimes a bit of luck. Silver nodded, though inwardly he believed he was touching something more profound. It wasn't pure magic like in fairy tales, nor was it just scientific brilliance. It was an intersection—something that could rewrite the rules of what a person could do.
Despite the occasional triumph, echoes of frustration still lingered. Each time Silver tried to push his Planet Mind to a new level, he felt a strain, a tension like a muscle nearing its limit. He worried about the day he'd hit a wall he couldn't break through. But whenever doubt crept in, he calmed himself by thinking of how far he'd already come. Yes, he'd had a few stumbles, but he was still miles ahead of where he'd been just a year ago. That alone gave him confidence that he could handle whatever the future held.
Outside the family circle, some villagers noticed his occasional bursts of brilliance. A few complimented his inventions, while others whispered that he should stop meddling with forces beyond mortal comprehension. Silver didn't pay much attention to the murmurs. He was too focused on training his mind and testing his inventions, but Marlen overheard more than once that "no child should be able to fix a water pump with just a glance" or "he's going to bring trouble if he keeps showing off."
Late one evening, as Silver prepared for bed, he revisited the memory of that broken gear. It was a small event, but it symbolized everything he feared: losing control of the knowledge he worked so hard to gather, letting a single gap ruin his entire design. He pictured the gear in his mind, then placed it securely in a newly imagined corner of the Planet Mind, ensuring it wouldn't be forgotten again. He whispered a quiet vow to himself: "I won't let anything slip away. I'll learn it all."
He turned off the lantern and settled into the darkness, feeling a strange combination of exhaustion and anticipation. The path ahead might be riddled with pitfalls, but each success tasted sweeter for the struggles he'd endured. One day, he told himself, all of these puzzle pieces—every scrap of science, every fragment of magic—would click into place, revealing a power that could reshape existence itself. Maybe then the entire world would see that knowledge wasn't something to fear, but a limitless source of wonder waiting for a mind bold enough to seize it.
He drifted off to sleep, dreaming of a perfect gear turning smoothly in a grand machine. In that dream, his Planet Mind shone like a galaxy, each star representing a fact or skill, each cluster a realm of possibility. And at the center of it all stood Silver, calm and steady, guiding the entire cosmic apparatus with hands that could craft anything and a spirit that refused to be ordinary.