It happened several months after Joel had reached level 3 of his blood potential, truly when he least expected it. It was a night of his special dreams, those in which he lives lives through someone else's memories, this time a man who lived a life without major conflicts.

  There were no monsters, no battles, no complex spiritual teachings. Instead, he lived the entire life of an ordinary man, a scholar of history, someone who had never wielded a sword or conjured a single spark of magic. He was a quiet man, with settled habits and a calm voice, who spent his days among scrolls, ancient maps, and objects forgotten by time.

  Joel felt every stage of that life: the enthusiasm for first books, the excitement of visiting important archaeological sites, and the gentle solitude of an existence without war. That man found joy in the past and in unraveling the stories that others had left buried.

  He was a great collector of ancient objects, and among all his treasures, one stood out above all: a gold coin. It wasn't large or flashy, but it was steeped in real and personal history. His father had given it to him when he was a child, unaware that the coin came from a kingdom that had been extinct for over a thousand years. He would discover its rarity many years later, which would ignite the spark that would drive him to dedicate his life to archaeology and the collection of relics.

  As time passed, he had the coin set in a simple silver pendant, which he never removed, not even in his final days. He carried it with him until his last breath, dying peacefully, in a bed surrounded by books, with the coin still on his chest.

  Joel woke up with a gasp of air, his heart calm but his thoughts swirling. And that was when he noticed something impossible: the coin was hanging around his neck.

  He sat up abruptly, taking the coin between his trembling fingers. It was real, the feel of gold, the exact weight, and the worn symbol of a kingdom Joel knew had never existed in this world. The same coin from the dream, hanging from the same silver chain, still darkened by the years it had spent around the neck of the man in the dream.

  Joel spent a long time staring at the gold coin, sitting on the edge of his bed, turning it over in his fingers as if trying to decipher some hidden message in its texture. The morning sunlight gleamed softly from its worn surface, highlighting the ancient semicircular inscription that bordered an emblem now nearly erased by the passage of time.

  For hours, he waited for the moment when the object would simply vanish, dissipated like a misunderstood dream or a trick of his weary mind. But the coin was still there. Its weight, its temperature, its metallic smell. Everything pointed to one simple truth: it was real. And yet, its existence defied all logic.

  He mentally reviewed every moment of the dream, trying to find some kind of revelation that would explain something different, but it was like any other life he'd dreamed. Perhaps the only thing unique about it was the obsession with the gold coin. An object too important to that man, so much so that the feeling was transferred to Joel.

  Then the question arose: How was it possible that an object from a dream or a memory had crossed into his world? He had long known that such dreams were gateways to memories and experiences of people in a different world, perhaps extinct since time immemorial. But everything stops making sense after this last point.

  Soon, Joel fell into a spiral of theories about the coin's origin: perhaps he had always had the coin, and something in the dream had altered his memories. It wouldn't be surprising, considering the amount of information he's accumulated over the years, that some memories overlapped with others. Or perhaps it was a hallucination induced by the house and Nana's presence.

  But everything changed when he decided to show the coin to Nana. The statue simply remained silent for a long period of time, then said through Ariel, "That thing... appeared out of nowhere. I felt it appear strangely after a great manifestation of your mana. It wasn't here... and then it was. It's not my creation, nor your illusion... it's real."

  Stolen story; please report.

  Joel felt a chill run down his spine. It wasn't just his imagination playing tricks on him. In that instant, he understood he had crossed another threshold, one that not even magical blood or physical power could explain. Perhaps this was his true ability, which he only managed to awaken after that last dream.

  He decided to accept the unacceptable: the coin was real. It had emerged from his dream, from an alien and distant life that, nevertheless, he felt deeply as his own. Since his powers awakened, reality itself had become more malleable in his mind. This last step must be just another step on his strange path to power.

  Perhaps—he thought, as he hung the coin around his neck—that was precisely the new ability that had awakened in him upon reaching Level 3. That feeling of crossing a threshold, which had troubled him for weeks without explanation. As if a door had opened, but he still didn't know where it led.

  Now he sensed it: he wasn't just stronger or faster; his body wasn't the only thing that had changed… something within his soul had changed as well. Something that connected dreams, memories, and matter in ways most wizards wouldn't even imagine. It was a totally different power, one that surpassed all logic.

  He wondered, with a slight shudder, what would happen if one day he dreamed of an object that was too dangerous, or a creature, or a person. And when he woke up, they were already there. It was undoubtedly a terrifying thought, but something inside him told him that the power didn't work that way and that it couldn't be that simple.

  Driven by the desire to understand what had happened to him, Joel quickly considered the possibility of bringing new objects from his memories, especially those from more modern eras. Some that might be quite useful in this world.

  He spent the entire morning in his room, with the door closed. He sat on the floor, crossed his legs, and tried to concentrate. He closed his eyes and began to visualize some of the objects he remembered from those dream lives he had lived.

  An encyclopedic book.

  A motor vehicle.

  A pocket watch.

  A mechanical scale.

  A sewing machine.

  A firearm.

  A gold ingot.

  But no matter how vivid the memory, absolutely nothing happened. His forehead would break out in sweat, his breathing would become labored, and after a few minutes, a sharp headache would force him to stop. It was like pushing against an invisible barrier that wouldn't budge.

  Frustrated, he lay back on the wooden floor, staring at the ceiling without saying a word. Then he heard a light knocking on the door.

  "Joel?" It was Ariel, her voice soft. "Nana wants to tell you something. She says it won't work like this, that you're forcing the connection too much."

  Joel sat up slowly, running a hand over his sweaty face. "That brute force won't work?"

  Ariel nodded, timidly opening the door. "He says if it worked like that, all your wishes would come true instantly, and that's impossible. Something has to fit together for it to happen... something that's limiting you."

  Joel thought for a moment, then sat back down. His eyes fell on the coin still hanging around his neck. Why had that coin crossed? He hadn't wished it, nor had he forced it; it just happened. And then an idea occurred to him: maybe the size and complexity of the object mattered too.

  A book, a vehicle, a watch... they were all too big, too dense. Maybe he wasn't ready for objects like that yet. So he chose something smaller, something that wouldn't cost him so much to retain in his memory.

  A small, simple lemon-flavored candy, wrapped in clear plastic, with orange letters printed on the wrapper. He remembered it from many of his lives in relatively modern times, especially during his childhoods.

  He closed his eyes and concentrated. He visualized every detail: the reflection of the plastic in the light, the slight noise it made when he turned it in his fingers, and the weight in the palm of his hand. And then he felt it, a connection. A faint thread of energy that emerged from his chest and extended toward the mental image of the candy. It wasn't visible, but its existence was clear, as if his very essence joined the memory. He held it and fed it with energy.

  He didn't let go of the image for a second. Minute by minute, the ethereal took shape, while his energy reserves diminished at a dizzying rate. The intangible became dense. And then he felt it in his hand.

  Joel opened his eyes, and there it was, a small lemon candy, exactly as he remembered. He took it between his fingers and turned it slowly. The wrapper crackled, and it didn't fade. It didn't feel fake; it was real.

  "Did it work?" Ariel asked, surprised and still in the doorway.

  Joel nodded silently, still in wonder.

  Ariel closed his eyes for a moment, then spoke again: "Nana says that... you just did something she doesn't understand. She felt it, how the object slowly became real.”

  Joel didn't respond, his eyes fixed on the candy. Reality had given way, once again, allowing something that shouldn't exist in this world to appear.