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In a faraway land, once lived nine sages that inhabited a vast field where the night reigned despite the light of candles.

The Nine Sages spent their time searching for their home’s limits, apparently endless. A funny thing was, the Sages and their apprentices didn’t speak to each other. They were so busy looking for their world’s limits that they hardly met, and when they did, they ignored each other and continued their way, decided to not waste their time with people already known.

One day, following a bird of light, one of the youngest ones met a female sage.

The young sage was very beautiful. She had deep eyes and a voice that sounded like wind chimes. The sage, forgetting the purpose he always thought to be correct, fell in love almost immediately.

Since then, the young couple used to escape from their masters, apprentices and ladies of company. When they were alone, they walked to any destination without talking. A smile, a wink, any gesture was enough to show their feelings and desires.

But that moment of joy was brief. The young sage soon discovered how he felt about Gea, and he decided to tell her. However, when he saw her, he knew something was wrong. She tried to hide it, but it was impossible. After some time, her skin seemed like cinder, she could barely breathe or talk. Short after, her warm smile almost vanished and their deep, loving eyes were filled with pain.

Desperate, the young sage looked for help in each sage, but they said they were too busy looking for their world’s borders. He even did a lot of experiments by himself, but they were all in vain. The strange illness remained.

The youngest sage remembered someone that, wisest and oldest than the rest, lived far away from them. The legend said that he was the master of the first sages, and when he saw that his apprentices became arrogant and couldn’t stand to be in one place only, he decided to live alone, without moving.

The young sage went to see the Great Master and asked him for a cure for his beloved.

“My son.” said the Great Master. “Neither you nor me can stop Gea’s fate. Long time ago, Gea had a virus, a benign one. This virus benefited with her body and vice versa, but something happened and the virus had a mind of its own. It thought it could survive by destroying her, but it’s ignoring that it’s destroying itself too. I told Gea to destroy it, but it had her compassion. It’s strange to think that her only gain by giving life would be death…”

“But there must be something!” begged the young Sage, unwilling to believe that Gea would die because of a simple virus. “Is there any chance to eliminate the virus?”

“Unfortunately, there isn’t. The only choice we have is that the virus turns benign again, that it gets a conscience.”

“Conscience? A virus with conscience?! Viruses don’t have any conscience about what they’re doing. They kill for their own benefit and then, without noticing, they die for their own fault…”

“You’re wrong” said the Great Master. “This virus thinks, and if it can destroy, it can create. But it depends on it to discover this on time… before Gea dies…”

The young sage was crying beyond comfort. He remembered those happy days where his beloved Gea spoke to him with her voice like wind chimes and when she taught him the satisfaction to give without waiting anything in return. However, these thoughts were eclipsed by remembering the virus that would take her away. How a being could be such ungrateful to the one that gave it her own body to give it life? If that virus really had a conscience, how can’t it see Gea’s illness? Could that thing save her?

The young Sage shook his head, looked the Great Master into his eyes, and asked him:

“And what’s the name of that… thing?”

“It’s called Man.”