Do you believe in magic?

They had five orange eyes on each side, moving freely, Niard had stopped walking, s if he terrified and frozed in his place.

"A monster," Niard began to mutter, fear overtaking his trembling body, which made Jerry burst into laughter.

"It's the Saiyo, from the planet Zedia Seven Thousand. They are creatures distinguished by their high information storage capacity. All you have to do is look into their eyes, and every piece of information you want to copy will be copied," Jerry said, pointing to a patch on their uniforms with many black dots were there.

"This patch belongs to our room; we got the number ten. Look at the badge on your uniform, which changed to number ten. A third person from the Emperor's Academy will join us later to supervise our performance," Jerry finished his speech, only for Niard to leave without a reaction.

He threw himself on the bed and hugged the pillow, lost in thought about the nature of this world.

"Aliens and a strange advanced system. I want to go home; I want to go back in time and prevent the invasion of Earth," Niard thought, tears streaming down his cheeks.

"You fool, there's no such thing as time travel. If there were, your father wouldn't have allowed your mother's to die," Niard said, beginning to kick the bed, then rose to hit his head against the wall.

His mother died when he was eight years old, after being affected by an illness that no scientist could find a cure for or even discover the disease itself.

His father took care of him despite being heavily occupied with work in the laboratory. Niard never felt lonely; his father took him wherever he went.

"Why should I continue living alone? I want to get out of here," he said weakly, only for the door to suddenly open, revealing three guards standing in front of him.

"You must come with us," the tallest one said, aiming their electric shock weapons at him. Niard swallowed hard, wiped his tears, and then said, "What if I refuse?"

The guard didn't answer him but instead he hit him on the head until he lost consciousness.

On a round table sat many men dressed in white suits. Niard opened his eyes, gazing around with fearful looks from those staring at him, as if they intended to get rid of him.

"The sixth sample from the past, Niard Max, this meeting was supposed to take place after completing the academy tests to determine the cause of your deficiency and attempt to fix it, but..." said the man in a green suit, there was red halo above his head. 

Every body was falling silent, he was gesturing towards the beautiful lady to continue speaking.

"Due to the failure to update your genetic data, you have been deemed a failed specimen, unimprovable, and you must leave the academy. And since you violated our advanced system's rules, we will give you a chance to become one of the mind-controlled servants in the Imperial Hegatian Army," said the lady, her cherry-colored lips the only thing Niard focused on amidst her words. 

He struggled to control himself, shaking his head to dismiss the stray thoughts, swallowing hard with fear.

"I refuse to become a lab rat for your sterile system, I have the right to determine my own fate, " Niard yelled, looking left and right for an escape route, but there was not. 

"Guards, take him to the cell. After he's disciplined, we'll see when he can join the Hegatian Army," ordered the alluring Lady, the guards advancing slowly. Niard laughed, as if she had made a joke.

"Are you fools? Your system is the worst ever. If I knew humanity would evolve to this point, we'd never have sought progress. This is a grave violation of humanity," Niard exclaimed, suddenly hit by a high-energy field from the guard, writhing in pain for a few minutes.

"You don't understand the magnitude of the threat our race faces, boy. The entire galaxy is against the presence of the human race, and Vee is the threat you must harness yourself to fight against now," the alluring lady whispered in his ear before he lost consciousness.

Niard felt many footsteps leaving the room, hearing someone speaking to him from afar.

"Welcome, young man. Do you feel pain?" said an old man, his face wrinkled, his eyes barely visible.

"Pain is the motivator to seek for a better feeling," the old man whispered, rising from his chair and placing the paper in his hand. He was surprised to find paper in this technological era.

"Are you speaking to me?" Niard replied, holding his head in intense pain, remembering this old man, he was a survivor of the great explosion. He surely didn't care if there were others like him from the past; all he wanted was to leave.

"I'm Jacob, a senile old man who lived longer than he should have and discovered things he shouldn't have to know," said the old man, then offering water and sandwiches to Niard.

Niard wondered how this old man got them, and why his cell looked like a luxurious room for someone who loved reading old books.

"It seems you haven't eaten since you woke up," Jacob said. Niard ignored him, taking the sandwiches and eating it slowly, his mind consumed by the crime he committed.

"Why are you in prison? I mean, in this room," Niard asked hesitantly after finishing his plate in a few moments.

"Simply because I refused to divulge information that could change the entire universe's future," Jacob said, stroking his beard, then pulling out a small book from his pocket.

"Boy, do you believe in magic?" Jacob asked, making Niard's entire body shiver. The old man noticed Niard's surprise and denial on his face.

"There's no such thing as magic; everyone knows that. Only scientific facts are what I believe in," Niatd replied, uncertain about what he was hearing,