[Here's Chapter 3 of the Architecture Series web novel. This chapter weaves together realistic modern familiarity, gradual exposure to Eloria's systems, and Oliver's growing sense of awe and frustration as he starts understanding Vita—a power that seems scientific but alien.]
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Chapter 2: Pinwheel, Vita, and the Science of Wonder
The television looked like something from Earth—sleek, flat, black-rimmed with touch-sensitive controls. It sat mounted on the wall in the common room beside a white couch and a plant that, strangely, glowed at night. It all felt comfortingly modern.
The screen hummed to life when Lyra clapped her hands twice.
> "Pinwheel!" she shouted.
Oliver raised a brow. "Like… the spinny toy?"
Lyra rolled her eyes as she flopped onto the couch, coloring book in hand. "No, silly. It's a streaming grid. Everyone watches Pinwheel."
The interface popped up—organized like Hulu or Netflix, but with neon-smooth colors, dancing bubbles, and a logo shaped like an infinite loop. The categories read:
Animated Creatures, Adventures, Learning Sparks, Nature-Woven Series, and a strange one: Vita Explorers (Ages 6–10).
Oliver squinted at the last one. The thumbnails were colorful—singing crystals, glowing rivers, animals made of stitched stars—but none outright mentioned Vita. Everything was themed around energy, nature, and creation.
As the background noise played soft music and silly characters recited songs about "streams of sky-glow" and "friendly droplets," Oliver watched Lyra from the corner of his eye.
She was sitting upright now, legs crossed, her hands cupped.
And in them… water began to float.
Real water. Not special effects.
Little globes of it hovered above her fingers like she was playing with beads made of liquid. She was concentrating, brow furrowed, her hands dancing through the air.
> "You're using Vita," Oliver said slowly.
She glanced up. "Well, duh. Everyone learns basic Vita stuff by five or six. I'm behind, really. Papa says I overthink it."
Oliver sat forward. "What is it, though?"
Lyra shrugged and dropped the water into a plant beside the couch. "It's just energy. From the world. It's not magic—it's just there. Like air."
She stood and motioned toward the backyard.
Outside, through the glass doors, Martha knelt near a set of plants—some leafy, some with crystalline petals. She touched one of the smaller ones with a gentle hand.
A faint yellow glow shimmered between her palm and the plant's stem, and the wilted leaves perked up. Another glow, soft green, spread across a dried herb patch, rejuvenating it like time was reversing.
> "Mama's really good with plant-type Vita," Lyra said with quiet admiration. "She can even fix hurting knees too."
Oliver stared as Martha pressed two fingers against her own knee. Her fingertips glowed yellow again, and a scraped bandage on Lyra's leg earlier that day had vanished.
Healing. Growth. No potions. No chants. Just... will and contact.
A few moments later, they wandered to the garage-like workroom where Liam sat at his Workbench—a smooth table of polished hardwood embedded with metallic inlays. Above it hovered a low-humming crystal disc that looked like a power converter.
Liam didn't glow with Vita, but he didn't need to.
He was assembling a tool from base materials—some sort of screwdriver-charger hybrid. Metal rods clicked together with precision as he pressed a button on the bench's side. Sparks flared, brief and blue, then settled. The tool was whole.
> "Your papa's better with tools than sparks," Lyra whispered.
To Oliver, the Workbench looked like something that could revolutionize Earth. No welding gear, no 3D printer—just parts, knowledge, and a little bit of design understanding.
> "You don't need Vita to be useful," Liam said over his shoulder. "Some of us just like building the old way."
Oliver kept watching. He wasn't sure if he was amazed or overwhelmed.
Back in the living room, curiosity got the better of him.
He turned to Lyra. "How exactly does Vita work?"
Lyra blinked, then straightened up, doing her best "teacher pose."
> "Vita comes from the world—everywhere. Air, rock, light, plants, fire. If you understand what something is, you can pull it together with Vita. Like how you make water from hydrogen and oxygen."
Oliver tilted his head. "You… know hydrogen?"
"Duh. We learn that stuff before middle tier." She rubbed her chin like an expert. "Hydrogen's the floaty stuff. Oxygen's the burny stuff. Together: water."
Oliver nodded slowly. He remembered: Hydrogen makes up Jupiter. Saturn, too.
"But how do you... know what to pull?"
"Study it," she said plainly. "You don't just think 'make fire' and boom—fire. You think about atoms, energy, bonds. That's how real Vita works. It's not fantasy. It's real rules."
Oliver blinked. That did sound a lot like Alchemists from Earth's history—but more grounded. More... universal.
He retreated to his room again, heart buzzing with ideas.
The desk was simple, pale wood with a glowpad chair. A flat-screen laptop lay open with a glittery pink sticker-covered lid—clearly Lyra's. He hesitated, then sat.
The system's home page wasn't Google. It was something called WebNet—blue-toned, smoother, almost touch-reactive in its layout. When he searched "Hydrogen," he was greeted by a floating 3D atom model, spinning gently in front of him, labeled in both Earth language and something called Aelyrian Script.
He read. Watched.
He learned.
The periodic table was slightly different here—wider, more inclusive of abstract states like "Spiritual Conduction" and "Quantum Roots." But the basics? Still familiar.
> Hydrogen. Atomic number 1. Elemental gas. Primary component of water and stars.
Oliver smiled faintly. He could work with this.
Later that afternoon, when Lyra found him reading in bed, she grinned and dragged him outside.
> "Time for your first pull!"
He stumbled behind her barefoot through the hall, down into the backyard under the twin suns.
> "Okay," she said, grabbing his small hands. "Hold them up."
"Like this?"
"No, like you're asking the sky for a cookie. That's what Mama says."
Oliver sighed but obeyed.
Then—something happened.
The air around him shimmered faintly. A delicate swirl—like blue-tinted gel—began coiling lazily in the space between his hands. It pulsed softly, like a lava lamp, dancing in response to his thoughts.
He gasped.
"I did it! But… what now?!"
"Now," Lyra smirked, "you think Hydrogen. Pull it from the air."
Oliver focused hard.
Jupiter… Saturn… gas giants… hydrogen...
Nothing.
"Ugh. It's not working."
Lyra groaned and grabbed his arm. "Fine. If you can't imagine it, study it."
She dragged him to her room—glittered pink with plushies everywhere—and sat him in the chair. The laptop blinked awake, still on WebNet.
> "Study Hydrogen. Study Oxygen. Then try again."
He grumbled.
She smiled.
> "You've got the spark, little brother. But if you want to use it, you better learn to think like the world does."
Oliver nodded slowly as the screen glowed.
This wasn't magic. This was a system.
And he was going to master it.
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