From Matteo Romano's Perspective
Keeping in touch with Alessio Leone was like trying to calibrate an engine that insisted on running outside its ideal range: you'd adjust, correct, think you'd stabilized it… and then the system would simply vanish, slipping off the dashboard.He skipped almost every group meeting — and when he did show up, he spoke less than anyone else, like a component refusing to conduct energy through the circuit. Sometimes Alessio would disappear for weeks, even months. The kind of absence that, for anyone else, would be the equivalent of "friendship terminated."
Matteo knew this.And honestly, he didn't mind.
After all, he wasn't so different from the guy.When he plunged into a challenging project — a precision robotic arm, a new line of autonomous sensors, or even just the fine-tuning of control algorithms — he vanished too. He'd spend hours, days, weeks locked in the lab, head buried in calculations, simulation software running through the night, prototypes piling up like corpses of failed versions. His phone? A shelf full of ignored notifications. People waiting for replies that would never come, messages drowned in silence.
How could he judge Alessio for doing the same?He couldn't.It was impossible to criticize someone for sharing your own vices.
But the group didn't see it that way.To the others, Alessio was the odd one: the kind of teammate you couldn't rely on, always evasive, always vanishing, a stray satellite in his own orbit. Matteo, pragmatic as ever, didn't waste energy trying to convince them otherwise. There was no equation that could prove loyalty to people who only read the most obvious numbers.
Today, however, the calculation shifted.Today, he needed Alessio.
Not as a friend, but as a specialist.Or something close.
"Specialist" might have been an overstatement. Alessio wasn't the kind of guy giving lectures on game mechanics or publishing papers on digital design. But he had that strange predator's precision: a way of seeing systems, detecting patterns, uncovering hidden rules that Matteo recognized — and, in some measure, envied.
And now, with the doubts on his desk, that was exactly what he needed.
His eyes fell on the phone resting on the coffee table. The screen pulsed like a control panel waiting for the operator's command. Matteo drew a deep breath, as though about to power on an experimental machine that could explode at any second.
"Time to bother the old ghost."
Perfect timing.The right moment to prod a friend who, even living on the margins, carried within him a rare kind of knowledge.
The phone rang once.Twice.Three times.
Matteo inhaled slowly, already calculating the probability that Alessio would ignore him — greater than 80%, easily. That was just who he was: the kind of friend who, if he were an electronic component, would be a variable resistor — you never knew what value he'd deliver.
"No way this slacker won't even bother to pick up…" he thought, fingers drumming the table like clock cycles ticking in an impatient processor.
But then, against all odds, the line opened.
— Hey, good morning! How can I help you on this fine morning, Matteo?
Alessio's voice came through with a liveliness that didn't belong in his usual repertoire. Matteo blinked, surprised, as if hearing an ancient engine suddenly running in perfect rotation.
"Since when is this guy so cheerful?"
— Well, someone's in high spirits, Alessio… what happened? Got back together with Bianca? — he asked without much thought, driven more by logic than gossip: the variable "Bianca" had always been one of the few capable of significantly altering his friend's behavior.
On the other end, the reply dripped with irony:
— I wish, man… Every time she sees me, I swear she has to hold herself back from punching me.
Matteo let out a dry laugh.— You deserve it.
And he did. Even an engineer used to losing months of life to projects knew letting a girl like Bianca slip away because of games was a mathematically indefensible mistake. An equation with no solution.
Alessio seemed to feel the jab, his voice landing somewhere between playful and indignant:— Did you call just to mock me?
— No. — Matteo adjusted his glasses, as if correction was necessary even in a phone call. — Actually, I need the opinion of a specialist.
— Specialist? — his friend repeated, chuckling.
Matteo ignored the tease and pressed on:— Look… a colleague of mine tried out that trending game, the Black Tower. He only meant to test it, but came out raving. Said he learned more about physics and math in one night of playing than in weeks at university. I got curious. So I thought… hey, I know a game specialist, I'll call him.
Silence on the line.A full minute, as though the call had frozen in buffer. Matteo nearly checked his signal before the answer finally came, firm:
— It's real.
Alessio's voice had shed all traces of cheer. It was the dry tone of someone speaking from deep experience.
— The caster classes in that game require real-time physics and dimensional calculations. Great for people in your field. And, of course… you only play while sleeping, plus time is dilated, so it's not different from living another life. You wouldn't be losing anything.
Matteo raised his eyebrows.Sleeping and playing at the same time? Double the usable hours in parallel?From an optimization standpoint, it was like discovering a perpetual motion machine that actually worked.
He smirked, resting his chin on his hand.— Oh, so we've got a veteran talking… Then, if I join tonight, you'll surely be there to carry me, right?
Alessio laughed, but his reply was calculated, almost strategic:— I won't be able to stick with you all the time… But I can give you some pointers.
— Well, that's something. — Matteo agreed, eyeing the phone as though it were a terminal about to light up. — See you in the game, then, man.
— Alright. See you there, Matteo.
The call ended with a dry beep.
Matteo lingered a few seconds, staring at the dark screen. His own reflection looked back — brows furrowed, the same way they did when reviewing a circuit full of flaws.
A game you play while sleeping.Double the usable hours.Physics and math in real time.
He'd heard of the Black Tower before, of course. The name popped up in forums, headlines, bar chatter. But until now, it had been nothing more than background noise — the kind of hobby he dismissed on principle as a waste of time.
Only now, the equation shifted.If there truly was learning built into it, if every spell was a physics problem, if every trajectory demanded an engineer's precision… then maybe it was worth the risk.
Matteo straightened in his chair, drawing a deep breath like someone preparing for a stress test on a fragile prototype."If math and physics are really that present… why not give it a shot?"