It took Joel a little over a week to build a simple, one-room cabin, yet sturdy and cozy. Drawing on all the experience he'd once absorbed in one of his dream lives, he transformed the enormous logs from the forest into well-cut, level, and perfectly assembled lumber. Each beam fit together effortlessly, each wall was erected with the precision of someone who had done this countless times. He even managed to build wooden windows with hinged frames and a sturdy door, complete with a latch.

  When the children saw the finished house, their eyes lit up as if it were a palace. They didn't say much, but the way Aria ran to hug the door, or how Liam inspected every corner with admiration and wonder, was more than enough for Joel. He hadn't just given them a shelter, he was giving them a home.

  Fortunately, he didn't have to improvise everything. During one of his brief visits to the village, Joel managed to make a deal with the local blacksmith to obtain some essential items: nails, wrought iron hinges, a hammer, and a small, fine-toothed saw that complemented his set of makeshift tools. The blacksmith, an elderly man with bushy eyebrows and few words, asked few questions. He was more interested in the payment—several silver coins that Joel offered without hesitation—than in knowing who he was or where he came from.

  Thanks to that, construction progressed smoothly. Joel took advantage of every hour of daylight, cutting, nailing, and fitting until the sun began to set behind the trees. At night, he slept soundly, feeling for the first time in weeks a faint peace, like a distant whisper beginning to break through the scars on his soul.

  One of those nights, after finishing the house, Joel dreamed again. It wasn't one of those usual experiences in which he was a passenger in someone else's life, learning more from memories than from the experience itself. This time it was very clear, all too real, as tangible as life itself. He dreamed of the existence of a sculptor from another era, a true master who had dedicated every moment of his long life to carving the hardest stone with a precision and sensitivity that bordered on the divine. The man lived in a distant land, where cathedrals soared toward the heavens and faith shaped art. From a young age, the sculptor had worked under the auspices of the Church, creating sacred figures, reliefs, and mausoleums that told stories without words.

  What most marked Joel in that dream wasn't the technique—although it was superhuman—nor even the recognition of the world around the artist. It was his dedication, where day after day, year after year, the man shaped his vision with a silent, almost sacred love. His mind was a volcano of ideas, but his heart was humble. Each sculpture was an extension of his soul, and when you looked at them, you could sense that they weren't stone, but flesh petrified in time. The eyes of his works seemed to look back. The robes had such natural folds that one expected to see them flutter in the wind, like life trapped in marble.

  The sculptor died old, tired, but with a serene smile on his lips, surrounded by his works, as if they themselves protected him.

  Joel woke with a start, his heart racing, but without fear. He sat up in his straw bed and breathed deeply, watching the faint light of dawn filter through the cracks in the wooden windows. Something inside him vibrated differently. He had had countless similar dreams, dozens of other lives. But this one… this one felt different, much more real and intimate. As if a part of the sculptor's soul had taken up residence in his chest.

  He lay still for several minutes, feeling that echo throb inside him, soft but persistent. It wasn't just knowledge; it was a new sensitivity, like a different way of observing matter, of imagining it with shape, weight, and texture, as if he could see through the different materials around him. It was a strange sensation… and powerful.

  Time began to slip through Joel's fingers like water, and Joel barely noticed. The days passed with a monotonous but satisfying, and almost hypnotic, regularity. His focus remained on the cabin he had built for weeks, though it soon ceased to be just a cabin; it became a living project, a constantly evolving work that absorbed all his attention and energy.

  The initial structure—austere and functional—grew organically. Joel expanded the walls, reinforced the foundations, and soon added a second bedroom, and then another. Then a small hallway that connected to a spacious living room. Later came the bathroom, with an underground drainage system he devised with the help of one of his dream memories. Next came a stone fireplace, a cold and spacious cellar for preserving food, and a series of larger, more robust windows that let in light without compromising the safety of the shelter.

  Every piece of wood was the product of his hands, and every day he found an excuse to improve something, however small. With the strength of his body and a newly acquired precision, Joel carved logs as if they were clay. He turned them into sturdy and elegant furniture: tables with ornate edges, chairs with curved carvings, comfortable, high beds, refined desks, solid trunks, deep wardrobes with secret compartments. Everything seemed to come from a mind that could no longer stop.

  And although he had more dreams during those months—some useful, others confusing or trivial—none left the same mark on him as the sculptor's. That man was still present, silent but constant, as if whispering instructions about proportion, texture, and balance from somewhere. Joel couldn't help it: art was slipping through his fingers.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  That's how, once the initial constructive impulse had passed, he began to decorate. It was no longer enough for the house to be functional; now it had to have beauty, character. Joel began to carve details into the smooth surfaces of his furniture: friezes on the edges of the tables, small columns adorning the corners, rosettes on the backs of the chairs. Using his katana like a chisel, he worked the wood with inhuman precision, the blade moving so smoothly it seemed to cut through butter.

  It was a silent obsession, but not a dark one. It was the need to create, and perhaps a way to hold on to something beautiful, amid a life marked by flight, death, and the weight of a past that still hadn't let go. And in that lost corner of the world, a house hidden among the trees was slowly filling with soul.

  The children watched the transformation with a mixture of awe and admiration. Day after day, the humble cabin where they had begun their new life rose like a hidden sanctuary among the trees. But even more striking was the sight of Joel, whose imposing yet reserved figure became almost magical in their eyes. With each step, with each stroke of his sword against the wood, the home took shape as if responding not only to his strength, but also to a vision they couldn't fully understand... but could feel.

  Ariel, her large blue eyes shining with excitement, eagerly awaited each new creation. Every chair, every shelf, every carving on the walls or window sills was greeted with a small clap or a gasp of amazement. She loved running her fingers over the newly made engravings, as if trying to absorb a bit of the skill that so fascinated her.

  Liam, for his part, had taken a different path and wasn't content to simply watch. From the moment Joel began working on the finer details, the boy insisted on imitating him. He took a small knife that Joel had set aside and began carving his own pieces of wood, clumsy and ill-formed at first, but full of purpose. Each mistake frustrated him, but didn't stop him.

  Joel, though deeply focused on his work, was no stranger to the attention he received. And far from being uncomfortable, it moved him. In the back of his mind, amid the tangle of dreamed memories and borrowed experiences, he recognized something that had long been dormant: the will to lead.

  He had lived many lives in his dreams. Lives as a warrior, as a thief, as a monk, as an artist, among many others. But some of the most enduring were those of a teacher. He clearly remembered being a professor in a particularly recent life, where he taught history, ethics, and art at a formal academy. He remembered the classrooms, the patience, the frustration, and the joy of seeing others' progress. It was a part of himself he'd almost forgotten… and now, in front of these two children, it was reborn.

  So one afternoon, without saying much, he sat next to Liam and corrected the angle of his knife. He showed him how to hold the wood better, how to work with the grain, how to slide rather than push. Liam looked at him with wide eyes and silently repeated the movements, focused as never before. Later, Ariel joined them, very curious about what they were doing, and Joel soon found a way to involve her too, teaching her how to sand, how to recognize wood, and how to identify natural forms.

  He couldn't teach them magic, for he didn't have that gift, and every time he remembered it, a pang of frustration pierced his chest. He, who had faced wizards, who had overcome horrors thanks to his wits and will, was still unable to cast a single spell. But that didn't matter, because now he could give them something different, perhaps more tangible and lasting. He would give them knowledge, tools, a home… and perhaps, in time, something resembling a family.

  Joel continued in his trance-like state for weeks, perhaps months. Time became blurred, indistinct, marked only by the rising and setting of the sun. His mind, trapped in a constant need to create, knew no rest. The wood, which had initially been sufficient to channel his impulse, soon began to feel… constrained, too soft and pliable. His hands yearned for a new challenge.

  It was then that he turned his attention to the stone. He started with small rocks near the stream, and then with blocks he carried from the foothills. The incredible thing was that his sword—that old companion, as loyal as the echo of his dreams—cut through the stone as if it were hardened butter, without splinters, without resistance or apparent effort. It was as if the steel were obeying a deeper will, something beyond physics.

  And Joel was part of it, obeying that will. Soon, countless sculptures began to populate the interior of the house. The once smooth walls now told stories in relief: forest creatures, ancient trees, human faces filled with emotion. The stone fireplace, once barely functional, became a masterpiece worthy of a forgotten temple. Gazing at it, even Ariel was speechless. Liam touched the figures with his hands, convinced that if he stared at them long enough, they would begin to move.

  But that wasn't enough either. It was as if a force within Joel couldn't be stopped, as if the spirit of the sculptor, the one who had visited him in his dreams with an intensity never seen before, was pushing him even further. Stone was no longer a challenge, so once again, Joel sought something new: metal.

  The town wasn't a wealthy or sophisticated place, but he had a blacksmith who, in exchange for enough money, agreed to sell him what he needed. Products that had to be ordered from the nearest city, with the necessary infrastructure to cast blocks of copper, bronze, and iron. It was a rather expensive and difficult-to-transport request, so Joel couldn't order very large blocks, or even too many. He had to settle for two blocks of each material, only 40 centimeters tall.

  Joel had no intention of forging or casting. His sword, as if recognizing metal as another material to be subdued, cut and sculpted it with the same ease with which he had previously treated wood or stone. The metal shavings fell to the ground as if they were barely dust, and the blade remained as sharp as ever. The first forms were simple, but within a few days Joel carved his first complete statue in iron: an abstract figure, with barely human features, whose wavy lines captured something impossible to define… something that seemed to be watching him. It was then that an invisible barrier, which until then had contained him, silently broke.

  He stood still for several minutes, simply contemplating his work, his chest heaving for no apparent reason. He felt a chill run down his spine, and then a warm, powerful wave filled his chest. It wasn't pleasure or relief, it was a kind of... awakening, as if a dormant part of him had finally opened its eyes, as if, in that instant, everything he had experienced—both in his real life and in his dreams—had converged into a single point. A perfect synergy of body, mind, technique, and will, all aligned.

  He was no longer simply a young man with a unique ability; he was something that not even he could describe, and that, in time, he would have to figure out what it truly meant.

  Then, out of nowhere, to add more mystery and uncertainty to everything, the iron statue's head moved, its gaze resting on Joel...