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[Alexandr Korol]

So I told him this back then, in the winter of 2009. I’m still shocked I even said it. But in reality, there’s a very logical explanation for everything — it really is just like that and nothing else. And he paused to think, surprised, and began telling me more, saying that the Philosopher’s Stone is located... Well, of course, my associations with the Philosopher’s Stone were naturally because of what? How is our brain wired? Meaning, whatever something is associated with in your mind, you subconsciously frame it within that. Like, for example, if you’ve seen a lot of movies about magicians and wizards who have some kind of ring, like I do, then when you see my ring, you assume I’m a magician or a wizard. But I, for example, watched a lot of films and TV shows about tsarist or historical times, and all kinds of kings and rulers had rings like this. That’s my association, you see? For someone else, it might be the ’90s. I’ve written about this before, using similar comparisons. And here it’s the same with Harry Potter. Naturally, I was in school — I remember first grade, after the New Year holidays, everyone came back with the first volume of “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.” And that was my association, because I had never encountered the term “Philosopher’s Stone” anywhere else. That’s how associations work — it’s how we’re wired. That’s why the system is teaching me to be well-read. I never used to read books, and now I need to read a lot. I mostly read scientific, historical literature — history, mythology, I watch all sorts of documentaries. And the more of these accurate associations I have — the more correct word pairings and meanings I accumulate — the easier it is for the system to communicate with me and give me information that I can then decode. So at that time, as you see, my association was with Harry Potter. Well, let’s go on.

And so Alexander tells me that this Philosopher’s Stone is located in the East, that throughout all of history people have searched for it, and that if you find it, you can do anything — you can become immortal, you can rule the world. And I’m listening to all this, and naturally I’m thinking, again, “What Philosopher’s Stone in the East? Where is this East?” Somewhere far away, somewhere hot, somewhere warm. And at that time, I didn’t even have any thoughts about traveling at all. So I keep listening to him and then ask: