Alexandr Korol

That’s what he said back then. Today, I’d probably ask him differently. But at the time, that’s how the Mystic-Old-Man explained it. Maybe in the future it’ll turn out that this mineral is super rare, super expensive, and essential for all kinds of chips, microchips, for iPhones, and they’ll buy it from me for a lot of money. I’ll become famous just because of it, and no one will care about my books anymore. Maybe that’s how it’ll go — who knows. Or maybe it will lead to nothing at all. But the fact is that I kept that stone for myself and, naturally, sawed off a small piece to use as a talisman, and I keep it at home, at the dacha, carry it with me, wear it around my neck — I took something from it. I even gave it to jewelers so they could cut cabochons from it. So for me, it’s like... I mean, it turns out it’s a cheap stone, apparently not a precious one, it has no name, just a mix of some metals and minerals — but to me, it’s unique. I’ll say this: out of all the precious stones I’ve searched for all over the world, the ones that emit energy, this is the strongest stone from which I feel an emission. Even if I just sit with it or wear a pendant made from it, it’s insane power. It affects me way more strongly than a ring with a ruby or a black sapphire. But that’s a stone from the “Alternative History.” In the human world — it’s just a piece of gravel.