At the next science practice, Saeon went to the observation bench. Dure opened the honey-colored notebook first, turning past the round marks from math.
“I'll lay out the explanation this time.”
Saeon set the triangular folding board on the side shelf. They could hear a friend's thoughts before every word was ready. Today, Saeon wanted to start with Dure's open page.
Floor 1 · Experiment Area
Observation: Connecting Before-and-After Pictures with an Explanation
A clear plastic observation container sat on a low base. Its sand-colored lid was locked. Clear water spread across the bottom inside.
Teacher Gwak stood beside it. The wide hall stayed open behind the three friends. The little result light at the front was still dark.
Two observation boards stood side by side next to the base. The left held before-and-after pictures. The right had room for an explanation connecting them.
In the before picture, the ice had corners. In the after picture, only water remained. The lids and bases had the same shape in both pictures.
The teacher pointed to the container, then the before picture.
“This is a record of this container. The ice was made of water. It has all melted.”
The teacher's hand stopped by the lock.
“The container hasn't been opened. Nothing was put in or taken out.”
Saeon looked at the container again from the side. The base showed through the clear water. It wouldn't do to overlook the water just because it was hard to see.
Dure found and opened the before-and-after pictures in the notebook. These were the pictures Dure had fixed last time. Beneath both, the word water remained.
“I'll make this shorter for the board.”
Dure pointed to the explanation space on the right board. Saeon looked at the narrow space for words, too. They didn't need to copy every picture from the notebook.
Dure wrote a short explanation on a fresh page, then opened it in front of the right board.
The ice disappeared.
Saeon looked where the hard lump had been. There weren't any corners now. The short sentence seemed to match that change in shape.
“The ice shape's gone. We can put it up, right?”
Saeon slid the open page toward the board. Dure rested a hand at the sentence's end. Sodam looked back and forth between the container and the new words.
“Your words don't leave anything behind.”
Saeon's hand stopped halfway. They had seen the water but left it out of the explanation. Anyone reading only the words might think the container was empty.
Dure took a hand off the page, too.
“I left out the water.”
Saeon opened the folding board again. There had to be a short explanation that kept the water. Saeon placed a new sentence under the after picture.
New water formed in place of the ice.
“Now there's water in it, too.”
Dure studied Saeon's words and the after picture. A hand stopped on its way to the notebook's edge.
“Water's left. Is this enough to finish?”
A smooth amber shine settled around the right board. Saeon studied the neat sentence. They had fixed the part that made the container sound empty. Maybe that was enough.
A round knot of light wrapped around the left board's frame. Cream-colored eye-like gaps showed between dull amber strands. The strands reached across to the smooth shine on the right.
A Tangle. A device made from a mistaken idea. Its smooth layer clung beneath the words about the remaining water. It didn't wrap around the container or the water.
Saeon drew both hands outside the boards. The strands stayed in place while they waited. No light stretched into the hall behind them.
Quest
Disappearing Tangle · Inner Layer: Different Substance
All the ice in the same container has melted.
Explain the water that remains and the change of state.
Reward: Skill Boost
Saeon looked at new water in the sentence. It did say that water was there. But it sounded as if new water had come in from somewhere.
What had the water come from?
Dure raised an empty hand in front of their chest.
“Not yet. I'll check the before picture, too.”
Saeon set down the folding board without pressing it into place. Sodam adjusted the glasses. A hand moved from the right-hand explanation to the left-hand pictures.
“If you only look at the after picture, the words seem right.”
The fingertip stopped in front of the before picture.
“See if the explanation fits the before picture, too.”
Dure turned the notebook a little. Now Saeon could see the words under both pictures. Water. Water. Last time, Dure had erased the line between them.
“I fixed those words myself.”
Dure pointed to the left board's before picture. Then came a look at the lock the teacher had pointed out. The fingertip returned beneath the picture.
“The ice was made of water.”
Saeon looked at the before picture, too. Even after hearing what the ice was made of, Saeon had copied only its shape. The words new water broke the connection to the earlier picture.
Dure pointed to the after picture, then the actual container. A hand came to rest before new water.
“Is it the same water? I left that out.”
Saeon watched where Dure had stopped. It came before checking whether any water remained. Dure was checking whether that water connected to the earlier ice.
“We didn't open the container. Nothing different went in.”
Dure's finger moved from the before picture to the after picture.
“New water didn't form. This is the water from that melted ice.”
A thin cream-colored pin reached from Dure's fingertip to the board. A gap opened in the smooth amber layer. The strands stopped there.
Sodam lowered the hand from the explanation board. Saeon looked again at the before-and-after pictures Dure had shown. Even a sentence that sounded finished could have a missing condition.
Dure opened a new notebook page and erased disappeared from the first explanation. In its place, Dure began with the water that remained.
“I wrote it like it was gone.”
Dure pointed beneath the notebook's picture of water.
“It's the same water. Its state changed.”
Saeon erased new from the folding board. Water in the after picture didn't mean newly made water. The ice in the before picture had been water, too.
“I only fixed the words under the after picture. I needed to connect them to what came before.”
Saeon moved the board aside. Dure's new explanation stayed in front of the right board. First, Dure wrote what had stayed the same.
The same water.
Underneath, Dure wrote what had changed.
Before: Solid
After: Liquid
Saeon looked between the lines. One said what the material was. The other said what state it was in. They didn't need to give it a whole new name afterward.
Dure placed solid beneath the before picture and liquid beneath the after picture. Last came the same water, between the two pictures.
With the hand gone, the whole explanation was clear. Only the before picture had ice corners. The after picture and the actual container held liquid water.
Sodam pointed between the lids in the pictures and on the container.
“Before and after in the same container. Nothing was swapped.”
Dure rested a hand on the same water.
“The water's still there. It's the same water.”
A fingertip moved from solid to liquid.
“Include the change of state. Then we're done.”
Dure swept a fingertip once along the page's edge. The round knot on the left board loosened. The smooth layer on the right unraveled with it.
The strands turned cream-colored and stretched out straight on the boards. The water stayed at the bottom of the container. Saeon looked at the empty space between the boards and the container.
The light had unraveled on the boards. The melted water hadn't turned into light. The little result light at the front came on.
Growth
Dure · Condition Pin — Checked before and after for the same water
Saeon looked at Dure's hand. At first, Dure had nearly finished after checking only the water left behind. This time, Dure had found the break hidden inside a neat explanation.
Dure spent longer looking at the corrected words than the display. A fingertip stopped on the same water. The states written below stayed, too.
“Now it's short, but nothing's missing.”
Saeon turned the folding board toward the teacher. A hand rested where new had been erased.
“I only looked at the water left behind. I called it new water. It came from the ice before.”
Dure held up the notebook, too.
“When I wrote disappeared, I left out the water. It's the same water. It changed from solid to liquid.”
The teacher looked at their explanation and nodded.
“Nice and clear.”
The ice had melted, changing from solid to liquid. This change was called melting. The substance itself was still water.
Quest Clear
Disappearing Tangle · All Layers Unraveled
Record: Same water · Changed state
Skill Boost: “Same Water” — Melting (Solid → Liquid)
A small recess opened in the front of the base. Saeon stepped away from the container and bent down. Inside lay a real little stone stair piece with three steps.
The tiny hollow above its top step held no stone. No letters or patterns appeared.
Blue light climbed along the edges of the steps. Last time, it had pooled around the rim. This time, it entered the empty top hollow.
The light spread halfway across the hollow and stopped. The plain stone still showed in the rest. Light had entered, but no stone had fitted into place.
“It's come inside this time.”
Saeon's hands stayed outside the recess. In the math area, light had traveled to the lower stone and back. Here, it stayed in the empty space at the top.
None of them took out the piece. When the recess closed, Saeon straightened. Dure's open explanation remained in front of the boards.
Before closing the notebook, Dure pointed to the same water. Saeon watched the hand move on to liquid. Sodam looked at the corrected board, too, then gathered the piece box.
“I left my explanation there.”
They stepped away from the bench into the open hallway. Another clear plastic container stood at the next bench. Its water was lower than in the before picture beside it.
Saeon glanced at that spot while walking. Today's corrected explanation lay open behind them. Dure stood beside Saeon, holding the notebook close.
They were still on the same bottom floor. Saeon remembered the light resting inside the empty top hollow. The stairs above led on beyond view.
What was at the top?