Tales of Cis Chapter 2 : Prime Values

Ending up in the land of numbers

Extracted from your attitude

Are you the primes ?*

Are you the composites ?**

Fraziane di Numero, the initial place I visited after I decided to start a journey across the universe. A remote and tranquil village, yet renowned for its exceptional culture and tradition. Not only each resident possesses a great deal of passion for math, but it's also becoming a lifestyle; more like numbers are flowing through their veins. Yet, the more interesting story is deeper than it looks, so let me bring you inside this tale..

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The sky was murky when I headed in through the gates, but the village had already turned on. People began to promenade along the streets, probably going to their own workplace. It's not that crowded though, and the atmosphere was sufficiently warm for me to take  a break from the long journey. However I knew no one, no relatives, no acquaintances, nothing. Thus I just took my time wandering around the neighbourhood, looking for something that might delight my craving of finding something novel.

Suddenly, a young boy noticed my presence and slowly approached me.

"Hey, never see you around here, you must be new. Anyway, I'm Henry Euler 10 !", he introduced himself while reaching out for my hands.

Wow, not only they adore math, but Euler ? They even use the well kown mathematician's name too ?? And by the way what's with that number following his name ?

I shook his hand and answered, "Hi Henry, people usually called me Cis. Nice to meet you. Hmm.. as a matter of fact I feel a bit curious about.. "

"The number following my name ?", he chuckled. 
I nodded.

Then he continued, "You see, we're quite fanatic of using numbers in every aspects of life. On top op that, you might have noticed that everyone is wearing a magical bracelet, where a number is inscribed. Look, mine is 10. It's not a fixed one though. Every year it will change accordingly."


Nice.. Kinda peculiar I must say..

"So it must be one's current age right ?"

"No, not at all.", he grinned cheerfully. "Let me show you while taking a tour around my village. You'll see it yourself."

Well well, looks like my hunger need to be restrained a bit

And so I agreed to him being my guide, we went circumnavigating the village. In the middle of the trip, a I learned some interesting pieces of truth. There are two different types of people living here : 

- Type A are those with numbers like '2,3,5,..' on their bracelet. We call these numbers as prime numbers*. These people look smart and bright, but usually walk and work alone. Looking rigid and clearly disregarding everything except those related to their own satisfaction, I could say they are the individualists.

- Type B are the rest. They acted more friendly than the people from the first type.  They felt free to give to each other, to share their thoughts, and to help those in needs. In a slight observation, I discovered that people with better positive values had bigger numbers inscribed on their respective bracelets.. For instance, the head of the village was named Mr. Nicholas Gauss 30030.


I soon realized that the numbers on their bracelets have a very deep meaning. The more prime factors a number have, then the more giving and caring the owner of the bracelet would be***. As Euler said, every year the bracelet will rebalance the numbers itself, and the result is really up to the behaviour of each inhabitants for the past 1 year they've gone through. Some people might change from time to time but Mr. Gauss stayed firm.


In any case, there's a reason why he's worthy to be the head of the village : everybody admired him. He really offered his life to serve all the villagers. Getting up early in the morning, walking down the streets and offering help to anyone that requires some aid, cheering up the sadden ones, calming down the worried minds and many more. A tireless repetition of service as a proof of his incomparable duty.

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Just how inverted is this situation to the real world outside ? People are numerically valued by their moral values ! Contrary to that is the place we're living, the value of our people was significantly determined by their achievements. No decent place for the word 'care'. Congested yet solitary. Full of skills yet lack of ethics. I wonder are we really okay following this rule of thumb ? Are we the primes, or are we the composites ?


Notes : 

* prime numbers are the numbers who has exactly 2 divisors i.e. 1 and itself (ex.: 2,3,5,7,11,13,...)
** composite numbers are the positive integers other than prime numbers
*** for your information, 10 = 2*5, 30030 = 2*3*5*7*11*13

With passion,

"Cis Harry"