Sleeping. Lazy. Unable to focus. Useless at channeling mana.

  The thoughts weren’t mine, yet they surfaced anyway, sharp and unwelcome, fragments of Aries’s old memories cutting through my mind like broken glass. They carried no faces or scenes—only judgment, heavy and persistent, as if the world itself had long since decided what he was worth.

  “Ugh… I’m starting to hate this guy,” I muttered.

  I slumped into the chair beside the desk, letting my weight sink into it. “Seriously,” I went on, staring at the ceiling, “what did you even do with your life? Eat, sleep, ignore arcane training?” A dry laugh escaped me. “No wonder Mirielle keeps roasting you.”

  My hand tightened without thinking. I lowered my gaze and stared at it—my hand now. The shape still felt unfamiliar, like I hadn’t fully earned the right to move it yet.

  “But can I do it?” I asked quietly. “Can I actually use magic?”

  The thought lingered, heavier than the rest. “And maybe… just maybe… find a way back to Earth?”

  My eyes drifted toward the edge of the desk.

  A stack of thick, dust-worn books waited there, leather covers cracked with age, silver glyphs dulled by neglect. They weren’t arranged with care. They were abandoned—touched once, then forgotten. Evidence of a path Aries had never truly walked.

  “These were here the whole time,” I murmured.

  I pulled the top book free and sat properly at the desk. The leather creaked softly as I opened it, the sound oddly loud in the quiet room.

  The Arcane Codex: Principles of Mana.

  No dramatic introduction. No flourish.

  Just words.

  Law One: Perception.

  Awareness of mana is the first gate. To see it. To feel it. To separate it from the self.

  “…Alright,” I whispered. “Let’s try.”

  I lowered myself to the wooden floor, crossing my legs. The boards were cool beneath me. The room felt still—not silent, but expectant, like something unseen was watching. I closed my eyes and slowed my breathing, letting each inhale stretch longer than the last.

  “Differentiate physical energy from internal mana,” I repeated quietly. “Separate the noise. Feel what’s beneath.”

  At first, there was nothing.

  Just my heartbeat. The rise and fall of my chest. The dull awareness of muscle and bone.

  Then—something shifted.

  It wasn’t sudden. It wasn’t violent. It felt like tension releasing, like a tightly wound rope inside my chest slowly loosening after being held taut for far too long. The sensation spread, cautious and unfamiliar, as if whatever it was had been restrained—and was only now daring to move.

  And then the room was gone. I wasn’t sitting anymore. I was floating.

  There was no sense of direction, no weight, no ground beneath me. Endless darkness stretched in every direction, vast and overwhelming, pierced by countless motes of light drifting lazily through the void. They shimmered faintly, not distant like stars, but close—intimate, like fragments of something that belonged to me.

  “…What is this?” I murmured.

  The silence pressed in, thick and absolute, swallowing sound almost as soon as it formed.

  “Is this… my arcane space?” I wondered. “The mana inside me?”

  I reached out instinctively. The lights responded.

  They stirred, spiraling toward me, gathering with deliberate slowness until they formed a single shape. It hovered before me, a shard of white energy—smooth, defined, humming softly with restrained power. It wasn’t an object so much as an idea given form.

  Understanding settled into my chest. “This is it,” I whispered. “The first connection.”

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  The moment I touched it—

  The void convulsed.

  A violent ripple tore through the space, distorting the darkness itself. From beyond the light emerged something wrong—not a creature, not a shape, but a presence. A force so dense it seemed to devour everything around it, darker than the void that birthed it.

  My breath caught.

  “What the hell…?”

  The pull began immediately.

  The lights were dragged first, streaking past me toward the darkness. Then the pressure wrapped around me, tugging with relentless force, as if gravity itself had decided I no longer belonged where I was.

  “No—no no no!”

  I tried to move back, to resist, but there was nothing to push against. My body—if I still had one—felt stretched thin, pulled forward piece by piece.

  “I need to stop this,” I thought desperately. “If I don’t—”

  My grip slipped. “Shit!” I was dragged straight toward the center.

  There, within the darkness, something enormous pulsed into view. Not a gate. Not a wall. A seal—woven from thought, memory, fear, and restraint, beating slowly like a dying star.

  “That looks…” My breath stuttered. “…just like the shard.”

  I clutched the white fragment still bound to me, gripping it as if it were the only solid thing left in existence. It felt heavier now. Real. An extension of my will.

  “…Alright,” I muttered. “Let’s see if you fit.”

  I drove it forward. “Eat this.” The seal resisted but after few seconds it cracked.

  Light split through the darkness as fractures raced across its surface. A soundless shudder ran through the void—and the seal shattered, dissolving into nothing. The pressure vanished instantly, the darkness collapsing in on itself before disappearing entirely.

  I gasped. Reality slammed back into place.

  I was on the floor of my room, palms pressed to the wood, lungs burning as I dragged in air. Sweat soaked through my clothes, my heart pounding violently.

  “Huff… huff…” I lifted my hands slowly.

  Beneath my skin, radiant threads flowed like glowing rivers, pulsing in steady rhythm through my veins. Not imagined. Not metaphorical.

  Real. A breathless laugh escaped me as a grin spread across my face.

  “So this is it…”

  “The First Law of Equivalence.”

  The pages whispered softly as I turned them, dust lifting into the sunlight like suspended symbols. My movements were slower now, more careful, as if the book itself demanded respect.

  “So this is the step Mirielle wanted me to reach,” I murmured.

  Second Law: Resonance.

  Harmony between thought, body, and will.

  Third Law: Manipulation.

  To create is to command.

  I closed the book and let my hand rest on the cover, feeling its weight settle into me.

  “…Alright,” I said quietly. “Law Two.”

  I returned to the floor, sitting in the same spot. I steadied my breathing and focused inward.

  “Channel mana where I want it,” I whispered. “Focus it. Shape it.”

  Nothing happened.

  The mana was there—I could feel it clearly now—but it refused to move. It vibrated beneath my awareness, alive but uncooperative, like a river surging just out of reach.

  Sweat formed along my brow as I pushed harder, my thoughts straining.

  “It’s like trying to look at two sides of my mind at once,” I muttered. “Total overload.”

  Frustration spiked.

  “This is impossible. I can’t—”

  I stopped.

  My breath caught as realization struck.

  “…I don’t need everything.”

  A slow smile formed.

  “I just need somewhere.”

  I focused on my left hand.

  Not my whole body. Not the room. Just that single point.

  And then—

  The mana moved.

  Warmth gathered in my palm, smooth and controlled, like heat following a narrow vein of gold. My fingers tingled as faint threads of light shimmered beneath my skin.

  “There it is,” I whispered.

  “The Second Law… Harmony.”

  I exhaled slowly.

  “Now comes shaping.”

  I extended my hand and formed a simple idea.

  A sphere.

  The mana gathered hesitantly at first. A faint flicker sparked into existence, hovering just above my palm.

  Then it grew.

  Light bloomed outward, swelling with each heartbeat. The air around it shimmered violently, heat radiating in pulsing waves. The walls reflected its glow as the orb expanded, far brighter and heavier than I expected.

  “…What the hell?”

  The floor creaked beneath the pressure. Sweat poured down my face as I staggered back, staring at the thing hovering before me.

  “This is… too much.”

  The sphere pulsed like a living core, light cracking across its surface as if something inside was struggling to escape.

  Cracks appeared.

  Tiny fractures spread rapidly, lines of blinding white snapping across the orb like glass under stress.

  “Wait—no—!” The room trembled. Heat surged. “I went too far—!”

  The sphere broke.

  BOOM.