A long, suffering sigh was heard as the doctor strolled down the gloomy, grey hallway. The clinic had certain shifts for their doctors, and this doctor was nearing the end of his. A chart detailing the case for his next patient was held in his pudgy hands. Looking down, he glimpsed a few details before arriving in front of the door.

The door was pushed open, causing a swirling current of fresh air to permeate the stuffy room. The doctor’s next patient was sitting upon one of the clinic’s uncomfortable examination tables. Several paintings detailing wetlands landscapes were hanging upon the wall above a pair of chairs.

The doctor set down the chart on the small cabinet to his left before sitting in the small rolling chair. He gazed at his next patient, Canton Everett Delaware III. Pretentious as hell if you ask me, he thought to himself. The man fidgeted on the examination table as the doctor stared at him.

The patient had a thick head of brown hair accompanied by a lean build. The doctor was slightly daunted by his confident posture, chest sticking out.

He leaned forwards ever so slightly and muttered, “About damn time…” under his breath. The sound of grinding teeth whispered through the room as Canton glared at the late doctor. Canton said, “Hello again Dr. Ashford!”

“So, how may I help you today?” The doctor said with a false smile plastered onto his face. His left eye twitched slightly as he gazed at the unsavory fellow. If there was one thing he hated, it was people who weren’t man enough to say their thoughts out loud.

“I’ve got a cyst on my tailbone,” Canton replied, staring straight at Ashford without blinking. Slightly surprised at his straightforward attitude, Ashford sat up in his chair before firing back a question.

“How long have you noticed it?” Ashford inquired.

“For about 4 days,” said Canton. The doctor wasn’t surprised at this revelation. He’d had these types of things happen quite a few times. Still wasn’t very savory if you asked him.

“So, does it hurt at all? Has it expressed any… substances?” Ashford attempted to ask professionally as his gorge rose slightly. He often had embarrassing cases and he found that being very brief and professional made it much more bearable.

After he answered in the affirmative, Ashford asked, “Could you lay down on the table and lower your pants?” After helping remove any puss in the cyst, he finished up the short consultation with a prescription of antibiotics and left.

As he finished his consultation with Canton, the doctor looked at his clipboard. Stuck onto the next page were details about a certain Professor Sachi Wright. He moved to exam room number 3 and saw the same basic setup as exam room number 1, which is where he saw Canton.

Opening the door, the doctor was floored by the sight. Sat upon the table, was, in his eyes, the perfect specimen of female beauty. Her eyes gleamed with a playful light and her long, luscious blonde hair accentuated her eyes, which transferred from a hue close to gold to an ocean blue on the edges.

Her feet hung off the edge of the table, barely reaching the ground. His eyes traced her extensive curves. Her smooth sun-kissed bronze skin gleamed in the cool air.

The woman looked up, pinning Ashford with a steely gaze before saying, “Have you gotten a good enough look, or should I wait even longer?” in a breathy, husky tone. Despite his wild physical attraction to her, her attitude turned him off.

Ashford wasn’t one to take much shit, but he had enough shame to feel slightly chagrined. Trying to salvage the situations, he spoke out saying, “How may I help you today?” with a weak smile. She didn’t seem very impressed. Not like I even care anyways… he thought to himself. Usually a rational man, she seemed to take a wrecking ball to his thought process.

“I’ve had this headache for the past several days and it’s gotten to the point where it’s stopping me from working,” She huffed out. He guessed this might’ve had to do with her pissy attitude. Not that it excuses it.

“Where is the pain centered?” He asked, finally getting back into the professional groove. The last consultation of the day was ongoing, and he wasn’t going to let her stand in the way of the rest of his day.

“Under my forehead.” She replied.

“Have you been having any congestion problems, a pressure in the ears or teeth, fever, sore throat, that type of thing?” Ashford asked.

“I’ve had pressure in my ears, but that’s it,” she responded.

He pressed down on the sinuses, located along the forehead and the cheeks and asked about pain. Her slight jump back was all the answer he needed.

Rolling back over to the desk, he said while writing a prescription, “It seems you’ve gotten a sinus infection. You’re going to want to take this medication and use a nasal spray.”

After finishing up his obligations, Ashford left the room and rushed to his dingy pickup in the parking lot. The sooner that he got out of there, and to his apartment, the better.

His truck peeled out, into traffic and towards his home. He went around to his parking spot, only to find that the person in the next parking spot had parked halfway into his and halfway into theirs. A horn was heard several times as the doctor inside the truck smashed it over and over again.

Ashford peeled out and found the nearest parking lot. He locked the pickup and started stalking over to his apartment complex. When he finally arrived around 10 minutes later than he should’ve he opened the door to his lackluster home.

He entered the tiny entry area and tossed his keys onto the key tray to his left. He tossed his heavy coat onto the rack and threw his shoes off before he locked the door behind him. Following the cramped hallway, he entered his living room.

There were very few things in the room. In the center, there was a torn up red couch and a bureau holding his small TV. The mangy carpet crawled across his feet like a million creepy crawlies as he walked to the couch. He plopped down onto the couch, cursing his younger self for getting into debt. The screen flickered to life as he turned the TV on and began channel surfing.

Halfway through his surfing, a sharp ‘bling!’ ushered from his phone. He’d recently picked up this meditation app and it was a notice from the app reminding him to ‘embrace the world around him.’

He chuckled at the bizarre wording and clicked onto the app. It took a moment for it to load as he scrounged up his earbuds and he started listening to the man on the recording.

As he drifted into a peaceful state, something strange happened. Normally, when meditating he’d float along, discarding stray thoughts and letting himself drift in the bliss of doing nothing. What was strange this time was that he could almost… sense… tiny particles floating around him. They were a kaleidoscope of colors with a vibrancy he’d never before glimpsed.

He tried to mentally reach out and grab a handful of these particles, moving it around in any shapes he could think of. A strange giddiness grew in him as he manipulated these particles. He shook himself out of his stupor and dug into the particles rapidly moving them around. Subsequently, he felt a rush of heat in front of his face and it was at this moment, he knew, he fucked up.

A massive wave of head preceded a scorching hot flame dragging its way across his face. In his shock, he’d stopped shaking the particles and so the wave quickly went out. He started shrieking in horror, more at the unexpected than the pain itself. The fire had only been on his skin for a short time, so they were only first and second degree burns, so he wasn't in immediate danger.

He stared listlessly into the distance after this experience. It was something that completely went against logic. He didn't know what to think about the possibilities and implications of what this all meant. He was scared. Scared for his previous life. Scared for his friends. Scared for his family. His emotions felt strangely drained, his reactions also slowing down slightly.

When he finally woke up from his stupor, his calculating mind began thinking about possibilities. When he thought about it, the fire kind of made sense. Ignoring the amazing discovery of magic, he’d just put out a lot of heat by moving those particles.

Considering that temperature is just the average amount of energy in a particle, it made sense that his increasing of energy by shaking up these particles would lead to a wave of fire.

But one thing he didn’t understand, was how there were flames. He sat there, pondering. His whole worldview had been shaken, and it was not pleasant. If one thought about it, there was no fuel to cause the combustion reaction.

So, how exactly did flames appear?! he thought frustratedly. Not being able to reason it out himself, he went to Google. After searching several different Wikipedia threads and other websites, he began forming his theory.

When particles get hot enough, they emit light. This is due to the photon emitted when the electrons move down energy levels. The thing that had stumped him was the lack of fuel for flames, but he realized that fuel wasn’t necessary.

His agitating the mana particles caused an increase in temperature because of the particles hitting other atoms and molecules. This meant that they were able to gain the energy necessary to emit photons, and therefore make flames visible.

After puzzling all of this out, he began thinking of the tropes of magic. One of the common “spells” was Fireball. He’d read a book in his youth mentioning ‘mana packets.’ If he considered these particles mana, he theorized that he’d be able to make these mana packets. He could hopefully collect them and then throw it. So, he decided to test it out.

He realized that while before his meditation, he was blind to these particles, after finding them he was able to constantly sense them, even if they were very faint. Another odd thing occurring due to his strange meditating was his dulled emotions. It made him very level-headed, preventing him from becoming anything but calm and happy. He wasn't sure whether he liked it or not.

He decided to meditate even though he didn’t strictly need to. As he sat there, he was able to slip into peaceful thoughts much quicker and it’s easier to maintain.

His goal of making a fireball was something that he didn’t think would be too much of a challenge. He grabbed onto the particles of mana and compressed them into a small ‘packet’ of mana. He then surrounded this further with even more mana.

He started vibrating all of this incredibly quickly and as he opened his eyes, he saw the fireball. There was a small core about the size of a marble that was incredibly bright surrounded by flames that were a bright orange and yellow color. His face burst into a radiant smile. He was doing honest to god fucking magic.

Winding up the orb of napalm, his eyes bulged open as it dawned on him that he had nowhere to throw it. Quickly jumping up as maintaining the fireball was rather taxing on him, he slammed his window open and attempted to throw it. The only problem was as soon as he threw it and let go of the construct, the packet exploded in his face.

Jumping back quickly, he was able to avoid the flames for the most part. While he'd been able to avoid major injury, this incident caused his breathing to stutter as he realized something. He could've died if he hadn't reacted fast enough. The room pressed in on him, causing his breathing to speed up, and his heart started to race. He'd had these before, they started when he was 7 when the unthinkable had happened. His breathing ceased for a moment, so he tried to calm his mind. He started breathing deeply, closing his eyes and focusing on his 'focus object.'

He knew that his brush with death might prevent him from doing what he wanted to do, magic. He steeled himself against the raging emotions, he kept drawing deep breaths.

After finally getting himself settled, his eyes grew wide as something popped up in his mind. There was nothing keeping the mana packet condensed when he threw it.

He screwed his eyebrows, mind racing at a mile a minute. When he thought about it, there was nothing keeping the mana together once he let go. He just figured he’d control the mana all the way to the target. Quickly forming a new fireball, he once again threw it, this time keeping a handle on the mana packet and surrounding mana. At about 10 meters, his eyes started to droop and his eyes started sagging. At 15, he crumpled to the floor.

Slowly arousing from his unconsciousness, Ashford gazed around the room. Everything seemed right, except for the obvious of him having fainted. He raised his eyes to the window before sighing and relaxing back onto his back. After a moment, he picked himself off the ground.

He sat back down on the couch and once again his face screwed up. After a moment, he slumped back into the couch before his breathing became more uniform. He was unable to control the mana from the environment very far at all. When he thought about it, he started wondering where the mana was coming from.

He looked around his apartment and then extended his mana sense out of his apartment. Looking at the nearby dumpster, he found a smaller concentration of mana. He also looked over towards the nearby woods before finding a blazing concentration of mana. He thought about it for a short while and theorized that the mana might be produced by living beings, just like heat is produced by cells. It seemed that the bacteria that had to have been living in the dumpster didn’t exude this mana.

Using that theory, he looked into himself and found a small pond of stable mana sitting right where his heart would be. He looked at the mana and noticed that a small trickle of mana was coming from all over his body to cycle through his heart. Small holes appeared throughout the chamber, being much more common at the top of his chamber. He wanted more, and so he sent the image of contracting towards all of the holes as if they were muscles. Surprisingly enough, it actually worked and the pool started growing more and more.

Eventually, the chamber that was previously 3/4ths full filled to the top. Ashford’s face screwed up as the small pool started growing by an infinitesimal amount over time. Leaving the muscles contracted, he surfaced from his trance. The feeling of his body returning, his eyes drooped down and all of his muscles relaxed to the point that he wasn’t able to stay standing. He wasn’t able to move a single muscle.

He slumped over from his position on the couch and once again his heart started fluttering. The room shrunk slightly before he let go of the image he was projecting onto the holes. Slowly, his muscles started coming back to life, having the feeling of paresthesia pervading them. His slowly picked himself up as the holes continued to widen.

The full pool began draining slowly, speed slowly picking up. The draining hit its peak as the holes fully opened once more. After the sense of paresthesia wore off, his face lit up in a curious grin. He often had an overactive imagination, and it seemed that it was coming into play once more.

Widening the pores in his mana pool, he felt the mana surge into his body, giving him the sense of adrenaline amped up by 10,000x. This mana poured out along the same channels as to where his veins and arteries were and quickly pervaded his body. He felt like he could conquer the world.

Finishing his testing, he returned the holes to their original size and felt the high fall down.

When his rush has started, he’d gotten up to run around the room. This caused an unfortunate situation when the high fell off. He crumpled to the floor, banging his head on the hard wooden flooring.

He saw stars for a short time before finally picking himself up off the ground. It seemed that the short amount of time amped up on the mana had drained his pool from full to almost ½ of the initial ¾.

Done with his preliminary internal testing, he drew the mana out of his pool at his heart and exuded it out of his pores, crossing over the fairly short area necessary. This took several seconds, however, when he was done he found that he could control this mana much more easily than the wild mana.

He quickly attempted to form a fireball with this mana and agitated the particles. When he opened his eyes, he noticed that there was a distinct lack of the expected fireball.

He looked through his mana sense and confirmed that the mana was indeed doing what he instructed it to do. It almost seemed as if the mana from his pool completely disregarded the actual molecules in the air, causing the absence of the expected fire.

He looked at his mana and compared it to the ‘wild’ mana. He found that while his mana was like a placid lake, the wild mana moved around like a violent storm. The mana interacted with the molecules, likely explaining the movement. If the ‘wild’ mana interacted with surrounding molecules, then it would quickly gain the energy from its neighboring molecules. He figured that his mana was somehow devoid of interactions with the molecules.

Letting his control of his mana go, he found that it quickly gained energy from the rapidly moving molecules. He also noticed a decrease in the temperature of the room. It was ever so slight, but there nonetheless.

He needed to see the interactions between what he called personal and wild mana. This would form his foundation for mana manipulation. Again, he exuded personal mana into the surroundings and grabbed a chunk of the surrounding wild mana.

He rammed these two together and found that while they did interact, the energy did not transfer from wild to personal. He successfully attempted to surround wild mana with personal before agitating this wild mana by a very large margin.

He opened his eyes to see a fireball the size of a basketball. His face felt like it would split with the intensity of his elated smile. He then threw this Fireball out of his window and watched as it soared for several hundred meters before finally extending past his area of personal mana control.

He felt his personal mana control strained his mind by much less and it also increases much slower.

This actually told him a lot about the nature of mana. He surmised a number of ‘Principles of Mana’ from this and his earlier experiments. These principles were as follows:

Mana is generated from cellular activity. This mana is also used in a cellular process. The mana produced by the cellular activity is unable to interact with molecules. Personal Mana will only stay in that state for as long as it is in the body or it is controlled by a sentient mind. When the personal mana becomes wild, it begins taking energy from impacts with molecules containing energy and thereby heat. Personal and Wild Mana can interact, however they cannot exchange energy. Personal Mana and Wild Mana have control areas. These control areas seemed to be linked in some manner.

Finally done with his tests, he collapsed onto his sofa once more. When he finally finished pondering the implications of his findings, he noticed a flashing blue dot in his peripheral vision. Thinking it was his phone, he looked over only to find a large blue screen pop up in his face. He was taken aback but he was then quickly filled with a burning curiosity. These screens read as such:

New Skill Created!

Mana Empowerment Level 1(0%)

+50-500% Physical Stats for the duration.

Mana Cost: 5-50 mana/min

New Skill Created!

Beginner Mana Manipulation Level 1(0%)

+10% to mana control per level of this skill.

Requirement: MND - G

Experience Awarded!

+10 EXP for beginner skill creation!

New Spell Created!

Fire Surge

Classification E, Rank 2

2-8 Fire Damage

Mana Cost: 2 mana/cast

New Spell Created!

Fireball

Grade D, Rank 3

3 - 18 Fire Damage

Mana Cost: 5 mana/cast

Experience Awarded!

+ 10 EXP for Grade E Spell Creation

Experience Awarded!

+ 100 EXP for Grade D Spell Creation

Skill Level Increase x6!

Mana Manipulation Level 7(73%)

Experience Awarded!

+ 150 EXP for Skill Level Increase x6

Title Gained!

Mana Master

+50% Skill EXP gains for mana related Skills, Spells, and Abilities

Through diligent experiments, you have come to master the basic principles of mana and magic.

He stared dumbfounded at the sight before him. Ashford harkened back to his childhood and remembered a genre of novels that he’d read quite often. It distinctly reminded him of those novels and the common trope was that saying or thinking ‘Status’ or some variation thereupon would bring up a character screen.

Status Screen

Name:

Ashford Meyers

Level:

1

Class:

None

Titles:

Mana Master

Experience:

260

EXP to LVL UP:

40

Health:

16/16

Mana:

26/26

Statistics

INT:

F-3

AGI:

G-1

WIS:

F-2

DEX:

G-3

MND:

G-4

STR:

G-2

CHA:

G-2

VIT:

G-3

Titles +

Skills +

Spells +

He stared dumbfounded at the statistics. He'd thought that his previous worldview had been shattered, however, his earlier revelations were nothing compared to this one. Realizing all the likely implications of this sent him into another panic attack. Taking several minutes to gain control again, he once again focused on his focus object and reigned in his breathing before focusing on the task at hand.

Contrary to his expectations of numbers, he found a bizarre ranking system. It seemed like the system depended on letters as some type of rank and numbers as a grade.

It took a moment before he realized the implications of this. If the laws of physics were changed to reflect a video game, there may have been even larger changes that he hadn’t found out about yet. He quickly turned the TV back on and found a local news channel.

“There has been a surge in the numbers of animals recently. We’ve had reports of tens of animal attacks resulting in serious injuries and even deaths in the past 6 hours. We are urging everyone listening to stay at home, do not, I repeat, do not go outside as it is not safe in the least. People in rural areas especially are in danger as there has been a sharp increase in reports of criminal activities and animal activity in rural areas. Again, I urge everyo--” Ashford turned the TV off and started sweating profusely. He was worried. Extremely worried.