“You have been denied the right of existence itself. I apologise. Perhaps, it was my own meddling that caused all of this. However, all I can do now is try to fix what I have done. Regardless of cost. Do not reveal your [Pillar]. [He] is watching every being in this world. Escaping the web of [Fate] is both fortune and misfortune. You have but one single chance. If you are found to carry the [Pillar], then your [Fate] will be sealed. Tempests will befall you and calamity will strike you relentlessly with every step you take, and that is why I beseech you. Remember one thing. What awaits you if you are discovered cannot be described. Be cautious. There is no worse [Fate] across the myriad worlds if you are found with the [Pillar]. I have incurred the enmity of many. I sincerely hope you can manage to survive. Survival is not impossible.”

Nothing followed, apart from a stream of dried blood. At the corner of the page, the traces of scratches could be discerned.

—

“...”

A tide of drowsiness had overcome me after reading the final page, and by the time my eyes awakened, the sun had risen.

“...What does this mean? I mean, I guess it makes sense now that I think about it…what happened to the original Arlen Droder when I transmigrated? But how? How could Arlen know that I was going to transmigrate into his body? Had he made a deal with the god?”

Starting with the intention to get some clarity over my situation by writing things down, I was instead left with a plethora of new questions. Who was Arlen Droder, really? Someone who knew about a god was the clown of the Bastion? 

Trying to get memories from this time also proved fruitless, providing nothing but extreme headaches.

“Shit…I can't get a grip on anything…”

[Pillar]. And [Fate]. What did these things refer to? Why was Arlen so fearful of me revealing whatever the hell my [Pillar] was? And fate? Was the concept of fate a real thing in this world? 

It was strange. There was an oddly familiar feeling hearing the talks about fate, but neither the mind of Arlen or Dwayne could place their fingers on where I had heard it.

Scratching my head wasn’t giving me any answers. How could it? I hardly even understood the most surface level of the words in the journal, let alone the deeper meaning.

Like I had been doing from the very moment I entered this world, I had no choice but to shove the thought deep into my subconsciousness to be assessed on later days. At the very least, there was a chance I could learn more about [Fate] if I lived a little longer. 

—

Without any lessons, I chose to finally go test something I had been curious about from the very start.

Was I able to use mana?

Certainly, Arlen was able to, albeit very poorly. But would that carry on to me, who arrived from another world?

I tried to get a sense for some of Arlen’s memories of using mana, and perhaps see how he had used it in hopes of copying his method.

Before that, it would be smart to leave my room lest any disasters occurred to me and my safe haven. The Bastion provided a training facility just outside the dormitories, making it an easy travel; furthermore, they even gave private rooms for each student, so I wouldn’t need to worry about others once I arrived.

Only getting there was problematic. Peering out my windows for some time, I made my valiant adventure once the coast seemed clear enough. It had become habitual for me to spell out some chants whenever I left my room, and this time wasn’t any different.

“Fuck off, fuck off, fuck off..”

Ivory walls that were spread to make a dome greeted me. Instead of appreciating the majesty it imposed, I crashed the door open and looked for a private room.

Safe! Another victory! 

Without the blade of regression over my neck, I finally allowed myself to observe my surroundings. A brown dummy was placed dead in the center, directly opposing holding multiple different weapons on display. Although I wanted to run my fingers across to get a feel for the metal, there was a chance I'd bleed and regress—such a foolish regression was impermissible. 

Towards the side, one would see three targets hung on the wall; a thin line was drawn a few meters in front of them, most likely being where one was to shoot.

Shoot arrows, or magic.

Placing my feet just behind the line, I tried my hardest to call upon any memory that could aid me. According to my current knowledge, humans stored mana as rings inside their body that circulated around a central point. 

The mana core, as it was called in this world. By the 4th year in the Bastion, the average student would have formed their 5th ring and be on the verge of forming their 6th. 

Though every ring granted an increase in mana storage and purity, the rate at it which it did so was exponential.

The rings would be ‘negatively’ charged with mana, whereas the mana stored a positive charge. How they managed to store a different charge, I wasn't familiar with. But I could start to understand why the rings gave exponential growth.

What allowed humans to flow mana through the body was the attraction between the ring and core. The rings would circle around the core and simultaneously be repulsed and attracted to the mana core, producing active mana that could be utilised. With every addition of the ring, the strength of the negative positive interaction would increase manifold.

 “Ah…” The exponential factor arrived due to something called ‘purity’. 

Once the second ring formed, the two negatives would begin to react with one another and repel; they would push away up to the furthest possible distance whilst still being in range of the attractive force of the ring. 

This was where ‘purity’ came in. At the first ring, the mana stored was murky and impure, though still functional. At the second ring, the mana would become more cleansed and potent, multiplying the negative charge of the ring by itself. 

Like that, the difference in charge would begin to grow larger and larger, making the active mana produced by this polarity of greater quantity and quality. 

So how many rings did I have in this body?

Fucking 2.

The average level of a second year.

Though I was tempted to curse Arlen, the experience just a few moments before were still fresh. Rashly calling him a fool wasn't right. 

Still. Placing the utmost attention on the two rings, I began to place effort into rotating them faster. These rings would have a natural, passive rotation cycle, but the output was significantly less than active spinning.

Like a poorly oiled machine, they began to slowly speed up. With it, I had finally managed to detect the concept known as mana.

Right near my navel, a warm feeling was wrapping itself across me. 

Mana.

The path was long. I didn't know how many times I would have to regress to finally finish my task. It was undeniable that I'd have to uselessly start over again in the near future.

Mystery had also even descended on the owner of this body; thousands of questions remained, and none were to be answered quickly.

But this. Truly, this was a small respite.

Exhilaration flooded my body. 

“...[Fireball]!”

Heat began to pervade from my mana core, rapidly flooding through my veins; the direction it moved towards was my right palm. It felt as though I had thrown my hand into boiling water the more I waited for the release.

To truly release the mana, I had to visualise the mana flowing into a certain rune upon my palm. Only if the rune was visualised right would the mana then be released in accordance of what the rune represented—in this case, a fireball. Due to Arlen’s prior knowledge of this, I didn’t need to memorise the rune, simply relying on Arlen’s memories.

All of the heated energy converged at the center of my palm. My expectations continued to rise, waiting for its burst outwards. I created the rune inside my head and poured my mana until it had been filled.

With a diameter of around 30cm, a roaring ball of orange spawned into existence and dashed towards the target board. Upon arriving, a small explosion occurred, charring the board instantly.

From shock or a lack of energy I couldn’t tell, but I had found myself on the floor, lacking enough strength to push myself back up. Through the tightness of my chest, a single word flowed out.

“Amazing…”

Totally, ridiculously awesome!

This was the power of mana!

Giggling, I moved my attention towards my mana core, trying to assess all the changes that had happened after releasing. What greeted me were two half emptied mana rings, spinning with even less speed than before.

I estimated that I would only be able to manage another 2 more [Fireball]’s before they became completely emptied; according to Arlen’s memories, fully depleting the mana stores inside the rings would allow them to expand and store more mana.

So of course, I waited to do another one. In this bullshit world, my body had been shaking in fear since the very start, but I had finally started to convulse out of excitement!

After 5 minutes, I blasted another fireball at the regenerated target and laughed giddily at my immense might. Rather than choosing to fire another fireball, this time I decided to explore the full range of Arlen’s arsenal.

[Cloaking], [Telekinesis], and [Light Spark] were the other three spells that Arlen knew the rune to and could activate. Out of three, I attempted [Cloaking]. When I looked towards the mirror, I was amazed to see an empty reflection. 

“Hehe…” Absolutely outstanding! I had surpassed the realm of mortals! I…was a magician!

The intricacies of how these were working, I had no clue. But it worked. And that was what was important.

Furthermore, I had come to a realisation. If I simply hid within the training room…no-one would be able to touch me.

Life had been decided.

Taking a deep stretch, I prepared myself mentally of the next 4 days. 

—

When the sun would start to rise, I would grab 5 grain bars located in Arlen’s room and sprint towards the training room. After locking the room, I would practice the different magics; the actual time that I released magic was only around 15 minutes—the rest had to be spent on resting. It was tiring, undoubtedly, to continuously shoot out fireballs. 

The expansion of my mana rings seemed far too minimal according to what Arlen considered to be the progress for an average second ring Mage. The effect of being Arlen Droder, I supposed.

There were a few other pieces of equipment that had caught my eye whilst I rested. The main focus had become the [Training Dummy] who occupied the middle of the room. Fiddling with it for long enough had allowed me to understand the basic use of it. 

By pressing the buttons numbered 1 to 7, the dummy would replicate a mage with however many rings I pressed on the number. Although I tried pressing 7, I witnessed nothing, apart from 7 hours passing after I closed my eyes. 

By pressing 6, I blinked and 9 hours had passed. At that point, the lesson had been learnt. 

Having meaninglessly wasted two days, I finally chose to switch it to the second level, wherein I was promptly overpowered in hand to hand combat. Though I tried dodging, my agility and reflexes were far from sufficient.

Still, I couldn’t help but feel like that by the fourth day, I was able to at least understand whatever that fucker was doing to me. 

“Damn you…after I regress for a few more years I’ll destroy you, you stupid doll…!”

It was painful getting thrashed! Bruises had already formed on my forearms due to continuous failed attempts of defending an attack; what was even more painful was what had finally arrived after hiding from it for so long.

Practical combat against fellow students would begin this morning.