Nobody knows when the Bureau was founded. Nobody knows how far it extends. But when the first Egg was found, a team was swiftly sent to investigate. Faster than it would have been possible even with the fastest of planes. And then they were gone, before anyone could ask questions. It was the first of the Tier One events, the first wave in what would soon become a global disaster. 

More events followed, their appearances observed by the communion of magic and technology in orbit around Earth. Some were found before they happened, others barely in the nick of time. The surge of ever more powerful events sparked a new wave of interest, which grew to slowly rise the slumbering beast of bureaucracy and secrets from its decade-long sleep. Under a new management, a woman of stark resolve and great ambitions, capable and unyielding, the Bureau once again spun its gears in search of its millennia-old nemesis. 

There were people inside the Bureau who were privy of information that was kept from the others. People who knew what the invasion was, and what would soon begin to happen. The end of the world as we know it might be upon us, the classified texts warned. Unless humanity as a whole steps up and stops it, led by its champion. 

We only get one chance.

***

[New quest]

• Quest: feel the flow of mana in the world.

• Reward: [Perception I] skill video.

The strange, unexpected, floating text woke Albert up from his sleep. He rubbed the beads out of his eyes, and noticed that it was still dark outside. It was two AM, his red digital clock told him. His brain slowly started to pick up speed as the vestiges of sleep were forcefully purged from his mind by the adrenaline.

His hands were basically shaking right now.

This was a System Scenario.

The unexpected happened. The impossible happened. The very same thing he, along with thousands of other nerds like him always dreamt about, happened before his very eyes. And yet, this was real and not a dream, his reality checks all but ruled out that possibility. There was a system, and it talked about mana, which meant that there was magic as well.

As far as he knew, he was the only one to whom such a thing had ever happened. Of course, there were a couple possibilities that might explain why he had never heard of magic, real magic, before. Either it was kept perfectly secret, or maybe… the system and whatever magic it talked about had just arrived on planet Earth. He was knowledgeable enough about this matter to know not to discount these possible scenarios, lest they bite him in the ass down the road.

For now, however, he felt that it was perfectly fine for him to take a little moment to let the reality of the situation sink in, before throwing himself in the main character training montage. Which was almost inevitable, if the ongoing quest was anything to go by.

As the moment passed, he took a deep breath, and tried to calm his raging mind. Left to its own devices, his brain was surely going to go off on a million tangents, thinking about this and that and all the wonderful and probably terrible things to come. As much as he liked to think that he was prepared, Albert knew that he was not. His ‘preparedness’ was nothing more than daydreaming about magic in his spare time, and sometimes even during class, thinking himself as the main character of the novel he was reading at the moment. Well, not always the main character. In fact, he had a deep appreciation for the often neglected secondary characters of the stories, the secondary cast that more often than not was just background characters who did nothing but live for the protagonist in some way. In his mind, they deserved more than what they got. And in his mind, he was not main character material, but he would do wonders as a sidekick.

Reality was not a story, however, as much as he liked to think it as one. Even the appearance of the system didn’t change that, not really. If his guess was right, after a brief time of apparent peace, his life was about to become quite hectic. He’d better prepare.

He glanced at the clock again. 2:13 AM. More than five hours until the alarm went off. He sat upright on his bed, propping his back against the cold wall. It felt pleasant, a welcome respite from the lingering heat of September in a big city. He closed his eyes, and crossed his legs. Of course, he had no idea on how to even approach the quest, and if the arrival of the system had changed anything on the planet or within himself, he hadn't noticed anything. This meant that, while the quest had to be doable, it was not going to be easy.

Feeling the flow of mana. As far as generic requests went, it didn't beat his own mother’s random and generic ‘quests’, as they were, but not by much. It was like asking someone to feel their own brain think, or their own blood move through their veins. Did it make any sense? Could it be done?

Albert spent three hours trying to answer that particular question. He was about to give up, for the upteenth time, but decided to focus on a particular feeling for a little while longer. His patience had long since run dry, and he was running on fumes and on his own stubbornness and excitement. If this was enough to make him quit, then he wasn't suited for magic after all. That, he refused to accept. Thus, he focused on that little prickling feeling he felt right between his eyes, under the first layer of his skin. It was a sensation that made itself known whenever he achieved a particular state of mind he had trouble describing, but no issue replicating.

He had first felt this strange sensation back when he had read about Qi online, in a blog article. It was a bogus article. Nothing had happened, of course. There was no cultivation in the real world, and the eastern monks were all nut cases who hit their balls with bricks. But the sensation was odd enough that when he wanted to have some idle fun, he just closed his eyes and tried to feel it until it became almost uncomfortable.

This time he pushed through the uncomfortableness. It was like breaking a glass wall. Somehow, strange sensations began to flood in. Even when he opened his eyes, and looked around, and the strange mental state subsided, they kept coming. Intangible yet very real sensations.

[Quest complete.]

The reward for the quest appeared before his eyes. He didn't pay much attention to the wording of the reward itself, earlier when he got the quest, but now he finally realized what the system meant by skill video. It was an actual video window, floating in mid air before his eyes like some sort of augmented reality.

“Welcome. In this video, we will talk about perception.” the man in the video said. It looked oddly like Albert himself, and spoke just like him, or rather like the version of him that lived in his fantasy.

“In order to practice magic, perception is key. You cannot move that which you cannot see, right? You cannot affect that which you don’t know is there, can you? No. Perception is the foundation upon which we will build all of our magic, a skill never to be neglected, never to be left behind. It might not be flashy, it might not be something to show your friends, but it’s what makes a great mage, as opposed to a mediocre one. It’s what saves your life. It’s always the punch you don't see coming that puts you down.”

Wait, Albert thought. But the version of him in the video just went on.

“It’s a quote from Riddick.” he said, deadpan. “Now, then, onto perception itself.”

***

[Skill acquired: Perception I]

It was way past the time the alarm usually rang, but Albert had only distractedly hit the snooze button before returning to the video. It took him surprisingly little, once the video ended, to understand the explanation and put theory into practice. Perhaps this was the power of system-rewarded skill videos. It felt almost as if the knowledge was always there in his head, only hidden.

The skill didn’t do much. When he used it, he felt that the world became a little bit more vibrant, a little bit louder, and he could see a bit more details. It was like that scene from Limitless, but nothing extravagant. He did feel a little tired after a while, something that compounded with his headache that he got from the sensory overload of a prolonged skill use. Looking inward, he could vaguely feel that he was a little bit less, in terms of those unknown things he felt when he was feeling for mana. It made sense. He spent most of his mana playing around with [Perception], and now he needed to rest and replenish his reserves.

A knock on the door told him that rest was for the wicked.

“Albert!” his mother said. “You’re gonna miss the bus.”