13th December 1988,It was Glenn's 10th birthday.He had been in Konark for a quite some time now.Glenn had been studying and experimenting with his magic for more than eight months now. Every day in his room, he would spend hours drawing room-wide inscriptions.The room was a mess, with papers scattered everywhere, covered in intricate geometric designs, patterns, and texts describing their properties. The floor was layered with a fine dust that had settled over time,as Glenn rarely bothered to clear that mess..Even if he didn't like being in such a mess of a room,he simply didn't have much time.All he did in his room was sleep and sometimes look at his notes pasted on the walls to revise some basic stuff.As he came to his room,he brought some milk and bread with him.Before going to sleep,he started revising what he done throughout the entire day.As he ate bread with one hand,he held his notes in the other hand.

He kept scribbling with the pen in his hand."I don't really understand why time compelexity can't be reduced anymore.No matter how much I try to optimise it,the quality of mana flow drops."

As he meticulously worked on his inscriptions, Glenn realized that the direction of his designs was completely different from the widely used ones. They couldn't be deemed better or worse, just distinct.This meant that all the spells corresponding to the commonly used inscriptions were useless to him. While the conventional inscriptions focused on reducing time complexity, Glenn's approach was to increase the accuracy of mana flow guided by different geometric shapes.His process was entirely different.Each line of his inscription had a different capacity for a particular element.He had optimised the programme to find the max flow .For instance, he discovered that a fire elemental had less tendency to pass through a magical inscription with a triangle. These fundamental properties were widely known, but Glenn's approach was to find the most optimal combinations to ensure maximum flow, regardless of the time it took. This major drawback posed a significant challenge, hindering the proactive and reflexive use of his inscriptions.

Despite the challenges, Glenn refused to give up on his unique approach to magic and his relentless pursuit of understanding."Fuck,I have worked on this shit for 3 years now.I don't fucking know how to reduce some time...can't you fucking finish just a second fast,he said after trying the latest combination.He didn't want to compromise the accuracy of mana flow as it might open up completely new applications which  needed precise flow,but the current time was so much,it would be barely usable for any sort of application. He pondered for days, which turned into weeks, searching for different possibilities. He had dedicated years to developing his understanding of the correlation between math and magic, and he couldn't bear the thought of abandoning it now. However, the weight of his impending fate as a castrated bodyguard bore down on him.They were slaves of the regime specially groomed to serve them till their own death. He had forgotten the hanging sword over his head or rather his manhood as he had engrossed himself into study but today was different. It was his 10th birthday, reminding him that nearly an year had passed since that day. His thoughts became mudded...anxiety and dissatisfaction written all over his face.

In the night, as Glenn sat alone in his room, contemplating his situation, a cascade of thoughts flooded his mind. He questioned whether he could complete his work and find a way forward before his life was irrevocably changed. In a bittersweet moment, he laughed at his own state, acknowledging the absurdity of his circumstances. But beneath the laughter, a profound realization took hold of him—he didn't want to die, not before finishing his work, not before experiencing more, and not before saying goodbye to the old librarian who had unexpectedly become an important figure in his life. Glenn despised his own vulnerability, but he had changed during these past months. He had grown, he had worked hard...perhaps ,a little too hard and discovered a glimpse of peace in his mind. That newfound tranquility would be abruptly shattered soon in years to come....as no path looked clear moving forward, and the thought of it brought forth a rush of overwhelming loneliness. Suddenly,his cheeks fell hot...A steam of hot tears started falling from his face...His tears fell on the dirty and dusty floor of his room and fear gripped his heart.His body trembled uncontrollably. He was angry at himself for feeling so pathetic, yet he couldn't deny the reality of his emotions. It had been weeks that he had been denying his feelings of loneliness and anxiety.. Each day, he worked hard as if someone was chasing him....He hated this feeling even more ,he wanted to escape it...yet all he could do was to distract himself by opting the busiest of schedules...without rest, without free time and without negative thoughts. The novelty of learning something new had been long gone...instead transforming into a maddening desire to find something non monotonous...something different from his everyday failure-just one small success to keep him going . . . . just one small hope that not everything was wasted.

Glenn's gaze shifted to the moon, its ethereal glow veiled by gathering clouds. The atmosphere seemed to mirror his turmoil, as if the heavens themselves were aware of his inner struggle. Odd occurrences caught his attention—an intermittent sound of iron clamoring from a distant factory, smoke rising from an unseen source in the town. These subtle details added to the weight of his contemplation, reinforcing the gravity of his choices. In that moment, Glenn made a decision. He knew he couldn't keep up with this anymore and he went out of his house first time in the late night. As he walked on the main road, he put his hands in his worn out denims as it was a little cold. It had rained some time back and winters were approaching. As he walked in the middle of the street, he realized, this city had quite a heavy nightlife culture. Of course, looking at it now, it made sense since there were a lot of students. There were not many bars and hotels in this small city, but a decent number if stalls selling food. Young adults were hanging out in groups...It felt chaotic yet natural. Glenn didn't hate being here. He saw an ice cream stall and bought some. He sat on the empty bench a little far away from the stall and took the first bite. It was chocolate flavored ,it felt luxurious as it melted in his mouth. It wasn't his first time trying ice cream, but today, it tasted a little special. It felt good.. perhaps, a little too good

People started running as the rain finally began to fall again , Glenn welcomed the soothing sound of the droplets and the smell of the soil as it started raining. Little drops kept falling until it became a heavy downpour and in this moment of respite, Glenn allowed himself to relax. Perhaps, nothing would change tomorrow again, but one thing was sure, he wouldn't allow himself to slip up like today...He was pondering for a moment and thoughtlessly said ,"I am getting a cold tomorrow" .

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As he woke up,Glenn felt a strong headache.His head was hurting like shit.He was in no hurry to get up ,so he decided to keep laying on the bed before he would make himself some hot chocolate.As he sat on his chair and looked outside the balcony,it was a view filled with freshness due to rain.Glenn sorted out his room before he went to the library.He wore a different set of clothes than his usual ones..A white hoodie with some cheap sneakers wasn't a bad choice as he got off to the library.The old librarian was a bit worried about him as he was visibly down since a couple weeks.The oldie wasnted to ask him but didn't want to pry too much...of course people had their own lives and he didn't want to bother Glenn.As Glenn entered the libarary with a similar calm face,he was a bit releived...Glenn wanted to sort things out before starting anything new..He was calm as today was the day he would decide if he wanted to continue or finally throw the towel.He still had at least a year left before they would call him back home to look at his progress.He had to convince them that ,he wasn't suitable for serving the royalty without being killed or thrown into jail.

As Glenn sat down,he remarked,"I have searched all possible methods,there exists no way to decrease time complexity of my incription using modifictions in design".He sighed as he realized how cruel reality was...but Glenn wasn't giving up on his inscription.He had chosen what to give up...He wasn't going to waste all his hardwork.If there was no way to make his inscription usable for active use,he would give up on trying its use it  actively...rather ,he would gear his inscriptions as rituals,where he would make permanent or temporary modifications to his own body where time could be made managable by making the incriptions only one-time usables and dynamic.He realized the last night sitting on the bench alone,that trying to all the things was stupid.He would choose what to give up and what direction would his magic look like.

Days passed as Glenn kept on researching his incriptional formula.He dived deeper in the subject to understand where the energy change occured...he framed hypothetical scenarios,what would happen if the energy conversion failed midway..He discovered that mana conversion as a process was atomic(either it is completely done or not done at all;binary states only)in nature..But how was that possible,wasn't mana like a flow that was everywhere that he just had to optimise it.As he delved deeper he realised,that magic reaction could be seen a phenonomena that occured after the minimum amount of mana was spent.One could spend more mana for a magic reaction and get better result but it wouldn't budge at at all if less mana was used.It was less like a spontaneous process where one would just guide their mana to the inscription to get a desired magic phenomena ,rather a transaction where the inscription would change the non elemental mana to desired state or elemental mana.Glenn realised why he couldn't achieve more than 86.34% conversion rate as some of the mana was cut as a cost.He had earlier assumed that some mana would naturally be lost but it wasn't like that...The theory was different and mana was just a price to pay for using elementals.

Glenn had a sudden epiphany. "If mana can be seen as a sacrifice and the inscription as an altar, then what I have made is the best altar possible in compensation for the longest time it takes for the sacrifice to maintain max mana flow at all times. If I make another altar that sacrifices blood or flesh, it can serve as a catalyst for the first altar. One altar maximizes the flow while the other catalyzes it. Since, both use different sources of energy,

a deadlock and unexpected variables could be avoided". As he kept thinking ideas kept popping into his brain. Eager to bring his visions to life, he rushed back to his room, devoting the subsequent seventy-two hours to relentless and continuous exploration and experimentation, working around the clock with relentless determination and unwavering focus on his burgeoning concept.