Chương 2

" That wasn't my thought. I heard it loud and clear, but the panicked words were someone else's. My consciousness remained black, as if my senses were unable to process the world around me. My heart wasn't beating. I wasn't breathing. My eyes couldn't see. I didn't seem to have a body at all. Only my sixth sense, the ability to sense mana, was clear. My mana core was carried through clouds of ambient mana in a hurry, getting away from another presence trailing me.

I didn't feel like I was in outer space. More so, I seemed to be moving in a city of sorts. Some omnipotent spell had ripped my core from my body. The oppressive feeling was now gone, and my existence felt safe. I didn't seem awake anymore, yet my consciousness, my thoughts, still felt clear as day. Did I only exist as a mana core now?" Run, run, run—out of the way—fucking run!"" Are they tracking me?" The teenage boy's voice spoke again. The magical presence I felt from him was rather faint.

Whoever this boy was, he had no mana core at all. He probably couldn't sense my existence. My sixth sense slowly clarified, and the shapes of ambient mana began making sense. I could make out the rough outlines of buildings around us, as air contained more mana than solid walls did. My mana core wasn't drifting on its own. It was lodged inside someone else. Every step the boy took carried my core with him, now through some alley. I also sensed a tracker spell attached to the boy—and therefore, me.

It was a primitive tracker; I could have cast something better, and I could have removed this tracker in under a second of casting. I tried just that, but I found my core locked. I couldn't cast right now. Not without a body to move mana into the physical world. I asked, Hello? but my thoughts went to empty ears. The boy was coreless. He couldn't sense mana. Ahead, another wall blocked the path, forming a dead end. We stopped moving." No, no, no,"his voice spoke again." Where do I go? Can I climb?"

The mana following us got closer—close enough for me to identify them as human. Their shape in my sixth sense was very similar to Trina's. None of them were overwhelmingly powerful, but all were distinct from non-magic users. Clearly, they had mana cores as well." Hide!" the boy shouted in his head. I struggled to fully visualize the space around us, but he seemed to move into a container. A large garbage bin, perhaps?" It's over. I'm sorry, Tonir, I'm so sorry!"" They'll catch me!"

The three presences entered the alley. They weren't running, cautiously approaching the container instead. The tracker would lead them exactly to whoever my mana core was attached to. The boy probably had less than ten seconds to make a move." They'll see my face even if I die now," he thought." They'll know who my parents are. Mom, I'm so sorry… I was a failure all the way through!" The mages were a few paces outside the container now. A brave soul could have opened it.

In no rush, they seemed to be debating their approach. In the end, one of them began casting. If I were to guess, it was either an offensive spell to blow the container up, or just simply a levitation spell to open the container from a safe distance." Well, this was always the backup plan anyway."

The boy opened a satchel, revealing another sensation of mana inside. Shaped like a ball—I could guess it was a potion, but I had no eyes to confirm that. I felt a poisonous presence within it. The same type of deadly liquid I'd created by accidentally inventing venomous magic." Goodbye," the boy thought and drank the potion. Oh, you idiot! That was my own thought. Wherever the hell I was, my mind was still alive, connected to this random guy, who had just poisoned himself. A violent attack on his body followed.

I thankfully avoided pain, only sensing it through his thrashing in the garbage can. Survival instincts must have taken over his thoughts as he held his hands over his throat. His three chasers backed off. I tried again to reach into my mana core. Poison resistance wasn't a hard spell to cast in the slightest. I could easily save his life if I just had one second to cast a spell. The opportunity didn't come. The boy collapsed, his consciousness fading, as the last life was drawn out of him.

I felt myself falling, and my consciousness shifted to a world of pain.

I gasped awake, then coughed violently. The taste of acid overwhelmed the smell of garbage. I lay in a tight container, having collapsed powerlessly by my own weight next to an empty potion vial. I had a satchel, and I wore full black, my face fully covered by a warm, sweaty mask. If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. The scene in my sixth sense was the exact same. Three magic users were outside the same container in the dead-end alley.

My limbs moved as I commanded them, though weakly through exhaustion. All of my senses had returned. That included the sense of pain as my internal organs fought poison. I tried drawing mana for the third time, and thanked the gods when I had access to a core full of mana. Everything worked just like on earth. Mana rose from the imaginary organ, my mana core. I shaped that into three patterns, combining them to finally cast Poison Resistance. Healing magic was still something I utterly sucked at.

No matter how much I practiced, Trina was much better than me at healing. I knew the patterns, but some difference in my mana core just made healing ineffective. I desperately needed something right now, though, and the best bet I had was Strength Enhancement. It didn't heal me, but it did offer me enough strength to fight through the pain. I rose from the container, meeting eyes with three men outside.

Wearing grey and red uniforms, their palms were outstretched and ready to cast magic, aggressive scowls on their faces. They faced me like cops keeping me on gunpoint, but nobody fired magic yet. Should we talk it out, I was about to ask, only for the tallest man in the middle to yell, "Da fenlign sa!" Shit, that's not English, I thought. I couldn't identify the language. It sounded vaguely like a Nordic European one? Their features were anything but, though.

They had tan skin and dark hair with a sharp shape to their eyes. The one in the middle had a more angular face than the two to his sides, but they were all from the same ethnicity I couldn't identify. All three had mana cores at varying levels of power. The man to the left seemed the most proficient, judging from the calm flow of mana around him. He already kept a light Mana Shield active. A basic one, but better than the unprotected cores of the other two. Could I take them on? I wasn't sure.

It depended a lot on how effective Mind Blast would fare against actual mages. The aggressive man in the middle stepped forward, shouting the same thing.

"Da fenlign sa!" That translated to, " Where is the book?" I blinked. How did I understand that? Another step forward, shouting in the same language, all of which I understood.

"Take off the mask and give it here if you want to live!" The man to his right called out, "Drey, we scanned him, right? He was coreless?" The man in the front eyed me warily. He shifted his attention to the sixth realm, and I felt a slight tickle in my mana core. Immediately, he jumped back, shouting, "He has a mana core!" Hell broke loose. The man to the right was the first to draw mana. Blue energy formed on his palm as mana took form in the physical realm. I'd never seen blue mana.

Mine was always red, and Trina's was green. It was hard to guess what kind of spell he was casting. His casting was slow, however, and he didn't have any sort of Core Protection active. I hit him with Mind Blast. He flinched back in the recoil of my mana disrupting his mind directly. He stumbled back, barely remaining on two feet, but his channeling was canceled. Through gritted teeth and closed eyes, he called, "Crimson! Mind attacks!" Adrenaline pumped. My first real battle of magic.

I'd imagined this situation a thousand times in my head. My ten years of casting on earth were finally thrown into a real test. Both of the other mages were casting. The man in the middle stepped back, likely casting a spell to protect his mind. The leftmost mage had a more aggressive stance. Purple mana formed on his hands. His casting was much faster, but I was marginally quicker with Mana Dart. The sharp projectile of crimson red struck against his barrier.

The previously invisible layer of mana around him blinked, suffering a crack but stopping my attack. The counter-attack came in the form of a discharge of purple flames—pure, scorching hot mana. I ducked under the garbage can, using the metal as a shield. I cast my own protective spells: Mana Shield and Mind Protection. The metal was red-hot by the time his spell ended. I rose straight back up. I needed to end this quickly; a third of my mana reserves was already spent.

The man I'd Mind Blasted still didn't have a barrier on. He seemed to be an amateur, and his uniform had less red than the other two. I cast another Mind Blast, and as fast as I could, I followed with Sleep. Sleep usually only worked if the target was already beaten down. I knew that because I'd cast it on myself by accident, and I fought it back with willpower alone.

I hoped that combining the spell with Mind Blast would add power, and I was right, as my opponent's limbs lost power, his consciousness cutting to sleep in the middle of the battlefield. The tall man had now applied a mental barrier and was channeling red mana—the same color as mine. A mind attack shot forth from his palm. It wasn't visible in the physical world, but I felt the attack thump against my Mind Protection barrier, like someone's knuckles lightly thumping against my skull. He gritted his teeth.

A mental barrier wouldn't block physical attacks. A Mana Dart would probably kill him like a bullet. So I cast Force Blast instead. A shockwave of mana hit his chest with blunt force, blasting him into motion. Any trash and sand on the ground flew with him, clouding the air. His back hit the brick wall violently; if he hit the back of his head, he was probably dead anyway. The final mage blasted me with the same flamethrower of purple flames again.

My barrier guided the flames aside, its surface distorting from the sheer heat. Five seconds more, and I was dead. This needed to stop now. I cast the first spell I'd crushed boulders with that I'd aptly named Boulder Missile. I added a Sharp and a Spin pattern for extra power. A red shaft of mana shot into the flames faster than any human could throw. A shatter resounded in the alley, followed by the sound of flesh being pierced as the flames suddenly stopped.

I took heavy breaths, still inside the garbage container, taking in the silence. The remains of my barrier dissipated, the mana breaking apart. It could have been repaired, but that would have spent the final ounces of my mana. My last attack ate just about everything I had. Holy shit, I thought. Did I just launch Boulder Missile at a human? The most destructive spells were often the simplest. This one was quite literally just a sharp, violent spear.

It wasn't explosive, but it was close to a sniper rifle in terms of destruction. My opponent had taken it to the chest, lying lifelessly in his pooling blood. The other two were probably alive. Collapsing asleep could lead to head trauma, same as slamming violently into a wall. Both men were unconscious. My first kill… I thought. I stood in shock for a short while, catching my breath, until I blinked with the realization that I probably needed to get out of here before more officers came.

I had a million questions and no answers. Where was I? Probably not earth. Was Trina here? Who was I in the first place? And most importantly, just how many people wanted me dead? I grabbed the fallen satchel and climbed out of the garbage and finally took a good look at the street I'd been transmigrated to.