As I closed my eyes and fell into a deep sleep, the shadows of my past life began to bleed into my dreams.
I heard my mother's voice calling to me. It was a sound filled with a familiar, aching warmth. I couldn't quite understand what she was saying, but she kept calling my name. In the dream, she reached out and patted my head, her fingers rustling through my hair as she giggled softly. I was a child again. I couldn't find the words to speak yet, but the joy in my chest was overflowing.
"I will, Mother," my younger self responded, laughing with a genuine innocence I had long since forgotten.
I stood up and began walking toward a door, my small hand tucked safely inside hers. We stopped in front of the frame, and she turned to me with a gentle smile. "Are you ready?" she asked.
"Yes, Mom!" I answered happily, having no idea what lay beyond that threshold.
Suddenly, the door swung open on its own. Instead of a room, there was only a vast, silent void. The doorway began to drift away, pulling me into the darkness. I froze, staring as the distance between us grew. My mother stood there, waving goodbye. Beside her stood another version of me—the child version—waving back at the me that was being swallowed by the void.
I began to run. I sprinted toward her, my legs heavy, but my body felt like it was being dragged backward by an invisible force.
"I'll see you again, my..."
Her last word was drowned out by the wind of the void. I didn't stop. I ran and ran, tears streaming down my face, screaming her name until my throat burned. I didn't understand why she wouldn't reach out for me. I pushed myself to the limit, screaming with everything I had, but no sound came out.
I jolted awake, my voice finally breaking through the silence. "MOTHER!!!"
Huff... huff...
I sat up, panting heavily as I tried to catch my breath. My heart was thumping against my ribs like a trapped bird. I held my chest tightly, trying to calm the trembling in my hands. As the cold reality of the dark room settled in, the tears continued to drip onto my sheets.
"I miss you, Mom," I whispered into the dark.
After a few minutes, I swung my legs over the left side of the bed. I checked the time on my system interface: 3:13 AM. I pressed my palms against my face and sighed, my fingers sliding down to my thighs as I stood up.
I headed to the small kitchen area and began to boil some ginseng. It was an old habit of mine—something I always did whenever I felt the crushing weight of depression or anxiety. The bitter, earthy scent filled the small room and always made me feel a little more grounded.
Once I finished my tea, I changed into a simple tracksuit and headed out into the cool night air. The streets of the academy district were completely quiet as I began to jog. Watching the world slowly wake up under the dim streetlights, I couldn't help but feel a sudden pang of sadness. My life would be so different right now if I hadn't been transmigrated into this chaotic world.
An hour later, I stopped at a small campus cafe to catch my breath. I bought a cheap coffee and sat by the window for a moment, humming my favorite song to myself to clear my head.
"Ah, I didn't notice it was already 5:30 AM." I stood up, realizing I needed to move. I knew Prate would be awake by now, and his villa wasn't far from the cafe.
I jogged the rest of the way into the elite housing sector. The iron gate to his villa was already open, so I walked straight to the heavy front door and rang the bell. A few seconds later, I heard fast footsteps approaching from the inside.
"Oh! Good morning, Lucas," Prate greeted me with a wide smile, sliding the door open.
"Good morning," I replied, wiping a bead of sweat from my forehead.
"Why don't we have breakfast first? I'm sure you're tired from that jog."
"Yeah, thanks."
As Prate set the dining table, I stared at the massive spread of food. There were plates of eggs, meats, and fresh bread—enough to feed an entire dungeon raiding party.
"I'm sorry, I made way too much," he laughed, scratching the back of his head. "It's a bad habit of mine."
"I don't mind at all. It looks amazing," I said, pulling out a chair and taking a large bite. My eyes widened in surprise. "Wow, you're actually a great cook!"
After we finished eating and cleared the table, Prate told me to head down to the basement while he quickly finished washing the dishes. I walked down the stone stairs and realized the subterranean space was absolutely massive—the reinforced training room alone was much bigger than my entire dorm room.
A short while later, Prate joined me, wiping his hands on a towel.
"Remember when I showed you the Origin of Mana yesterday?" he asked, walking to the center of the room.
"Yeah," I responded, crossing my arms.
"The color of the light tree I showed you back then was green, right?" Prate began to explain, his tone becoming much more serious as he paced around the floor. "The color that appears represents your innate elemental attribute. The brighter the glow, the higher the structural quality of your mana. Mine..." He paused, giving a short, self-deprecating laugh. "Mine is just a faint, dim light."
Prate walked over to a strange, metallic basin embedded in the center of the training floor. It was filled to the brim with a thick liquid that looked like liquid silver, shimmering and swirling slowly under the bright basement lights.
"But hey, a faint light is still a light, right? It got me this far," he said, leaning his back against a nearby workbench and crossing his arms. "Normally, ordinary players don't find out their true mana quality until they've hit level fifty and undergone their second awakening. But since we're heading into that Arena tournament soon, I figured you should know exactly what you're working with.
Knowledge is power, Lucas—especially in a world that keeps changing the system rules on us."
I stared down into the shimmering silver liquid, feeling a cold bead of sweat roll down the back of my neck. "And what if the color is off? Or what if it's too dim to see?"
Prate shrugged, his facial expression remaining relaxed to calm my nerves. "Then we just work twice as hard. But honestly? I've seen the way you handled those Goblins with level one stats. I have a gut feeling your 'tree' isn't going to be a common, boring shade of green. Go on, dip your hand in. Just focus on that warm current in your chest—the mana you felt when you first awakened at the orb."
I stepped forward, my boots clicking softly against the stone as my heart began to echo the heavy, frantic thuds from my nightmare earlier. I reached my right hand out, my fingertips hovering just an inch above the cool, mirrored surface of the basin.
I wasn't just curious about my quality; I was completely terrified.
As the creator of this world's original story, I knew exactly what colors were supposed to exist within the database. I knew the exact limits of the magic system. But looking over at Prate—a guy I never once wrote into existence—standing inside a luxury villa I never designed, a heavy realization hit me. Whatever color manifested in this silver liquid next might prove once and for all that I was no longer the author holding the pen. The story was rewriting itself.
"Don't overthink it, man," Prate said softly from behind me, his calm voice grounding my running thoughts. "It's just mana. It's just a part of who you are."
I nodded slowly, took a deep, steadying breath, and plunged my hand straight into the liquid silver.