Morning in Zeno’s hut didn’t just arrive—it hit me square in the gut. Gray, foul-smelling fog seeped through the gaps in the rotting logs, settling on my face like cold, greasy dew. My body ached as if a freight train had spent the night rolling over me. Every joint, every tiny ligament in this new body screamed: “Why did you even wake up?”

  In my past life, I was a total nerd. I remember how, while other kids played soccer, I would sit in my father’s garage, buried in blueprints and old textbooks. I was eight at the time. I burned a hole in the carpet trying to make a homemade capacitor out of foil and tin cans. My father didn’t scold me. He just adjusted his glasses and said, “Son, physics is not magic. Understand how charge flows, and you’ll control the situation.”

  Now, there was no charge. Only cold, and old Zeno curled by the stove, brewing some vile slurry that smelled like a dead rat.

  “Get up, freak,” he croaked without turning. “Yesterday, you survived because you ran fast. But in this world, legs don’t always save you. Today, we’ll see if there’s even a drop of mana in you.”

  I sat up, holding back nausea. The word “mana” irritated me. It instantly reminded me of those dumb games with blue mana bars and pompous Latin spells. Complete nonsense.

  Energy doesn’t appear from nowhere—they drilled that into me before I even learned to write properly. Conservation law. If I want to make fire, the heat has to come from somewhere.

  “Close your eyes,” Zeno said, his staff thudding against the earthen floor. “Don’t search for the world outside. Look inside. There is light there. A warm, golden spark that warms the heart. Listen to its whisper…”

  I closed my eyes. But I wasn’t looking for “golden light.” And I certainly wasn’t going to listen to whispers.

  I began building a model in my head. If mana—fine, call it mana—exists everywhere, it’s like static electricity. To collect it, you don’t need to “love the world.” You need to create a potential.

  I pictured my nerves as copper wires. My blood—as electrolyte. I needed an entry point.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  I focused on my palm. No sparks. I recalled Brownian motion: billions of invisible particles racing chaotically. Temperature—the speed of molecules. Want to get warm? Make them move faster.

  “I don’t feel anything,” I lied, though my fingers were already trembling slightly.

  The sensation was strange. Not the “warm gold” Zeno babbled about. It was a sharp, burning vibration. Like I had grabbed a bare wire. The air above my palm thickened, sticky, like molasses.

  “Don’t rush,” Zeno’s voice softened. “Fear is a poor insulator for the soul. Let it go. Let the spark flare.”

  Insulator… I clung to that word. Right. If mana is electricity, I need resistance.

  Gritting my teeth, I felt my skill—Will to Live—respond with a low hum at the base of my skull. Like a powerful server booting up in my brain. My ears rang.

  I began forcefully “compressing” the mana particles at the center of my palm. Didn’t let them flow—built a trap. Pressure rose. If you sharply reduce the volume of a gas, temperature must increase. If mana behaves like a gas—soon it would explode.

  “Aaaah!” I screamed as a sharp pain shot through my hand.

  I snapped my eyes open. Zeno recoiled, nearly dropping his staff.

  There was no “orb of light” in my palm. Nothing “beautiful.” The air above my skin simply twisted and shimmered like over a fire. A transparent, angry haze buzzed like a high-voltage transformer. The skin of my palm instantly reddened and blistered.

  “Where’s the light?!” Zeno gasped, paling visibly. “Where’s the form, freak?! Why… why is it humming like that?!”

  I breathed heavily, sweat stung my eyes. My hand burned relentlessly.

  “Light is just loss, old man,” I muttered through the pain. “Lost photons. I didn’t need a flashlight. I needed energy. I just… accelerated the particles to their limit.”

  I looked at the haze. It wasn’t fairy magic. It was pure kinetic chaos, held in place by my will.

  “Your method…” Zeno slowly sank onto a stool. “You don’t feel mana. You… torment it. Force it to work. No sane person does that. Mages ask for power—you take it by the throat. That’s not how it’s done.”

  I glanced at my palm. The burn was real; raw flesh pulsed. But inside, I exulted.

  “In my world we said: if you can’t explain the process—it doesn’t belong to you,” I clenched my fist, and the haze vanished, leaving a sharp ozone smell.

  The pot on the stove gurgled; outside, a beast howled. The old man looked up at me.

  “Tomorrow,” he said quietly. “Tomorrow, we’ll try two sparks. But if you make this hell again… I’ll throw you into the forest. You need to find balance, or you’ll burn yourself alive.”

  I nodded, feeling reality begin to melt.

  I closed my eyes and immediately collapsed to the floor, while formulas continued spinning in my mind, burning red against a black void.