CHAPTER 1

Adrian paced out the width of the excavation. Today was a good day. Going home to the family after two weeks on site made it a good day. There was nothing better. Two hours to go, and he would be flying.

The rock on the cliff face was dusty as his fingers glided across the grain. It was nothing special, just standard sandstone, the same as all the roads he had driven along. Cut as it was through the different layers of the rock that had solidified millions of years ago, multiple twists of colours were visible.

The last check completed. Preparations for stage two were humming. Within a month, stage one would go live, and the solar plant would light up half the state. There would be parties and bonuses.

Smiling, he flicked to the call function on the phone in order to summon a taxi.

There was a sharp explosion of light, or feeling, or change, or sudden shocking energy. Everything became weird and strange.

It was like existence was being reformed. Air was expelled from his lungs as he felt suspended in the middle of a mosh pit with the loudest speakers thumping, the bass taking over his body. His eyes squeezed shut to minimise the attack of the strobing lights. His ears were screaming, and it felt like the ground itself was wriggling. What felt like rods of steel were spreading through him, robbing him of all movement. Yelling was no option; lungs were completely unresponsive. Not even his fingertips were taking orders.

And then it got worse.

Something collided with him. It felt alive: It was heavy, affecting all parts of his body. Eyes flushed with a strange light and a humming sound penetrated through everything, drowning out the noise and the flashes of light and the screaming of rocks and the moving of earth that seemed to happen all around.

Green text flashed in front of his sight, hovering just in view.

Adrian Fitzgerald.

Don’t Panic.

What the hell?! Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy?

A thrum of agreement and a bit of sheepishness, like the joke was a bit juvenile and maybe it had not been the best introduction.

Don’t Panic is very useful advice.

WHAT IS HAPPENING?

Noise, lights, vibrations; all the senses were going haywire. He was feeling everything but no actions, no blinking, no toe wiggles, and definitely no moving.

There was a pause, like something was thinking or pondering how best to explain to an ant what hydrogen fusion was and how it related to the magnifying glass that was being held above it.

Then it was reconsidering the explanation, deciding it was all too complicated, and maybe a lecture on refraction was more appropriate. Sunlight comes in, and the shape of the crystal focuses light into one point, creating heat. The ant smolders under the magnifying glass.

Reassess.

Optics is also too tricky. A simpler explanation was required.

The magnifying glass is responsible.

Ok standard text it is.

There was a pause, like it expected a response.

Sure

Adrian Fitzgerald.

I am an interface.

Somewhere on your planet an Armageddon event has occurred.

What the...? An Armageddon event? What happened?

The scrolling text did not slow down.

We know that most sentient species, when attempting to unravel and understand the science behind the beginning of the universe, will trigger this Armageddon event.

This has happened to millions of species before your own and will continue to happen. Many attempts to warn species have been tried. However, the physics of the base universe has thwarted these attempts. So, an advanced help system was created to reduce the likelihood of extinction.

A sense of sadness and helplessness accompanied the dry text. However, the text kept rolling so fast that he could barely follow it.

Armageddon, extinction, the words rolled around in his head. How was a project manager supposed to follow, and how did this relate to him?

Within a particle accelerator somewhere on this planet, an “Alpha Particle” was just created.

This Alpha Particle has divergent properties and physical rules relative to the base rules of physics your race has been aware of to this point. The alpha particle, once created, acts as a catalyst to duplicate itself and establish new rules of physics. These new properties spread at the speed of light throughout the physical planet and atmosphere.

The emergence of new rules of physics almost always creates an extinction Level event. We design our help system to prevent extinction from occurring.

The new rules of physics are substantially different from the physical rules that previously existed.

The scrolling text stopped, and Adrian froze in shock. His mind was racing, trying to understand what was happening. New rules of physics would change everything. Technology, life, it could all change.

He was being regarded with impatience.

Anxiety built up in his stomach and wanted to burst. There was no way to hold it down or suppress it. Butterflies erupted and blood flowed from his limbs. A bed. To crawl into a bed and pull the covers over his head.

There was a feeling just at the edge of consciousness. A man with a dodgy mustache throwing his hands up and saying, “I knew the Don’t Panic warning was important.”

The words of the text just hung there as his brain shut down.

More information. I need to know more.

Desperately grasping for knowledge to cling to.

The alpha particle has altered various material properties.

* Conductivity of metals has changed, rendering useless most electrical devices.

* Some exothermic reactions occur differently and will no longer produce the same level of force. This will affect firearms, combustion engines, chemical processing plants.

* High energy waves or particles have reduced ability to impact the world. What was dangerous radioactive material will now be safe to handle.

* The event has altered quantum physics, rendering nanotechnology useless. Conductivity modifications also contributed to this.

* Various chemical bonds have reduced strength which disproportionately impacts advanced ceramics, significantly curtailing their effectiveness and strength.

All life forms remain viable along with structures which are not dependent upon nanotechnology or advanced ceramics.

Civilization was dead. Cars would no longer work, phones would stop. How could life go on? Everything was going to crumble.

Too much. Too much.

Skipping the important but boring bits…

Wait, what important bits?

A couple of paragraphs of text flushed their way past his eyes before stabilizing.

What did I just miss?

There was no response.

Adrian Fitzgerald, I am one of those non-sentient interfaces, and my purpose is to help you navigate the alternative world that you exist in.

I will help you gain skills.

I will help you understand magic.

I will help you survive.

Sentient hosts must indicate acceptance for help to be provided.

Do you accept an interface?

Adrian gulped. He was struggling to get his head around this.

Apparently some stupid scientist somewhere had destroyed the world, or at least changed it beyond recognition. Evidently lots of races did this, and some ancient benevolent race had created an interface to help sentient creatures survive the alpha physics conversion.

Was it plausible? Adrian would have said no, but the floating text told him differently. There was no further information available to aid the decision. It required a decision. Could he trust the interface? Could he afford not to trust the interface?

Do you accept an interface?

The text flashed, and it added a new bit

(Please note: While relative time has slowed, it has not stopped. Indecision may cause unwanted fatality.)

The additional note was ominous. Was the interface rushing him to trick him, or was it telling the truth? There was no way to tell. However, the interface was asking permission, and Adrian suspected that if it had tried to merge without consent there would have been no way to stop it. Instead, there had been an explanation and a request for acceptance. His best bet was to just go with the flow and make choices based on the information on hand.

Selecting. Yes.

CHAPTER 2

New words flashed once more in front of his face.

Starting full meld...

There was little pain associated with the merge, but he could feel it. He could feel the interface crowding into his skull; he could feel it sinking thirstily into his skin, running down his fingertips, jerking into his bones but with no pain. It was almost soothing.

Everything hummed in a satisfied fashion. There was a feeling that the interface was approving of him, a general sense of encouragement and hope.

Probably his imagination, Adrian thought, after a moment of consideration. The interface had specified that it was non-sentient.

The humming stopped. The crashing, bashing world with an explosion of lights returned in full force.

Interface merge complete.

You are in an active mana storm.

You need to focus on improving aspects of yourself.

The world crashed and hummed, and Adrian felt the surrounding energy: alien and strong and impossibly full of potential.

Eye performance is not optimal. Physical state is underdeveloped. Joints have wear and tear. Reaction speed is slowed.

A focus on getting younger will improve the chances of survival.

Could the interface really make him younger? Could the clock be turned back? Would this nightmare end with him being a fit twenty-five year old?

There was no harm in trying.

Get younger. Imagine self-getting physically younger. There was no sign of progress, but he focused anyway. Get younger, denser muscles, extra flexibility. Lose wrinkle lines around the eyes.

Improvement to additional skills is also optimal.

Suddenly there was a wrenching sensation. It threw him into memories, but they were not his memories. They were memories of something else and somewhere else.

The body was different, more gangly, stronger, and vicious.

Tucked up against a cliff. Focusing on hiding himself. Watching the world go by. Observing everything that moved past the hiding spot. As strong as he was, he would die if noticed. Focusing on hiding.

Hiding was imperative.

A big black panther. It was the size of a bus. It was sneaking around, sniffing. Focus on blending into the background. The panther had previously demonstrated its keen sight; it had spotted a deer hiding in the bush, ten and twenty days ago. A deer that had somehow avoided his notice.

Needing to blend into the background. Focusing also on hiding his smell. Focus on hiding his heat. Focus on suppressing his magical aura. The panther was a predator that used all those senses to find its prey hiding in the forests and grasslands.

The panther was looking around.

Holding dead still. Hoping that the panther would not notice. Praying that his craft was sufficient. Forcing the world to ignore this little section of cliff face. His magic was hanging out, creating a weave to hide behind. Manipulating it to be stronger. Anything in order to vanish. To be noticed was to die.

Hazing the lines, camouflaging against the cliff face. If the panther got into the right position, he would attack and kill it, and then break the fast. There had been no food for days, but he held his position knowing unintended movement was death. Keeping muscles primed and ready to act while slowing the metabolism. It was the way of an ambusher.

Two more steps, and then it would be at the right spot. Saliva flooded his mouth in anticipation. The cat must have sensed something because it spun away before its feet touched the mark. The opportunity passed. That did not matter, he was alive. He had hidden successfully and avoided the gaze of something stronger. There would be other chances to hunt.

There was another wrenching sensation, and he found himself back in the present.

The world was roaring again, and his bones were shaking. The text was still hovering, encouraging him to improve aspects of himself.

Eye performance is not optimal. Physical state is underdeveloped. Joints have wear and tear. Reaction speed is slowed.

A focus on getting younger will improve the chances of survival.

Younger, younger, younger, Adrian thought, remembering the years that had gone by: getting slower, suffering sport injuries, his stomach and weight increasing.

Get younger, fitter and stronger. Replace fat with muscle, replace slow with quick. Younger, younger. He repeated the same words endlessly while wondering whether it was working.

There was a feeling that it was working, but accepting the thought would just be faith. There was no feedback to confirm progress. The text was the same, and the noise, light and vibrations had not changed.

Another wrenching moment.

Crouching against the cliff wall. Another memory that came from something else. The feel of skin, bones, posture was like before. It was a memory from the same creature as earlier. Watching the world staring at it, being invisible, fading into the background.

Watching a massive bird circling above him. The sky was more purple than blue. Observing its deadly talons and the dense energy that flowed through every movement. Even with the element of surprise, it would be too strong to ambush. The Adrian part admired the bird’s beauty. It had flames dancing over its feathers. Is that a phoenix? Do phoenixes even exist?

He focused exclusively on hiding. This bird was the ultimate predator. It saw everything. Movement, static images, magic, tracks that animals left, the Bird would see it all.

There were different methods of fading.

Depending on how the light hit you, you could use it to fade differently. In the dark it was easier. But even when lit by the sun, as he was, there were tricks for those clever enough to utilise them.

Not too much magic. The bird in the sky could observe it after all. Keep it all natural, just fade into the background. Keep absolutely still. Movement was death.

When lit by the sun, you had to force your skin to match the surrounding colours, be a chameleon and blend into the background.

Don't use magic. If he did, the magic bird would see and catch him. Huddle against the cliff face. Be nothing to see. The cursed bird kept circling above for hours.

Focus switched to his body. Who knew how long the bird would keep hunting in the sky above? Getting muscles to conserve energy. Also, being ready to move at a moment's notice in case the bird left an opportunity to hunt. Continually flexing energy from toes to knees to hips and then in a line all the way to the fingertips. Keeping muscles warm and ready to go. Subconsciously lowering metabolism because life never guaranteed successful hunting. Once, it had taken over a week for the gods of the hunt to deliver a successful ambush. So many creatures large and small slipped away through damnable luck and amateur mistakes. Then there was a miserable rat. Even raw, it was delicious.

Adrian’s conscious mind recoiled at the memory. Sweet, bloody, like biting into a tender steak. Then the bones got stuck in his teeth. They were so crunchy.

The Bird suddenly spied something. It plunged to the ground and swept upwards, holding a large lizard in its claws. It crawled in triumph as it winged east whence it came.

Relaxing now, only slightly, though. The danger had passed, but there was still the hunt. Time ticking by, holding himself still. Patience was rewarded when a deer emerged from the bushes in front of him. The deer was cautious. Just like him, it had hidden from the deadly predator. But now, it thought it could emerge safely to feed. It took a couple of steps. Its ear’s twitched. It lowered its head to take a bite of grass before quickly flicking its head up to watch for predators. Another step. This time, when it put its head down, its body blocked its vision of the spot where he hid.

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Instantly power flowed through his legs, and he leapt with explosive silent force towards the deer. Over ten meters separated them, but that was not far enough to save the deer. Its head came up just as his claws descended. Panic flashed in its eyes, but it was too late. With a massive blow from each arm, he tore through the neck.

He was not going hungry today.

Another wrenching moment.

Adrian struggled to work out what had happened. The memories were very specific, and they felt purposeful. What was the purpose? A mental shrug. Maybe they were random memories from a previous user of the interface. Maybe all that was happening were reflections of the past, memories of another world where everything was more powerful than he was. Maybe it was a warning of what earth was going to be like with new monsters everywhere, a subtle reminder to get stronger and more powerful.

Get younger. Push the disturbing flashbacks to the back of his mind. Get younger, get stronger. Survive and win.

Discipline. Focusing on getting younger. Senses were all still screaming in protest. Sight was strobing lights ranging from painful white to sickening green, yellow, and then a random pale pink. Hearing was an assault from a Boeing 747 on the left and an annoying gym coach armed with an air horn on the right. Touch was crushing pressure combined with worms under the skin. Taste and smell, not so much from them.

Still no way to measure progress. Was this going anywhere? A huge mental effort seized back control. Get younger. Younger still. Was this working? There was a dim sense of approval.

His surroundings shuddered. Pressure gripped both shoulders and pulled in opposite directions. Skin, bone, and muscles held, but all it would take was one little failure point for him to be a bloody mess. Fear started rising. The pressure was not relenting: It was intensifying.

The prompt flashed again.

Mana storm is still active. Focus on getting younger.

The prompt surprisingly calmed Adrian and helped manage the fear. The only valid path was to do exactly what it suggested and try to get younger. If he died because of what was happening around him, then trying to get younger now will hardly make it worse. After all, dead was dead.

I will survive this.

Best play was to let the interface guide him. Get younger. Was he really going to end up as a 20-year-old? Did that mean that immortality was a thing now? Excitement flooded through and concentrated the mind. Let the age drop away. The joy of running around like an idiot kicking soccer balls, the freedom of youth.

There was another wrenching sensation.

Hiding next to a tree this time. Things were searching, looking everywhere, and he was their target. It was hard to hide when something was actively seeking. Ambusher’s Fade only did so much. The tree was young, still tall, but insubstantial. Age thickened their trunks. The diffuse moss light exposed his silhouette from multiple angles. It was a dangerous position. In a moment of desperation, he abandoned stillness to pull himself up into the tree. His Audiogos were humming!

The reflexive stress response was like a beacon and robbed him of hearing at the same time. The organs quietened as his hands clutched them.

Professors had hypothesized Audiogos humming under stress was a genetic adaptation that enabled their distant ancestors to survive when hunted by the deadly Voquana Bats. The humming would simultaneously protect against acoustic shock and disrupt the sonar vision of the Voquana Bats. Before alpha physics had crashed through Ambusher society, the Audiogos had been no more useful than a crude social cue for thousands of years. Now they were the worst. Now it was a flashing red flag in front of the Alpha monsters. How many people had died because of their stress letting their Audiogos hum and give away their position? Betrayed by something that once had been a benefit.

The humming quietened. They had not seen him. There were no loud Coo Ko, Coo Ko calls, which meant it had not revealed him. As tenuous as the position in the tree was, it seemed to work. One creature searching for him passed directly underneath, completely unaware that what they searched for watched from just meters above its head.

It was bright orange and small. One on one, he knew that he could destroy this creature, but the creature had friends. Attacking it would make noise, and then he would be discovered. Instead of attacking, Ambusher’s Fade got a workout. Keep still, hunched over in the tree and focusing on physically fading away. His psychic magic also worked overtime, encouraging the things to stay away.

To be seen was to die.

The orange thing and others of its kind passed on beneath him. They were methodically searching and were taking over the area. He would have to move soon and escape, but it was a matter of hiding for now. They could think for themselves and would know if one went missing. His fading skills were highly effective against near mindless beasts like the noble bird of fire, but that benefit plummeted against thinking creatures.

There was another wrenching sensation, and he was back in his body again

Adrian panted in fear from the intense feeling of being hunted. However, logic took hold, and he put it out of his mind and focused once more on getting younger.

Optimal physical self achieved.

Mana storm is still active. Focus on alternative improvement paths.

Calculating optimal path to pursue…..

Adrian wondered what alternative improvement path would be best. Maybe strength leaving muscles bulging like a weightlifter or agility to skip along tree branches or magic or hiding skills like in the flashbacks.

Suggest a focus on understanding magic.

Confirmation. There was magic now. Of course there was magic now. Adrian remembered the firebird. It had been the apex predator, but beautiful, like he used to find tigers, which after seeing the firebird, tigers were now a weak kitty.

Focus on understanding magic. It felt like a superb choice. If he could understand magic better, then maybe he could become a powerful wizard, just like he liked to be in computer games.

There was still a part of him that wanted to develop his brawn. Maybe strength was more important than magic. Was he going to trust the interface or not? The fact was that the interface knew what was happening, and he did not. Take the recommendations of experts seriously.

Okay, he thought to himself. How to understand magic better? What is magic? What is my point of reference?

There was another wrenching sensation.

CHAPTER 3

Once more on a cliff. This time he stood in a shallow depression outside the home he had acquired from a pack of wolverines. The entrance was now heavily camouflaged: There was no way he would make the same mistake as the wolverines. He was proud of his cave. A narrow passage eventually widened into living quarters. Home. Sleep here and hunt elsewhere. No blood or gore allowed nearby to risk a predator's attention.

Touch the stomach. Being satiated was a good feeling. There was no need to hunt. Instead, it was time to observe and learn. Focus carefully on the surrounding life.

He zoomed his vision in on a simple fluttering bug.

A Qacost. When both he and his siblings had graduated from juvenile to adult, the nine of them had gone to Heartwood Eatery. Six part-time jobs had let them afford a single plate of the restaurant's special between them. Sauteed Qacost, a delicacy. The memory of when the spicy flavour hit his throat for the first time. Jeniexc over the top with excitement.

The memory of the past made him immeasurably sad. So much was lost in the upheaval's chaos. All of his clan was gone and all their achievements destroyed in the unleashed apocalypse.

The qacost survived and prospered. They never used to have magic. Previously, they were rare, basic, and harmless. Now, they were no longer simple: They hummed with energy. Clinically, he examined how the energy played across the wings and how it gathered together in a point just near the bug’s antenna—and then with a flash—the bug moved ten meters in an instant.

Attention switched to a different bug. As from previous observations, the bugs could only use their powers occasionally and never within a couple of minutes. Another of the insects had a bird chasing it. As always, there was a buildup of energy. This time, he noticed another buildup of energy ten meters in front of the insect. There was a link between the two energies: the one on the antenna and the other in front. Just as the bird was about to catch the bug, there was a familiar flash. The insect disappeared and popped into place at that new point.

That was how they did it. That was how the magic worked to build up energy. Then you brought the energies together before the entire body moved.

That was a specific memory; it was almost perfect to understand magic. The interface was guiding him with these memories and its prompts. He was not sure if that was normal or whether the interface was helping more than it should.

There was a feeling of approval, a human patting their small puppy when it peed outside for the first time. There was also a feeling that the interface thought it was being both immensely clever and a little naughty.

The text had claimed non-sentience, but if that had not been stated so explicitly, Adrian would have thought otherwise. The interface was sentient, you could bet the house on it.

The human suddenly started yelling in anger at the puppy which had peed on the special rug in the front room.

Non-Sentient

The puppy was getting patted for being a good little puppy, having done a wee outside.

Fuck you.

The byplay vanished with no more images emerging. Apparently, swearing was where the line was drawn. Focus on understanding the magic.

Whether it was sentient or non-sentient did not matter. Whether it was on his side definitely mattered. And if it wanted him dead, there was nothing he could do.

A trick he had learnt in childhood. The distinct memory of hiding in the covers with a storm raging outside. The fragment of nightmares of the book he had read earlier in the evening playing through him. There was a gigantic wolf outside his room in the dark, prowling and sniffing and staring at his window. Its jaws were larger than his head, and at any moment it would get bored and leap through the window. After that, his parents could not save him. A big gust of wind. Was that it? Was that a snort? A growl?

Pillow over the head, but what would that do against teeth that were longer than his finger? If it is going to kill me, then I’m already dead. So why worry? Put the pillow under his head instead of over. There might be a wolf. If there was, then he was dead. There was no point in being scared and worrying.

It was one of the pearls of wisdom from his childhood. The same logic applied to the interface. If it wanted to harm him, it would. So, he might as well assume the best and move on. For now, that meant focusing on understanding magic flows and then hopefully duplicating them while becoming a mighty wizard. Understand magic.

He repeated it over and over. Understand magic flows, understand magic flows.

There was another wrenching sensation.

Once more he was standing outside his home watching qacost bugs playing in their meadow. Every now and again, one of them would charge up and zip to a new location.

The movement of the magic was clearer now. Every time the bugs performed their magical miracle, the knowledge crystallised. Pretty soon he could duplicate it.

Watching, absolutely enthralled. Trying to capture the moment one of the closer bugs was going to use its magic. The magic spread in a diffuse cloud over the entire bug’s body. Then there was an additional focus area where a slightly different flavour of magic concentrated onto the antennae. Finally, there was a third dense point of magic, of the same type as that in the antennae, ten meters in front of the bug. The diffuse magic throughout the body activated and pooled towards the antennae. When it reached the antennae, it merged, and both the diffuse magic and the concentrated antenna magic instantly transposed to the other dense point of magic. Then the diffuse magic flowed away and the bug’s body reappeared in the new position.

Time to test the magic? Lick of the lips. It felt like a lucky day. Definitely time to test.

Practice generating the diffuse magic flow and then release it. Separately create a concentrated point on his nose, then a concentrated point another meter in front of him. Ten meters was too far. Every now and again, watch a bug in action. Align what the bugs were doing to his experiments. Duplicate exactly what the bugs were doing, watch the bugs as they played, learn their patterns and calibrate his own.

A mistake. It was a simple missed texture change. Practise again from the start. His forms mimicked the bugs’ subconscious control as they charged up and instantly teleported from spot to spot.

Finally, he was ready

With a rush of excitement, he brought the magic together, letting the diffuse energy flow out through his body from his Audiogos to his claws to his taloned feet, concentrating the slightly different energy on his nose and another point just twenty centimetres in front of him. Then he clicked it all together.

Perspective changed.

He had done it!!!

The insect teleport was his.

His entire body screamed in excitement. Do it again. Do it again. Prudence won out, eyes flicking around to make sure that there were no monsters nearby, that it was safe. Satisfied, he retreated to his cave silently, promising himself to only experiment in its safe confines in the future.

His reality wrenched.

Mana storm is still active

The prompt hung there, providing structure upon the random strobing lights. Adrian nodded. Focus on understanding how magic works. Focus just like the ambusher whose memories were being shared. Watch others use magic, learn the exact details, and then duplicate their magic. Repeat the same phrase endlessly in his head with intent. Focus on learning magic, remembering the zooming in to see the details of the magic being utilised around him. Focus on understanding magic and being able to zoom in to see more.

His reality wrenched once more.

Back outside his home with the entrance at his back. It was a different time of the year, the dark period. There were no bugs dancing in the idyllic meadow. Instead, the previously vibrant plantlife had rotted away, and what it left looked diseased. It had always been like this during the dark months. This cycle at least was natural, unlike everything else that had happened since the event.

Winter toads played in muddy water ponds. They were not playful like the insects, instead they moved ponderously. A small cat, though small was relative as this beast was larger than a horse, stalked among a group of toads. They used their magic, and he focused on zooming in. The toads gathered their magic like they moved. It was vastly different to the delicate, ethereal nature of the bugs. Solid lines spread through defined channels. Everything was concentrated and controlled. Drawn up from the earth, the magic spread from the toes up to the legs, focusing up and into the mouth.

A toad flicked its tongue and a wad of earth energy launched itself at the cat. The cat did not react in time to the magic, and so the power struck a hind leg.

Immediately, the magic flowed over the cat and then down to each of the four feet. It interacted with the ground, multiplying and creating a bubbling energy field. The cat roared in clear, surprised distress and splashed down into the earth like it had stepped on water. It plunged into the earthy liquid till submerged to its chest, and then the earth became solid, holding the trapped cat in place.

The cat was struggling, but the earth was unyielding. It tossed its head violently, but it was clear there would be no escape.

The other toads summoned similar but different energy. Like before, it came up from the feet and into their mouths, but this energy soaked through different channels on the way to the mouth. Their mouths gaped, and their tongues flicked out, sending a hard pulse of energy at the cat. When the energy hit, it ripped out a small chunk of flesh and returned the mouthful to the toads.

They gobbled it with big meaty thumps.

The toads kept flicking their tongue and snacking on the returned flesh and blood. Round after round, each expenditure of the energy scouring into the cat till even the pained cries of the cat went limp. Blood stopped pumping, and the cat died, having been literally eaten alive. The toads kept flicking their tongues, spending their magic till most of the visible proportions of the cat vanished. Then, appetiser over, the toads hopped over and started eating their main course.

He was back in the present once more.

The memories were illuminating: They perfectly matched his desire to understand magic. Maybe this was one thing interfaces allowed. Maybe they let people borrow memories from the past to help in the present.

Understand magic, zoom in on magic. See and then differentiate between the different flavours of magic. See the flows and gain the skills to learn how to duplicate them.

Mana storm shows signs of abating.

Adrian's reality wrenched once more.

This was not home. The smell was wrong. The horizons were different. The branches of the tree he perched in prevented the extraction of more information about where. Then again, the Where hardly mattered. There was no hunger. There was no need to hunt. Curiously, he watched the creatures going past. This time, he was not focusing on magic. Instead, the focus was on the creatures themselves.

Sensing their strengths and weaknesses, he tried to understand what would happen in a fight. He was all alone, safe in his invisibility, trying to see where and how to damage everything that passed by the tree. It was on a beast path that linked the only water around with the fertile hill slopes. Almost everything needed to drink. As they slunk, ran, hopped, or glided, he was assessing their strengths and weaknesses and what tricks their magic allowed them to utilise.

Most yielded a wealth of fascinating information. The bear had thick skin, and its fur was like armour. Even with his claws, he could not pierce that armour. Maybe attacking the eye would work, but, realistically, fleeing was the best option. The cat, which looked more powerful, would not be such a challenge. While it was faster and could do more damage than the bear, it was vulnerable. With his battle movement skills, he could exploit that weakness. A quick surprise attack would sever the backbone and would win the battle.

Adrian was once more back outside the memory. The world was not crashing as much as it was. There was no longer any risk of being torn apart, and the previously strobing light storm had abated.

The text promptly flashed once more.

Mana storm is abating.

From the mana surge, you have gained the following abilities.

Ambusher’s Fade

Ambusher’s Fade enables the user to disappear, providing they stand still. It is very strong against non-sentient life forms through far weaker versus sentient life forms.

The ability uses physical camouflage, magical camouflage, and psychic abilities in order to draw the eye away from the subject.

Ambusher’s Stasis

Ambusher’s Stasis enables the user to hold still for an extended period, having none of the usual drawbacks associated with a lack of movement. While holding stasis, the user needs half the food of normal and no sleep. Stasis greatly reduces damage from environmental effects such as cold and heat.

Identification (Rank 3)

Standard skill to understand the strengths and weaknesses of enemies.

Rank 3 provides an understanding of latent magic abilities in addition to the standard relative strength and movement metrics.

Magic Focus

Magic Focus enables the user to slow time when looking at a magic weave and identify its underlying components.

Adrian was unsure of how to think about these new skills. Did everyone get starting skills? If not, then it was an amazing set of skills. However, if the answer was yes, then the lack of choice was frustrating.

God, his family!

They were in Melbourne, and he was in Wagga Wagga. What was happening to them? He wanted to be the one out there protecting. In gaming speak, he wanted to be their tank or, better still, a holy paladin able to heal and tank. He’d be the one who would stand in front of enemies and stop the rest of his team from getting hurt, yet the skills it had given him were for skulking in the background. While they felt powerful, he was not sure they were things that he wanted to use.

He would have preferred being able to pick the skills himself. It was like being in an RPG / MMORPG game that, instead of letting him choose his class, forced him to be a magic thief while everyone else got whatever they wanted.

We have assessed your biological age at 22 years.

That was good. Maybe the whole getting younger thing had worked, though he would wait till he had access to a mirror to confirm.

Calculating personal statistics and expected planetary norms immediately following alpha particle physics conversion.

Calculating…

Inherent Healing - Capacity to heal wounds using energy reserves… 1.2

Vitality - Measurement of physical prowess, damage absorption, criticality of enemy attacks, strength, speed, poison resist...1.1

Physical Resistance - The resistance provided by hardness of skin and bones… 0.5

Magical Resistance - Damage mitigation your aura provides on magical attacks… 0.0

Strength - Amount of force muscles can apply to attack, defence, jumping, speed… 0.8

Agility - Balance, fine motor control, dodge, stealth, speed, accuracy of weapon attacks… 0.82

Perception - Observation strength, reaction speed, spotting hidden details, weakness and strength analysis, improved crafting… 0.94

Intelligence - General cognitive capacity and ability to absorb extra information… 1.3

Mana Control - Capacity to learn and control magic… 1.5

Mana Pool - The amount of magic power you have available to cast spells… 1.3

The descriptions were interesting to Adrian. So, he had a natural healing called inherent healing and then a lot of broad categories that, apart from mana pool, affected lots of distinct elements. From reading the descriptions, how much damage he would do when hitting someone with a club would depend on Vitality, Strength, Agility and potentially even Perception.

It was a lot to take in.

Summarising in Table Format

Your Base Statistics

Statistics From Mana Surge

Current Statistics

Estimated Population Statistics

Inherent Healing

1.2

0

1.2

1

Vitality

0.95

0.15

1.1

0.98

Physical Resistance

0.50

0

0.50

0.5

Magical Resistance

0

0

0.0

0.05

Strength

0.72

0.08

0.8

0.85

Agility

0.75

0.07

0.82

1

Perception

0.92

0.02

0.94

1

Intelligence

1.25

0.07

1.32

1

Mana Control

1.1

+0.4

1.5

1

Mana Pool

1.1

+0.2

1.3

0.8

The summarised statistics were very interesting. The first thing he noticed was that he was way above the normal, mainly because in magic categories he was significantly stronger than average.

The base statistics sort of matched him pretty well. He was a large guy, hence the good vitality, but his strength had always been lower than his size would suggest. Everyone had always benched-pressed more than him. The low Agility score also made sense. At school, they rarely picked him early in sport. “Awkward Adrian” were the continual jeers whenever he failed to catch the ball. Intelligence… well, when he was not being modest, he always knew he was smarter than most other people.

Quickly Adrian’s attention turned to the statistics from mana surge. Did everyone benefit from a mana surge? Logically, they must not have. If they had gotten a similar boost, then population statistics would be higher. At least some of his attribute increase must have been driven by getting younger. The physical stats, at least. The magic stat boost must have resulted from those memories.

An image of an awkward teen with bottle glasses giving a massive thumbs up.

That took Adrian back for a moment, causing him to lose his train of thought. Where had that come from?

An image of a stick figure surrounded by sparkling lights. A brilliant three-dimensional diamond coming through the sparkles to join with the stick figure.

The interface could communicate with him through images.

An image of an awkward teen with bottle glasses giving a massive thumbs up. This time it was a girl with pigtails.

Focusing on statistics. All the small increases in all of his base metrics were driven by getting younger. While the increases in mana control and mana pool were probably part of the magic focus training.

In terms of magic, he was over fifty percent higher than average in all categories. That was outstanding.

Mana Storm is finishing.

Adrian felt alarmed and panicked at the message.

Expect an overwhelming number of hostile enemies.

Engaging Ambusher’s Fade and Ambusher’s Stasis

The world stopped ringing and flashing, and Adrian felt his muscles lock. He felt the desperate focus on hiding, blending into the background, hiding magic glow, and the press of his thoughts going outwards, pushing for everything around him not to notice.

Opening his eyes, the world had changed.