I am exhausted.

Working this much while barely sleeping for so many days in a row was not easy. Yeah, I didn’t sleep much on Earth as well right before this... Now, the fact that Clodia offered me a job and she was going to fetch me an apartment herself... this world is better than most places on Earth, I suppose.

I know, I know. Who wouldn't help the golden goose, right?

But you can exploit it in a mean way, man. Not everyone will treat you gently, especially when they are famed for beating people up.

I sit on the soft sheets and the less soft mattress, sighing.

Clodia has gotten me a room in the bakery. Apparently, there are several of these for the employees that take a restful nap here before the night shift starts – as in most bakeries, that's the most active shift.

I put my back against the wall and cross my legs. I look at the suit I was wearing at the funeral—someone brought it into the room for me.

I'm not a big believer, nor am I a particularly religious person. But my mother was. And that's why I join my palms together, fingers extended.

I close my eyes.

Hey ma', I start my silent prayer, hope the line is free. I wouldn't want to talk to St. Peter, or worse, by mistake. I wouldn't want to hear about how premarital sex is bad and all that.

I bet you'd probably chime in yourself after snatching the phone from the guy's beard. But listen, tell him that if the Mets win the championship, I'll probably fully convert. Hm, not that I have many ways of knowing it now, though.

I pause for a second, briefly opening my eyes to look at the tome that I'm holding over my legs.

Hey ma', can you imagine how upset you'd have been back when I was little if I told you that I might learn magic? You would have thought that I was going to 'subscribe to a satanic cult,' as you once put it in English. And I still wonder if Mephistopheles's Fashion Advice Newsletter will ever reach my inbox—the cloven feet and the goatee would indeed be perfect for next spring.

Jokes aside, ma', I just hope you are having a good time up there. Dad must have been shooting hoops with Kobe for a while now. Knowing him, he probably told the guy he could teach him a thing or two. I hope you are both there. Together.

Tell dad I love him, as well. He probably doesn't get the holy phone service after all the swearing he did. I'm trying to keep it on the down low myself, so these prayers can reach you better.

You know, ma', I ended up in a fantasy world... like... you watched the Lord of the Rings with me, didn't you? Well, like that. But with fewer orcs—maybe. But I'm good; don't worry. I already found a bunch of cool people. Two [Guards]—yeah, with square brackets... don't ask. But yeah, they are cool with me. I get the feeling we will be friends. They helped me with the paperwork, ma', don't worry. Even in a different world, I found someone to look out for me when it comes to that stuff.

On that note, Ma’, I'm sorry, but... I couldn't even look at the paperwork today. I know, I know. But not even with a super-hot Elf trying to have me fill out a blank page. It’s happening again. I told you I'd get better and grow out of it... but I'm still stuck.

Well, I'm wrapping it up now. I love you so much. Also, I miss you, ma'. I miss you exactly the way I thought I would. At least I don't gotta come to Jersey to visit your grave, ma'. That’s good, right?

I end the prayer with a bittersweet smile, half-amused, half-crying.

As I’m about to open my eyes, for a second, I wish everything would go back to normal. For just a second, I force myself to believe I’m about to open my eyes to my mother visiting my apartment and screaming at me for leaving the dirty dishes in the sink. For a single instant, I believe she’s there, once again washing the dishes and saying that this time it’s the last time she does it; and she has said it a thousand times already, and I just wish she could say a thousand times more.

But when I do open my eyes, I’m sitting on the weird, hard mattress. I’m used to maximum comfort and softness, but right now, I feel like a fakir lying on a bed of nails. Plus, the smell is not great, either.

Then, it finally gets to me. ‘It’ is the reality of having traveled to another world without a chance to go back; no chance in plain sight, at least. I’m not even sure that looking for a way back is the smartest choice.

There’s this magical phenomenon when, one second, it’s all good for us humans: everything looks pretty and doable, but one little thing goes out of place the next second, and we start spiraling out of control.

What would happen if I started to look at this world as a problem, as something I needed to run away from? Should I even think about returning to Earth if I have no idea how to undertake such a trip?

Looking for a solution that doesn’t exist would ruin my life, wouldn’t it?

I can feel the anxiety in my neck, chest, and arms. My stomach, too, I think. It’s like getting a twenty-year-old fine for some unpaid taxes that has gotten in the range of millions. You can’t pay it off. You will never be able to. There’s no way out; suddenly, you have lost everything, and you are done no matter whom you talk to.

Being in another world and panicking, just the teensiest bit, is in my rights. But I know myself, and I know that if I start panicking, I’ll probably fall into that sorry state for a month or something. Once that little switch turns on, there’s no turning it off.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Well, better distract myself before I start puking the lunch I had with Raissa onto the creaking floor of the bakery; yeah, I had a nice sandwich with her during our break. I could have done with a croissant, but that’s another thing they don’t seem to know.

I get up and finally decide to do what anyone else in my situation would have done in the first minutes since arriving in this world.

I look at the fat repository of deadly magic hanging out on my lap.

"So," I say, turning to the first page of the Omnium Compendium, "let's see what you got."

As the words leave my mouth, the book shoots up in the air, a foot from my face, and turns to a blank page.

Black ink slowly materializes on it.

‘Place your hand on the page for the proficiency assessment.’

Where other people would have doubted or brought this thing to get evaluated before messing with it, I smile and place my hand on the page.

The black ink fades, and a new sentence appears.

‘Proficiency: ...none’

“That sounds about right,” I answer.

Another sentence appears below.

‘Dear disciple, I hope you’ve got my wondrous gift and that you will share it with the most talented [Mage] you know one day. This Relic is my life’s achievement. It will teach you all that I can not. We will revolutionize the field of magical teaching with this Relic! If you ever meet the Meteor Archmage after becoming a [Archmage], please blast him into nothingness on my behalf. I’m still sick thinking about the disgusting dinner he treated me to at the last Magical University.’

A few more personal notes make me laugh but do not mean much to me.

Suddenly, the ink fades again, and the book materializes another sentence.

‘Lay your hands on both pages for the talent assessment.’

I’m going to bomb, aren’t I?

I have a self-teaching thingy that should teach me magic. This will be a blast if it’s anything like the Indian YouTubers who taught me math in high school. But even with the ungodly talent of those Indian dudes, I could barely cram the necessary notions to pass the special calculus exam my professors had given me. Barely pass it by my standards, at least.

I lay my hands on the page, waiting for the disheartening judgment.

But instead, something else happens. It's not an instantaneous process, it seems. In fact, ink appears above my hand.

'A visible spell matrix of a [Light] spell has been deposited onto your hand. Try manipulating it.'

Huh.

That was a bit generic.

"No better instructions?" I ask, but the book doesn't reply.

I shrug.

Taking my hand away from the page, I see the most incredible thing.

It's a... scribble. It's a holographic scribble made of yellow light. What I can only describe as an elaborate hologram emerges from my hand and levitates a few inches above it.

The lines are rippling like waves on a seismograph. The matrix is a three-dimensional, polygonal shape.

"So... manipulate this?" I look at it and then back at the book.

Are there any instructions? Do I just think about making magic?

Again, I shrug.

Let's try it.

I don't know what I'm doing, so I just imagine pulling at one of the squiggly lines floating above my hand.

I can see my thinking barely caused a ripple. Yet, at the same time, I get a definite feeling of what’s just happened right in my guts.

"I see," I mutter.

This time, I pull more forcefully and see a more extensive distortion in the matrix. Again, I frown because it feels out of place—just wrong.

I am suddenly absorbed, my entire focus on it, something that only a few times had happened to me before.

I pull, push, twist. The lines are expanding independently now, and I get the feeling that they are slowly falling into a better position. Instinctively, I see where I want them and how I want them.

Now, I don't just pull the lines but connect with them and make them thicker. As a result, they grow more prominent every second, even though a massive headache starts brewing in my head.

But it doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter because I'm witnessing the birth of a universe in front of my eyes. Now, the wavy movements of the squiggly lines are talking to me. They suddenly make sense–they would obviously vibrate at that frequency when stretched like this while this amount of energy goes into them.

I try something new by modulating their shape, size, and orientation. I imagine one more line going from the top corner of the polygon to the bottom.

Why?

It feels like this matrix is incomplete.

And when I finish changing the shape, the matrix suddenly disappears.

The book, inert until now, levitates in front of me. But there's no ink on it.

Even though there's a big window right above the bed, the light in the room dims. A soft darkness dampens the place and wets it with silence.

Red diffused lights start appearing one by one. They are like protostars in the deep cosmos, with an extraordinary halo surrounding them. If one moment before this was the most boring, depressing, and saddest room ever, now it's more exciting than the first picture we got of deep space–prettier, even.

Three red lights appear, levitating and moving around, with fuzzy halos surrounding them. They move swiftly, and soon, three more lights materialize from thin air. They are blue and tinge half the room as if I was right below the ocean's surface. Three more swirl around my head, like falling stars that never stop their descent—these ones are yellow and leave a blazing trail of bright fragments in their wake.

They keep appearing in triplets: green, purple, and orange.

There are six triplets now when suddenly, the room becomes even darker. This time, a white triplet appears in front of me.

They are soft and warm, like a maternal hug... their beauty is impossible to describe. Unlike the others, which are still floating all over the place, these three are stationary and form a triangle.

Twenty-one lights surround me and make this world so magical and breathtaking that I am in absolute awe.

And it's right when I don't believe I could be more stupefied that something else happens.

Two more lights materialize. Slowly, without haste. They take their time because they are different from all the rest. They are two rainbow lights with all the colors I've already seen and more.

They start moving, and when they do, they simply expand. Moving, in fact, would be the wrong word to use, now that I think about it. No, they don't move. They go around in ways I have never imagined a light could.

And as they spin around me, they create the most incredible show I have ever seen. It’s a performance of colors and lights that make the northern lights look like a child's crude drawing.

I am absolutely mesmerized by this display of beauty and power.

I am in awe of magic.

Then, they start petering out, one by one, and the room returns to its original state as if nothing had happened.

A number materializes on the book.

Talent assessment: 23.

The book falls on the bed with a thud, and I'm left there, sitting beside it, feeling like I just woke up from the most beautiful dream.

Ma', I wish you could have seen that, I smile bitterly to myself.

I crawl below the covers, tired, and hug the book close to my chest. Then, I start turning and twisting, restless.

Dark thoughts come to me, and the loneliness of being in another world slowly creeps in toward my heart.

As if reacting to the mounting panic, I feel a warm sensation coming from the book, and I fall into a dreamless slumber.