A pair of hard eyes opened to the darkness and deafening drone of the mana storm, eyes that have seen war on a scale not seen on earth and untold horrors committed by the ignorant and righteous.
The eyes belong not to the Spenser who closed his eyes, it was an older man with determination and an intellect that was forged in conflict. This new man slowly opened his eyes expecting to have not survived or worse to still be surrounded by magical devices, runes and Magicrette, however only darkness and the drone of heavy rain were his reward.
Before he was able to catalogue and assess his surroundings, great weakness and fatigue smashed his body like the impact of a speeding truck. He gasped for air and a habit born of years of dedicated training drew in the mana surrounding him to bolster his regeneration and healing. A tiny drop of power quenched his weakness, not from lack of will, but lack of his body's ability to draw in the power. For minutes he lay on an unfamiliar bed, with almost no magical arrays, spells or forms to distract him from the basic task of mana regeneration.
Spencer raised his hands, hands that felt weak and controlled by a mind that felt sluggish and blurred. With a brief flicker of will, he accessed his mana sign and his mind tore itself apart in agony, but he gritted his teeth and searched for his power conduits and forces the pain to the back of his consciousness as he activated and accessed mana pathways that had never been used.
A pitiful trickling sense came to him, not even capable of fully bringing the details of his internal mana flow, not to even mention the flow around him. Spencer lamented his loss of power, his old mana sense that could detect the smallest flux of mana within 500 meters. Drawing from the near non-existent power he slowly drew the power into his heart and started the first basic exercise of aligning his meridians, the natural pathways of mana in his body to his circulatory system. Nostalgia rose in his gut, memories of learning to harness his power for the first time, and the mistakes they all made. Like being blind in the dark, everyone on earth floundered and stumble through the System and controlling mana. Just like when he first learnt magic a feeling of new beginnings welled inside of him, starting on a long journey welled up within him for the first time he felt hope. This time he knew the path and the turns to make, he was not the same as before and the mistakes that started the path originally would not be made again.
A melodic, slightly robotic and feminine sound of bells resonated in his mind as he felt the slight tingle in his mana reserves indicating they were close to full, followed by a jumble of symbols no living mortal on earth would recognise, an Atlantian message from the newest deity, System. The artificial interface that the mages of the past programmed to govern and manage their cities and empires now evolved into a pseudo deity that would manage the giant crystals of mana that made up the terminus of the ley lines located under every major city.
Spencer could feel the weakness in his voice and the raw pain of using mana for the first time, barely loud enough to be heard over the sound of rain he formed the channels from his lungs into his larynx. With the same struggle as his mana sense brought on, only more pronounced he pushed the small amount of mana in his body to his fingertip and traced a spell formula in the air. His fingers struggled with the unnatural curves, turns and movements that could have been done in a split second before, now it took painful minutes to complete. His brain and memory knew exactly what to do, however, his muscles and reinforced learning had a long way to go. When Spencer did complete it, he whispers the words charged with mana for the activation.
“Translate English” the sound was unnaturally pulled from his lips and a copy of the language was printed into the centre of the spell work, in the form of a small gold sphere.
The spell worked faded into oblivion and he was rewarded with a screen that was previously unintelligible, was now clear, and would be at least in English for anyone else who stumbles into the system. Unlike last time Spencer thought bitterly to himself.
This was his first mission and it was a tiny thing, small in the grand scheme of things, but he knew the ripples would change everything, in the past or future now he lamented, it would take 10 years before earth learned how to interpret the old language, years after that to add any additional language to it.
Imaging being prompted to do a quest or select a class was what System had done at the start, the ancient mage equivalent of a tutorial system for children, and it relied on understanding the question, if you didn't understand it would choose to skip. That is what happened, the default selection is to skip, it was assumed that the mages of the past had access to more advanced curricula, teachers or schools and the Systems version of classes was a kind of welfare for mages, built into the great spellwork interfaces that evolved into System. You could directly interface with more information when you made contact with the Nexus’ at the heart of every major city.
The screen that had been ignored till this point came into focus and the unintelligible squiggles and runes from before shimmered and morphed into English, now scrawled in a neat hand within a blue box that took up about a foot in front of his eyes.
Just as he finished comprehending what was written, the line blurred and shifted to reform another message, before filtering through and then disappearing when Spencer willed the selections to skip, nothing in the class trainer could help him now.
Spencer had not been confident in the device, it was mostly his daughter who built it and he trusted her, but deep down he had always felt it was too easy, with a deep breath in, the slight tinge of mana in the air, then a release from his lungs, He was sure now that it was not a dream and that the events of his past were real.
Forcing his eyes open Spencer looked to his side, weak un-enhanced eyes struggling in the gloomy darkness, old memories flashing through his mind with a rapid staccato. The victories, the losses and the fall of everything he held dear. He started to channel a calming rune that failed to activate due to his frail body, as of yet he would need to acclimate to his reduction in power.
The trigger to all the memories was right next to him. Spencer looked at Victoria, his daughter was sound asleep and oblivious to her father's complicated mix of anguish and joy, not the young woman he remembered, but the small child of his distant memories. Tears came unabashedly to his eyes, rolling down his face, tears that he had not shed for years after the events of the past, he could afford to show weakness now, in the dark and no one would see it.
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He sat there for what felt like hours just looking at the child next to him, with a shaking hand and numb fingers he reached out and stroked her hair from her face and happiness washed all his sorrow away. Sliding his hands under her, Spencer picked her up and held her to his chest. Tears rolled down his face, and as he cried in happiness all he thought was how perfect it was to hold her again.
It was slightly less dark when he finally lay her back down and opened his eyes, now clear of tears and replaced with a resolve like steel. he could at least make out the silhouetted form of furniture now that it was not pitch black, his mana sight was too weak to augment his vision as of right now, but with a final glance at her, he could still see the reassuring rise and fall of Victoria’s chest and the snores that made him smile. Before the tears welled up again, he left the room to leave her to rest.
After walking around his old home, his hand touching things that he could scarcely remember, he spent the next few hours doing just this before laying next to his sleeping daughter. Even if it's for just a few hours he was content to do just nothing for a little while at least.
………
His eyes squinted as his thoughts drifted from that of the lost things he had regained and back to his plans for the future. Specifically, Spencer did not remember receiving a message from the system so early the last time around. With a few mental commands sent via a fraction of reserved power and the willed intent for an ‘update’ into the surrounding ambient mana, he received his response.
< Would you like to message the closes guild for assistance>
This time he would not make the same mistakes. The class system was a huge boon to the baby mages of earth, however, it was tainted by one huge vulnerability. It recorded all the information when you opted in, this was later discovered as a way to monitor the young mages' progress to guide and mentor them. For all the mages of the earth? It was a hit list for anyone who had direct access to a Nexus node and an understanding of how the spell forms worked. A list that included mana aptitude, spell milestones and a bunch of quests and awards that would help guide you to a basic understanding of mana. In the society the mages had built, young students would probably have been running to and from Nexus nodes at all hours of the day, getting quests and tasked to complete the next level of spellcraft.
For an enemy to have access to your army's detailed information? Devastating. We only had one advantage ‘The System’, the only advantage and why the mages wanted us gone, they wanted it all to themselves.
The System did however offer some measure of protection to us, but it was neutral and it only conducted functions similar to what the mages had programmed into the spell forms that created the Nexus nodes. No, spencer would stay off the Nexus nodes and the System until he was certain it could be made safe.
The words swirl and a new message replace the first.
Spencer froze, never before had the System sent a personalised message, this was not good. It probably wasn’t bad, but what did it mean? Spencer had no idea, he had a gut feeling that he would not find any of his stats on any local Nexus node from his brief enquiry. It would appear that System was not as neutral as he believed, It did not change what he needed to do next.
Now that he was certain that Lilly and his gambit had worked, Spencer knew he would need more resolve than ever, to both act and not act to ensure predictability in the deviations to the current timeline, however, the meeting in the spirit realm was new, the System’s actions were new and the knowledge of such beings manipulating and helping was never known to him in the past. The history of events was a struggle and a scrabble, always on the back foot, always reacting to the machinations of the powerful.
Well, that was not going to happen this time, he promised himself.
With slight trepidation, he sent out his mana sense questing for the local node of power.
As before the screen dispersed as he finished reading, he must have attuned inadvertently last time, he would need to keep an eye out. Thinking of his actions taken in the past he realized that he had probably been extremely lucky or the System could have been helping out.
“We never planned what to do if we succeeded,” he whispered
Drawing a quick focus spell into the air again, gaining speed and fluidity the more he practised.
“Send a Message lily,” he said infusing mana into his voice to complete the spell
A screen appeared but unlike before, He could feel it as it was drawn from the mana in his body. The feeling was building up as he quickly drew a syphon glyph in the air to bolster his mana regenerations, the new screen looked slightly blurred until it had absorbed enough mana to forge a connection. The feeling of mana drain faded as the message dissolved, and the feeling of fear that was lingering in the back of my mind was finally lifted. Everything had worked, Lilly was able to return too and she would no doubt be resting her until her infant form could take the strain of an adult mind. Spenser scooted up to a more upright position and moved Victoria to be more comfortable on the bed, with his back to the bed head, he form a lotus pose to maximise his mana circulation. He started to plan his next few steps and evaluate how much had he could change. As a plan solidified in his mind he grew confident in his plan, think then act. Almost by reflex, he had started to extend his mana sense out and noticed the vast amount of raw mana in the storm behind him, a huge smile could be seen on his face, even in the gloom, it would be painful but it would save him many years. And Spencer could deal with pain.