Sunday morning, shortly after the initial ritual:
Dan turned off his computer and went to bed, inspired (as usual) by the magical nature of the many worlds of gaming he dabbled in. He started his usual pre-sleep meditation with the usual circulation of energy through and around his body, becoming fully aware of, and accepting, all the usual sensations, the hidden pains and flaws of a human body in its 6th decade. As was his custom, he sent healing and clearing energy throughout his system. He couldn't prove it, of course, but he had always felt that this lifelong habit played a large role in keeping him healthy and active, free of any serious medical concerns, despite a "terrible" diet and mostly sedentary lifestyle.
Dan practiced meditation and visualization in much the same way he played video games, read fantasy novels, or followed what cutting-edge science was up to - he was waiting for what he never expected to happen, a breakthrough in reality. So when it DID happen, he noticed. Only two minutes into his basic energy self-scan, he noticed the change - not only was the energy more clear and responsive than ever, it was growing - fast! Dan quickly started gathering it in and putting it to work.
A quick wave of healing and clearing was first, of course, since he didn't want all this energy draining into negativity or self-destructive thoughts, but then he turned to what had always been his dream - a psychic/magical "heads-up display" of the world around (and inside) him. He had no idea if any such thing was possible, but he was always one to reach for the stars when it came to his fantasy visualizations, and he was feeling very energized at the moment.
Result were FELT quickly, but not seen - breaking through from visualization to an actual overlay of his visual cortex was no easy task, he quickly realized. Still, he decided "no compromise". He just wouldn't be satisfied with "feelings" and "impressions" any longer - he wanted to SEE! Pressure built up. It was painful. For Dan, the pain just meant something REAL was happening and he redoubled his efforts. Several times, waves of dizziness and nausea threw him out of his meditation, but he persisted. Many times, images came up, showing him the way magic was moving within and around him, but would vanish when he opened his eyes - NOT ENOUGH!!
At last, as dawn came that Sunday morning, Dan opened his eyes and could SEE. It was faint, but magic was everywhere around and within him, in far more depth than he could yet process. Better yet, he could reach out to things around him with it and see the interactions. Dan forced himself to remain awake, aware, and SEEING for a couple more hours to "lock in" the knowledge and feeling of it, while he snacked and changed out of his now sweat-soaked night t-shirt. He put on slippers and when into the back yard to see what plants and other things in nature looked like with magic vision, and was rewarded with a wealth of glowing colors and patterns. Once he was used to it, he was sure he'd be able to quickly tell the nature and health of most any living thing he encountered.
Once he felt everything was stable, Dan went back to bed and quickly fell into a deep, exhausted, sleep.
Upon waking, Dan instantly checked to see if his "mana vision" was still working. It was faint and fuzzy, but still there, so he immediately grabbed onto the feeling of it and worked to make it "more real" - this was not something to let go of, if he had anything to say about it! After about 15 min, it was working as well as it had before sleep took him - another half hour and it was noticeably better, and Dan allowed himself to get up and start the day.
Upon using the bathroom, Dan saw that his pee had much darker, nearly black, energy around it, with bits of bright red mixed in - obviously waste products, he thought. Even after he was done physically, he let the waste energy stream continue to flow until the "pressure" of negativity and pain was released. He felt lighter, brighter, and could feel an inflow of energy from all around him, and upwelling from within as well.
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The bathroom mirror was a bit of a strange experience, at first, as he was looking outward through his new aura, and then trying to see a reflection of it to get an outside view as well. Trying to get it right and see it as he wanted to took him another hour, and eventually resulted in two different "modes" of mana vision.
The first way was to "tune out" his own energy from his vision, so he could see external energy more clearly, but that still didn't let him see his own energy in the mirror. First, the mirror didn't seem to "reflect" mana light as it did normal light - it only did so by intent. And second, when he tuned out his own energy from view so he could see through it clearly, it also tended to clear it out of the reflection.
The second way was to see the mirror as a screen, like the heads-up display itself - a different viewpoint of the same thing. And he found he could switch back and forth from a "screen display" to a "heads-up display". After some practice, the mirror wasn't even needed to activate the screen - he could just look at any fairly neutral surface.
Next up was food! He found he could adjust the heads-up display to rate foods for how compatible they were for his current needs. Most were just blah sustenance, he found, providing minor health benefits, if any. Those with serious dark or red energy infused with them, he threw out. From the rest, he came up with a filling meal and headed out - the next project was people-watching. He needed to find out how the energy he could see related to actual humans in the wild.
Leaving home and walking towards the nearest park, the first other human energy he saw was in passing cars, making it hard to get any detail, but at least he learned to "see" what human energy fields generally looked like - mostly towards the lower end of the spectrum, he thought, and muddy, but a few were sharper, clearer, and one was even a pleasant green. The occasional people on the sidewalk were generally more positive, but a few were bleak, with streaks of black or red.
Dan came to associate red with pain and black with damage, though there seemed to be another red (he noticed on joggers) that might mean vitality or muscle-building. Most kids had more pastels, it looked like, but a few had indications of damage as severe as any adult. But after getting to the park and watching things from the bench for a while, he could see a lot more going on. While the surface view was mostly "nice", with people playing or relaxing, he soon learned the indications of drug dealing and addiction. He restrained himself from taking any action - certainly his "visions" didn't constitute evidence and he was in no state to deal with such things personally - not directly, at least. But as he watched the depraved predators lurking at the edges of society, he began to plan ways of helping.
As darkness fell, on his way home, Dan started practicing again. He simply couldn't continue to ignore what he was now able to see, so it was time to REALLY learn to see, so that he wouldn't make tragic errors. So, as he walked, Dan started to practice seeing people's energies THROUGH their house walls. And in his mind, plans started to form. What else could he do with his rapidly-growing sensitivity and vision? And were there others like himself?
That last point hit home - if others could do the same, could he find them? Did they have codes of conduct? Could THEY find HIM? That last one started worrying him, especially as he noticed his own aura seemed much stronger than average, which would be a dead giveaway to anyone with similar abilities. After all - he'd never heard of anyone claiming the kind of sight he'd just gotten, so it was either very secret or very new. Considering his own habits, and that it had come so suddenly, he was inclined to bet it was new - in which case it was going to hit society hard as more and more people discovered it.
As he got home, Dan had decided his role - he was going to be a covert vigilante. He would find and "out" the evils in society and the abusers of the new energies. That was the plan - at least, and it made him feel warm inside, which was what mattered most.