Daniel Thrush frowned briefly at the laptop in front of him. After a harrowing year of life threatening adventure on Twilight, another planet steeped in magic and monsters, returning home to paperwork wasn’t exactly what he expected. Sure, the first series of reports made sense. Humanity needed to know more about the force it was up against, but as weeks stretched into months he began to feel out of place. True, the lesson plans he was creating for the new wave of System recipients and future magi were useful in the grand scheme of things. Intellectually he recognized that they were probably more important to Earth than anything that Dan could do on his own. Still, Dan was sick of being chained to an office.

The elves were in Brazil terrorizing innocent people, and here he was, humanity’s best weapon, writing a practical guide on how to properly raise a caster’s affinity. His breath became slightly ragged and the corners of his vision flashed pink for a second. Dan removed his hands from the keyboard and folded them in his lap. One of the most unfortunate side effects of learning magic was the seductive nature of mana. Every magical creature or sentient killed released a small amount of that entity’s mana to be absorbed by their slayer. The process was incredibly pleasurable. Dan only discovered the insidious side effect of his meteoric rise to power once he was fully addicted. Still, if he had to do it all over again he wouldn’t change anything. Through a combination of meditation and therapy, his situation had improved greatly. Now, he was much better at recognizing the violent impulses and anti-social urges he associated with the mana addiction.

He closed his eyes and let the room fade away. There was no real purpose getting upset over his circumstances. He knew exactly why his employer, the secretive Thoth Foundation had him preparing the lesson plans. As the only friendly magi on Earth, he was the only person capable of awakening the mana within his fellow humans. Already, Henry Ibis, the chair of the Thoth Foundation was putting together a team of 200 elite recruits for him to train in conjunction with someone from the army. Even if he wanted to be out on the front, risking his life and earning more mana, this was more important in the long run. Gradually all thoughts faded from his head as he centered himself and time began to slip away from him.

A knock on the door jolted Dan from his meditation. He looked up to see Samantha Weather, head of Thoth Foundation R&D and one of his few friends in the Foundation standing there looking at him with some concern.

“You were meditating,” she said, a note of accusation in her voice. “That means that something happened that made you feel the need to meditate. The mana addiction is still troubling you isn’t it?”

“I don’t think it’s going away anytime soon,” Dan shrugged. “I’m getting a lot better at controlling it, but at this point I’ve just accepted that it’s part of me now.”

“I don’t like it being part of you,” she was frowning. “I pulled the brain scans of your nanites when you absorb mana. It’s like watching a heroin addict take a hit. Your neurotransmitters go haywire and you start acting erratically almost immediately. It’s not healthy Dan.”

“I know it isn’t,” he stood up and walked across the room towards Sam. “It doesn’t feel healthy, that’s for sure. I’m not in control when the addiction kicks in, I’ll do almost anything for another hit and that means killing people. Do you know what it’s like having a voice in the back of your head telling you to hunt and murder your friends and family? I don’t think anyone sane would consider that healthy.”

“Dan,” she grimaced as she tried to find the words to respond to him. “You know I give you shit and play pranks on you from time to time, but I care about you. Ibis means well, but his head is in the clouds. He’s not going to notice if you’re struggling. I might not be the best at talking about feelings and stuff, but I will always be here for you. I know that the mana and your time off-world has you a bit messed up, but if you just say the word I’ll be there to talk things through.”

“Thanks Sam,” he smiled thinly back at her, “I mean it. I’ve got a therapist now and and talking to him has really helped. Killing my only companion in a drug induced haze has been a lot to unpack even if he probably deserved it. Still, I think this is something I need to work through on my own. I’ve been too passive for too long and the more I’ve been meditating and working through my feelings, the more I’ve realized that it’s been slowly killing me.”

“Good,” the tension left Sam’s face. “I would have been awful at comforting you anyway. Are you ready to meet up with the System recruits? Ibis finished his tournament in that game he based off of your report on Twilight and the hundred with the most potential are in the briefing room.”

“I still don’t get why he had a tournament in a video game,” Dan shook his head wryly. “I suppose I should know better than to second guess Henry at this point. The Director is going to do what he’s going to do.”

“He kept rambling about how it would be a mashup of ‘The Last Starfighter’ and a light novel,” she rolled her eyes. “When we pushed him further he pointed out that lifelong gamers would understand the System easier and they would be more likely to have the necessary creativity and adaptability to craft new spells. If you ask me, it all sounds like something he made up after the fact to try and justify another one of his ideas from one of those foreign graphic novels he reads. At the end of the day, it’s still his money though. I’ve looked over the profiles of a couple of the gamers and he’s right, they’re all in pretty good shape. Maybe ten years ago that wouldn’t be the case, but modern VR technology is exhausting to use. I don’t think that any of them are worse off than you were when you started working here.”

“Thanks for using me as the low water mark for physical fitness,” Dan chuckled. “I was a little paunchy but it wasn’t that bad. As I recall you were mostly looking for excuses to use the System to shock me.”

“Guilty,” Sam smiled and walked forward to the metal security door separating the two of them from the auditorium. “The military recruits will show up with their attache in about a week, but the Director wants you to get his candidates up to speed first. I think he’s a bit territorial about them.”

“He’s the boss,” Dan stepped past her and pushed open the door. Beyond was a large room filled with milling people. He felt a slight tremble in his hand as he stepped through the doorway. Public speaking had never been his forte, but if he could survive Twilight and put himself on the long path of recovering from a mana addiction, talking to a bunch of confused professional gamers shouldn’t be too hard.

The talking in the room ground to a halt. Dan felt profoundly uncomfortable as a hundred pairs of eyes focused on him. Nothing for it but to get started.

“Good afternoon candidates,” Dan tried to project as he spoke. “Now that you’ve all signed nondisclosure agreements and arrived on site, I’m sure you’re eager to get started. My name is Daniel Thrush and I will be your project lead and magic instructor. Behind me is Doctor Samantha Weathers, she’s in charge of R&D here at the Thoth Foundation and she will be the one to talk to about any of the technical aspects. Over the next couple weeks more instructors and support staff will be arriving on site, but for now I wanted to take this opportunity to introduce myself and answer any questions that you might have.”

A man with spiky blue hair in the second row raised his hand. Dan pointed to him and he stood up nervously glancing back and forth in the crowded auditorium.

“My name is DarkStryke69xX,” Dan immediately rolled his eyes at the man’s introduction and nasal voice. Still, he was a bit impressed that the man was able to enunciate both of the xs in his ‘name’ without spelling it out. “By magic do you mean the deep dive VR technology that Henry Ibis has been working on in secret? How is it going to work? Will we need surgical implants or is it something we just have to place on our heads?”

“Deep dive VR?” Dan asked incredulously, looking over his shoulder to Sam who shrugged back at him. “No, by magic I meant magic. Shooting lightning and fireballs, jumping over buildings, that sort of thing. Like the stuff the elves do. What’s deep dive VR?”

“Deep dive VR is a piece of gaming technology that Henry Ibis is rumored to be working on,” a woman with short brown hair in her late twenties responded. “It’s supposed to render the user unconscious and project the contents of the video game into their mind. All senses rather than just sight, the next generation in gaming technology. It’s what we all thought we were coming here to test.”

Dan stepped back and hurriedly grabbed Sam by the shoulder.

“Did Henry not tell them what they’re here for?” He hissed at her. “They do realize that they’re about to join the war effort, right?”

She shrugged uncomfortably, confusion on her face. The auditorium erupted into concerned whispering as the candidates realized that something was wrong. Seconds later someone tried visitor’s door to the auditorium only to realize that it was locked. Dan and Sam shared a hasty look and exited just as someone started shouting that their cell phone had no reception and demanded to speak to their lawyer.