Alex Weiss always prefered sleep over anything else, so it was no wonder he was awoken, as usual, by the bright midday sun, illuminating his shining white hair. What did differ from his daily experience was the slight breeze, and the angry sounding growl coming from a distance away.

Lily, Alexs, as well as humankinds, best friend, had a similar approach to life as her master, even going as far as to ignore her breakfast most of the time just to get those extra few minutes in bed. A peculiar trait, considering that she loved food just as much as sleeping.

Considering their shared perspective on relaxation, Alex was shocked to hear her growl like that. Nonetheless, he didn't bother to even spare a glance at the sudden spike in energy demonstrated by his most beloved pet, his crystal-blue eyes remaining shut.

Even just a half-hearthed bark would've been way out of the norm, but alas, Alex lacked the energy to open his far too heavy eyelids, else he'd have been witness to a spectacular scene.

Alex never enjoyed the luxury of a well-lit bedroom, mostly due to his minimalistic lifestyle, not that he'd consider an early wake-up call by the sun as luxury either.

Neither did he ever suffer the cold and wind from a badly insulated home, so maybe the light wind and comparatively heavy lightfall could've been an indicator to his current circumstances even without having to take a look at his surroundings.

All things considered, Alex had a comfortable life, if a bit lonely. Nobody to share it with, aside from Lily. Not that he'd take any steps to change that in the near future either.

Never did he have an actual job since some unsuccessful research project in the past, which secured him a continuous income.

He had nothing that would impact his precious free time, consisting mostly of sleeping, eating, playing games, and taking some naps inbetween.

Yes, it can be said that Alex was closer to a vegetable than a human. On the other hand, it can also be said that vegetables live a far less stressful life.

Alex wouldn't call himself successful. A loser even, not that anyone else would agree with him.

After having spent most of his life on his failed research, he found that his goals in life had changed, or maybe his past depression had more of an impact on him than he would like to admit.

Alex might be lazy, easily bored, disinterested in most topics and have a very laid-back personality, but one thing he was not. Ignorant.

He simply had a different goal in life, compared to most others. Namely, living. Since long ago, to Alex, living meant to do what you liked.

Sadly, as it was so often, what he wanted from life, what he expected from it, was unachievable during his lifetime.

Alex had always been fascinated by the idea of magic. To control reality with but a thought.

An unrealistic dream, considering the fact that magic doesn't exist. But that was not a problem Alex, since he had an epiphany.

Some years ago, when Alex was still an enthusiastic and energetic individual, he came to the conclusion that, just because mana didn't exist, nobody said it couldn't be created.

Living in an era of technological advancements that seemed akin to magic, it was not a far call to actually create it himself.

And so he worked, inexaustably, towards a goal that most, if not all, would consider pure lunacy. Not without reason, mind you.

Alex didn't just go nuts and hope to somehow discover something like mana by opening portals to weird worlds and betting on not getting eaten by whatever lived there, if something like that was even possible to begin with.

No, Alex took a much simpler approach.

To achieve the effects of real magic, he'd have to precisely manipulate the fundamental parts of matter: Atoms.

To manipulate atoms, mana would have to be smaller than them, or at the very least of similar size, which was naturally something unachievable for him.

The most basic manipulation of such minuscule particles already required highly advanced technologies. Technologies he had no way to gain access to, and certainly no means to recreate.

But nobody said that mana would have to be used to manipulate atoms in the first place. In fact, one didn't even have to make use of such an energy form in the first place.

Matter was, as a matter of fact, what would allow him to actually create anything in the first place, since creating new forms of energy was a pseudo-scientific approach at best.

The problem was, manipulating atoms with atoms was similarly complicated, but luckily not necessary in the first place.

The simplest solution would be to manipulate not atoms, but molecules. Something that pretty much every biological organism does everyday, and with astounding precision.

By creating a molecule that imitated the behaviour of the basic elements of our universe, while making them much larger, like cells, and at the same time adding some functionality to control these molecular atoms using external signals, one would effectively end up with controllable atoms.

Not to mention the fascinating prospect of being able to create new elements with unique characteristics that wouldn't have ever been possible with mundane atoms.

A molecular atom which produces heat on its own. Well, not entirely on its own, but by being supplied the energy from surrounding elements, through a functionality to store and release energy inbuilt into all molecular atoms as their most basic functionality retained within all variations.

Or the functionality to program these molecules directly through signals, effectively allowing them to change their characteristics, transmuting them from one element to another. Forget lead to gold. Say hello to: air to some-element-that-glows-by-itself... or something like that.

However, having said all of that, actually making something remotely similar to these molecules is much more complicated than it would seem.

Which leads us back to Alex the Lazy, king of Sleep and the story of his rise to glory as the creator of magic in a world that needed it so desperately.

As you might have guessed, Alex didn't get very far. Not to say he saw no progress at all.

Au contraire, after many years of study, trial and error and some rather generous recognition by various institutions, he was actually able to create a molecular atom. At least a very basic prototype.

Of course, those institutions didn't have much interest in magic. What fascinated them was the prospect of advancements in molecular-robotics his studies promised and the solid progress Alex made on his lonesome.

After all those years, what he managed to create was a simple molecule, closer to a cell, with only the most basic ability of reproduction needed to spread his magical elements, the similarily basic ability to add new functionalities, atom by atom, to individual molecules, and a security system.

This security system consisted of an authority code for the user, to make sure that he even had the clearance to use them in the first place, and had an inbuilt range limit. This was to hinder brilliant lunatics from highjacking his creation and misusing it to cause havok, without even having to be present.

This, by itself, had a dramatic impact on the field of nano-technology as a whole and even some influence on various topics related to biology and chemistry, but it couldn't change one simple fact.

Alex messed up.

In more than one way. With his focus on creation, he neglected the most important aspect of all when it came to what magic was supposed to do:

Control.

After having created what most would call a terrific contribution to various fields of technologies, Alex only felt despair.

The necessary ways to control his molecules were flawless, albeit a bit complicated. What was not, on the other hand, was the human body. Or more precisely, the brain.

Lacking any ability to effectively use its new control over the elements and those lacking the ability to correctly interpret the brains signals on their own, all that resulted was a bit of a random stir and some slight heat, no matter the effort and focus he put into it.

In the end, the only profit from this new era of magic was gained by machines capable of taking advantage of their precise and flawless execution of incredibly complex patterns, allowing their controllers to change matter through them.

Sadly, this was a very limited approach, since even with brain-computer-interfaces becoming feasable investments for the general populace, what they lacked was intuition.

They were capable of reading very precise thought patterns, but even the slightest inconsistencies would already cause a command to not be recognized.

And the need to configure each command for each user individually was another limiter in its usability for actual magic.

Sure, all stories mentioned the need to train for many years to wield magic, but what kind of magic required you to train for every single direction you'd want to sling a spell in? That wasn't magic, that was just boring!

At least those were Alex's thoughts regarding his supposed failure.

On the other hand, the world as a whole profited from it, while the hailed creator of their favorite technology retreated from the public, slowly but surely forgotten by the world.

The following years saw Alex morphing into the creature we've first encountered. A lazy man, having overcome his depression over the first few years after his seclusion, mostly thanks to Lily.

He never fully gave up on his research, although with little to show for his efforts.

After all these years, the only thing he managed to add was a very crude interface, thanks to the precise interaction enabled by those too-dumb-for-real-magic brain-computer-interfaces.

By creating a varity of very complex new magical elements, which would create a stable network when in the presence of a creatures nervous system, this new interface effectively emulated a brain-computer-interface with a simple artificial intelligence.

It was less advanced than most state of the art systems, but nonetheless capable of self-improvement.

All this was capable of, at the moment, was to display some crude information, since the system itself didn't really have much to show anyway.

Maybe in some years even he himself, albeit never able to interact with his creation the way he intended to, could see what it would look like.

This also give him the ability to directly imprint his person as the sole user authorized to create new elements or actively change the system itself, to avoid any misuse of his creation.

With this new interface, he managed to introduce his last hope into his creation.

A hope that didn't belong to himself, but to the following generations. A hope that, in a remote future, evolution would take its course and allow the humans of those times to connect with this new system on a fundamental level.

To not only understand it, but to learn from it, and yes, one day, even interact with it.

After what seemed like multiple hours, but was barely a second, that same sound was heard again, this time much closer. Anyone with some awareness of their surroundings would even say that it was too close for comfort.

Luckily Alex was just that guy, having given in to his curiosity, or maybe annoyance at the repeated attempt to hinder his sleep, he decided that it was time to look at the source of this noise, presumably Lily, and to see what she wanted.

Rather in time, Alex opened his eyes, only to be greeted by a fast approaching... wolf?

It surely seemed like a wolf, albeit they usually weren't so flashy. With mostly dark fur, except for a golden circle around its neck, which could only be called a scarf, and teal-colored feathers on its tail, this creature surely made for a fashionable paragon of its kind.

Alex never had much of an interest in anything not related to magic, including natures beauty in general, so he wasn't able to adequately flavour this moment in which he was witness to one of the most remarkable animals ever seen.

Maybe this was not entirely his fault, considering the house-sized beast was attempting to give him the worst hug ever, rushing into his face at break-neck speed.

Too distracted by the oncoming giant to take stock of the world as a whole and its secrets, or at least the ground behind him, he jerked backwards.

The effect was astounding, for with a single step he vanished from the path of collision the creature was dead-set on taking, only half a second before the beast managed to devour him.

Less fortunate might've been the various circumstances leading to his fast removal from Death's wish-list, even if they were a better alternative.

Firstly, his lack of awareness of his surroundings. Definitely a good contender for the cause of the ongoing events. But maybe the biggest role was played by the vast abyss enchroaching just a step behind Alex, when he decided to take said step.

Unceremoniously, he plummeted. Not far, mind you. Luck was on his side, as there were rather solid roots hanging along the whole length of the abyss.

In fact, it would've taken considerable speed to not get caught by them. Speed gladly demonstrated by the on-rushing beast, throwing itself over the ledge and into the abyss.

After some agonizingly long seconds of root-acupuncture, Alex heard the beast's landing. A very unpleasant sound. Which was closely followed by what most current denizens of safer regions would call a pleasant sound, while just confusing Alex even more.

*ding*

"A bell?"