Atreus was struck by the familiarity he felt with Gary as they spoke. The way he talked and moved triggered a sad nostalgia in Atreus. “So If I were to believe you…” Gary said, his hands pressed together and raised up to his face as if he were praying for strength. “You think that I am an alternate version of your brother, who is now dead.”

Atreus nodded sullenly, grasping a stress ball in one hand while scrawling on printer paper with an orange crayon. The former berserker would be insulted if he knew the writing tool was meant for children, but he didn’t.

Gary opened his eyes and gave Atreus a look “And that you are an alternate version of you, not my brother; Arthur.”

Atreus was tired and in constant pain due to his condition, but he could still sense the sour disbelief in Gary’s voice. Atreus tried focusing on Gary “Hey man, I’m not a scholar or a mage; But I still hear about all the theories about alternate realms and all that shit.” He gestured with the hand that had a crayon firmly grasped in it. “Usually when those smart types all agree on a theory, it's only a matter of time before they prove themselves right.”

Gary looked down at what Atreus was drawing. It looked like an upside-down triangle with the little shape of a house in the middle. Around the main triangle were odd flowing lines that the brain-damaged man was intently trying to get all the wax to a very specific thickness and position on the page. Gary had watched his brother start over on this one drawing about a dozen times since he had woken up.

Gary forced himself to ask what he was wondering, knowing he wouldn’t like the answer. “What are you trying to draw?” Atreus didn’t respond right away. He got to a good stopping point and looked back in Gary’s direction. His eyes were hazy and unfocused, not for lack of effort.

“Well…it’s called a universal rune… any adventurer with a bit of sense learns how to draw it. Basically, it SHOULD teleport me back to my home. But I don’t have any mana right now so It isn’t working.”

Gary nodded sadly. “Runes, teleportation, mana.” He kept nodding, but because he was tensing up. He had no reason to believe that Atreus wasn’t Arthur just suffering a bad mental break. Gary assumed that the person he was speaking to really was Arthur and thus had to hold back tears. He would be there for his ‘brother’ no matter how sad it was to see him living in an odd little fantasy world.

Gary put a hand on his shoulder, which made Atreus flinch and tense up. He looked at Gary with annoyance but still softened up when he saw a version of his lost brother just trying to help. “I need to go to work, man. Just stay safe and don’t go back into a coma.” Atreus nodded.

“Thanks…Gary.” They nodded at each other and the older man awkwardly left the room. Atreus looked back up at the television mounted to the ceiling and breathed deeply. The ‘news’ of this world painted it as a pretty depressing place. These people didn’t even have magic; having to solely rely on technology. Not that it was a truly awful thing; even an ignorant warrior like Atreus understood that there were certain things science could do that magic simply won’t and vice versa.

Atreus looked at the date on the screen and up at the clock hanging from the wall. He personally didn’t like the system for the date and time they used but it worked well enough to know when it was about to be lunchtime. Just as he began to dread the sugary meal he was about to be delivered; he felt a swelling in his chest, and a vivid blue text box appeared in his vision. A second appeared rapidly after it.

You have gained

access to your Class

Your body is currently absorbing mana

Through an unknown source

Mana absorbed: 16

Atreus began to sweat. “Fuck yes!” He pumped his arms in the air, having to struggle to find the energy despite his extreme excitement. He pulled up his status screen and was severely disappointed with what he saw.

You have gained your first level!

NAME: Atreus Penfold / LEVEL: 1 / CLASS: unclaimed

SPECIES: currently unknown

HP: 300/300 SP: 325/325 MP: 56/56

Vitality: 5

Endurance: 6

Strength: 4

Dexterity: 5

Intelligence: 4 +

Luck: 13

ABILITIES: none

SKILLS: none

Blessings: Dimension Hopper (Great Mage)

Afflictions:

Brain damage: -11% focus

New Eyes: -5% accuracy

New Hands: -5% accuracy

New Legs: -10% tenacity

Atreus skimmed the mostly empty status screen, noting the blessing and the modifier on his meager intelligence stat. The huge decrease in his focus was a very bad thing, especially at his low level where he didn’t know where the knock-out threshold was. He looked back at the top of the status where his mana pool had just reached 300 points and beyond.

Level gained automatically

due to mana infusion

+300 mana points (permanent)

+2 Intelligence

You have taken 16 damage

from mana-burn

Atreus gritted his teeth and seethed hard. His torso tensed up as pain shot through not only his whole body but his mind as well as new neurons formed and his brain rapidly repaired itself.

Level gained automatically

due to mana infusion

+300 mana points (permanent)

+3 Intelligence

You have taken 47 damage

from mana-burn

The migraine became entirely unbearable and he tried to scream but rasps only escaped from his throat. He writhed in his bed as his ears and eyes began to bleed badly. Though the damage from bleed didn’t even register in the system. It only took moments but it felt like an hour of torture to Atreus.

When the transfer finally stopped he sat up in bed with a weird sense of strength, his body had the power of the system behind it now. The new and profound mental clarity was also novel to Atreus. Which only made the red and pink mana burns that scarred his body all the worse. He screamed for a nurse, which worked in both having a kind man in a uniform rush in to help, and to force some blood and bile into his mouth. Atreus checked his status as the aid tried to discern what possibly could have happened.

NAME: Atreus Penfold / LEVEL: 13 / CLASS: unclaimed

SPECIES: currently unknown

HP: 13/244 SP: 325/325 MP: 4200/4200

Vitality: 7 -

Endurance: 6

Strength: 4

Dexterity: 5

Intelligence: 37 +

Luck: 15

ABILITIES: Mana Infusion (Action) Mana Detection (Passive)

SKILLS: none

Blessings: Dimension Hopper (Great Mage)

Afflictions:

New Eyes: -5% accuracy

New Hands: -5% accuracy

New Legs: -10% tenacity

Severe 2nd-Degree Burns:

-10% focus

-10% regeneration

Organ damage:

Vitality debuff

Atreus felt overwhelmed by the information. His intelligence stat had ballooned so rapidly that he began to have an identity crisis as more nurses and his doctor entered the room and began asking him what happened. “I’m a fucking wizard now…” Most of them just assumed that he was still delusional and continued treating his wounds. He clenched his fists. This is never what he had wanted. He never learned how to be a mage or how to study spells. Right as his downward spiral into anger started he got another notification.

ATTENTION!

You are the only source of mana for

A vast distance. This qualifies you as a Mana Pylon.

You are now a gateway for mana and any attempted teleportation

on or onto this world will automatically be redirected to your location.

Teleportation spells and runes have a vastly lower mana cost.

And you passively regenerate and radiate mana into the

world around you.

Meditation recovery is many times more effective.

Atreus shot up to the protest of every medical professional around him, he was much stronger now but they still kept him in the bed. He instead cleared his throat as best he could and gestured towards the many copies of the universal home rune on the floor next to his bed. “Please…I want to see one of them.” One of the nurses obliged; thinking it would help keep him calm through the pain. In truth, he was no stranger to near-death injury. He looked at the rune scrawled on the page and focused his intent on it. He felt his mana slowly push into the page, and the system responded with a text box.

The mana cost has been exponentially increased

in order to make it possible to breach the veil between reality.

Universal Home Rune:

Mana Cost: 300,000 mana

All the nurses and the doctor jumped back as Atreus violently ripped apart the crayon drawing in his hands and tilted his head back to scream like a deer that had been shot with an arrow. He evacuated all the air out of his lungs; which mercifully made him pass out before he could burst a blood vessel in his brain.