I woke up with a piercing headache, my mind a chaotic mess.
Kai Night?
Who is that?
Wait... I think that's my name.
Groaning, I struggled to sit up, my entire body feeling heavy and sluggish. The pounding in my head made it almost impossible to focus, a constant thrum that left me feeling nauseous.
"Where... am I?" I muttered, my voice hoarse and unfamiliar.
I looked around the room. It wasn't mine, that much was clear. The sleek metallic walls glowed faintly, illuminated by glowing blue conduits embedded along their edges. A soft hum reverberated in the background, soothing but alien.
"This... isn't my room," I said aloud, the realization sinking in.
I pressed my hands against my temples, trying to force some order into the whirlwind of my thoughts. "Alright, think. What's the last thing I remember?"
The answer came slowly, like fragments of a dream piecing themselves together.
"The metro... I was reading…" My eyes widened as the memory became clearer. "The novel. Lord of Emptiness. The last chapter…"
The final stand of Mortis, the Lord of Emptiness. The Outer Gods descending. The suffocating void. And then... that strange light.
But after that? Nothing.
"No way," I whispered, my breath catching.
My gaze darted around the room again. The furniture was modern, clean, and far more high-tech than anything I had ever seen. The hum of the conduits seemed to resonate through the walls, and the air felt unnaturally crisp.
"Did I... fall into a coma? Wake up twenty years later or something?" I tried to joke, but the unease in my chest refused to dissipate.
I glanced around for something reflective and finally found a mirror mounted on the wall. Stumbling out of bed, I approached it, expecting to see the face of someone older haggard, gaunt, and weathered by whatever accident had brought me here.
What I saw instead made my blood run cold.
The reflection staring back at me wasn't mine.
A 16-year-old kid stood there, lean but slightly toned, with dark, messy hair framing a face that could only be described as subtly handsome just enough to stand out if someone bothered to notice. But his most striking feature, by far, was his eyes.
Deep purple like a twilight sky, they shimmered faintly, as though stars were trapped within.
"I look... sixteen," I said, my voice trembling.
I reached up and touched my face, running my fingers over my jawline. It was sharp, smooth completely unfamiliar.
"This... isn't my body," I said aloud, leaning closer to the mirror. My reflection moved in tandem, mirroring my confusion perfectly.
The longer I stared, the more apparent it became. This wasn't me not the me I remembered.
"What the hell is going on?" I muttered, stepping back from the mirror.
Then, a soft chime broke the silence.
I turned sharply toward the source. A sleek, futuristic phone sat on the desk across the room, its screen glowing with a notification.
I hesitated before walking over, my heart pounding for reasons I couldn't explain. Picking up the device, I saw the notification.
It was from a contact saved as Mom.
That alone sent a wave of confusion crashing over me. I didn't have a mom or at least, I didn't remember one.
My thumb hovered over the screen before I finally tapped the notification, opening the message.
Mom:
Hi sweetheart! I hope you're settling into your dorm. Remember, classes at Astrea Academy start in three days! Make sure you're rested and ready. You've got a big year ahead of you!
I read the message again. And again.
"...Astrea Academy?" I whispered, the name sending chills down my spine.
It was impossible to ignore now. The sleek technology. My younger appearance. The name of that academy.
"No. No, no, no, no..." I muttered, pacing back and forth as panic began to set in. "This can't be happening. I can't be here. I'm not... This isn't real."
But the more I thought about it, the more the pieces fell into place. The academy. My age. The strange hum in my body, almost like energy thrumming beneath my skin.
I stopped pacing, taking a shaky breath. "If this is real, then that means... I'm in the world of Lord of Emptiness."
The words felt foreign on my tongue, but deep down, I knew they were true.
"Shit," I muttered, running my hands through my hair. "I'm in a doomed world. The Outer Gods are going to descend. Mortis is going to obliterate everything in his way , and I'm stuck here.
But then suddenly a blue holographic screen appeared and shocked me to the point that I stopped panicking.
[System Activated]
Name: Kai Night
Age: 16
Element: Space/Time
Mana Core Rank: Novice (8% Progress)
Wait what a system!?
Even the main character that was supposedly the chosen hero of creation didn't have one.
And I am a novice!? the lowest level of a mana core.
Mana Core Ranks:
Novice Core (Gray)
Apprentice Core (Blue)
Adept Core (Green)
Expert Core (Gold)
Master Core (Red)
Archmage Core (Purple)
Transcendent Core (Black)
Although there was realm beyond mana core's but that was far into the future and didn't matter for now.
Although it makes sense that I am a novice everyone starts of as a novice and human's awaken their mana core at the age of 16 everyone in the first year of academy would be a novice.
And space-time is practically unheard of having a element like that might be beneficial in the later stages but right now.
I was just a target on my back.
What was a novice supposed to do with bending space time.
Make someone trip on distorted space-time.
But I have to figure a way to survive the academy and hope this system or some miracle can help me survive the ending of the story.
But how do I stronger space-time is extremely rare element very few are as rare as it even fewer rarer the only one I can think of is Mortis's element Nihility none of the characters in the story have it.
I can't think where I can get artifacts or anything to help me with this element.
Wait! There was a mention of a power archmage with the space-time element who created teleportation circles.
This legacy was stated to be near the edge of the Redwyrm forest in a cathedral where he was buried.
"Magnus Arcanis," I muttered, the name
"If I can find his grave," I said, standing and pacing the room again, "there's a chance he left behind something useful. Artifacts, spells... anything."
I stopped, looking at my reflection in the mirror again. The purple eyes stared back, a mix of fear and determination.
"Alright, Kai," I said aloud. "Here's the plan: Step one, find Magnus' grave. Step two, don't die. Step three, figure out how not to get caught in this damn story's apocalyptic ending."
It wasn't much, but it was better than sitting around waiting for doom to catch up with me.
"Three days," I repeated, grabbing the futuristic phone and sliding it into my pocket. "Let's make them count."