The sun was just beginning to dip below the horizon, casting long shadows across the bustling city. Zane squinted against the glare reflecting off the glass storefronts as he hurried down the street. It was another ordinary day in Meridian City—a place where mana-infused skyscrapers stood alongside grimy alleyways, and 9-to-5ers rubbed shoulders with robed mages heading to their guilds.
Zane wasn't in either camp. At sixteen, he was just a high school junior with average grades, a bad habit of running late, and a knack for dreaming up grand plans he never followed through on. Today, he was supposed to meet his best friend, Dean, at the arcade. That plan was quickly unraveling thanks to the laundry list of "just one more thing" errands his mom had handed him on the way out the door.
He stopped at the crosswalk, tapping his foot impatiently. A few cars whizzed by, their mana engines humming with an unmistakable buzz. He glanced up at the streetlight and sighed as the "Don't Walk" symbol continued to blink, taunting him.
"Why does this city even need crosswalks?" Zane muttered under his breath. "Half the people can teleport, and the other half can fly if they're lucky enough to have wind affinity."
"Talking to yourself again?" A familiar voice broke through his thoughts.
Zane turned to see Dean sauntering up, a smirk plastered across his face. He was holding a bag of chips and looked like he'd been waiting for hours. "What took you so long? Did you trip over your own feet again?"
"Ha ha, very funny," Zane replied. "Some of us have chores, you know. Not all of us can just sit around leveling up their fire spells all day."
Dean shrugged. "Hey, if you had even a spark of magic talent, maybe you'd get it. But alas…" He made an exaggerated show of shaking his head in mock pity.
Zane rolled his eyes but couldn't suppress a grin. "Just wait. One day, I'm gonna show you up. I'll get an affinity, and it'll blow yours out of the water."
"Sure, and pigs will learn wind magic," Dean said with a laugh. "Anyway, hurry up. If we don't get to the arcade soon, someone's gonna take my high score in Mana Racer."
The light finally changed, and Zane stepped onto the crosswalk, his thoughts briefly flickering to Dean's words. It wasn't like he hadn't tried to awaken his mana core. Everyone went through the same ritual at fifteen, gathering around the ceremonial orb to see what kind of magic, if any, they'd be blessed with. Most people got a basic affinity—fire, water, earth, air. A lucky few were dual-affined. And then there were people like Zane, who got absolutely nothing.
"Unawakened," the mage officiating the ceremony had said, barely glancing at him before moving on to the next kid in line. It had been humiliating.
But Zane had never been one to dwell on things. If he couldn't use magic, then he'd just find another way to make something of himself. His parents always said hard work could beat talent. Of course, that was easy to say when both of them were high-ranking mages who didn't have to worry about mana beasts or dead-end jobs.
He was halfway across the street when the sound of tires screeching snapped him out of his thoughts.
Zane turned his head just in time to see a delivery truck barreling toward him, the driver frantically honking and shouting something he couldn't make out. The world seemed to slow down.
Dean's voice cut through the noise, yelling his name. Zane didn't even have time to move.
The impact was sudden, a blinding flash of pain that tore through his body before everything went dark.
When Zane opened his eyes, he wasn't in the middle of the street. He wasn't in a hospital, either. In fact, he wasn't anywhere he recognized.
He was standing in an empty void, the world around him completely white, save for a faint glow in the distance. As he took a cautious step forward, words began to form in front of him, floating midair like they were being typed by some invisible hand.
Welcome, Zane. You have died.
He blinked, staring at the words in disbelief. "Uh… what?"
Before he could process that, more text appeared.
You have been selected to relive your life. Your new journey will begin at age 16. A system has been installed to assist your progress.
"A system? Like a video game?" Zane muttered, still trying to make sense of this. "Wait—relive my life? Does that mean I'm… dead?"
The words didn't answer his question. Instead, a new message popped up:
System Initialization Complete. Welcome, User.
Then, everything went black again.
When Zane opened his eyes this time, he was in his bedroom.
But it wasn't his current bedroom. It was the room he'd had when he was sixteen. Posters of his favorite mana beast hunters covered the walls. His old school uniform was draped over the chair by his desk. The faint hum of city mana generators filled the air outside.
Zane sat up slowly, his heart pounding.
"This… this can't be real."
And then, in the corner of his vision, a glowing blue screen appeared.
[SYSTEM ONLINE]
Current Level: 1
XP to Next Level: 100
Attribute Points Available: 0
Zane stared at it, his mouth hanging open.
"Huh," he said after a moment. "So this is what it's like to wake up in a cheat code."