"Huh… Where am I?" Rain looked around the cave.
A rocky surface, grassy land, and a massive pond filled with crystal-clear waters. It was a sight Rain had only seen in movies, never in reality.
"Wasn't… I just sleeping?" After a day of work, Rain had slept like a baby, but when he woke up, he was lying on the rocky surface, not in his usual comfortable bed.
"Have… I been kidnapped?" He thought for a moment but dismissed the thought.
First, kidnappers wouldn't leave him alone. Even if they did, they wouldn't give him freedom.
Second, kidnappers don't abduct anyone and keep them in a cave. Their primary locations are usually abandoned factories, warehouses, or other deserted places.
"Even if I have been kidnapped… Where the heck are they? It's rude of them to leave their victim alone in an unfamiliar place. Don't they have manners?"
He looked around and sighed. "So I can't go to school. The teacher will be mad." He was a high schooler, and an orphan on top of that.
He had to work multiple part-time jobs and survive on the little money his parents had left him before they decided to die.
He had school, work, and stress. Now, he was in an unfamiliar place—just more misery.
"I'll be fired from my job. That's going to be my source of income gone. The school will search for me or try for a day and then give up. Hah, my life." Rain sighed.
"Well, I don't think I've been kidnapped. Unless they want my broken kidney, malfunctioning heart, or blurry eyes, I have nothing else to offer. I don't even have a single penny." Deciding it was stupid to linger in the same spot, he walked outside.
There was only one entrance/exit to this cave, but as he stepped out of the hole, he saw something that stunned him.
"I must be dreaming… Right?" He stepped back inside instantly and contemplated deeply. "There's no way a skeleton could walk freely… Haha, this isn't a game, anime, or novel after all." But as he peeked out, he saw a humanoid creature that was pure white, as if it was nothing but bones.
Well, it was nothing but bones—it was a skeleton walking naked, without any armor, but there was a rusty sword in its hand.
"Right." Rain pinched his cheeks and even slapped himself. He looked at the solid rocky wall and banged his head.
"I am freaking dead… Ain't I?" The pain made him sure it wasn't a dream.
However, the question was, where was he? "Don't tell me… I got fucking isekai'd out of nowhere?!" Rain wanted to scream but held it in, as the skeleton might hear it, and that would be very bad—it could even be his last scream.
He walked toward the pond and looked at his reflection.
It was his same average face—nothing had changed.
"So this is a fantasy world… Maybe… I can use magic." A glimmer of hope lit in his heart.
He sat in a meditative position and closed his eyes.
Shuuu… Shaaaa…
He took deep breaths. He tried emptying his mind and focused entirely on the environment to feel the mana.
"Hmm!" His hair stood on end as he felt something unique. A sharp energy pricked his skin. "No way…" Rain's eyes widened.
He could feel a sharp energy. The energy was unique and gave a sensation he had never felt before.
As he sensed the energy, his body glowed slightly.
"From what I've learned from all the novels I've read and animes I've watched, magic is nothing but visualization. The clearer your imagination, the better your magic will be. Let's try that!" Pumped up, he focused on the energy.
First, he tried to grasp the energy. He breathed it in. He could feel the energy entering his lungs and going to his heart before mysteriously disappearing.
He focused deeply, and slowly, he began to figure out the path of the energy. The mana entered his heart and slowly concentrated in one part.
He tried to draw the mana. He focused his attention on his heart and tried to draw the mana with his will.
He felt the energy and focused on it, continuing to ask his brain to draw the mana.
Slowly and steadily, he could feel something unique. Just like breathing in and out, he could also breathe the mana out.
It was similar to drawing the mana, but he had no control over it.
"This is just the beginning." Rain visualized a fireball.
An image of a ball of fire appeared in his mind. He visualized it more clearly. The fireball in his imagination was now like a 3D object, burning and rotating.
Visualizing that he breathed out the mana, Rain focused intently. Slowly, as the mana passed toward his nose, it heated up, and as it escaped through his nostrils…
"Ah!" A sharp shriek reverberated in the empty cave. Fortunately, no skeleton heard it, or he could have been in trouble.
"That hurts a lot." His nose had breathed out fire, which was amazing. If it hadn't burned his nostrils and every part below his nose, he would have been amazed.
Thankfully, the heat wasn't intense, or half of his face would have been charred black.
"I shouldn't breathe fire out. I should try to get it out from my palm." He still didn't understand any of the logic behind controlling the mana, but he was acting on instinct.
As long as it works, don't question it.
He focused on the mana again, and instead of breathing it out, he tried to create a path in his mind.
From his heart to his blood vessels, through his nerves, and finally to the pores of his palm.
He concentrated on the mana and mentally mapped out the path. Slowly, as he exhaled, some mana entered his blood vessels.
He could feel something running along with his blood—a unique and itchy sensation. It was ticklish, as if something was tickling him from the inside.
The mana slowly reached his pores.
"Concentrate…" The amount of focus he had at that moment was unmatched; he had never concentrated this much, even when playing games.
He concentrated on the mana and tried to shape it into a sphere.
As mana leaked from his palm, he tried to form it into a circular shape.
Once again, he visualized a fireball.
Sparks ignited on his palm.
The sparks slowly turned into a burning fire. The fire swirled, attempting to form a circular shape.
But as it moved slightly, Rain lost control, and the fire extinguished.
Rather than losing control, he simply couldn't shape it properly.
He didn't yet have a firm grasp on the mana. Everything he was doing was purely instinctive. He focused and commanded the mana in his mind, visualizing its path. Somehow, the mana followed his imagination.
It was like moving a puppet with strings. Unless you're an expert, it's hard to make it move exactly the way you want.
That was exactly how Rain felt. But he wasn't frustrated; instead, a blaze of determination burned in his heart.
"Magic!" How could he not love magic?
Something as cool as magic—no boy in the world would hate it. Everyone has dreamed of using magic at least once in their life.
If you could fulfill your dream, wouldn't you be excited too?
"Focus…" He closed his eyes and visualized a clearer path. Mana slowly flowed from his heart into his blood vessels.
Streams of energy moved through him, creating lines under his skin. The energy made his veins bulge, and a painful, burning sensation filled his chest.
As the energy traveled from his heart to his arms, the burning sensation intensified. When it reached his palms, it felt as though fire was burning inside them.
Countless hot, molten needles pricked him. Despite the pain, he gritted his teeth and focused harder.
His eyes trembled, his body shook, yet he remained steadfast.
The energy slowly exited his body. As it emerged, it transformed into fire.
A straight line of fire shot upward. Slowly, it bent and formed a square. The corners trembled, and more fire poured from his palm, filling the square.
Then the square rotated, and its corners melted. The straight lines turned curvy, gradually transforming into a circle.
"Hah… Hah…" Rain felt exhausted, as if every ounce of energy had been squeezed out of him.
His heart pounded, his blood boiled, and sweat soaked his clothes. An aching sensation spread through every muscle in his body.
He had succeeded in creating a fireball, but as he released it, it exploded with a loud "Bang!"
At the same time, Rain felt dizzy. "No… way…" The world around him became blurry. He couldn't move a finger, nor change his posture. It was as if he were paralyzed.
"Huuu… Haaa…" He breathed heavily, but the world kept turning whiter.
He inhaled deeply, forgetting to exhale. His nose opened wide, sucking in all the surrounding air.
Sharp energy pricked his nose. His head throbbed, his heart ached, and a burning sensation spread through his body, making him feel as though his blood was evaporating.
Still, he kept inhaling. One minute, two… Three…
Ten minutes later, his muscles finally loosened. "Haaaaaaaaaaa…" For a straight minute, he exhaled all the air he had inhaled.
"What… was that?" He could feel the mana in his heart.
The mana had filled a void within him, and he could sense it flowing through certain patterns.
It covered his entire body, reaching every inch. Due to that, his muscles loosened, his heart stopped pounding, and the pain faded away.
"Was it some sort of backlash? Did I do something wrong?" It was his first time performing magic, so he had no clue what he was doing.
He had just followed his instincts, which led to this disastrous situation.
"It felt like I was so close to death." His mind had gone blank, and his instincts had taken over, leaving him only inhaling mana.
"Anyway, it's good that I'm feeling better. Should I continue to perform magic… Oh, right! I got it! It must be mana deficiency!" In fantasy worlds, a lack of mana could leave one drained of energy. Utilizing more mana than one's limit could even be fatal.
"I just got transported to this world. So, is my mana reserve so small? I mean, how is it even possible that I contain mana? There was no mana back on Earth. Unless… maybe drawing mana from my surroundings filled me with it." He thought his natural mana reserve had been zero, with no consequences since that was his normal state.
But drawing mana from the surroundings seemed to increase his mana points, and using it drained his reserve.
"So… if I'm right, can I increase my mana just by… meditation?" In Chinese terms, it would be cultivation.
Rain felt like he was just speculating nonsense. How could his body, which had never known mana, instantly adapt to it and require reserves for proper functioning?
And just because he had inhaled some mana—not even a lot—how could that little amount, barely the equivalent of a glass, be enough to make his body adapt or even get addicted to it?
"Why am I thinking so deeply? It's a fantasy world. Nothing works like it does on Earth. The whole logic and common sense here are different."
With this realization, Rain finalized his thoughts on how to use magic.
"Get enough mana reserve, and get my body adapted to mana usage so I don't feel any pain." With that plan in mind, Rain began breathing intensely, like a perverted guy.
Mana slowly but surely entered his body. He still couldn't figure out if mana was mixed with the air, like oxygen, or if it followed entirely different rules.
For now, he could feel the flow of mana. He was inhaling a spoonful of mana every minute, which was honestly super slow.
It would take him ten
minutes to gather enough mana to cast a fireball again without depleting his reserve.
But Rain was hooked. And for a very long time, he stayed still, closed his eyes, and didn't move a bit.