"Ahh," a soft groan could be heard in a room.
A boy opened his eyes.
'Too dark. Where am I?' He looked at the surroundings and could see a jail. No, a cage more specifically on a careful look.
'Did somebody capture me? I can't remember anything... maybe my memories are somehow deleted,' the boy thought calmly.
He had a moment of panic, but he crushed it instantly.
During times like this, panicking is just a fool's errand, and he had learned this from experience firsthand previously.
'Let's see, what is the last thing I remember?... Hmm, I went to sleep. Before that...'
'Okay, so my memory is blank after this. Either they were somehow removed, or I was caught in the night, and now I am here,' he thought while looking inside other people's cages.
He could see people with pale faces, faces that he could judge easily.
'They... They have lost hope,' he looked at other people's faces and clenched his hands.
He took deep breaths. 'It's fine. I- I won't lose hope, even if I am a few seconds before my death. Losing hope is the same as death,' his resolve grew strong.
He was going to escape this unknown place at any cost.
He looked around and closed his eyes, waiting to gain more information.
He would also act like he had lost hope so that whoever was keeping him here would not think he was the odd one out, as that would make taking action later more difficult if he caught their attention.
'So, time to blend in,' he closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep for now, planning his next actions, which would depend on who the jailer was.
'Also, what's with this different feeling I am getting? This is not uncertainty but something else,' he tried to focus outward, on his body, probably thinking that it was something with the air.
His eyes opened and widened. 'What the fuck?' A wave of panic spread through his heart, this time much greater than when he realized that he was in an unknown place.
He tried to forcefully calm himself.
It took him half a minute to calm down enough to rationally think.
'This is not my body; it's somebody else's body. How the heck am I in this body?' Thoughts ran at very high speeds inside his brain, faster than ever before.
His body's fight-or-flight mechanism had been activated, and adrenaline was coursing through his blood.
All of that blood was going toward his head due to how much thinking he was doing.
He was replaying his entire life and finding possibilities for such things happening or just connections that could lead to this.
He had some assumptions previously, but having a big-picture understanding of the situation is always advantageous.
His musings were interrupted by a loud bang.
He saw a tall man with a broad chest and a well-built body coming inside.
He passed everyone their plates through the gate by sliding them on the floor.
Despite being thrown fast, not a single drop of porridge from any of the plates spilt on the ground.
It just showed his skill.
'Pretend like you have lost hope like others,' the main character chanted inside his head while mimicking their facial expressions.
"I will fucking kill you when I escape," a slave angrily said to the slaver.
The guy just looked at the angry, shouting slave with contempt in his eyes and then shook his head.
"It seems you are dumb. I have given you multiple opportunities to not kill you, but it seems you have chosen this route. Don't blame me for what happens next," the guy said while unplugging a button on a bag tied to his waist.
'Japanese? Am I in Japan? Also, will that guy take out a gun?' He instantly recognized both of them speaking in Japanese and the severity of what was going to happen.
However, his surprise turned to shock when he saw a book floating in front of the man and to horror when the guy released a fire spell that started burning the man alive.
"My last mercy to you would be killing you swiftly. I could have tried to slowly burn you, but that would have been too cruel," the guy said after not even ashes were left of the slave.
He looked at every other slave and, as expected, saw a look of horror on their faces.
'This guy... He is dangerous.' He would have been on alert if it was just a gun, but seeing that he could even torture others if he so wished increased the severity of the situation again.
He hadn't hidden his look of horror even after the guy left the room.
Just in case somebody else was watching or if the guy had other ways to monitor him—because why not? If one could spew fireballs, then it was logical to take precautions against such magic.
Inside, however, he was planning his escape. 'This is probably a moving vehicle or probably a carriage, as I could feel this moving with subtle shifts of my body, which is hard to notice normally. Also, that guy, he had a clover symbol in his book...'
Everything clicked for the boy.
He had transmigrated into Black Clover and was now being transported somewhere as a slave.
It took him a while—around 10 minutes—to accept that he had a new body and identity and that the world had changed.
Due to not having much attachment to his old world, he only had to come to terms with living in a medieval fantasy and forgoing smartphones and anime.
'Finding information would be very difficult now. Just having a search engine makes things so much easier. I guess the fact that people realize the importance of something only when it's lost is true,' he internally shook his head.
'Maybe this could be an AU or set in modern times... but let's expect the worst,' he was a devout follower of Murphy's Law.
'Anyway, it doesn't really matter. My goal is to just survive and try out different things. For that, I need strength and power because, without those, the hierarchical world will just make me a casualty of a young master or something,' he internally giggled at that while closing his eyes outwardly.
He rambled about some things internally, just entertaining himself while brainstorming how he would escape.
'Okay, now this is going to be risky, but I would rather not find out what will happen to me when this carriage reaches its destination, as that is unknown,' he hardened his resolve.
'I will start trying to feel my mana. Everyone in this verse has that, except for some abnormalities. But let's assume I have some mana. Doing so could risk the slaver knowing about this, but I am ready to take the risk. I am not going to regret this decision,' with that, he didn't waste time and started to find something different in his body that was not present in his previous body.
He had always done some form of meditation in his previous life, so his self-awareness of his body was not bad.
In just around fifteen minutes, he found the weird energy in his body.
'Okay, now I don't know how to manipulate this exactly, but I have read and watched a lot of weird stuff and have some theoretical knowledge about how to approach any unknown energy.
But that all is theory. It's time to test if those theories work or not,' with that, he tried to move the energy inside his body only.
He had found the source of his mana in the solar plexus.
However, that was only where it was mainly concentrated; he had noticed that it was present throughout his whole body.
He went with the solar plexus for now as he thought it would be easier to work with trying to move mana in an area where there was more, as sensing mana inside his body was easier.
'Magic could be used even without having a grimoire. Just having a grimoire makes it easier, but we have seen characters using magic when they were kids, so it should be possible.'
'Time to start moulding it inside my body for now,' with that, he started going on a grind to hone his control.
Time was ticking, and for now, just being able to use mana would be a boon to him.
***
A/n- Guys 50 Powerstones before tomorrow's reset for a bonus chapter, it's quite an ambitious goal, but let's try it.
***
Join my Patreon to support me and get up to 20 advanced chapters:
at p@treon.com/Desire96
Check out my other works too.