The small, circular clearing behind the cottage had become Palim's laboratory. To his mother, Elara, he was simply a curious toddler playing in the dirt. To Palim, he was a scientist standing at the precipice of a breakthrough that could rewrite the laws of this world's physics.
Sweat slicked his brow, stinging his eyes. On the ground before him lay three distinct piles: a handful of dry, brittle leaves; a jagged grey stone; and the invisible, swirling current of air he had learned to tether to his will.
Focus, Ernest. No—focus, Palim.
He reached out, his small hands trembling. "Recycle," he whispered.
The air began to hum. In his mind's eye, he saw the molecular structure of the leaves—carbon, cellulose, stored sunlight—and the dense, stubborn lattice of the stone. On Earth, the energy required to fuse these would have required a particle accelerator. Here, it required intent and Mana.
The leaves dissolved first, turning into a green, ethereal mist. Then, the stone began to glow a dull, throbbing red.
[System Notification: Stamina Critical (12/100)] [Mana Overflow Detected: Analyzing Conversion...]
The strain was immense. It felt as if a hot iron was being pressed against his sternum. His heart hammered a frantic rhythm against his ribs. The "Recycle" skill was a double-edged sword: it gave him the power of a god but demanded the constitution of a titan—something his three-year-old body currently lacked.
Balance it, he told himself, teeth gritted. Use the kinetic energy of the air to stabilize the stone's heat. Don't fight the friction; recycle it.
Suddenly, the green mist and the red glow snapped together. A flash of white light blinded him for a heartbeat.
When his vision cleared, the leaves and the stone were gone. In their place sat a single, translucent pebble. It pulsed with a soft, rhythmic light, synchronized exactly with Palim's own heartbeat.
He picked it up. It was weightless, yet held a density that felt "correct."
[New Item Created: Essence Core (Low Tier)] [Description: A stabilized battery of recycled matter. Can be consumed to instantly restore 20% Mana or used as a catalyst for basic construction.]
A grin stretched across his face. This was it. On Earth, his "Magnum Opus" had been a theory on infinite energy loops. Here, he had just created a physical battery out of trash and garden debris.
"Palim? Honey, it's time for lunch!" Elara's voice drifted from the cottage.
He quickly shoved the Essence Core into the small pouch at his waist. He stood up, but a sudden wave of vertigo sent him reeling. The "Recycle" process had drained his stamina to the point of collapse. His vision blurred, the vibrant greens of the forest turning into a muddy grey.
Too much... I pushed too far...
Just as his knees buckled, a pair of strong arms caught him. He smelled woodsmoke and pine—his father, Kael.
"Careful there, little spark," Kael laughed, hoisting Palim onto his shoulder. "Pushing yourself again? You've got the spirit of a warrior, but the legs of a fawn."
Palim leaned his head against his father's shoulder, his small heart slowing down. He looked at his father's calloused hands—hands that spent all day chopping wood and tilling soil just to provide a meager living.
A new thought ignited in Palim's mind, sharper than any scientific theory. This world was inefficient. People toiled until they broke, wasting 90% of their potential energy on survival.
He looked at the pouch where the Essence Core lay hidden.
I didn't just come here to live a second life, he realized. I came here to optimize this world. Starting with this house.
As Kael carried him toward the smell of vegetable stew, Palim closed his eyes. He wasn't just a child. He was the world's first and only Master Recycler, and he had just found his first "raw material" for greatness: the poverty of his own home.
Winter in the village of Oakhaven was not a picturesque season; it was a predator.
As the first frost began to crawl across the windowpanes of their small cottage, Palim watched his father, Kael, drag in a heavy, frost-bitten log. Kael's knuckles were cracked and bleeding from the cold, his breath hitching in a series of wet, ragged coughs. In this world, the "Low-Mana Zone" villages couldn't afford thermal enchantments. They relied on wood, and wood was a dwindling resource that burned too fast and left only ash.
Efficiency, Palim thought, his small fingers tracing the glowing Essence Core hidden beneath his straw mattress. The fireplace loses sixty percent of its heat through the chimney. The wood is impure, the combustion incomplete. It's a tragedy of thermodynamics.
He waited until the moon was high and his parents' rhythmic snoring signaled safety. He crawled out of bed, his bare feet hitting the cold floorboards.
[Stamina: 88/100] [Mana: 140/140]
He had been "farming" mana for weeks, recycling the stagnant air of the cellar and the fallen pine needles from the eaves. His capacity was growing, but his body was still the bottleneck.
Palim knelt before the dying embers of the hearth. He pulled out the Essence Core (Low Tier) and two other items he had scavenged: a rusted iron hinge from a broken gate and a handful of river clay.
"Recycle," he breathed.
The familiar hum vibrated in his marrow. He didn't just want to merge them; he wanted to re-engineer them. He visualized the molecular lattice of the iron, pulling it apart and weaving it with the clay to create a heat-conductive ceramic. Then, he placed the Essence Core at the center—the battery.
[Warning: Complex Synthesis Detected.] [Stamina Drain accelerated: -2 per second.]
His vision began to swim. The iron hinge glowed white-hot, but the heat didn't radiate outward; it was being sucked into the vacuum of the Recycle skill. Palim felt the familiar "burn" in his chest—the sensation of his soul being wrung like a wet rag.
Push through. If I can't solve a simple heating problem, I'll never finish the Blueprint.
He focused on the "Recycle" logic: Nothing is lost, only transformed. He took the escaping heat from his own rising body temperature and fed it back into the synthesis loop.
[Skill Evolution: Efficient Recycling (Passive) - Level 1] [Description: Reduces Stamina cost of synthesis by 5%.]
With a soft thrum, the materials collapsed inward.
Sitting on the stone hearth was a small, fist-sized sphere of matte-black ceramic with silver veins of iron tracing its surface. It didn't look like much, but to Palim's refined senses, it was a masterpiece. It was a Thermal Re-generator.
He placed it deep within the cooling ashes of the fire.
The effect was instantaneous. The sphere began to pulse. It sucked in the residual heat of the embers, amplified it through the Essence Core's mana-loop, and began to radiate a steady, gentle warmth that filled the room. No smoke. No fire. Just pure, recycled energy.
Palim slumped against the woodbox, his heart hammering.
[Stamina: 4/100] [Status: Exhausted]
The next morning, Palim was woken by the sound of muffled confusion.
"Kael... why is it so warm?"
Elara was standing in the center of the room, her hands tucked into her armpits, looking at the hearth. The fire had long since gone out, yet the room felt like a midsummer afternoon.
Kael rubbed his eyes, leaning over the fireplace. "The ashes are cold, but the air... it's like the sun is sitting in the grate." He reached in and pulled out the black sphere. "What is this? A stone?"
"It feels like... magic," Elara whispered, a glimmer of hope in her eyes that Palim hadn't seen in months. "Kael, if we don't have to burn three logs a night, we might actually have enough coin for grain this spring."
Kael looked at the sphere, then at his sleeping son. Palim feigned sleep, but his mind was already racing.
The Thermal Re-generator was a success, but it was a "Hook." In a world where heat was a luxury, a child who could create it out of scrap metal and dirt would be a target. He needed to grow stronger, and he needed a way to mask his "Recycle" ability as something else—perhaps traditional Alchemy or Artifice.
One step at a time, Palim thought as he felt his father's rough, warm hand brush his hair. First, I fix the house. Then, I fix the village. Then... I find out who runs the mana-grids of this kingdom and show them what 'efficiency' really looks like.