Ethan's lungs burned as if he had been underwater for hours. Unable to breathe properly, he gasped desperately.
Repeatedly hearing the voice's urgent calls, his mind grew unsettled. It was an inexplicable feeling, that seemingly grew inside him with each passing second.
Then, he snapped open his eyes. He wasn't staring at bright lights or cameras. Instead, an old oak ceiling loomed above him, and the scent of ink and parchment filled the air.
"Pro-Professor! Are you alright!?"
He grabbed his head tightly as an unfamiliar voice dragged him upright. His vision blurred from the sudden brightness, but it cleared as he rubbed his eyes.
His breathing steadied. His body felt... different. Too light. Too comfortable.
His hands — slender, calloused, and not his own — trembled as he stared at them.
"Who—" His words abruptly came to a halt as he lifted his gaze. Up front, there lay a human-sized mirror slant to the wall.
In the reflection, Ethan saw a man. Someone he did not recognize.
A young man in his early twenties sat bloodied on the polished wooden floor. His long white hair cascaded down his back like a majestic mane. Eyes of cold cerulean glimmered in an otherworldly glow. He looked less like a man and more like a fallen prince out of a bedtime tale.
Suddenly, Ethan felt a strange warmth instantly rising within his chest. The next second, the thick taste of his metal flooded his mouth. Coughing a generous amount of blood, Ethan desperately gasped for air, letting out grotesque loud groans.
At the same time, a young girl screamed in the background, "Professor!!"
With hurried steps, two figures came into his sight. Both of them, rushed towards him as his vision began to grow darker.
As blood trickled down his pale skin from the crevice of his mouth, Ethan rolled his eyes upward and saw the unknown man doing the same.
Each time he gasped, the man in the reflection copied him. Only then did he realize the truth.
'Is that... me?!'
*Thud*
Before the others could even reach him, Ethan's strength had vanished. His vision succumbed to the darkness as he collapsed onto the ground once again.
***
"What a shitload of luck I have..." Ethan muttered under his breath, sitting inside an open-window carriage.
The soft breeze brushed off his face, letting his hair dance in the air as the carriage ran smoothly over the rough routes of a forest.
He tilted his head slightly forward. Staring at his shirtless body, he couldn't help but let out a long sigh.
He sat comfortably over the seats of the carriage, although, shirtless. Wrapped in clean white bandages all over his chest and his right shoulder, Ethan could barely perform any movements with his upper body.
"Never once in my life had I ever thought something as such this would happen..." He raised his head and rested it behind on the cushion, staring blankly over the carriage's ceiling.
'It's been a week since my death, and my arrival in this strange world.' Ethan began to recall his recent memories — the things he had learned about this world.
'To me, it seems like the world had some kind of grudge against me. Otherwise, the recent events just don't make any sense.'
"First, I die on the most important day of my life. Next, I wake up in another man's body. Then, I nearly die again. If this world doesn't hate me, I don't know what does."
'For 3 days, I was in a coma... or so they said. While I was watching the whole life of "Lucian Arkwright", the true owner of this body.'
'In those 3 days, I discovered many things about this world and myself, as Lucian himself.'
He lifted his right hand and focused. Heat stirred beneath his skin, pooling at his palm until it gathered into a spark of light.
At the same time, something unprecedented happened. In reality, a strange red glimmer covered his hand as a strange warmth filled the inside of the carriage.
Then, the red hue converged above his hand, and a small fingernail-sized fire materialized mid-air, floating as it lit up the softly dampened carriage.
'Urgh!' Ethan... No, Lucian suddenly frowned as his right hand began to tremble in pain.
In an instant, he clenched his open hand into a fist and lowered it, letting in a breath of relief. At the same time, the fire extinguished, and the red glimmer disappeared.
Lucian shrugged his other hand off his forehead, cleaning the newly formed sweat.
'Guess I'm still not comfortable with this... Though I was slightly intrigued when I first discovered Magic in this world.'
Magic. A term often used to describe a miraculous act of using the ways of nature through control over a mysterious energy called "Mana".
Unlike Earth, this planet did not have a specific name. Neither was it too advanced in terms of modern science.
Mana. That was the core of their world.
'And Lucian Arkwright, was a very talented mage. Talented enough to have risen to the position of a Senior Professor within the Celestara Academy. The strongest and the most prominent Mage Academy throughout the entire Ebonveil Continent.'
'But for the last few years, his Magic seemed to have regressed. His achievements dulled beneath his crappy attitude. And within no time, his title was renamed to "The fallen talent".'
'Without a doubt, it must've been humiliating for him to see the students foulmouthing him in his very face.' Lucian let out a short sigh before averting his gaze to the outside.
'I guess there's nothing I can do as of now, other than to go there myself and check on things.'
For some reason, he slowly rotated his head to his right and stared at something only he could see.
'Not to forget, it says the same thing...'
---
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[#~System Notification~#]
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[Task #1]
[•Objective - Reach the Celestara Academy to claim pending rewards!]
[• Time limit - 7 days]
[• Reward - ???]
[• Failure - ???]
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