The world was dark. A darkness that was deeply... annoying.
I remember dying as King Benedict. There should have been a white light, singing angels, or maybe an afterlife tribunal where I could argue with God about how boring it was to be a ruler surrounded by high walls and mountains of paperwork. But no. Instead, I felt like I was being squeezed through a narrow, warm, and very slimy water pipe. Oh, and the smell of fish. A very strong, fishy smell.
"Push, Amely! Just a bit more! I can see the head! The hair is blonde, just like mine!"
Wait. That baritone voice was way too close. And "head"? "Blonde hair"? I didn't need a master's degree in interdimensional biology to know what was happening. I was being born. I, a grown man, a former king with enough past trauma to fill ten therapy sessions a week, was now being forced out of a narrow hole into a completely new world.
Plop.
Blinding light hit my newly opened eyes. Cold air stung my raw, wet skin. A bearded man with a face that looked like he'd just won the lottery but simultaneously wanted to pass out from exhaustion stared at me with a terrifying glint in his eyes. He looked... filthy. There were stains of blood and sweat on his face. And he was grinning like a madman.
"It's a boy, Amely! Look at this little bird! He's going to be a great warrior who conquers dragons!" the man (my new father, Julian Vance) exclaimed while hoisting me high into the air.
I swear, if I could talk, I would have cursed him. Hey, jerk! Can you not flash my private parts to the whole room?! Where's my privacy?! And please, put me back down, I'm dizzy!
I wanted to throw my signature "Dragon Claw" punch, but my chubby, weak hands only flailed uselessly in the air. And what came out of my mouth wasn't a stream of insults, but: "Uwaaaa! Uwaaaaa! Oweeee!"
Dammit. My pride as the revered King Benedict shattered into a million pieces in the very first second of my second life. I was officially a crybaby.
The first three years in this world were a non-stop circus of absurdity. I learned that this world was called Arcanthia. Here, magic was everything. And my family? They were the definition of "too much energy, not enough common sense."
Julian Vance, my father, was a former mid-tier adventurer. He had the body of a bull and the brain of... well, let's just say he didn't like thinking things through. He thought that carrying his baby while doing a backflip off the dining table was normal parenting and "character building."
"Elias! Look at Daddy! This is what we call Fire-Type Mana Reinforcement! Burst Step!"
BOOM!
Dad tried to show off his moves in the cramped kitchen. Instead of looking cool, his fire-clad foot got caught on a table leg. He hit the floor with a thud, and the small fireball he was holding glided beautifully toward the window curtains. My mother, Amely, who was usually gentle with her healing magic, would turn into the reincarnation of the goddess of death.
"JULIAN!!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO MY KITCHEN?!" Mom screamed, clutching a metal spatula that was somehow coated in pure mana, radiating a killing intent that made even me shudder in my high chair.
The scene always ended with Dad prostrating for forgiveness on the scorched kitchen floor while Mom nagged him for three straight hours. Me? I just sat in my high chair, chewing on bland porridge that tasted like wet cardboard, thinking: Did I reincarnate into a failed circus troupe?
However, behind the madness, I had a plan. I was a former king. I wouldn't let this new life go to waste.
Nighttime was my time. While Julian and Amely slept soundly (and Dad snored like a dragon with asthma), I began to meditate. I used the knowledge of 'Ki' from my old world. Ki is life energy, the energy that flows within the body. Mana in this world sounded similar, but it came from the atmosphere.
I imagined my blood vessels as a vast network of rivers, and the atmospheric mana as glowing fish that I wanted to catch and put into a pond in my stomach (the mana center).
"Come on, just a bit more. Catch those fish, little Elias," I muttered internally, concentrating fully.
The process was slow and painful. My baby body was too weak. But I was persistent. Every night, I felt mana slowly starting to accumulate. I would become the youngest mage, exceeding all expectations, and maybe this time I could build a kingdom that wasn't boring. A kingdom full of good food stalls and zero state documents.
Destiny, however, had a very foul and cruel sense of humor.
One morning, when I turned five, Dad burst into my room with enough excitement to break down a wall. He picked me up (again, the 'World Cup Trophy' pose) and shouted, "El, my brave son! Today is a historic day!"
"What is it, Julian? You aren't planning on blowing up the kitchen again, are you?" Amely asked, appearing from behind the door with a suspicious gaze, still holding a dishcloth that looked threatening in the hands of a healer like her.
"Of course not, my dear wife! Today I'm going to teach El how to use mana! He's five years old, Amely! It's time he felt the fire power that flows in Vance blood!"
Mom sighed, her gaze softening as she looked at me. "Fine. But if he gets even slightly hurt, you're sleeping in the stable with Lilia for a month." (Lilia was our mare who had severe digestive issues).
Dad swallowed hard, then took me to the backyard. "Alright, El. Listen to Daddy. Using mana is easy. You just need to feel the energy around you, then imagine that energy like water flowing into your body, then... BOOM! You explode it!"
I stared at him blankly. Your adventurer intuition is great, Dad, but your explanation is completely useless.
"Now, let Daddy help," Julian said, placing his hand on my small back. "I'll channel a bit of warm mana into your body, and you try to guide that mana to activate your mana center. Okay? One... two... three!"
I felt a warm flow enter my back. It was Dad's mana. I smirked internally. This is it. Time to show them who I am.
I started using my Ki meditation technique. I took the mana from Dad, merging it with the atmospheric mana I had been recruiting every night. I focused it all in my lower abdomen, where the mana center should be. I pushed it, forcing it to explode and activate the 'mana veins' throughout my body.
I strained. My little face turned beet red. My eyes were squeezed shut. My whole body trembled under the energy I had gathered. Come on, just a bit more! A flash of light! A lightning aura! Something cool!
"Whoa, look at that! His face is red! He's really trying hard! He's going to be the greatest fire mage!" Julian cheered proudly.
I prepared for the greatest energy release of my new life. THREE! TWO! ONE!
PFFFFFTT! HHHHMMMMMMMMMMMMMMT!
Silence.
That sound... was not the sound of a mana explosion. It wasn't the sound of a lightning strike. It was the sound of gas exiting my digestive tract with full force and impressive duration. And the smell? It smelled like a combination of rotten eggs and the bland porridge I ate yesterday morning, multiplied by ten because it was ignited by Dad's fire mana.
The backyard fell dead silent. The birds stopped chirping. The wind seemed to stop blowing from the sheer shock.
Julian's face, which had been full of excitement, was now frozen in a horrifying expression of shock. His eyes bulged. He slowly pulled his hand away from my back, took a step back, and frantically covered his nose.
"By the Earth God... Elias... what just happened?" he asked in a trembling, nasal voice.
I, on the other hand, felt my pride shatter (again) and scatter into dust. I wanted to scream, That was a Ki technique miscalculation! Dammit! This baby body betrayed me! But of course, I couldn't say it. I could only sit on the grass with a red face (this time from extreme embarrassment), looking down, wishing the earth would swallow me whole.
Amely came running out of the house, panicked. "What was that?! Did something explode?! Julian, did you hurt Elias?!"
Julian slowly turned to look at his wife, his face pale as a ghost. "No, Amely. Nothing exploded. It's just... our future just collapsed because of a smell."
I swear, tears of humiliation almost dripped from my eyes. This was far more painful than being stabbed with a sword in my past life.
After the legendary "Mana Gas Explosion" incident, the atmosphere in the Vance house changed slightly. Dad became a bit afraid to touch my back, and Mom gave me food that was easier to digest. However, Dad didn't give up. He insisted it was just a "technical error due to an overactive digestion."
Two weeks later, the day of the test actually arrived. The day every five-year-old in town was taken to a Professional Examiner to discover their mana potential.
"Today's the day, El! Today we won't blow up anything but expectations!" Julian tried to sound upbeat as we walked toward the Adventurer's Guild building in town, but his voice sounded a bit forced. He didn't carry me while doing a backflip. He just held my hand tightly.
We arrived in front of a large, shimmering crystal in the center of the room. The crystal was clear, emitting a soft, calming light. Behind the desk sat a professional examiner, a skinny old man with cracked glasses who looked way too old for his job. He looked at me lazily and gave a wide yawn.
"Name?" he asked, his voice raspy.
"Elias Vance," Julian answered proudly. "Son of Julian Vance, former B-class adventurer! And Amely Vance, a talented healer!"
The old man ignored Dad's chatter. "Place your hand on the crystal, kid. Concentrate. Imagine you're breathing in through your hand."
I took a deep breath. This is it. The real test. No more farting incidents. I've thoroughly cleared my digestive system today.
I pressed my small palm against the cold surface of the crystal. I focused all my concentration. I called upon all the energy, all the mana I had painstakingly stored every night for months. I pushed it out, forcing it into the crystal. I prepared for a burst of light that would leave everyone stunned. I wanted to see that crystal glow brightly, showing elemental colors. Maybe a rare combination of fire and lightning, or something this world had never seen.
One second passed. The crystal remained silent.
Ten seconds. The crystal was still clear.
One minute. No color. No light. No vibration. The crystal remained as cold and passive as a river stone.
"Come on, El. Try again," Julian muttered; I could feel his hand on my shoulder starting to sweat. "Think about fire. Think about how Daddy burned the curtains!"
I tried again. I strained until the veins on my forehead bulged. I squeezed every last drop of energy in my body. I pushed so hard I felt like my eyes were going to pop out of their sockets. I was so desperate that I accidentally... passed gas. Quite loudly. So loudly that the quiet room became very, very silent for a few moments. Fortunately, the smell wasn't as bad as before, but the sound was enough to make the old man in front of us raise an eyebrow.
"Ahem," the examiner cleared his throat loudly, looking at the notes in his hand with a gaze that suddenly shifted from lazy to something that looked like deep pity. He looked at Julian, then at me, then back at his notes.
"Mr. Vance..." the old man's voice softened, his tone becoming very formal and serious. "It seems there is... a problem."
"A problem? What problem?" Julian asked, his voice trembling violently. "He just... he just needs time. He's a special kid! He's been meditating on his own since he was two!"
The old man shook his head slowly. "Meditation is useless if the vessel is broken. Mr. Vance, this crystal does not lie. This child... he has no Mana Veins."
The sentence hung in the air like a death sentence.
"What... what do you mean?" Julian asked, his voice barely a whisper.
"Simply put, he is a 'Mana-Void'," the examiner continued, looking at me with a sad gaze that I absolutely hated. "He cannot absorb mana from the atmosphere. He cannot store mana within his body. Technically, he cannot use magic. He never will. Never."
The world seemed to stop spinning. all my kingdom plans, all my dreams of becoming the strongest mage, all my meditation efforts every night... everything was destroyed, not by a gas explosion, but by cold, hard reality.
"You mean... he's just an ordinary person?" Julian asked, tears starting to well up in the corners of his large eyes. "He... he won't be a great warrior who conquers dragons?"
"Worse than an ordinary person," the old man replied cruelly. "Ordinary people can still feel a bit of mana around them, even if they can't manipulate it. This child's body... it rejects mana. Mana goes in, and it goes right back out. He's like a leaking vessel. A total leak."
I stood there, staring at my hand still pressed against that cold crystal. I, King Benedict, a ruler with unmatched power in my old world, now found my world dark once again. But this time, the darkness wasn't annoying. This time, the darkness was terrifying and absolute.
On the way home, Julian didn't do a backflip. He didn't tell stories about his great adventures. He didn't nag about how I embarrassed him with the farting sound in the testing room. He was just silent, holding my hand so tightly, as if I were a precious piece of glassware that was already badly cracked, and he was afraid that if he let go, I would shatter into pieces.
And from that day on, my absurd, laughter-filled life turned into a silent hell. A hell where I could only watch this world of wonders from behind the walls of my own inability.