David woke up in a sweat — he had forgotten to turn on the air conditioner again. As someone born in the northern states, he wasn’t used to the Texas heat. But instead of getting annoyed, he quickly sat up in bed and ran a hand over his face, recalling the final moments of the last iteration. An unpleasant death. But a useful one.

  Wasting no time, he got up and went to fix the reactor. Experience had taught him that the sooner he got the base operational, the more time he would have left for experiments. In just 10 hours—wow, a new record, last time it had taken nearly a full day—the office was reinforced, the robots armed, and David was ready to hunt.

  He needed to wait for the panther to conduct new experiments with its third eye. Previous experiences had shown that this organ was somehow connected to mana, and David intended to find out if it could be used safely.

  “Mana… I wonder if it works like it does in games? Or maybe it’s something else, and the system just used that word because we don’t have the right one?” he mused aloud while having dinner in the cafeteria. “Would be nice if it worked like in games… A fireball would come in handy.”

  While waiting, he checked the security system. The barricades were still in place, the robots’ ammunition was fully loaded, and he grabbed a couple more magazines from the armory.

  As he waited for the panther to appear, David decided to improve his robots. Connecting to them remotely, he began exploring their code and available functions. The process turned out to be easier than expected: the robot systems had a modular structure, and he was able to add several useful commands, such as prioritized targets, attack mode switching, and manual control via laptop. He was testing these changes when one of the perimeter robots took out another small demonic dog.

  At that moment, David had a new idea. If panthers had that strange third eye, maybe the dogs had something similar—but located elsewhere. He grabbed rubber gloves, a knife, and went to the body of the slain creature. The small demonic dogs were much lighter than panthers, but their blood was still highly acidic, so caution was essential. Dragging the carcass into the office and laying it on a tarp, he began the dissection.

  After a while, he found what he was looking for: inside the chest, right next to the heart, was a strange crystal. It was dark blue and about the size of a walnut. David leaned in to examine it more closely. The crystal didn’t look like a natural part of the body—its surface was smooth, almost polished.

  David sat back at the table, studying the crystal he’d extracted from the dog. He had already tried to crush the panther’s eye, but as the saying goes, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” Maybe the smaller size of this crystal wouldn’t kill him like it had last time—but why risk it, when he could try to make it even smaller?

  He took a hammer and delivered a series of strikes to the crystal, starting gently and gradually increasing the force.

  A crack. The crystal split slightly. He hit it again, and it shattered into several pieces. He picked up one of the fragments and examined it in the light. Just an ordinary-looking pebble—if you didn’t know where it came from.

  Taking a deep breath, David swallowed it. Almost instantly, a message appeared before his eyes:

  Mana: 5%

  A strange tingling spread through his body.

  Mana: 10%

  His head started spinning, his vision blurred, but he focused through sheer will. David looked at his hands and suddenly saw… energy. Threads of fine lines flowing through him. It wasn’t vision in the usual sense, but he felt them as clearly as he felt his own skin.

  [Ability Unlocked]

  “Mana Perception” acquired.

  He was so stunned that he almost missed the next change.

  Mana: 25%

  His heart started racing. He could feel mana flooding his blood. His chest tightened, breathing grew labored.

  Mana: 30%

  “Shit…” David staggered and grabbed the table.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  He had to do something. If he just sat there, he’d die again. He tried to force the mana to leave his body—to imagine releasing it through his hands or breath. But nothing happened. It just kept building, turning his body into a vessel on the verge of bursting.

  Mana: 50%... 70%...

  “Damn it…” he muttered before everything went dark.

  The following restarts were filled with experiments. David tried swallowing an even smaller shard of the crystal—death. Grinding it up and snorting it—death. Dissolving it in water and drinking it—death. He knew that with each attempt, the dome shrank, but he believed that the crystal experiments were the right path forward.

  Eventually, he decided to try this: he took a solution of crystal dust, filled a humidifier with it, locked himself in a room, and filled it with vapor. After just two more deaths, he managed to find the right activity setting for the humidifier to avoid dying from mana overload.

  From that moment, the real experiments began. Gradually, he began to feel the mana inside him—its movement and distribution. He gained two more levels in Mana Perception, but still couldn’t release it outward or manipulate it externally. So David decided to focus on working with mana inside the body.

  After a few hours of testing, he discovered that he could move mana around his body, and that it tended to gather in one place—near his heart. After a full day of experiments and dissecting five more dogs, he tried consciously directing mana to where it naturally pooled. Over time, he felt the spot begin to change. If he had to describe it technically, he’d say a tumor was growing on his heart. But soon the growth hardened and transformed into a crystal, almost identical to the ones in the dogs.

  Shortly after, the system displayed a message:

  You have improved your magical core: Rank ??? → F-

  David stood up, feeling an unusual lightness, though he didn’t notice any immediate change. But his intuition told him something was different. He examined himself closely and realized that he could now activate and deactivate Mana Perception at will. No more need to breathe mana-saturated vapor to trigger the ability.

  Excited by the discovery, he left the room and went to his laptop to check the robots. However, with mana perception still active, he noticed something strange inside the device. At first barely visible, but on closer inspection—moving particles that looked like sparks darting through the laptop’s circuits. Intrigued, David began studying the phenomenon. He found similar particles in the wires and decided to trace their source.

  Reaching the reactor, he saw that these particles shone especially brightly inside it, forming organized currents. He continued observing until a notification suddenly appeared:

  New Attribute Learned: [Law of Minor Lightning]

  The world took on a new hue—now he could see electricity everywhere. He saw it flowing through wires, into circuits, animating machines. Mesmerized, he glanced at his hands and the mana within himself. What if he could make mana flow like electricity?

  David held out his palms and tried to concentrate mana into them, mentally repeating what he’d seen in the wires.

  Mana Perception skill leveled up.

  Mana Perception skill leveled up.

  After several minutes of intense focus, a faint thread of electrical discharge flickered between his palms. A few discharges later, he felt a stabbing sensation in his chest… Or was it not the heart, but that growth on it?

  David smirked, feeling excitement rising within him. What other laws could he learn? And how far could he go with his experiments? It seemed to him that gaining new attributes was easy—and that he could quickly multiply his strength.

  Interlude 3

  The wind howled at the peak of the magic tower, scattering storm clouds that swirled around it. High above the world, surrounded by relentless lightning, sat a mage deep in meditation. His eyes were closed, his breathing steady, but his mind was far away—within the very essence of the surrounding element.

  Somewhere below, far beneath him in the halls and corridors of the tower, his disciples were trying to comprehend what had become the meaning of his life—the Law of Minor Lightning. He smiled inwardly. How many had tried? Dozens? Hundreds?

  A great deal depended on the magical core one was born with. True, it could grow—expand, strengthen, refine—but only at a heavy cost. Without a finely honed perception of magic, the process was little more than fumbling in the dark. And perception itself was almost as elusive as the laws: years of meditation and endless failures for the faintest improvement. That was why the academy only admitted students with at least a grade B core; starting any lower meant a lifetime would be spent just reaching the threshold where real progress began.

  And still, only a few ever achieved even the slightest success. Gaining an attribute was a process requiring immense patience, absolute precision, and years—if not decades—of effort. Even here, at the very summit of the tower, surrounded by pure lightning energy, the law remained out of reach for most.

  He frowned slightly. Everything they did—all the rituals, the training methods, the isolation at the tower’s peak—it was all necessary. Mana particles in the air interfered with pure perception, not to mention the presence of other mages. Any foreign energy created interference, blurred the subtle lines of understanding. That’s why students were locked in cells at the top—to give them even a fleeting chance to touch the law.

  The mage slowly opened his palms, feeling tiny sparks dance between his fingers. He was close. So close. Another year. Maybe two. And he would finally evolve his Minor Lightning Attribute into a major one.