The last thing I remembered was the sterile smell of the laboratory and the panicked shouting of my lab assistants. A pressurized tank had failed—a stupid, mechanical error—and then, there was only white light.
Now, the smell was different. It was the scent of damp earth, dried lavender, and something metallic... like old blood and sharpened steel.
I tried to open my eyes, but my eyelids felt like lead. My body was heavy, unresponsive, and—most disturbingly—tiny. I tried to shout, to ask if the experiment had been a success, but all that came out was a high-pitched, warbling wail.
"He has a strong pair of lungs, My Lady," a deep, gravelly voice vibrated through the floorboards. It sounded like two tectonic plates grinding together. "A warrior's cry, through and through."
"Nonsense, Silas," a woman's voice replied. It was soft, but it carried an authority that made my new, tiny heart skip a beat. "He will be a scholar. Look at his eyes—he's already trying to analyze the room."
I finally forced my eyes open. The world was a blur of candlelight and shadows. I wasn't in a hospital. I was in a room made of heavy oak beams and stone. A massive man with a scar running across his throat stood by the window, idly snapping a thick iron bar between his fingers like it was a twig. He wasn't even looking at it; he was just... fidgeting.
Then, the world flickered. A translucent screen, glowing with a soft blue light, manifested in my field of vision.
[SYSTEM INITIALIZING...]
[Host Identity Confirmed: Usman-Cyrus Veridian]
[Scanning Environment for Elemental Composition...]
Warning: Local Atmosphere contains 0.04% Trace Aether Impurities.
Recommendation: Begin Micro-Circulation to prevent cellular decay.
My mind, still sharp with the logic of a chemist, reeled. Aether? Impurities? This wasn't Earth. The "System" was treating my very existence like a chemical reaction.
I looked at the woman holding me. She was beautiful, with hair the color of midnight, but as I focused on her, the System flared again.
[Target Analyzed: Mother (Seraphina Veridian)]
[Threat Level: UNMEASURABLE]
[Current Status: Suppressing 99.9% of Internal Energy to avoid collapsing the building.]
I stopped crying. My mother—this kind-looking woman—was a living nuclear reactor? And the giant man at the window was treating high-grade iron like play-dough?
I realized two things in that moment. First, I had been reborn into a family of monsters pretending to be humans. Second, with this System, I wasn't just going to learn magic. I was going to deconstruct it.
The man, Silas, walked over and poked my cheek with a finger that felt like a warm marble pillar. "He's quiet now. See? A fighter's focus."
"He's thinking, Silas," my mother whispered, kissing my forehead.
I closed my eyes, watching the blue light of the System pulse in the darkness. If I was going to survive this family—and whatever they were hiding from—I needed to start at the atomic level.
[New Quest: Survival of the Purest]
Objective: Reach 1% Aether Saturation in the bloodstream.
Reward: Unlock [Periodic Table of Elements - Magic Edition].
Fine, I thought as I drifted into a deep, infant sleep. Let's see what this world is made of.