The smell hit him first.

  ?It wasn't the metallic tang of blood or the sharp, chemical bite of fried air that usually followed a high-tier spell.

  ?It was... floor wax. Cheap, industrial floor wax.

  ?Amari Malik opened his eyes.

  ?He stood on a polished hardwood floor. Above him, fluorescent lights buzzed with an annoying, headache-inducing hum.

  ?Around him, hundreds of teenagers shuffled in lines, their voices a nervous murmur of excitement.

  ?Amari looked at them. He recognized faces in the crowd. There was a girl with braids who would die screaming in a trench in five years. A boy laughing near the water fountain who would be eaten by a mimic before graduation. Ghosts. They were all ghosts.

  ?"Dude, stop shaking," a voice whispered behind him. "You're gonna trigger a false reading."

  ?Amari looked down at his hands. They were trembling. Not from fear, but from the phantom sensation of holding a miniature sun just seconds ago.

  ?His skin was unblemished. No scars. No void burns. He touched his chest—his heart beat steadily, thumping against ribs that hadn't been broken yet.

  ?He looked at the banner hanging above the stage:

  ?Vanguard Academy: Class of 2045 Awakening Ceremony.

  ?Twenty years. He had gone back exactly twenty years.

  ?"Next! Candidate 402, Amari Malik!"

  ?The voice boomed over the speakers. A hush fell over the gymnasium. Amari blinked, the fog of time travel clearing. He remembered this day.

  ?In his first life, this was the day he became a legend. He had walked up to that stage, touched the Awakening Stone, and blinded the entire room with Golden Light. SSS-Rank. The Savior. The prodigy.

  ?The livestock, Amari corrected mentally.

  ?He began to walk. His legs felt heavy, unaccustomed to the lack of passive mana reinforcement. He felt... mortal. Weak.

  ?He ascended the stairs to the platform. An Instructor in a crisp blue uniform stood next to the Awakening Stone—a slab of obsidian pulsating with a faint blue rhythm.

  ?"Place your hand on the stone, son," the Instructor said, looking bored. "Don't fight the pull. Let it draw out your potential."

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  ?Let it draw out the parasite, Amari thought.

  ?He stepped up to the obsidian. He could feel the Mana inside him. Even now, unawakened, his core was a swirling tempest of potential. It was vast. Infinite. It wanted to be let out. It wanted to connect to the System.

  ?Amari placed his palm on the cold stone.

  ?WOOSH.

  ?Immediately, the stone flared. A golden light began to bleed from the cracks, illuminating Amari's dark skin, casting long shadows across the stage. The boredom vanished from the Instructor's face, replaced by shock.

  ?"My god," the Instructor whispered. "The reading... it's off the cha—"

  ?No, Amari thought.

  ?He didn't pull. He pushed.

  ?In his past life, he had learned the flow of mana perfectly. He knew exactly how the stone worked: it created a vacuum to suck mana out.

  ?Amari clenched his teeth. He grabbed that rising golden energy—his destiny, his godhood, his future—and he shoved it violently back down into his chest.

  ?[Warning: Mana Backflow Detected.]

  [Alert: Awakening Protocol Interrupted.]

  ?Pain, white-hot and blinding, erupted in his solar plexus. It felt like he was swallowing a grenade.

  ?"Boy, what are you doing?" the Instructor shouted, seeing the golden light turn jagged and unstable. "Let it go!"

  ?"Get... out..." Amari hissed through gritted teeth.

  ?He focused on his core, that beautiful, swirling nebula of energy. He pictured a hammer. An iron, non-magical hammer.

  ?Shatter.

  ?He didn't just break it. He imploded it. He crushed the vessel so tight that no mana could ever enter again. It wasn't suicide; it was a seal.

  ?CRACK.

  ?A sound like a breaking bone echoed through the microphone, amplified across the silent gym.

  ?Amari gasped. The golden light in his veins died instantly. The vacuum from the Stone, suddenly finding nothing to pull, malfunctioned. The feedback loop shrieked.

  ?BOOM!

  ?The Awakening Stone exploded.

  ?Shards of obsidian flew across the stage. The Instructor threw up a hasty shield, knocked backward by the blast. Smoke billowed out, smelling of burnt electronics and ozone.

  ?The gym was dead silent.

  ?Amari stood in the center of the smoke, his hand bleeding where a shard of stone had sliced it. He fell to his knees, clutching his chest. He felt empty. Hollow.

  ?A cold, gaping void sat where his SSS-Rank core used to be.

  ?He coughed, spitting a glob of blood onto the pristine floor wax.

  ?[System Notification]

  [Status: Mana Core — DESTROYED]

  [Status: Mana Channeling — UNAVAILABLE]

  [Trait Unlocked: Void Vessel (Dormant)]

  ?"Malik!"

  ?The Instructor scrambled over, waving away the smoke. He waved a diagnostic wand over Amari's chest.

  ?The wand beeped a flat, discordant tone.

  ?The Instructor stared at the wand, then at Amari, then back at the wand. His face fell.

  ?"Defective," the Instructor muttered, loud enough for the front row to hear. "The core didn't just fail to awaken... it collapsed. Zero Mana capacity."

  ?Murmurs broke out in the crowd.

  ?"Zero?"

  "Did he break the machine?"

  "No, look at him. He's a dud. A squib."

  ?Amari wiped the blood from his mouth. He looked up at the Instructor, his vision blurry but his mind razor-sharp.

  ?"Did I pass?" Amari rasped.

  ?The Instructor looked at him. The pity was gone, replaced by cold military disgust.

  ?"Pass? Cadet, without mana, you don't even qualify as a civilian," the Instructor sneered. "You are a logistical waste. You'll be remanded to F-Class for Manual Labor detail until you wash out."

  ?Amari lowered his head to hide his face. His shoulders began to shake.

  ?To the audience, it looked like he was sobbing in devastation.

  ?But under the curtain of his dreads, Amari Malik was grinning.

  ?I did it, he thought, feeling the beautiful, silent emptiness inside him. I'm free.