"Fractured World" follows characters as they experience, and figure out, the beginnings of magics and the System, which for the first month after the Shattering is still undergoing big changes. By reading these spoilers, you resign yourself to the loss of the mystery and discovery aspects – which are intended to be there, but if you prefer knowing how things work and why they work the way they do, before characters figure it out - feel free to read the spoilers.

  The Reasons, the System, and its Formation: Spirituality: The Raw Force of Will and Connection:

  At the heart of the world's lore is spiritual energy—a fundamental, invisible force that links souls (the essence of conscious beings, driven by will and intent) to the physical, mundane world and to each other. This energy is highly reactive: it responds to the desires, beliefs, and collective wills of living beings. Think of it as a malleable clay that shapes itself based on the strongest influences around it.

  

  
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    In the spirit world (a realm of pure spiritual energy with little physical structure), this leads to constant flux and instability, as countless souls vie for dominance, creating shifting realities.
  
    


  
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    In mundane worlds (like our own pre-Shattering Earth), spiritual energy has historically been dormant. This originated from a self-reinforcing cycle in which a dominant idea first formed a physical world in ancient and forgotten times and then the physical (mundane) world shaped the main beliefs, resulting in a reality governed strictly by physics, with no overt "magic." Occasional glimpses—such as visions, dreams, or mystical experiences—are rare and often dismissed as psychological quirks.
  
    


  
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    This cycle gets broken in "our realm" by a coordinated media campaign, along with cultural trends in books and games. A synchronized surge in emerging new human narratives re-plasticizes rigid spiritual energy, and breaks the barriers between the spirit world and mundane worlds (cracks in reality or anomalies as we see in the story), causing a surge in very malleable spiritual energy and igniting a self-reinforcing cycle of change, where ideas of change cause them to begin happening in a certain way, and the more people see those changes, the more their beliefs converge.
  
    


  

  Worlds outside the System and its Expansion – Pawel's Experience – Early Chapters.

  The biggest commonalities in the origin world are the existence of mana, beliefs about certain technologies like the internet, communication tech, and AI, as well as their ever-expanding nature and omnipotence. This causes the formation and dominance of orange mana in the origin world. This is why these orange wires/mana that Pawel sees behave the way they do. It is the System attempting to expand and connect everything under its influence. The first type of mana nearly everyone in the origin world absorbs is orange system mana; this was functionally their first mana crystal even before those crystals began forming at all. This gave them a System interface instead of Pawel's mana sight, as Pawel is disconnected from everyone, in another world, and absorbs a different type of mana as his first contact. Pawel does not even see the formation of any mana crystals, until the System invades that world and starts forcing those changes. This is what the orange-wire mana he sees is: the System invading another world through the cracks.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Mechanics of the System, Magic, and Abilities After It Is Formed. Mana Crystal /Magic System.

  Added levels in all active abilities a person has are "Tier" level.

  Added levels in all passive abilities a person has are "Rank" level.

  People do not have typical, numerical statistics (Strength, dexterity, etc.), other than bonuses given by passive abilities. There is no baseline numerical "strength", determined by the System; however, there are modifiers given by passive abilities, which are supernatural in their nature and disconnected from biological strength, dexterity, etc. Numerical comparisons of a specific quantifier can be made only when both compared people have modifiers to the same thing. Usually, two people rarely have exactly the same types of passive bonuses, so overall power comparison can be done by "Rank".

  The first mana crystal anyone absorbs always gives the ability to know what any seen mana crystal is, what it does, and which ones are the same as those already absorbed. It often also gives other passive and/or active abilities.

  Active abilities use "Mana" that does not regenerate by itself.

  In order to replenish their mana, people have to absorb any mana crystal (can use other types for this purpose).

  Upgrading or modifying your active abilities requires absorbing the same type of mana crystal that created this ability. Since there are a lot of various mana crystal types, and people destroy them just to regenerate mana - it is difficult to find an appropriate crystal to upgrade your abilities despite their general abundance from drops. Difficulty additionally increases the higher the tier your active ability is. Wealthy people can upgrade their active abilities by purchasing or otherwise getting mana crystals without fighting themselves.

  One can obtain another active ability from a different mana crystal after reaching a certain threshold with what they had previously. What that threshold is varies.

  The only way to upgrade passive abilities or get more of them is by participating in killing something that had a mana crystal in it. A portion of their power is always distributed among those who contributed to the fight.