Richard Wonder had always felt that his life unfolded like the pages of a history textbook: predictable, structured, and, at times, boring. At 21 years old, he was studying Universal History at Greystone University, a campus with ivy-covered buildings, eccentric professors, and students who spent more time on social media than in libraries.
He lived alone in a small apartment near campus, decorated with old maps, worn-out books, and a coffee maker that seemed older than him. His routine was simple: classes in the morning, a part-time job at the campus library in the afternoon, and evenings spent studying or playing video games with his friends.
His three closest friends were his anchor to the real world. Jake, a relentless jokester studying film, always had a camera hanging around his neck. Elliot, an introverted computer genius, felt more at home among lines of code than among people. And Emily, brilliant and determined, was an English literature student with whom Richard shared a special connection that neither of them dared to name.
Neither… except everyone but him.
Jake and Elliot had known for months. The way Emily looked at Richard when he talked about ancient history, or how she always found an excuse to sit next to him in the library. But Richard, blinded by his academic obsession and natural emotional clumsiness, didn't see it. To him, Emily was a valuable friend, even indispensable, but romantic feelings weren't on his list of priorities—not when he had assignments, research, and unanswered questions swirling in his mind.
Lately, one of those questions had particularly absorbed him: a Sumerian clay tablet he had discovered among the digitized archives of the university's associated museum. There was something different about it. The language used didn't entirely match known linguistic structures. And a symbol—a spiral surrounded by what seemed to be eyes—appeared repeatedly, as if trying to convey something beyond the text.
For several nights in a row, Richard had stayed in the library until the guards kicked him out. He combed through databases, compared inscriptions, translated word by word using ancient glossaries, but he couldn't make progress. Every small theory he built collapsed like a house of cards. It was as if the tablet spoke in a code that no one was meant to understand… yet.
The frustration began to take its toll. He slept little. Ate even less. Emily worried about him, bringing him hot coffee or improvised sandwiches, and though he thanked her with a distracted smile, his mind remained anchored to the tablet.
That week had been particularly exhausting. They were about to present a group project on comparative mythology between ancient civilizations, and Richard had thrown himself completely into it, obsessed with finding meaning in that missing piece of the puzzle. His professor had dismissed it as religious symbolism, but Richard couldn't stop thinking about the specificity of the language used. There was something more there. Something that defied common logic.
On Friday morning, Richard was running late. He said a hurried goodbye to Emily after a group meeting in the library and rushed toward his class in Hamilton Hall. In his haste, he didn't see the oil slick near the construction site. He slipped violently, fell backward, and hit his head on the pavement.
Everything went black.
…
He woke up hours later, dazed, in the emergency room of Greystone Memorial Hospital. The bright ceiling lights blinded him at times. He felt a dull pain in the back of his head but could move his entire body. Around him, monitors beeped steadily. It didn't seem serious, though the world spun a little every time he blinked.
The doctor told him he was lucky: a mild concussion and a minor fracture in his arm. Nothing that couldn't heal with rest.
It was then, when he was left alone on the hospital bed, that it happened.
A faint buzzing filled the room. Richard thought it was the heart monitor, but then he saw it.
A message, suspended in the air, in front of his eyes.
Not on a screen. Not projected.
[You have acquired the System of Ancestral Magic]
He blinked. The message was still there, glowing, floating as if it ignored the laws of physics.
Richard Wonder didn't know it yet, but his life had just changed forever.