I woke up.
My head was pounding like yesterday I'd decided to beat my personal whiskey record.
On autopilot, I reached my hand to the side—toward the spot where, in my old life, I usually kept the "emergency bottle."
Nothing.
I felt around again.
Still nothing.
And then it started to sink in.
I'm not home.
Not even remotely.
"Well… crap," I muttered in my head.
Usually that's how I felt only after a night full of questionable decisions and hard alcohol. But this time I definitely hadn't been drinking. At most, I'd… overused magic.
Thirty seconds later my mind cleared. The pain didn't disappear completely, but I could think without the sensation that someone was wringing my brain out like a wet rag.
I started reconstructing what happened.
The last thing I remembered—I was trying to release more misty mana. Before that, I'd been training with it pretty aggressively.
And my head had already been hurting back then.
I just got too absorbed in magic to pay attention.
And then it hit me.
This is mana exhaustion.
Not a metaphor. Not "I'm tired." Literally—mana overspending.
I made myself a promise: stop ignoring my body's signals.
I scanned the room yet again.
Almost the same.
Brick walls.
Mattress.
Pillow.
Blanket.
And that same "toy" with an equation, patiently waiting for my intellectual triumph.
But something new had appeared.
A plate sat on the floor.
Simple. Ceramic. No patterns. No magical glow.
If it's regular ceramic, then the tech level here is… roughly Earth-like? Or at least not primitive medieval.
Interesting.
And then I felt hungry.
Strong. Sharp.
Looks like mana exhaustion eats not only magic, but the body's energy too.
On instinct, I reached for the plate. Without thinking.
The moment my fingers touched its surface, something strange happened.
The hunger started to fade.
Slowly. Gently.
I picked up the plate—and after a few seconds a feeling of fullness arrived. Complete. Like after a normal meal.
I froze.
There was nothing on the plate.
No crumbs. No soup. No porridge.
Just ceramic.
And yet I was full.
Amazing… but, weirdly, it didn't shock me as much as it should have.
I guess after flying blocks and threats of being turned into a potion, my "surprise" meter is a bit dulled.
So how does this even work?
And the main question—why did they feed me milk before, and now it's… this?
How common is this method of eating, anyway?
If this is normal, then this world is way stranger than I thought.
Once the urgent problems were temporarily handled, my attention drifted back to the only thing that really mattered.
Magic.
I released misty mana again—this time more carefully. I tried to let out less than last time.
And I managed.
Almost.
The amount really was smaller… but not as small as I'd planned. My control over the "tap" left a lot to be desired. I could regulate the flow, but only very roughly.
Alright.
I started manipulating the mist again.
Move it.
Compress it.
Try to split it.
The control was still clumsy. The mist responded with a delay. Sometimes it smeared out and blurred.
But I could see progress.
Slow.
Stubborn.
Real.
I decided: the next month is dedicated to practicing mana manipulation. No fanaticism. No pushing it.
…ha.
I practiced and practiced. When the mist ran low, I released more. Then more. And more.
And then, once again, I released—
I woke up.
My head was pounding.
By old habit, I reached for the whiskey bottle.
And remembered again—I'm not home.
Never thought I'd miss a hangover.
I lay there waiting until the pain became tolerable. A familiar state. Recognizable symptoms.
Mana exhaustion.
The second time it felt… weirdly pleasant. Especially the blackout itself. Like getting abruptly knocked out after hard liquor. No thoughts. No worries. Just darkness.
Ah… even nostalgic.
And only a few seconds later it hit me:
That sounds a little… masochistic.
I froze.
No.
No-no-no.
I'm not a masochist.
I'm just a researcher.
Yes.
Experimenting.
Scientific approach.
Perfectly rational.
I recovered again. "Ate" from the plate again. Waited again until my head cleared.
And started releasing mana again.
Over and over.
Trying to regulate the volume. Trying to hold it longer. Trying not to push myself into a blackout.
And then, once again, I released the mist—
The next… sixty blackouts.
Yes. Sixty.
I didn't wait. I didn't rest. I didn't take "reasonable breaks." Every time, I drove myself all the way into total exhaustion.
And what was most disturbing—I liked it.
Not the pain. Not the splitting headache. The moment right before the blackout. That sensation when the world goes dim, thoughts get cut off, and absolute silence arrives. Calm. No math. No threat of becoming a potion.
Just emptiness.
Across all sixty times, there was no tolerance. No weakening of the effect. Every time it was just as sudden. Just as deep.
Strange.
But honestly? For the better.
In all that time—while I was conscious—no one entered the room. At all. Not the nanny. Not new toys. Not new equations. The room remained unchanged.
I realized another unpleasant thing.
I can't measure time.
No windows. No clocks. No shifting light. Only cycles: exhaustion—recovery—practice—blackout.
I don't know how much has actually passed. Days? Weeks? More?
And then a thought came to me.
Maybe I shouldn't rush Level Three.
If I reach it too early, they'll start expecting more. Pressuring. Complicating. Testing.
Better to hit the goal closer to the deadline.
Minimum expectations—maximum freedom.
Yes, I'm literally standing on a knife's edge. A year and a half—either the level, or the potion. But that's still better than becoming a "genius on demand."
I've seen that in my old life.
They find you. Praise you. Invest in you. Use you. And then, when you burn out or become inconvenient—they write you off.
No thanks.
If this world thinks I'm a resource, then I'll be the most boring, average, completely unremarkable resource possible.
At least… on the outside.
On the inside, I'll keep training.
And maybe I'll stop getting that strange pleasure from self-exhaustion.
Maybe…