A week had passed since Arin Valcrest woke up in a stranger's body. Seven days of confusion, disbelief, and quiet observation had followed. The world still felt unreal sometimes, like a vivid dream that refused to fade, yet life inside the orphanage moved with a steady rhythm, and Arin had slowly fallen into it.
His days were a cycle: morning chores, classes, magic practice, and meals with the other children. But every night—long after the others had fallen asleep—Arin opened the enormous mechanical tome his mother had once given him. Sleep had become a luxury he could no longer afford; he managed four hours, sometimes five. The mind of Dev Sharma—the software developer who once lived in Bangalore—refused to waste time. That mind now existed inside the body of a fourteen-year-old boy, and it was working constantly.
The book was massive, its heavy leather covers bound with fading golden thread. Inside, thousands of carefully illustrated diagrams explained mechanical dolls—wooden constructs built with internal gears, springs, rotating joints, and hidden mechanisms. At first, the pages looked overwhelming, but after a week of study, Arin understood the foundations. He could picture how the dolls were assembled: a wooden skeletal frame, metal gears fitted within the joints, and balanced tension springs for smooth motion.
It was brilliant engineering, but it came with a problem. Arin sat on the edge of his bed late one night, staring at the page before him.
"I understand the design…" Arin muttered quietly to himself. "But I can't build any of it."
The book assumed access to tools and craftsmen—precise metal gears, perfectly carved wooden sockets, and balanced internal mechanisms. Even if he understood the theory, he simply didn't have the resources.
"I'd need an artisan… or a dwarven gear-smith," Arin sighed, closing his eyes for a moment. He knew craftsmen did not work for free.
Still, something else inside the book had begun catching his attention: Runes. Strange symbols were etched beside the mechanical diagrams. At first, Arin assumed they were decorative markings or magical seals, but the deeper he read, the clearer it became. They were instructions. Each rune symbol carried a function: Lift arm. Rotate joint. Step forward. Grip object.
Simple commands. Rigid commands. Predictable commands.
Arin leaned closer to one page, tracing a sequence with his finger. Three rune symbols were arranged together, with an explanation beneath reading: When arranged in this sequence, the construct raises its right arm.
Arin blinked slowly as a strange familiarity crept into his thoughts. "This looks like…" his voice lowered, "…code."
His brain stirred. Each rune represented a command, and when arranged together, they formed a sequence—a structure. It was just like programming.
"Then why…?" Arin's brow furrowed in confusion. "Why are they only using them for single actions?"
If these runes truly formed a language, then they should be capable of far more. Yet the book showed only simple combinations: no complex chains, no layered commands, and no logical structures. It was like discovering a programming language being used to write only one line of code.
The next morning, the smell reached the children before they even entered the dining hall. Fresh bread, sweet fruit, and something warm. Arin and Tomas exchanged suspicious looks as they stepped inside. The long wooden table was already filled with excited whispers from the younger children.
"What happened?" Tomas muttered, his eyes wide. "Did someone important die?"
Arin stared at him, baffled. "Why would someone dying improve breakfast?"
"Experience," Tomas replied seriously.
Then Arin saw the plates: sliced bread, small jars of fruit jam, and—eggs. One egg per child. The room erupted with joy.
"I got the biggest one!" a small boy shouted.
"Don't steal my jam!" another child yelled.
Tomas grabbed his plate instantly. "This is the greatest day of my life," he declared.
Arin sat down calmly, eyeing the frantic scene. "That's concerning."
"You don't understand," Tomas said, cracking his egg open dramatically. "This is luxury."
At the end of the table sat the caretaker, Marta. She rarely joined meals, usually watching from the doorway, but today she sat among them. Arin spread jam across a slice of bread and took a bite. It was sweet, soft, and warm—a simple meal, but for these children, it felt like a feast.
While eating, Arin glanced at his friend. "Tomas," he said.
"Hmm?" Tomas grunted, his mouth full.
"What do you know about rune magic?" Arin asked.
Tomas blinked, stopping mid-chew. "Runes?"
"Yes," Arin confirmed.
Tomas leaned back thoughtfully. "Well… they're old."
"That explains nothing," Arin countered.
"Ancient old," Tomas corrected. He lowered his voice slightly. "Some scholars say runes are the writing of the gods."
Arin raised an eyebrow. "And people just… carve them into machines?"
"Not casually," Tomas said. "Rune magic is dangerous."
That caught Arin's attention. "How?"
"If you write a rune incorrectly, the mana flow becomes unstable," Tomas explained, tapping the table lightly. "In the past, experiments exploded. Buildings collapsed. Some scholars even died."
Arin paused, processing this. "So people stopped experimenting."
"Exactly," Tomas replied. "Most rune technicians simply copy existing symbols from old books."
"That's… inefficient," Arin noted.
"Maybe," Tomas shrugged. "But it works."
Arin continued his inquiry. "How are runes written?"
"With rune pens," Tomas answered.
"Rune pens?" Arin repeated.
"Special tools used by rune technicians," Tomas said, lowering his voice again. "The ink is made from monster blood and crushed magic stones. When you write with it, the ink becomes invisible. But when mana flows through the rune, the writing glows and the symbol becomes permanently etched."
Arin felt a quiet thrill run through him. Rune writing was a programmable magic language, and tools existed to write it.
Magic practice took place in the courtyard after lunch. Children stood scattered across the open ground, some concentrating with intense focus while others looked like they were trying not to explode.
"Control your breathing," Marta instructed calmly. "Mana follows intention."
A boy lifted his hand, and a small flame flickered above his palm. Another child created a swirl of wind that lasted only a few seconds before fading. Then a girl stepped forward: Lyra. She was about Tomas's age, with dark red hair and light blue eyes that held a quiet confidence. She raised her hand toward a wooden bucket of water.
A gentle incantation escaped Lyra's lips. The water rose from the bucket, forming a perfect sphere that floated into the air. Then, slowly, it began spinning. The children gasped as the sphere rotated faster and faster before finally collapsing back into the bucket.
Tomas whistled. "Show-off," he teased.
"You're jealous," Lyra smirked.
"Obviously," Tomas admitted. He stepped forward and stomped his foot once. The ground trembled slightly, and a clump of soil rose into the air, compressing into a perfect sphere. Then, the sphere reshaped itself into a cube, and then a pyramid.
Lyra crossed her arms. "Overcompensating," she remarked.
"Talent," Tomas replied proudly.
Arin attempted fire magic again. A spark appeared, then vanished instantly.
Tomas sighed dramatically. "You're terrible."
"I've noticed," Arin agreed dryly.
Lyra glanced at Arin curiously. "You think too much," she said. "Magic requires feeling."
Arin rubbed his chin, looking at his palm. "That explains a lot."
That evening, Marta called Arin to her office. Inside stood a man wearing a formal red coat with a metal crest on his chest: a griffin, the symbol of the Kingdom of Valerion.
The official spoke calmly. "When an orphan reaches adulthood, the kingdom provides twenty-five silver coins."
Arin nodded quietly, waiting.
"However, your parents served the kingdom during the war," the official continued, placing a gold coin on the table. "In recognition of their service, you will also receive one gold coin."
Arin stared at the coins. One gold and twenty-five silver was a small fortune for someone like him.
"You will depart the orphanage in twenty-six days," the official concluded.
After he left, Arin noticed something glowing on Marta's desk—a lantern, but with no flame. "There's no oil," Arin observed.
Marta slid the lantern toward him. "This is a rune lantern," she explained. Inside the glass chamber glowed a light shaped like a flame. She lifted the lantern slightly. "At the bottom is a metal compartment. Inside sits a magical stone—this one from a goblin."
She pointed to thin engraved lines around the glass frame. "These runes guide the mana released from the stone and convert it into light." Then, she twisted a small circular mechanism beneath the lantern. The metal compartment slowly rotated, the opening narrowed, and the light dimmed. She twisted it the other way, and the light brightened instantly.
Arin leaned closer, his eyes sharpening. "It regulates the mana flow."
"Exactly," Marta confirmed. She twisted the mechanism fully shut, and the light vanished. "No mana escapes, so the rune cannot convert it."
Arin stared at the lantern with new understanding. Magic stones, runes, and control systems—it was engineering.
Later that night, Arin returned to his room. Tomas was already asleep, and Arin opened the mechanical doll book once more, but his mind wandered. He held the silver coins tightly in his hand. Tomorrow, he would buy a rune pen. First, he would test the existing symbols. Then, he would test his own.
Arin lay down slowly. For the first time since arriving in this world, he felt something powerful stirring inside him: excitement. Because tomorrow, he would begin writing magic.