"Beep beep beep, beep beep beep, beep beep beep…"

The alarm clock wouldn’t stop ringing.

Drowsy Yan Lingxuan rolled over in bed. Unconsciously, he reached for it—but the alarm, usually on his bedside desk, was nowhere to be found.

Listening closely to the sound’s direction, he realized it wasn’t on the desk. Slightly annoyed, he opened his blurry eyes and spotted the alarm clock sneakily placed by the window.

“Who’s so mean to put it that far? My hand can’t even reach…”

It wasn’t actually far. The room was small; just a few steps out of bed would do. But for a habitual oversleeper, getting up was pure agony! Though Yan Lingxuan wasn’t one—he’d only fallen asleep past 3 AM last night.

“Beep beep beep…”

The alarm clock answered with relentless beeping.

Half-asleep, Yan Lingxuan didn’t bother wondering who moved it. He simply stretched toward the seemingly distant alarm and murmured:

“If only you’d fly over here yourself… that’d be perfect…”

The moment he thought it, a miracle happened. The alarm wobbled through the air like summoned, landing right in his hand!

“Huh… Am I a mage now?”

In 2055’s modern world, magic existed. Mages who wielded it were real. These once-mythical terms now stood before humanity, shattering ‘science’—once the symbol of universal truth.

About twenty years ago, people with inexplicable powers began appearing. They flew freely, defying gravity. They commanded water, fire, lightning, ice—any natural force. Even material transformation was effortless. The world called these abilities “magic,” and their users “mages.”

These truths, leaping from ancient tales, overturned common sense. They made humanity rethink the world’s infinite possibilities. Or perhaps those familiar myths were real all along?!

But why had magic never existed before?

“The Cyclical Fluctuation of Universal Development”—this was one theory scientists offered, widely accepted by the public.

After magic emerged, science’s credibility plummeted, yet it ignited many scientists’ passion. Through research, they discovered a new fundamental particle in space: the truth behind magic. They named it “Magic Power.”

Magic Power shifted under human will, mimicking natural or supernatural phenomena. That was magic.

Why hadn’t scientists found it earlier, even with hadron colliders? By studying all human myths, they calculated that roughly every thousand years, Magic Power surged into this space like ocean waves. That was the core of “The Cyclical Fluctuation of Universal Development.”

Simply put, Magic Power existed in the universe like seawater. Affected by cosmic forces, it periodically flooded near Earth. Since the universe was still developing, scientists couldn’t precisely predict these surges. But deeper research would uncover more truths—even preliminary theories to reverse-calculate the universe’s size.