Gregor—no, Patrick—had always believed that discipline shaped destiny.
It had been the first lesson drilled into him by the two people he once called parents.
His father, a quiet but formidable man, had run covert operations for the CIA. His mother, with her steel spine and unwavering calm, was a seasoned Marine. The household he grew up in was one where weakness was never indulged, and excuses didn't exist. Even as a child, Patrick had lived with precision: wake up at 05:00, fold the sheets corner‑tight, brush teeth, drink water, then run.
Every day felt like training for a life he never fully lived.
Push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups, squats—those were his morning companions before most kids his age had even rubbed sleep from their eyes. As he grew, the workouts became harder. Weighted runs, obstacle drills, breathing exercises, hand-to-hand combat… and then came the lectures. His father taught him evasive maneuvers, situational analysis, interrogation resistance, decision-making under pressure. From CIA to MI6 to Mossad to even GRU tactics—his father trained him using the wisdom of the world's most elite agencies.
Everyone who looked at him expected he would follow the military path.
Instead, he became a scientist.
While his body had been honed like a weapon, his mind had become a universe of theories, numbers, and equations. Engineering. Physics. Chemistry. Biology. Psychology. Seven PhDs. Seven. His parents were confused, the military was disappointed, and the academic world was stunned. He was a prodigy whose mind refused to rest.
Patrick had always believed he remembered things easily, but after his transmigration…
That memory became something frightening.
He remembered everything.
Every word in every textbook he had ever read. Every conversation he had overheard. Every detail from every training session. Every equation, diagram, research note, footnote, hypothesis—his mind held them all with perfect clarity. As if his consciousness had been sharpened to a razor's edge.
It had been a week since he arrived in this harsh new world, and he had chosen silence.
A silent slave was a safe slave.
A quiet mind was a dangerous one.
His new body—Gregor's body—was frail, malnourished, and sickly. The Red Scorpion Gang didn't care if their slaves lived or died, so he'd been relegated to simple, humiliating chores: cleaning, sweeping, carrying firewood, scrubbing floors until his fingers bled.
They were still in Scotland, far from the Britannian capital of London. This area was a lawless ghetto where the Red Scorpions ruled like feral kings. Without noble oversight, cruelty ran unchecked. Screams at night were common. Blood in the gutters was normal. Life here was worth less than copper.
Patrick kept his head down and observed.
He counted the guards. Memorized their movements. Watched how the mages used their abilities. Calculated how long food took to cook based on the temperature of the fires.
His mind was a machine.
And then—something extraordinary happened.
---
He was cleaning the fireplace, bent over, brushing out soot with a crude metal tool. Ash clung to his thin arms and the heat made sweat dribble down his neck.
Clang.
His hand slipped.
His palm smacked against the metal grate—still blisteringly hot.
He hissed, instinctively yanking his hand back—
—but the burn never came.
Instead, his skin drank the heat.
Literally absorbed it.
"What—?"
His breath caught as a strange warmth surged through his veins, not painful, but invigorating. The fatigue clouding his mind evaporated. His muscles, always trembling from weakness, steadied. His spine straightened. His vision sharpened.
The fireplace behind him went cold.
Not cooling down.
Not losing heat.
Cold.
Almost freezing.
A thrill raced up Patrick's spine.
He stared at his trembling hands. They were slightly red, but not burned. Not even sore.
He waited, heart pounding.
No one had seen.
Silence swallowed the room, broken only by the faint crackle of dying embers.
Patrick inhaled shakily.
Then he did what any scientist would do.
He experimented.
---
For hours, whenever the gang members weren't watching, he tested himself.
He absorbed heat from heated stones until they frosted over.
He held his hand under the torchlight until it dimmed and sputtered.
He brushed against a candle flame, and the light bent toward his skin as if being… consumed.
He touched a mage stone, and its glow faltered.
He absorbed warmth, light, magic—energy in every form he could test.
And each time, his body grew a little stronger. Muscles firmed slightly. Vision cleared. Breath deepened. For the first time since transmigrating, he felt less like a dying orphan and more like himself—a man built for intellect and survival.
Then, driven by curiosity and fear, he tested something darker.
A rat skittered near a pile of garbage.
Patrick reached out.
The moment his fingers brushed its fur, a wave of cold shot through the creature. It stiffened, eyes bulging, then collapsed lifelessly.
Patrick jerked back, stomach twisting.
He hadn't meant to drain its life—but he had.
He stared at his hand, horror and awe battling within him.
"What am I?"
Magic?
No. This wasn't magic. Mages here invoked elements, or wielded psychic abilities, or transformed their bodies. But what he had just done? That wasn't any known elemental discipline. It was something deeper. Something raw.
Something impossible.
His scientific mind worked rapidly, fitting puzzle pieces together.
"The tachyon accelerator… the dark matter explosion… it didn't just kill me."
It changed him.
Not physically.
Not biologically.
But on a trans-dimensional level. His very essence had been altered, transformed, reborn with new properties that interacted with this world's energy.
This wasn't mana, or magic, or chi.
It was energy itself.
Thermal.
Kinetic.
Light.
Magical.
Biological.
Life force.
He could absorb it. Manipulate it. Disperse it. Use it.
A slow smile crept onto his face, sharp and dangerous.
He looked around the dim, cold room—the same room where he had been treated like filth, where he had nearly died in chains.
If this was a blessing or a curse, he didn't know.
But it was a key.
A key to freedom.
A key to power.
A key to survival in a world that valued strength above everything else.
Patrick Graham stood, steady for the first time since arriving in this world, and clenched his fists.
The universe hadn't abandoned him.
It had armed him.