In the northern part of Munich, on the ruined Nuclear Research Facility, specially at one of the remaining walls of the buildings. Neo and dad are still impaled to the wall, there is still a sizzling sound emanating from the enriched uranium rod that impaled them.

  Neo was just about to take his nap, he can no longer feel any pain. He could barely feel anything at all at this point, even the ringing sound in his ears were beginning to fade. Then suddenly, he was rudely awakened by an obnoxious chiming sound and a glowing screen that appeared in his vision, even with his eyes closed.

  Integration Completed

  Congratulations,

  Mana has been successfully seeded into the Planet Designation: ‘Earth’.

  All native species eligible for tutorials will be taken to a tutorial mode in accordance to their unique traits.

  You may choose between the 3 tutorial modes that you are qualified for.

  Hard mode tutorial

  Nightmare mode tutorial

  Impossible mode tutorial

  You have 10 seconds to choose, failure to choose within the allotted time will automatically put you in the hardest difficulty you're qualified for. Choose wisely (9s)

  Neo is doing his best to read the wall of text that is blocking his sight, but he is not exactly the fastest when it comes to reading. His mom did her best to teach him, but it's still a challenge. The letters are flipped around, he has to mentally correct it and guess what each word is. Not to mention his condition is not exactly conducive to reading. By the time he reaches the bottom of the text, the timer has already reached zero.

  Impossible mode tutorial selected, you will be shortly transported to your first trial. (3s)

  Neo couldn't even finish reading this notification before he suddenly found himself standing on a snowy field with white filling his entire vision. There are some occasional dead looking trees that manage to survive somehow. Then another wall of text appears in front of him.

  Congratulations, you have entered the first trial of the Impossible mode tutorial, you have been fully healed, your objective is to survive for 30 days and defeat the final boss. Waves of enemies will attack you every day. The first wave will arrive in 5 hours. Use the time wisely.

  Your unique trait will shortly be unlocked along with your status screen, just think the word ‘status’ to view it.

  Neo looks down toward himself, he is still wearing the same clothes that he wore before. There is even some damage that remains from the explosion, some burn marks and tearing on his green cargo pants, there was even a chared hole on his blue t-shirt that went through the center of his chest all the way to his back. But all the injuries that he has is gone, there isn't even a scar left.

  As he was examining his chest that used to have a hole in it, a warm sensation began to spread from within his chest. It's pulsing along with his heart beat and spreading all the way to his fingertips and toes. It's a familiar sensation, but this time there is no pain or burning sensation. The warmth is comfortable, fighting against the cold temperatures of the icy field. The snow around his feet is actually melting and turning into steam.

  Most of the heat is traveling from his heart to the bottom of his stomach, filling up a container that is just suddenly there. It felt like a part of him, just like his new mana heart. He could instinctively know how it worked. It seems to function as an energy reserve.

  Another notification appeared in front of him, this one is actually his status screen.

  Status sheet

  Neo Wagner

  Level: 1

  Traits: Thermonuclear Mana Heart: Replace your mana heart with a thermonuclear reactor that constantly produces mana. You can adjust the intensity but you can't turn it off. Your mana will naturally contain heat and radiation.

  Attribute

  Str: 3

  Agi: 5

  Con: 3

  Int: 23

  Wis: 12

  Free: 0

  Titles:

  Little Boy Survivor

  Awarded for surviving a lethal dose of radiation. Grant immunity to radioactive radiation.

  Cooked Bacon

  Awarded for surviving being cooked from the inside out. Grant immunity to heat.

  Vlad is Chump

  Awarded for surviving being impaled through your chest. Grant minor resistance to piercing damage.

  Skills (0/5):

  This is a bit more familiar to him, he sometimes watches his brother play some games, some of them have a similar screen. He wondered how his brother was doing. He should be fine, considering his temperament, by the time he found him he'd probably be surrounded with a bunch of useful party members. The same could be said about his mom. He is more worried about his dad, even if he somehow managed to hold on long enough to be healed, he is not exactly the best person for this type of situation. He could only hope his dad found some nice people that could carry him through the tutorial.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Either way, there isn't much that he could do to help them, he'd have to worry about himself first, there should be a reason this is called impossible mode. He took stok of everything he had on him. He had his shirt, it's not much of one really considering the giant hole in the middle. But the cloth should still be useful for something. He had his cargo pants, the pockets would be useful if he had to carry something. He checked each pocket carefully to see if he happened to carry anything in there. As expected there isn't anything other than a key to their apartment with a little silicone key chain that has his parents name, number, and address. When you get lost as often as he did, you learn to be prepared. He also has a silver necklace that had the same little silicone tag with the same information.

  Then he thinks of the word ‘Status’ and takes another careful read of the information inside. He mostly focused on the numbers and the highlights of his titles. He could read numbers a little easier than words. From what he understood he has some very high mental attributes but a lacking physical stat. Which made sense, but he didn't know what it represented exactly. There's no convenient explanation even when he focuses on a specific stat. The title is a little more straight forward, two of them made him immune to heat and radiation, another one gave him minor piercing damage resistance.

  His mana heart has the most complete explanation, but he didn't actually need it. From the moment it became a part of him, he already knew what it could do. This is the key to his survival, he just had to figure out how to use the mana it produced. It shouldn't be too hard, it's his mana after all. He shrugged his shoulders and closed his eyes, firstly he tried to really feel his mana, focusing on where it first appeared in the center of his mana heart. There's a rhythm to it, pulsing in time with his heartbeats. He could feel his mana radiating outward from his heart, most of it being sucked down into the reservoir on the bottom of his stomach. But there's a small amount that flows along his blood vessels, dispersing throughout his entire body then exiting through his skin.

  He tried to take a hold of the mana exiting through the skin of his palm, but it's like trying to capture smoke, the mana just went around his mental hand. There is a reaction, so with enough practice he should be able to figure it out. But for now he leaves the mana outside his body alone and focuses on the mana in his reservoir. He could feel that his container is about half way filled, it's still slowly filling up. He took a small scoop of mana and made it flow toward his right hand, it's a whole lot easier to control. The mana feels denser, there's also a sense of belonging, like it's more his than the mana outside his body.

  He pushed the small scoop of mana outside his palm and opened his eyes, he could see an orange glow that was shining from his hand. There's also a wave of heat rippling through the air visible due to the steam that rises from the melting snow around him. The mana in his hand is slowly dissipating, dispersing through the air as heat and radiation. He tried to stop it, keeping the mana still in his hand. But his mana doesn't seem to like staying still, it wants to flow and spread. So that's what he did, he spun the remaining mana into a small ring above his palm. A bright whitish orange ring is formed, spinning around at a faster and faster speed. He keeps increasing the speed until the ring is stabilized and no more mana is leaking out. A familiar obnoxious chime went off in his head then another screen appeared in front of him.

  Congratulations, you have earned the skill Mana manipulation. Would you like to add it into your repertoire?

  Y/N

  So that's how you unlock skills then, you have to figure it out yourself first. Only then this super helpful system would offer it, that would have been nice to know in the beginning. What's with the big word anyway, who used the word repertoire?. It took him a while to decrypt that word, this unhelpful system is so annoying. He shook his head and pressed the Y button.

  He tried to feel the difference from before and after he got the skill. To be honest he didn't feel anything significant, his mana still felt the same. Maybe it's slightly easier to control, but not a whole lot. He probably needed to level it a bit to see the benefits, so that's what he did for the next couple hours.

  He practiced making different shapes with his mana, from simple rings of various sizes, to different numbers and letters, he even made a round hat that he could wear like a real one. He just has to focus on making it move with his head. Whenever he got low on mana he just ramp up his mana production and filled up his reservoir. He tried to keep it from filling up fully though, it gave him a bloated sensation. Similar to when he ate too much.

  After a couple hours of him messing around he was interrupted by another notification, there has been a series of those that he kept ignoring. But this one sounded different, it didn't wait for him to acknowledge it before a screen appeared in front of him. He was just about to succeed in making a giant five meter sword too, he figured if he kept the flow like a chainsaw it would work but apparently the edge is too thin to hold its shape. He finally paid attention to the screen in front of him and all the other notifications he ignored came flooding out. He said some bad words and tried to go through it, it's mostly a series of lvl up notice of his one skill. There's four notifications that are different from the others.

  Congratulations, your Mana manipulation has reached lvl 10. You can move your mana faster.

  Congratulations, your Mana manipulation has reached lvl 20. You can now control multiple streams of mana easier.

  Congratulations, your Mana manipulation has reached lvl 30. Your mana is now denser and more potent.

  Those bonuses are super useful, especially the level 30 bonus. He could feel the difference instantly, the mana in his container is almost like water now. Before this it's more like a dense vapor. But the final notifications are weird, there's barely any explanation.

  Congratulations, you have earned the title Beloved by Mana: You loved Mana and Mana loved you back.

  But as soon as the title went into effect, he knew immediately that this title is better than all the other bonuses from his skill. The giant sword that he was previously struggling with formed in his hands immediately, he swung it around and he didn't feel any lag, he wasn't actually swinging it with his hands of course. There's no way he could swing a five meters sword with his noodle arms, even if it had no weight it still has air resistance. He is controlling it with his mind, he just holds it in his hands cause it's cooler that way. Before the title he had to constantly focus on maintaining the flow of mana on his sword, now it's like his mana knows what he wants and does it for him. He just had to focus on the movements.

  He wants to test the limit of his manipulation, so he ramps up his mana heart a little and begins pouring mana into his sword. As he did that, he pointed the sword slightly up and to his left. Then he kept on increasing the size of the sword, from 5 meters to 10, he kept on increasing it until it's about 200m long. It's just an estimate, don't take his word for it. Once it reached the length he wanted he swung it towards a small hill in front of him. The tip of the sword moved incredibly fast, he could barely see it. Then it hit the side of the hill, he thought there would be some resistance. But no, it just went through the hill like it's not even there. He gulped a bit at the destruction that he caused, a lot of trees were harmed in this little experiment of his. Thankfully the falling snow helped put out the fire and cooled down the lava that is still glowing on top of the innocent hill. He points his extra large sword upward and stares at it.

  Now he has to figure out what to do with the sword, he usually just lets his construct dissipate naturally when he is done using it. But he didn't think that's a good idea to do with this sword. Maybe if he threw it really far away?. That could work. So that's what he did, another innocent hill is probably harmed in the process. But he couldn't see it, so it's fine.