The journal creaked open, aged yet sturdy, its pages filled with words from a past long forgotten. The royal researcher adjusted his spectacles, his hands trembling slightly. He had spent years scouring archives, decoding relics, and chasing myths, but this was something different. If what’s written here is true... then history is a lie.

  His candle flickered, shadows stretching across the study. He turned the page, diving into the words of a man who had lived through the beginning of magic itself.

  So, here’s the deal. The world is about to know my name. Not today, not tomorrow, but soon. That’s why I’m writing this, so when the history books talk about me, they’ll get the story straight. No fancy embellishments, no exaggerated heroics, just the facts.

  I was an engineer, and a damn good one. Tech had been my playground since I could hold a screwdriver. I didn’t just build things, I broke them apart to see what made them tick. I didn’t want to be just another nameless cog in the machine. I wanted to be up there with the greats. Dani Stat, Adam Martin are visionaries who didn’t just ride the wave of innovation; they created it. Their names were stamped on history, and mine? Mine was buried in late-night code sprints and half-finished prototypes. That had to change.

  Mornings started the same way: coffee, notifications, and the hum of city life outside my window. My apartment was a mess of spare parts, half-finished projects, and notes scribbled on every available surface. The world was fast-moving, and AI-powered automation, self-driving systems, and quantum computing had already become the norm. Yet, despite all that progress, I wanted more.

  I dragged myself into work, late as usual. Jenna, my project lead and longtime friend, leaned against my workstation with a knowing smirk. “You do realize you’re supposed to be here an hour ago, right?”

  “Time is an illusion,” I replied, dropping my bag onto my cluttered desk. “Besides, I work better under pressure.”

  “More like you work better after three cups of coffee and a deadline breathing down your neck,” she shot back.

  Harris, another engineer on our team, rolled his chair over. “So, what’s the plan today? You're gonna finally finish that energy stabilization prototype, or are we gonna watch you tinker with it for another week?”

  I smirked. “Watch and learn, my friend. Greatness doesn’t rush.”

  Jenna didn’t smile this time. She glanced at the prototype window still running on my screen, lines of data flickering faster than usual.

  “Just make sure your greatness doesn’t blow up in our faces,” she said. “I don’t feel like explaining that to legal.”

  I shrugged. “Relax. If it explodes, I’ll already know why.”

  Harris snorted. “Yeah? And what’s the vision today, oh great one?”

  I leaned back. “Something groundbreaking. Something that makes the last decade of tech look like child’s play.”

  Jenna rolled her eyes. “You mean something that will make our investors happy enough to fund your crazy experiments?”

  “Exactly,” I grinned.

  We all laughed.

  If only we knew how right I was.

  That night, I got home late, exhausted but satisfied. I tossed my bag onto the couch, kicked off my shoes, and checked my phone, expecting some last-minute work emails or a passive-aggressive reminder from Jenna about tomorrow’s deadlines.

  Instead, a notification stood out among the usual clutter.

  "Breaking News: Unexplained Phenomenon Detected Near Dubai. Authorities Restrict Access."

  Curious, I tapped on it. And what I saw made me sit up straight.

  It started small. A weird anomaly in an abandoned region outside Dubai, something that shouldn’t have been there. The pictures showed a massive, silver, glowing, unnatural tree. Some thought it was an art installation. Others said it was a government experiment. But when the military arrived and shut the area down, the world paid attention. Then came the energy readings. Unstable. Unexplainable. Scientists were baffled, governments were nervous, and conspiracy theorists had a field day.

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  One scientist on the broadcast kept adjusting his mic, repeating the same sentence like he was hoping it would start making sense if he said it enough times.

  “The readings don’t follow any known model,” he admitted.

  That was the moment my exhaustion vanished.

  If the models were broken, it meant something new had entered the equation.

  I watched the reports, feeling something stir inside me. This was it. The next big thing. Bigger than AI, bigger than anything we’d ever seen.

  And I was going to be a part of it.

  The first Magitech prototypes were hastily thrown together by labs racing to be the first to harness the power. The problem? They were inefficient. Devices burned out faster than we could manufacture them. Energy readings fluctuated wildly. Some materials reacted unpredictably when exposed to magic. Nobody knew how to properly regulate it.

  One test ended with the casing glowing red-hot in seconds.

  Alarms screamed. Someone swore and stumbled back as heat warped the metal, the smell of burning insulation filling the lab. We killed the power manually, and for a moment, no one spoke.

  Then I exhaled slowly.

  “Okay,” I said. “So that’s where it breaks.”

  I remember holding the first energy core I ever saw, barely the size of a fist, humming with unstable power. The lead scientist gave me a knowing smirk. "You think you can fix it?"

  "Give me a week," I said. "I'll do more than fix it."

  And I did. Sort of.

  The first device I made barely worked.

  It hummed unevenly in my hands, vibrating like it might tear itself apart if I pushed it any harder. Heat crawled along the casing, but it held.

  It needed three times the power input for half the output, and the heat it generated was enough to fry circuits within minutes. But who cared? That was just an optimization problem, something we’d fix in later iterations. What mattered was that it worked. If I had spent more time thinking about why magic resisted being contained like electricity… well, maybe things would have turned out differently. But it was proof that magic and tech could merge.

  I wasn't the only one chasing it. Labs around the world worked on their own theories, but they were approaching it like conventional energy. Magic wasn’t electricity. It didn’t follow the same rules. Trying to contain it with standard circuits was like trying to put a lightning bolt in a glass bottle.

  Then came the first real step forward. I developed a new energy regulator, one that didn’t force magic into existing infrastructure but worked with its properties. The first test run wasn’t impressive to most, just a small device that could keep a steady flow of magic running for longer than ten minutes without overheating. But in the world of Magitech, it was groundbreaking.

  Word spread fast.

  My inbox went from a handful of ignored emails to nonstop messages from companies that hadn’t known I existed a week earlier. Investors suddenly wanted meetings. Executives started using my name in rooms where I wasn’t invited.

  Somewhere along the way, I stopped being background noise and became an asset.

  And then came the turning point, the first public demonstration. I stood in front of a crowd of researchers, executives, and media, holding up what looked like an ordinary metal core. "This," I said, "is the future of energy regulation."

  I activated the device, and for the first time, a magic-powered engine ran continuously without a single flicker.

  The applause began slowly, then grew louder. Before the clapping drowned everything out, I noticed one man in the front row who wasn’t applauding at all. He was already on his phone, speaking in a low voice, eyes fixed on the device in my hands.

  Whatever he was saying, it sounded urgent.

  It was a small step, but it was proof that Magitech could be stable, reliable, even practical.

  Life changed overnight. Suddenly, I wasn’t just an engineer, I was a pioneer. My inbox was flooded with offers. Research labs wanted me. Corporations wanted to buy my designs. The government wanted to 'discuss potential applications.' For the first time, people in the industry knew my name. But in the back of my mind, a quiet thought nagged at me: when you climb too high, someone always wants to push you down.

  But I wasn’t about to let them own my work.

  Instead of joining the big players, I doubled down. I worked with my own team, refining the technology further, making it scalable. Magitech wasn’t just going to be a niche experiment; it was going to revolutionize the world.

  Now? Now, I stand at the forefront of an era no one saw coming. The Silverwood changed everything. Now? It’s my turn to change the world.

  ---

  Author’s Note: This story is written as a living prequel. Chapters may be refined as the chronology evolves.

  Thank you for reading.

  ---