The First Spark

On a stage in front of the world's most prestigious scientific convention, stood a rather short man named David Andrade. Standing at around 5' 4'', it was rather comical how his head barely peaked over the podium, behind which he stood. Donning a clean unbuttoned lab coat, with his light-blue button down and dark grey slacks showing underneath, and a crimson red tie so tight that looked uncomfortable, Professor Andrade looked out at the audience filled many renowned researchers and investors. With confidence he leaned into the microphone, and began his speech.

"What is magic? For hundreds of years, magic has just been a fantasy. Stories like the Legend of King Arthur, where mages would cast charms and spells, enchant weapons, and cause phenomenon that wouldn't be possible in the real world, all stand to highlight the fantastical definition of magic that we hold to be true. But I stand before you to show the world that this is no longer the case, for my team has discovered a new source of energy, which we dub 'Mana'! A power capable of bringing the most imaginative dreams to life!"

The crowd broke out into uproar. Professor Andrade's claim was preposterous to these people. After all, what kind of scientist would believe in magic? The man in front of them must have lost his mind in order to come up with such an outlandish idea. Worse yet, they took it as an insult. To stand before hundreds of people who had seriously dedicated their whole lives to the pursuit of science, and to joke about casting spells must have been an attempt at wasting their precious time.

With a few crowd-members yelling so loud that their faces turned red in anger, Professor Andrade calmly pressed the button on his presentation clicker and a video began playing on the screen behind him. 

The video showed a large white room. Against each of the walls were large shelves and tool cabinets, covered in various pieces of piping, bolts, wrenches, and devices roughly strewn about. In the very center of the room was a large mass of metal and wiring. It consisted of a large central chamber and several appendages jutting out from the sides. Enough sensors were embedded in its hull to detect even the smallest movement of particles within. One of the few researchers in frame stood at a raised PC cart near the machine and pushed a key to turn it on. 

Suddenly, as the machine whirred to life and emitted a dim blue light from the porthole installed on its hull, all of the ceiling lights in the lab began to flicker. Barely noticeable at first, but slowly growing in frequency and intensity, the flashing lights morphed into a violent strobe light which made it impossible to ignore. The blue light emanating from the machine slowly became bright enough to illuminate the room by itself and one of the researchers in the video promptly switched of the lights. A sense of peace returned to the lab as the machine purred like the engine of a car. 

The brightness of the blue light continued to increase, accompanied by the sound of the machine until it began to shake even though it was bolted to the concrete floor. This shaking reverberated through the whole room causing more chaos. Everything in the room moved as if there was a strong earthquake. The camera looked as if it was about to fall over but someone grabbed it off the tripod and held it in their hands to guarantee that their experiment was properly recorded. 

What happened next couldn't be regarded as anything but magic. One of the pipes rolled off the side of the counter that it was on... but never hit the floor. Unlike everything else in the room that was visibly shaking, the singular pipe floated motionlessly, a few feet above the floor. It was alone in this unexplainable state for a few moments until a few bolts suddenly rose from where they had been placed. Then a wrench hovered up from off the floor after it had fallen. One by one, everything that wasn't attached to the floor began to float, including all of the researchers. 

By this point the blue light from the machine was almost blinding, but all of the researchers in the video didn't dare to cover their eyes. Looking at how everything in the room was spontaneously levitating, they couldn't believe what was happening. 

Before the light could grow any brighter, the scientist in the lab coat, who had originally started the machine, type at the keyboard again.

The blue light in the window of the machine died, along with the noise that it was creating. Without warning, everything in the room suddenly became effected by gravity again, plummeting straight down. 

That's where the video ended, and Professor Andrade turned back to the crowd. They all sat there, motionless and silent. None of them could believe that he had originally claimed, but with evidence of its existence there was no room for argument. 

"Originally we tried to rationalize our findings. First we thought it might be magnetism, but something strong enough to raise those pipes off the ground at that range would have destroyed out camera. It also doesn't explain how materials such as plastic, or the bodies of my fellow researchers, were also effected by this phenomenon."

The short Professor let out a light sigh, and fiddled with his tie for a moment.

"The sensors of our machine recorded a new particle we've never before seen, with some unbelievable properties. From what we've been able to determine, it doesn't follow any of the laws of physics that we know. Neither conventional, nor quantum mechanics has any explanation for what we have seen. For this reason, and the magical effects that it has seemingly produced, my team has been calling it mana."

Professor Andrade moved on with his presentation, taking questions from the audience. There were more than a few members of the audience who still had a hard time understanding what they had just seen. Scientists who wanted to know more about the data, investors wanting to hear about the potential applications of mana, these people were so interested that the Q&A session lasted for almost two hours before everyone was satisfied. With that, the presentation was complete, and all the members of the press who had witnessed Professor Andrade's speech rushed to share what they had witnessed. 

Hundreds of articles flooded the news in the coming weeks. Headlines like "The Proof of Magic?" and "Researchers Discover How To Cast Spells!" became a staple for every news channel on the planet. You couldn't walk down the street without hearing a conversation about magic.

Wanting to get in on the action, many universities and corporations started "Mana Labs" attempting to develop their own research and products in the field. It was generally assumed that whoever came to market with a magical product first would skyrocket in value. Startups sprouted like weeds, looking for the next big innovation in the field, trying to strike gold. 

Behind all of the noise though, there was a problem. No one could make any progress. Hundreds of billions of dollars were invested in the research, but not a single person could understand how these particles worked. They couldn't get any information beyond the existence of mana particles. 

Without any usable advancements, companies started to look elsewhere for new technologies and the public stopped caring about magic since it had almost no effect on their lives. Rather than the original predictions of the world being revolutionized by this new discovery, everything went on as if it had never happened. 

All but a few Mana Labs continued to exist. Only large universities with enough funding to afford throwing it away on a field that produced no results kept their labs open. Sadly, there was no mistaking what had happened. The dreams of magic changing the world, which Professor Andrade and his team had sewn in the hearts of people across the world, were dashed by reality.