Content

"Why do you mean by everything?" Jane asked her hand on his chest.

"I mean everything, about the coming apocalypse, about the monsters, about the lights that come out of my body, everything is explained in the book." Nolan was excited, the content of the book was what he wanted all along.

"Wow, then tell me, when will this apocalypse begin?" Jane had a mystified look, believing the magic book has the answers to everything.

"Ahh... I don't think we can know the answer to that, it only has already written information from a long time ago." Nolan closed his eyes, checking the book to make sure it didn't have such information.

In his mind, he saw the book in a much bigger size than it was outside, filled with thousands of pages of paper filled to the brim with text. He just had to think of what he wanted to know and the page books flipped to show him the answer to his question.

"Then what can it tell you?" she said with a look of distrust on her face.

Nolan closed his eyes, his eyes going back and forth as if he was reading.

"Well I just asked about the reason the apocalypse is happening," he opened his eyes, a serious face hiding his worries.

"Do you know what mana is?" Nolan asked his confused-looking mother.

"No, what is it?"

"... I guess you can say it's dark energy in scientific terms. We hypothesized that there is dark matter constituting 85% of the universe, this mana is like dark energy, invisible and not something we could come into contact with, or so it should have been." Nolan tried to compare what he was reading, finding the terminology really a good explanation as to what mana was.

"The book explains that our universe has reached a level where it can interact with this dark energy, this dark energy is now pouring into this empty vessel, its volatile and unlimited energy changing the world and universe order as we know it," Nolan explained looking at his puzzled mother.

"What do you mean our universe reached a level?" That has been the only thing she somewhat understood of.

"Mom, the universe isn't a dead thing, it's a living entity, just like us or so says the book. This dark energy is like what it is to us to gain access to the unlimited energy of the sun like plants with just our bodies.

"Right now, we can feel the sun and even use its energy to warm our bodies, grow our food, generate electricity out of it, but it's like a surface-level use." Nolan held her closer to his body.

"In simple terms, the universe can absorb this energy, like if we were able to absorb all the energy of the sun in our bodies. This has the unintended consequence of breaking and rebuilding previously established rules." He said in a deep breath, he didn't expect himself to be so knowledgeable and smart-talking.

"I think I can understand it somewhat, The reason the apocalypse is happening is that this energy is affecting the world. did I get that right?" She asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Yeah, it's like throwing a big stone into a calm lake, at first there will be a lot of turbulence, but soon the inhabitants of the lake will get used to the rock and continue to do what they did before. Though the scale is much bigger than that of a lake." He drank the last sip of his milk, feeling a little parched from all the talking.

"I see, our immediate concern should be the effect this energy will have on the inhabitants correct?" She asked with a serious look.

"Yes, as the energy flows into the planet so it does to the creatures inhabiting it, mutating them or giving them some hidden powers. This energy is volatile and highly mutagenic, and weirdly enough seems to follow the will of the person it flows into if they have one." Nolan read the texts as question after question appeared in his mind.

He tried to figure out what it meant about following the will of a person, the book turning pages, showing him his answer,

"It says that some people or souls have this inherent feature that makes them a good flow of this energy, their body absorbs it better than most people, it says these people are generally known as awakened in most parts of the cosmos." Nolan wondered why it said cosmos and not just a universe.

"I saw your body glow blue and then green today, does that mean you're awakened?" Jane hurriedly asked, remembering the other night when he swallowed the red jelly crystal thing and the green color she few minutes ago.

"I guess so, it says here that most species in the cosmos see mana as blue, but it also says that the energy's true form or what it looks like is unknown and that the blue energy is the remnant energy expelled from planets that are absorbing the true dark energy." Nolan read the page in amazement.

The little power he felt from the tiny stones was enough to make him euphoric, it was hard to imagine it was some expelled remnant energy of the world.

"This is making me have a headache, just tell me how we can survive this shift of the natural order." Jane stopped thinking about all the convoluted stuff, her head might be good enough to know about how to grow plants and flowers, but not enough to understand the intricacies of a sure coming apocalypse.

Nolan had been immersed in the thousands of pages of the legacy book, and hearing her question, he thought about it, and the page he read made him have a complicated expression.

"I think we need the help of people. No, we need the help of a lot of people, as it seems, we wouldn't be able to survive on our own." Nolan opened his eyes, a worried look on his face as he watched Jane.

"Don't just stare at me, tell me the reason!" Jane slapped him on the shoulder.

"Our world will be devoured if we don't quickly gain the strength to protect it," Nolan said, feeling baffled by the revelation.

"Devour? By who?" Jane felt like she shouldn't have asked that question.

"By everyone and everything," Nolan said in a chilled tone.