Reincarnation?

Travis's eyes shot open, his heart racing, as if he had just sprinted miles through an endless night. Panic gripped him, tightening its cold, clammy fingers around his chest.

His breaths were shallow, ragged, but as his vision cleared, he realized something was... off.

The scent of antiseptic, once so overpowering in the sterile hospital room, was gone.

He no longer felt the prick of IV needles or the steady beep of monitors that had become his background music for weeks.

Instead, there was an oppressive mustiness in the air, a faint, ancient smell that clung to the walls and filled his lungs with every breath. His hands were no longer resting on the cold metal of a hospital bed but instead on smooth, polished wood.

The faint creak of old floorboards echoed beneath him, and he pushed himself up slowly, confused.

His surroundings were nothing like the sterile white walls of the hospital he had been so accustomed to.

Dark, heavy shelves lined the room, packed with ancient books and dusty relics that seemed to have been untouched for centuries. The faintest glimmer of light trickled through a small window, casting shadows across the room like the remnants of forgotten time.

"Where... where am I?" he muttered under his breath, his confusion turning to a gnawing anxiety.

Is this reincarnation? The thought hit him like a thunderclap, sharp and sudden, and for a moment, his mind reeled with the memory of what had happened before.

Travis's last moments in his previous life came flooding back.

He remembered the isolation of being the only son of a wealthy business tycoon, his heart slowly deteriorating from ischemic heart disease. He had been on the edge for so long, and his father had insisted on surgery despite the bleak prognosis.

There was no hope left, but his father had urged him, pleading for one last chance. Travis, tired of the endless treatments and the isolation, had reluctantly agreed.

The surgery had been a gamble—an attempt at survival.

But something had gone terribly wrong.

In the midst of the procedure, Travis had woken up.

His vision was blurry at first, hazy, a bright light above his head casting long shadows in the room. His pulse had quickened, panic rising in his chest as the sterile smell of the operating room hit him.

The surgery was still ongoing, but the sense of dread had crept in when he heard the doctor speak in a voice tinged with uncertainty.

"Hmm, so this is what I'll have to do next?" The doctor's words were hesitant, as though he was unsure, unsure of everything.

Travis had been paralyzed with disbelief, wondering if his ears were playing tricks on him.

His gaze had shifted downward, to the sterile operating table. It didn't take long for Travis's pulse to spike in fear.

The sight that greeted him made his blood run cold. The doctor was watching a video—a video on the internet—on his phone.

A training video.

A video that was guiding the doctor through the very surgery that was supposed to save Travis's life.

His mind had gone into overdrive. This wasn't just negligence. This was a blatant disregard for life!

Travis had died then. Not from the faulty surgery itself but from sheer terror. He had been nothing more than a lab rat, a forgotten patient in a system that had failed him.

The knife hadn't been the sharpest danger—it was the incompetence, the complete disregard for his life. He had died out of pure shock.

"If only Dad knew what happened inside there," Travis thought bitterly, "The bastard literally wanted me dead!" His mind swirled with anger and disbelief.

"Why the hell did they throw an apprentice doctor to run a surgery of that magnitude?"

But even with the anger, Travis knew he couldn't place all the blame on the doctor.

No, the fault lay with the broken system. With the government that had failed to uphold any standard of care.

It was a society so caught in its incompetence that it became the very reason for his death.

"..." 

SIGH!

A long sigh escaped his lips. It was done now. It was over.

But there was one thing Travis needed to understand. He was... somewhere else now. Not in that sterile room of death, but somewhere entirely different. Somewhere... new?

He struggled to push himself to his feet, but dizziness swept over him, his head pounding with an unfamiliar ache.

Then, as if in answer to his confusion, a searing pain shot through his skull, and his world exploded with a rush of memories—foreign, yet undeniably vivid.

"Ah!"

Travis grimaced, clutching his head as the memories collided in a chaotic storm, blurring the lines between them. His pulse raced as new information, new lives, flooded his mind all at once. He had been someone else. Someone with a completely different past, a different life.

"Lysil Romarc," he muttered to himself, his mind piecing together the fragments of his new identity.

Lysil's life had unfolded with such promise—born into a wealthy family with a father who controlled one of the largest alchemy businesses in the city, a family legacy that would have ensured a prosperous future.

Lysil had been a talented apprentice mage, training under a renowned Archmage, poised to reach the pinnacle of his craft. Everything had been set, all the doors open, all the roads clear ahead of him.

But fate had not been kind.

Just as Lysil had stepped through the threshold to become a ninth-rank novice mage—on the verge of wearing the prestigious grey robe of an official mage—disaster had struck.

His father, Wright Romarc, had perished in a terrible accident. A storm had ravaged his father's alchemy fleet, taking both the business and Wright's life with it.

The alchemy store, once a cornerstone of the city's commerce, had been obliterated, and with it, Lysil's future.

Creditors had pulled their support, family members had clawed at what remained, and the once prosperous Romarc name had become a shadow of its former self.

The crash of his father's empire had shattered Lysil's world.

No longer could he afford his magic studies; no longer could he dream of becoming the mage he had once been destined to be.

Travis's eyes widened in horror.

The sudden shift from luxury to ruin, the fall from grace—he could feel it in his very bones.

That's really messed up, he thought bitterly.

It was as if Lysil's life had been stolen from him, and now, he was left to pick up the pieces of a broken existence.

But what now? What would Travis, or rather, Lysil, do in this strange new world? What did he want to achieve?

The pain in his head subsided slowly, and Travis took a deep breath, gathering his bearings.

This wasn't the world he knew. No, it was something far different.

But what kind of world was it? A world where mages and alchemists held power, where magic could shape lives, destroy empires, and perhaps even alter the very fabric of fate.

Travis—no, Lysil—wasn't sure yet, but one thing was certain: he had a second chance. And he wasn't about to let it slip away.

The question now was how to navigate this world, how to regain control, and how to rise from the ashes of both his old life and the life of Lysil Romarc.

The adventure was just beginning.

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[A/N: Alright, that was a successful first chapter, I compete right now, and of course I would love to win. If you liked it, add to your library and support as much as you can]