Supreme Mage System

Brain storage facility. Feel free to deposit yours at any time.

(This book primarily follows the original work, with some personal additions.)

On November 7, 1986, a Victorian townhouse in the suburbs of London was filled with a sense of gloom entirely at odds with the warm autumn sunlight outside. That gloom mainly came from the birthday boy himself, Silas Cyril.

He buried half his face in a velvet pillow, his light brown curls sticking up in a messy tangle as if silently protesting against a world trying to win him over with clear weather. His bedroom was lovely, filled with expensive toys. On the windowsill sat a large unopened box tied with a ribbon—the latest Lego set he had begged for last week. But now, none of it held any appeal.

"Silas! Darling, it's time to get up!" His mother Pella's cheerful voice came with a knock at the door. "Birthday boy, there's chocolate cake, your favorite!"

Silas made a muffled sound somewhere between a groan and a sigh, burying his head deeper into the pillow. Favorite? That had been yesterday's Silas's favorite. The moment today's Silas woke up, he had been seized by an indescribable exhaustion that ran deep into his bones. Not physical fatigue, but a kind of mental... laziness. It was as though a voice were whispering in his mind: All this—getting up, getting dressed, going downstairs, facing relatives who came to congratulate him, pretending to be excited while opening presents, forcing out a smile during "Happy Birthday"... How tedious. How boring.

"Give me a break, God..." he muttered into the pillow, his voice muffled. "It's my birthday... but I don't want to celebrate it."

He just wanted to sleep. He needed a place that was absolutely quiet, where no one would disturb him, somewhere he could sleep peacefully until the end of time. This room would not do; his parents could come in at any moment. The closet? Too small. The garden shed? Cold and filthy.

That powerful wish—I want to go somewhere I can sleep in peace!—shot through his muddled mind like an electric current. Almost instinctively, with a trace of irritation and carelessness, his right hand emerged from beneath the covers and casually drew a circle through the empty air before him.

His fingertips swept through the cold air.

Then something unbelievable happened.

A flicker of golden sparks burst forth where his fingertips had passed, like the flash from faulty Christmas lights. More sparks followed, crackling as they swiftly connected into a shimmering arc. His fingers seemed to become an invisible brush, and the air a canvas. As he completed the circular motion, a ring formed from countless dancing, glittering golden-orange sparks appeared right in front of his bed!

Inside the ring was no longer the familiar bedroom wall. It was a blurry, distorted scene, like looking through rippling hot water. He could vaguely make out what seemed to be the corner of another room, with a bed that looked exceptionally soft and covered in a dark blue blanket.

Silas froze, his hand still held in the circling gesture. He blinked, then rubbed his eyes hard. The ring of sparks remained suspended there, steady and solid, emitting a continuous low hum like a sleeping beast snoring.

His drowsiness was instantly blown to pieces, replaced by a bone-deep shock.

"What the heck is this?" he said quietly, his voice full of disbelief.

Then, as though some forbidden switch had been flipped, a torrent that did not belong to him at all yet felt incomparably familiar crashed into his mind!

Pain!

Not the impact of something physical, but fragments of memory flooding in wildly like shards of glass. One image after another, one sensation after another, one life after another... He saw a young man in a lab coat recording data beside a microscope. He smelled disinfectant mixed with instant noodles. He felt the touch of a keyboard beneath his fingers. He heard a familiar Mandarin pop song... Finally, there were blinding headlights, a deafening horn, and the brief, weightless sensation of being hurled through the air by an immense force...

"Uh... wait..." Silas clutched his head, which felt like it was about to split apart, and curled up. "I remembered some pretty bad stuff..."

The flood of memories gradually calmed, converging into a clear river of life that belonged to someone else. A soul from a distant Eastern land—a twenty-year-old medical student named Lin Yuan—whose short life had ended when an out-of-control truck struck him while he was returning home from a late-night experiment.

Chaos, contradiction, absurdity... The memories of two lives intertwined and collided within his seven-year-old brain. He was Silas Cyril, a somewhat lazy boy of Scottish descent who had grown up in London. He was also Lin Yuan, a hardworking—at least most of the time—and ambitious student from China.

After several minutes of absolute silence, Silas—or rather, a brand-new individual formed from the fusion of two souls—slowly raised his head. His eyes no longer held the ignorance of a seven-year-old child. They were filled with complicated shock, confusion, and an almost comical realization.

"Uh... so this is my second life?" He touched his face, then looked at the pair of hands that were clearly several sizes too small. "I got hit by a truck in my last life... Does that count as transmigration?"

He carefully "flipped through" his old and new memories, trying to sort things out.

"No, I have complete memories from infancy until now... Hmm, it's more like... reincarnation, except Meng Po's soup was watered down, and I accidentally awakened my memories of my previous life?" he muttered to himself, his reasoning far too clear for a child. "No, this probably isn't reincarnation. It's transmigration... No, 'awakening' is probably more accurate?"

Instinctively, a string of fluent Mandarin spilled from his mouth. "It's actually kind of a shame. My previous life was pretty good. My family might not have been as rich as this one, but British food is awful..."

The taste memories from his previous life awakened, and horrifying recollections of fish and chips, Stargazy pie, and every variety of boiled vegetables instantly diluted the shock brought by his newly awakened memories. His current family was well-off: his father Anthony was a senior analyst in the City, while his mother Pella was a partner at an art gallery. But... "British cuisine is enough to make someone despair even across time and space," he lamented in Mandarin.

Just as he was staring at the still-stable spark portal, sighing over his past and present lives as well as British "cuisine," a voice sounded directly in the depths of his mind. It was somewhat mechanical, yet lazy and teasing, like a customer service agent who had just been woken up.

[Yes, yes, you finally remembered. Otherwise, I would have had to sleep in your head for the rest of your life...]

Silas jerked in fright, nearly rolling off the bed. He looked around in panic. Aside from himself, the room contained only the humming portal.

"Who? Who's talking?"

[Who else could it be? Your dear, hardworking system, who's been waiting for you to awaken so long I was practically growing cobwebs.] The voice carried a hint of mockery.

"System..." Silas's mouth twitched, and his expression became extremely strange. "This isn't a novel. Where would a system even come from... Oh, wait. It actually does seem to be one."

The portal before him, the additional memories in his mind, and now this thing directly talking inside his head... The classic golden finger package for transmigration and rebirth webnovels. Everything was here.

[Bingo! You're not that slow.] The system's voice turned cheerful. [That's right, that's right. Would you like some beginner benefits, dear~?]

Silas took a deep breath and tried to accept this wildly escalating reality. He pointed at the portal. "Oh, I think... I might..." He looked at the hand that had just drawn the circle, his fingertips seemingly still retaining that wondrous sensation of guiding energy. "...be a mage?"

Doctor Strange! Stephen Strange! Kamar-Taj! Those incredible magic circles, portals, and the Mirror Dimension! As a young man who had loved Marvel movies and worn out comic books in his previous life, this was absolutely perfect!

"This is amazing!" An uncontrollable rush of excitement swept away his earlier confusion and complaints, making his eyes shine. "Doctor Strange is my favorite character!"

[Bingo!] The system sounded smug, as if saying, You got it right. [I'm here to help you become the Sorcerer Supreme! In light of your feat of 'opening a door barehanded' today—though your destination seems to have been the empty bed in your guest room—I'm issuing part of your beginner benefits early!]

Before the voice had even finished speaking, there was a soft pop, and two items appeared out of thin air before falling onto Silas's blanket.

One was an ancient-looking bronze ring with some kind of metal set in its center—the Suspended Ring.

The other was a neatly folded set of deep blue robes made of a peculiar material, along with a dark red cloak that looked heavy but felt unbelievably light to the touch. The collar of the cloak even moved playfully, like a curious little animal.

Silas picked up the Suspended Ring, then touched the Levitating Cloak that seemed to possess a life of its own. His heart pounded with excitement. This was a dream come true! But he soon noticed a problem with remarkable sharpness.

"Wait." He frowned and scrutinized the system in his mind like a little detective. "I found something suspicious."

[What's suspicious?] the system played dumb.

"Where's my Eye of Agamotto?" Silas asked bluntly. "Where's the Time Stone? You're not giving me something that important? Without it, how am I supposed to use the 'Dormammu, I've come to bargain' move?"

A time loop was an ultimate life-saving skill!

The system fell silent for two seconds, then replied in an almost shameless tone. [Nope~ And why aren't you asking about the Book of the Vishanti, the Darkhold, or the Staff of the Watoom, dear~? Those are even more advanced. Don't even think about them for now.]

Silas: "..."

Fine. He knew it. This system did not seem very reliable.

[You have to eat one bite at a time, and train as a mage one step at a time,] the system said in an old-fashioned tone. [You can't even control the most basic portal properly yet—just look where you opened yours. If I gave you the Eye of Agamotto, would you like to trap yourself in a time paradox until the heat death of the universe? Current mission: Master the proper use of the Suspended Ring, and steadily open and close portals to designated locations. Reward: None—you can consider it embezzled by me. Punishment: None—after all, if you blow yourself up, I won't have a host anymore.]

Just as Silas was about to argue further, the knocking on the bedroom door grew louder.

"Silas! If you don't get up soon, the chocolate on the cake will melt!" It was his father Anthony's deep voice, carrying a hint of feigned impatience.

Silas jolted, looking at the mage robes, the Suspended Ring, the cloak, and the portal to the guest room that was still open. If his parents saw these...

"Oh no!"

He hurriedly tried to hide these "contraband items" while attempting to make the portal disappear with his thoughts. But the portal did not budge. In his panic, he instinctively waved his hand again, wildly swiping at the ring of sparks as though wiping a blackboard.

With a crackle, the spark ring flickered a few times before abruptly vanishing as though it had never existed. The bedroom returned to normal.

Silas let out a long breath, quickly stuffed the Suspended Ring beneath his pillow, then balled up the mage robes and cloak and shoved them into the very back of the wardrobe. The cloak seemed reluctant; its collar hooked around his finger once before it was unwillingly stuffed inside.

He had just jumped back into bed, wrapped himself in the covers, and pretended to have only just awakened when the bedroom door was pushed open.

His father Anthony walked in carrying a tray with breakfast on it, while his mother Pella followed behind with a small camcorder in her hand. Warm smiles covered their faces.

"Happy birthday, my little man!" Anthony placed the tray on the bedside table and ruffled Silas's messy hair.

Pella pointed the camcorder at him. "Look who's seven now! Tell us, birthday boy, what wish did you make this year?"

Silas looked at his parents' concerned faces, feeling the vast and strange memories and knowledge within his mind, along with the unreliable system that seemed to be secretly laughing in his head. He opened his mouth, and in the end, spoke slowly in a tone that mixed a seven-year-old's innocence with the complexity of a transmigrator's soul.

"I wished... for world peace, and... for today's cake not to be too sweet."

Anthony and Pella froze for a moment, then burst into laughter, finding their son especially amusing today.

Only Silas himself knew that his ordinary—perhaps merely somewhat lazy—childhood had officially ended on the morning of his seventh birthday, beginning with that casually drawn circle. A path of "magic," filled with sparks, mystic arts, snark, and unknown adventures, was slowly unfolding beneath his feet.

And his first challenge might be figuring out how to explain why he had suddenly developed such a deep hatred for ordinary British food without being sent to a child psychologist.

"Oh, and one more thing," he added to the system in his mind. "If you could include a Compendium of Chinese Cuisine as part of the beginner benefits, I think our partnership would be much more pleasant."

System: [...Request recorded. Priority: low. Please complete your portal practice first, future Sorcerer Supreme.]

PS: Let me clarify something here: Silas was not truly reborn. He merely watched his memories from his previous life as though watching a movie... He did not fully experience them, so he would not completely inherit the soul from his previous life either. That is why he acts somewhat childish... Sorry, everyone! I'll listen to all your feedback! I'll read every comment seriously!