Transmigrated as a Peasant: I Conquered Magic With Science

Chapter 5

The pain was total and absolute. It felt as if liquid ice had been injected directly into Arthur’s bloodstream, freezing his veins and tearing his muscles apart from the inside out. 

The Ley-crystal pulsed wildly, glowing brighter with every passing second. The dark, necrotic black lines crept up Arthur's arms, crawling past his shoulders and creeping up his neck. He could feel his heart stuttering, struggling to pump against the crushing pressure of the raw, chaotic energy invading his body. 

"Arthur! No! Let go!" Clara screamed, coughing violently as she tried to drag herself across the dirt floor. 

Eliana was crying loudly, her small hands banging uselessly against the invisible wall of energy that pushed her away from her brother. 

Arthur’s mouth was open in a silent scream. His mind was shutting down. The original Arthur’s memories were panicking, screaming at him that this was the curse of the earth, that he was dying. But deep in the back of his mind, the cold, rational voice of the Earth scientist fought to stay awake.

“Don't panic,” the scientist thought, his mental voice barely a whisper in the storm of agony. “It's just energy. It's an overwhelming current. If a circuit has too much voltage, what do you do?”

“You ground it.”

Arthur closed his eyes tight. He stopped fighting the energy. He stopped trying to push it back into the crystal, because he knew his weak body couldn't win that fight. Instead, he forced his mind to visualize a schematic. A simple electrical diagram. 

He imagined his body not as flesh and bone, but as copper wires and resistors. The energy was entering through his hands. It was rushing straight for his heart—the center of his biological circuit. If it hit his heart with its full, chaotic force, he would explode. 

‘I need a filter,” Arthur thought frantically. “I need to create resistance.”

He used every ounce of willpower he had left to force his biological magic pathways to constrict. He imagined a heavy iron gate slamming down over the veins leading to his heart. He didn't close the gate completely—he couldn't, the pressure would burst his veins—but he squeezed it tight, forcing the massive river of energy to flow through a tiny, controlled opening. 

Suddenly, the horrific pain shifted. The raw, violent mana hit the "gate" in his pathways. The friction of the energy squeezing through the tight space created immense heat. Arthur gritted his teeth so hard he tasted blood, but he held the visualization. 

[Filter the chaos. Align the frequency.]

Slowly, the chaotic, purple energy was forced into a straight line. The wild current stabilized. The energy that made it past the gate and entered his heart was no longer wild and destructive. It was pure, clean, and highly condensed. 

Arthur felt a sudden, powerful thud in his chest. It wasn't just his physical heart beating. It was a new sensation, sitting right in the center of his ribcage. A dense, spinning ball of pure white energy had formed. 

He had done it. He had forced his body to act as an organic machine, refining the raw Ley-crystal energy and storing it safely. He had built an artificial "Aetheric Core."

The black, necrotic veins on his arms instantly stopped spreading. They reversed, fading away like ink washing off in the rain. The sickening cold was replaced by a rush of incredible warmth and power. His lungs filled with deep, strong breaths. His vision cleared, sharper than it had ever been. 

With a sharp gasp, Arthur ripped his hands away from the Ley-crystal. The magnetic pull was gone. 

He fell back onto the dirt, breathing heavily. He looked at his hands. The blisters from the chemical fire in the square were already healing, the new cells rapidly repairing themselves fueled by the clean mana now circulating in his blood. 

He felt strong. He felt alive. 

"Arthur?" Clara whispered, staring at him in disbelief. She had expected to see him die. Instead, her son was sitting up, his eyes glowing with a faint, unnatural white light. 

"I'm okay, Mother," Arthur said. His voice was different now. It was deeper, calmer, and filled with a quiet authority. He looked at the massive purple crystal, which was now dimmer, having lost a significant portion of its energy. 

He stood up. He didn't have time to celebrate. He had power now, but power alone couldn't stop swords and armor. He needed tools. He needed weapons. 

Arthur walked quickly back to the pile of junk he had dug through earlier. He grabbed the heavy iron pitchfork. It was rusted, dull, and missing a prong. To a normal peasant, it was trash. To Arthur, it was raw material. 

He placed the pitchfork on a sturdy wooden crate. Then, he walked back to the Ley-crystal. He found a loose, sharp rock on the floor and used it to smash a small piece off the side of the crystal. He crushed the glowing purple rock into a fine dust between two flat stones. 

"What are you doing?" Eliana asked, wiping her tears as she crept closer to him. 

"I am changing the rules, Eliana," Arthur said softly, his hands moving with precise, practiced speed.