“Finally… my life’s work!” He exclaimed as the magic circle in front of him showed promise. The mana from the surroundings was continuously being drained into it.

Zircon, the greatest sage of this era. One of the heroes that ushered in a time of peace. He racked up a lot of achievements during the war with the demons. He spent all the money he earned to continue his research.

He reached the peak of all sorts of magic, save for one.

Right now, he was on the verge of fulfilling that goal.

“By my decree, come forth—?”

The flow of mana suddenly became unstable.

“Tch.” He bit his lip. The spell required copious amounts of mana. He had theorized his mastery over other kinds of magic would fix this issue. Elemental magic to simulate the natural flow of mana. Gravitational magic to create a focal point. Space magic to outsource that mana elsewhere. Time magic to inject precise amounts of mana at specific points.

Still, it was probably the unnatural kind of mana that was making it unstable. He had no choice. The amount of mana needed was absurd.

Well, he did. That would be to sacrifice other living beings. But he would never resort to that. For what did he fight for if he resorted to that?

The flow of mana reversed. The best thing he could do is to contain the explosion. No, it was an implosion.

“Well, shit—”

That day, the great sage Zircon disappeared without a trace.

-----------------

“I’m alive?” His vision started to clear. Sound slowly started to return to his ears. It was loud. There were a lot of people talking. Some weird beeping noises.

He turned around to see a vehicle. Odd design. A horseless carriage was not uncommon. Magic cores became easy to come by. Behind that vehicle were more of the same kind. He almost thought they were a swarm but people could be seen inside them. They were making beeping noises in his direction.

“Out of the way, pervert!” One yelled.

“Pervert?” He turned around to see this so-called pervert. Instead he saw some strangely dressed people talking amongst themselves. One of them was talking to someone who seemed like an authoritative figure. They were pointing at him too.

That man took out a strange device from his pocket and pointed it at him. “Freeze, pervert!”

“Pervert? Me?”

He only needed to look down to confirm. True enough, he was naked. But that wasn’t the bigger issue. He expected some flabby old legs when he looked. But for some reason, his legs seem more youthful. More…spry?

The man pressed a button on the device he was holding. Nothing happened. It was then that he took out a larger box-like contraption and started talking to it.

“We have an untagged individual. Requesting backup. I repeat, we have an untagged individual.”

“I should get dressed,” Zircon nodded to himself. With a snap of his fingers, a small void appeared.

Good. His inventory still worked. There was barely anything in it, though. He used most of his things for the experiment. There were some decent clothes at least. They moved on their own, sliding out of the void and wrapping around him.

Seeing what he did made the man panic. “A nano-user! Calling all units! It’s a nano-user.”

Hearing that, someone screamed and panicked. People started to run away.

Within the mayhem, someone approached him and tried to pull him by the wrist. “This way!” From their voice, they sounded female. Highly likely younger than him> He was an old man, after all.

“Freeze!” Noticing that, the man shouted. “I said freeze!”

They pressed a button. This time, they were targeted at the girl. Immediately, an electric current ran through the girl’s body. She fell over and started to convulse.

“Put your hands up!” The man shouted as Zircon tried to help the girl.

“She’s going to die at this rate,” he muttered to himself. The current ran through his wrist as he placed his hand on her shoulder.

“I said—”

“Shut up,” Zircon cut him off. The electricity flowed through his arm. It ran through his body and going through to his extended hand. Like a bolt of lightning, it shot at the man and knocked him off his feet. It wasn’t lethal, only enough to paralyze them for a few seconds.

“That’s how you use lightning to incapacitate,” he muttered and looked around at the chaos and mayhem. A place he was very unfamiliar with.

“What… or where the hell did I get myself into?”

------------------

[Basically people have a tag on them that marks them as property. And that means you can be identified immediately. And you can have devices that can mess with those tags. Abuse of power is not uncommon and terrorist groups wanting to be free from being 'tagged' try and fight the system. Had to figure out how to get the protag in that world though, among other things to make them stand out.]