Reincarnated as The Greatest Scientist in Another World

The hum of the nuclear generator echoed through the steel corridors. Behind thick concrete walls, red warning lights pulsed urgently, mourning the fate of this place. At the center stood Rian Rahman, clad in a white lab coat scorched with black burns.

His hands trembled over the control panel. Rows of numbers spiked wildly. The reactor's temperature had soared past the danger line—steam hissed, pipes shuddered under the mounting pressure.

"Damn it…" Rian muttered, his voice swallowed by the wailing alarms.

He caught his reflection in the radiation-proof glass: pale skin, sunken eyes, hair plastered to his forehead with sweat. The proud title he once carried—Father of New Energy—felt like a cruel joke now.

All his life, Rian Rahman— the genius who'd pushed Earth's technology to its limit—had clung to one truth: energy could lift humanity higher. But here, in this bunker of steel and steam, that energy had become a monster, ready to devour its maker.

A crack split the main tank. White vapor burst upward. Red text screamed across the monitors: CORE MELTDOWN IMMINENT

Rian thought of running. But where to? The reactor lay buried deep beneath the earth. Even if he escaped, the blast would erase everything above.

His fingers flew across his logbook—a final entry:

Energy, in the wrong hands, is wilder than any magic.

The crack widened with a roar. Blinding light swallowed the control room, heat surging past thousands of degrees.

Everything he'd built—dreams, equations, hope—dissolved with the lab coat curling into ash.

Darkness. Silence.

No alarms now. No humming machines. Just emptiness, swallowing him whole like a black ocean.

Then… a voice. Distant. Hoarse.

"Ain! Ain!!"

---

He gasped awake. The ceiling above was no longer flickering steel and concrete.

Instead, a dim orange sky pressed down with low, heavy clouds. Cold wind slapped his face. Sheer rock walls hemmed him in, gnarled roots dangling like skeletal fingers. The smell of damp earth and sap filled his nose.

He lay at the bottom of a narrow ravine. His body shivered—thin, bare-chested, scraped raw. His hands were small. This wasn't Rian Rahman's body.

Who's Ain? The thought slithered in, confused and sharp.

"There he is! The rope! Lower it—hurry!"

Figures crowded the ravine's edge. A frayed rope snaked down. Three gaunt men scrambled toward him, grabbing his shoulders. They spoke in an unfamiliar tongue—yet somehow, he understood.

"Ain… Ain, hold on, son…"

Their calloused hands hauled him up, bracing his limp legs. The rope creaked against jagged rock. Inch by inch, they dragged him toward the fading sky.

---

They carried him down a rocky slope. In the distance, ramshackle huts hunched like gravestones. Rusted tin roofs dripped over muddy lanes, puddles slick with garbage. The air stank of waste and rotting food.

They laid him on a frayed mat inside a shack patched with corroded metal sheets.

An old woman knelt beside him, her wrinkled hands trembling on his cheek—rough, but warm. The touch jolted a memory of a mother he'd barely known on Earth.

"Ain… wake up, child… don't leave me…"

Rian tried to speak, but his tongue was heavy stone.

So… Ain. This is me now?

Eighteen years old. Ribs sharp under grimy skin. Dull eyes framed by matted hair. He wanted to ask how—why—but the words stayed trapped.

---

That night, icy wind sliced through the thin bamboo walls. Outside, children's cries drifted on the breeze. Far off, a colossal stone wall split the sky—dividing this squalor from the glittering city beyond.

By dawn, he had a name: AIN

The old woman clutched his hand, leading him through cramped alleys.

They joined a line of hollow-eyed people clutching torn sacks and cracked jars. The air reeked of sour trash and damp rags.

At the towering city gate, a queue of Nulls—those born without magic—waited for scraps.

Ain lifted his head. Above them, city guards stood rigid in white cloaks, wands sparking cold blue light. The Nulls shrank under their stare.

Beyond the iron fence, crystal lanterns glowed. Dragon statues loomed. Hovering carriages drifted above rooftops. Nobles in silk swept past, their children conjuring fireballs in their palms, giggling.

A shove sent Ain sprawling into the mud. The Nulls crouched lower, forbidden to even meet a mage's gaze. A noble's hound was worth more than lives like his.

Ain clenched his fists. Blood trickled from his forehead, but deep inside, something sparked—something that wouldn't die.

If they have magic, I have something fiercer. Knowledge that once gave birth to a man-made sun.

And there, in the stinking mud beneath that towering wall, Ain made his vow:

The revolution would come.

Even if he had to light a nuclear fire in a world terrified of science.