“Young lady, please wake up!” I hear someone saying through my sleepy consciousness. Even though I very much would like to sleep for at least an hour longer, I can’t act spoiled and demand more sleep. Though it would be very strange if a 4-year-old were to wake up just like that.
“Mm, jyaast thive moa minahs pwwease” (Mm, just five more minutes, please) That will probably do.
“Excuse me, young lady, but today will be a very big day for you, so we can’t do that!” By the way, the one I’m talking to right now is one of my personal maids, Elvia. I have 4 maid to take care of me, and, no matter how ignorant of the world I am, I don’t believe that it’s normal. Nope, totally not normal. And I’m not that hard to take care of either. Oh, whatever.
After I played a dress-up doll for Elvia and she took care of my various needs, we went downstairs and to the dining hall and, there, like a hurricane, a most beautiful woman rushed to take me from the maid’s hands into a hug.
“Lavenna, you’re so cute today too!”
As you could probably guess it was none other than the Duchess Heralfia Mehliac, my mother.
“Mama, cute too!” I said it because I knew mother would enjoy hearing it but that didn’t take away from the truthfulness of the statement. As in probably any world mages had a slower aging process and better health overall, so she looked gorgeous, so much so, that the me from my previous life would feel a little jealous. Her body lacked any feminine curves, though not to the point where she didn’t have them, but she wasn’t too tall so it didn’t make too obvious. Be that her silky blonde hair that was smoothly flowing down her shoulders, or her hands with delicate long fingers that would put many pianists to shame, or the features of her face that would inspire a sculptor to create a masterpiece to be remembered for centuries, she was the very picture of the word ‘noble’. I’m sure she acted the part outside but it was only with me that she behaved like an idiot parent that only wants to spoil their child and during these moments she looks truly cute.
The servants in the house were all used to such scenes in the morning, so no one paid attention when they happened. She brought me to the dining table and had me sit on her lap. Then she fed me with the spoon all the while having a melted expression on her face. After the meal she took me to my room and, with me on her lap still, she read me a children book. In this world books are very expensive as they are made of some kind of strange slightly rough and very fragile fabric called ‘paper’. A certain ‘genius’ came up with the idea to use this material for making books when they could simply dissolve cheap magic crystals and coal in water to get siil[1]. Apparently, a very long time ago some person from another world without magic but with a very, compared to this world’s, advanced technology came and decided that it was a great idea to share the said technology with this world’s occupants. As you would expect, the very little they shared with caused a really big ruckus which, in the end halted this world’s technological progress the effects of which are seen to this day. How do I know it? Well, I asked how they invented paper and mother told me the tale of the ‘Hero’ from another world that had amazing powers and shared his world’s knowledge. Including paper. Yep. All praise the hero. For some reason I got tired.
We spent around 2 hours like this and finally a servant announced that the court magicians came. When we went to greet them, and mother put on her ‘business’ façade which somehow startled the servants more than her usual behavior I saw three people, one of whom carried a big metal case: An middle-age looking man, a man in his 20s and a girl around the same age. Mother introduced them to me but I couldn’t really care any less. The older man, who seemed to be a higher rank than the other two told them something and the two quickly took out the equipment for measuring the magical aptitude. Well, in actuality it was just three white orbs and some small tubes and plates. I was told that the orbs will react to the magic in my body when I touch them and depending on the thing they call ‘attribute’ they will shine different colors. I’m not that worried about the attribute part as I know that once I get my powers back I’ll be able to use pretty much any magic, no matter how they classify it. Why three? Well, depending on the amount of magic power I will have detected different orbs will be needed to measure my attributes properly. When they got everything in order they told me to touch the first orb.
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I messed up. Haa, so remember how I said that the device I made this morning will absorb the mana in its surroundings? Well, guess what, when I went to touch the first orb the device sucked out all the mana in it and the orb somehow began emitting smoke. Oops. Everybody was very surprised but it seems they have mistaken it for me emitting more mana than the orb could handle, so they decided to skip the second orb and went for the third one. I naturally turned off the absorption feature of the bracelet and stored the mana it gathered in my body which, frankly, hurt like hell, so I really quickly released all the stored mana into the orb and it began shining dangerously with different colors. I was afraid it would explode so I ran to mother and far from the orb but, as time went by the lights dimmed and for some reason mother and the three mages looked VERY surprised. Mother didn’t even notice I ran towards her and kept staring at the orb and even after the light dimmed she went out of the stupor while her colleagues still stared at the now normal orb.
After everybody calmed down all adults began to talk among themselves excitedly and mother let her mask slip and said in a happy voice that I apparently have a really big amount of magic power (that’s what they call mana here) and have the affinity with all of the attributes. Yeah, I kinda figured that part out when the orb almost exploded in my face. You still haven’t explained what an attribute is. I should ask her later, it will be awkward if it turns out that an attribute is, like chants, something my previous world didn’t have. I really hope that when my soul is restored I can use this worlds magic but when I stored the mana from the bracelet it my body I was hit with an idea that I should test out this night.
After the mages were gone I was pulled into the tightest hug I have ever received and giving me what seemed to be a few dozens of kisses mother finally said:
“I knew my daughter was a genius! Did you know that people with your amount of magic power are so rare that it’s said that for every ten thousand people born there’s only one with such an amount? And you have all the attribute affinities too!”
“Mama, what is aaa-tt-bute?”
“Oh, of course you wouldn’t know what an attribute is, silly me! You see, honey, an attribute is, well how do I explain it so you can understand, you see there’s fire, water, earth and wind attributes as well as their superior attributes and a few others and a person with, say, wind attribute affinity can use wind magic much more easily than a person without it. I, for example have affinity with fire and earth. Oh, but a person without an affinity still can use the magic of an element they don’t have an affinity with, it’s just going to be much much more harder for them”
As she was saying that she waved her hand and a small pebble appeared out of nowhere. Then she waved again and it disappeared.
“Mama, amazing!” I started clapping excitedly. Still, I don’t understand why they had to put such classification on magic. Well, I will find out soon enough.
“But honey, promise you won’t try to use any magic until you’re old enough to do that, okay?”
“Un!” She probably didn’t say the age to not dishearten me, but I wonder how old I will have to be to use it? And how will you stop me from doing it? It’s not like you should simply expect a child not to try, right? Well, I won’t use till I’m seven though.
“I will bring a magic seal with me in a few days but until then please don’t try and use magic, alright?”
Ah, so that’s how. I want to see how their seals work, I hope they won’t interfere with my soul’s recovery.
By then it was already evening and the rest of the day went like normal: We ate, mother played with me till late then I pretended to get sleepy and she handed me over to Elvia.
After I was put in bed and Elvia left, I prepared for my experiments while barely holding in a sinister laugh.