—6 months later—

Mother Anne was cleaning the house till not even a speck of dust remained. Why? It was apparently my first birthday! Even though I stopped celebrating it in my past life when I got into university, a birthday was still something that would put a smile on any grown man.

A loud knocking sound of wood came from the door.

"Who's there?" Anne said energetically.

Replying, "Who else but me? I could never miss my son's birthday!"

Mother took me out of the living room crib and carried me to the door.

Opening the door revealed the appearance of a middle aged man. He had no beard, with brownish blackish hair. He gave off the appearance of a warrior with a broadsword on his back.

"Davis! You're back!" Mother said.

"Haha! I've decided to retire as a knight captain. From now on, I will be living in my home sweet home. What good is a father who doesn't cherish his time with family?" He said.

I looked over my mother's shoulder and closely examined this Davis that was supposedly my "father."

"So this must be Daniel! A little man he is." Said Davis the moment he laid his eyes on me.

Taking me off Anne's back, he rocked me back and forth and pretended to throw me.

'I wish I could skip this phase of childhood.' I thought with a stoic expression.

Davis looked at me who did not laugh nor cry and stopped.

"I must be losing my touch." He murmured to himself.

He propped his weapon on a wall and sat at the dining table with me on his lap.

"Boy am I hungry! I bet this little fella is too."

"In a minute. The cake is almost done." replied Anne.

'I'm pretty sure babies can't eat cake but oh well...' Thus, I spent most of my time ruminating over the troubles of being an infant.

—A couple hours later—

The moon was at the center of the sky, illuminating everything and ensnaring everything that sees it with its charms. It was midnight.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

[Ding!]

[Congratulations to host's first birthday!]

[Life Force +0]

[System Achievement: First Birthday in a New World]

[Unlocking: Usage of Mana]

'Jeez, let me rest in peace. What's this? Usage of Mana?'

[Now, the host can practice magic on his free time]

'How the h*ll am I supposed to know how to practice magic? Do you take me for Isaac Newton? Even if an apple hit me on my head, I wouldn't be able learn calculus on the spot, let alone magic, which should be completely fictitious according to science.'

[System suggests host to purchase Heart of a Dragon(Epic)]

'Buy it...' I thought, without hesitating despite my disbelief in the existence of magic. Hey, hey, you have no right to call me a hypocrite. Although I was a science major in college, that didn't mean that I did not believe in superstitions.

[This transaction requires 200 Merit Points, is host sure?]

Man, was the goal of the system to help me or make me broke?

With the accumulation of daily rewards, I had more than enough Merit Points so even though 200 sounded like a hefty amount, I didn't really mind.

[Ding!]

[Received: Heart of a Dragon(Epic)]

[Automatically appraising...]

~~~~~~~~~~

Heart of a Dragon(Epic):

With great responsibility comes great power.

1. Magic affinity with fire reaches the peak.

2. Innate knowledge of beginner magic cultivation.

~~~~~~~~~~

'What the f*ck is this. Who allowed you to plagiarize a masterpiece? The words are even in the wrong order! If you are going to copy something, do it correctly!'

'But other than that, isn't this skill too broken? Shouldn't this be Mythical at least?'

[Due to host possessing a system related to dragons, host has a higher affinity with dragons.]

[System recommends host to start practicing magic]

With nothing left to do, I started consolidating the new information about magic learned from the skill.

It looks like these colorful particles in the room were actually called magic particles. I seriously thought they were something like colorful dust.

According to the skill, I need to absorb these particles, gather them to my heart, and compress them into my heart. This seems quite hard.

This is a process called Magic Circulation. It is similar to how lungs gather oxygen for blood, except Magic Circulation requires us to manually input magic particles into our heart. Apparently, once I have gotten used to it, my body should be able to do it subconsciously.

Once magic particles have no more space to inhabit in the heart, they are released as excess particles by exhaling. This information about Magic Circulation seemed so elaborate, almost as if it were describing a new organ system meant for magic usage.

The amount of space we have to store the particles is called mana capacity. There seems to be many methods to increasing mana capacity but the two simplest ones are having a bigger body and condensing the magic particles even further which refines its quality and allows you to store more.

'Right now, I'm only in the Mana Sense realm of magic cultivation. To reach Mana Condensation, I will have to keep circulating particles into my body until my body is full of magic particles. Then I can rinse and repeat.'

With that goal in mind, I started practicing Magic Circulation for the night. Soon, it was already daytime and even though I didn't sleep, I somehow felt rejuvenated. Did Magic Circulation work as a substitute for sleep? If that was so, then I could just do that instead of sleeping!