Well, yeah I suppose that would be more entertaining for him than just giving my secret away.

Grandma looked shocked at his request, but she quickly recovered.

“Why do you want to take him away with you?”

“You see Sophia, he shouldn’t be limited to this small area, as he is far too intelligent and talented. You don’t have to worry about money, I have already earned enough money to care for both me and him for a while.”

“Still, what brought this change over you? I can’t see you be willing to do this if he was just slightly intelligent, he even stutters a lot when talking.”

“Slightly is an understatement, he can already read and write as well as talk fluently, can’t you Sephtis? He was just hiding the truth. I also have one other secret reason as to why I am taking him away.”

I nodded to his question, verifying his suspicions of me being able to already do things children would take a few years to learn. Whilst he was talking, I was quickly processing the situation in my head and what I should do.

I am actually ecstatic about being able to fast forward my leaving of the orphanage, and although slightly reluctant to leave as I have warm memories of the place which I spent most of my new life in, I knew it was necessary to satisfy my thirst for knowledge.

I had already wanted to leave early, plotting ways in which I can get myself to get monetary support as well as being able to explore the world. With my calculations, in about 3 years at age 7, I would have been able to have enough power to convince Grandma to allow me to leave, but those calculations were dependant on someone being able to provide me with money.

So, of course I welcomed this development and began to plot ways to convince Grandma if she declines.

“Really? Can you read this for me then Sephtis?”

Grandma still held some doubt about my abilities and gave me the -History of this World- booklet. I proceeded to open the booklet to a random page and read out with a clear voice.

“If a ‘Gigant’ has 3 eyes, then it uses single target magic and is incapable of any other variation of magic. There is an unproven but widely accepted theory that as each additional eye on us 3 races helps with depth perception and focusing on a certain thing, the addition of a third eye on the ‘Gigant’ helps with it being able to perfectly aim and focus on a single object. Growing up with this would be a catalyst into which branch of magic your magic would go into and thus making single target spells the predominant ones.”

I close the booklet and look at Grandma. In actuality I was watching Grandma’s reactions throughout the entire reciting, and was only pretending to read, whilst instead just recalling the words from my photographic memory. I took the most complicated paragraph that I remembered to read out, as I needed quite a reaction to get approval points from my foster parent.

I gave the booklet back, whilst still eyeing Grandma and verifying her reactions. She answered back to my recitation with a shocked expression, which quickly evened out and became one of parental love and pride.

“He really is smart beyond his age and it is apparent that he was indeed faking the stuttering. How did you figure this out Helra?”

“Oh it wasn’t difficult at all, he acts completely differently when out of your sight and I imagine Julie’s as well. He basically told me himself with his actions.”

Grandma looked at me with a caring expression and spoke her true feelings about the matter in question.

“I don’t want to limit any of my childrens potential, and that includes Sephtis’s so I will agree, however can you wait until he is 5? He has a very bright future, but he is far too young to travel great distances with you right now.

I don’t care if he is incredibly intelligent, he is still a child. At most I can give him over to you in a year after I have prepared all of his possessions and he has become able to separate from this place without any trouble. He is still young and as this is his home, he will be reluctant even if he says he isn’t.”

I felt my heart warm from Grandma’s speech, although I am only a dead weight and a burden at such a young age, Grandma still wanted me to stay for an additional year for my own benefit.

“Thank you Grandma for allowing me to stay here for a longer time, but I don’t wish to burden you any further. Allow me to go.”

In response to my heartfelt gratitude and point, Grandma responded with one word that made her sound childish.

“No.”

“Sorry?”

“I said no, you are far too young and haven’t experienced the whole world yet. This place isn’t too close to the borders of the Darklands, so it is relatively safe, however the same cannot be said about other places which you will likely explore and travel to with Helra.”

Out of nowhere I hear a roar of laughter which frightens the children watching the whole spectacle. I turn to face the origin of the roar, and unsurprisingly it is Helra.

“Hahahahaha, she speaks the truth child. Even if you are incredibly intelligent, you are still young and one year is nothing to you anyways. Stay here, learn a bit, get stronger and I will pick you up in a year.”

“ *sigh* OK, I understand brother Helra, I will listen to Grandma.”

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

He looks at me with acknowledgement and nods.

“Well then, I guess I will be leaving now Sophia. Tell Julie to give up on me and find another man,  also get Sephtis to train a bit before the year is up OK?”

Not even waiting for a response, he steps out of the door with a few more words.

“I should go as I have stayed here too long, take care and see you in a year.”

--Time Skip--

2 months flew by after those events. Julie was informed of what had happened and blushed deeply when Helra’s message was conveyed to her, but she wasn’t very surprised with the ‘reveal’ of my intelligence and instead used it as proof as to her argument of me talking that was all but forgotten.

She still got nowhere with her convincing, as it was a bit far-fetched to say that I spoke when I was only a few months old. This caused her to become more depressed, but I did nothing to try and assure her because I still regret my decision of speaking that early into my life.

I didn’t delve too deeply into memories and facts about my previous life at the time, unlike nowadays in which I dwell into them every time I train in ‘aura’ control and capacity. After the advent of Helra and the occurrences that followed, the children of the place looked at me with a newfound awe. Before, they hadn’t known that I was so intelligent and now recognised that I likely had the brightest future out of all of them.

Following Helra’s wishes, Grandma arranged for one of the older kids who was inspiring to be an adventurer to physically train me. She also gave me a dark pair of shirt and pants to train in. I trained diligently, but held back a little so that I had time to increase ‘aura’ control and capacity as well as energy to do so.

A.N. From now on, I will refer to this as ‘meditation’ as it is a pain to write ‘increasing ‘aura’ control and capacity’.

‘Adventurer’ was an occupation which was similar to the job of the pupils of Magia. Although these adventurers were inferior to the pupils in talent and skill, they were far greater in number and helped to hold of or begin invasions from or to the Darklands.

I heard from Grandma that she had initially opposed having the child strive for such a dangerous job, but he was far too persistent in his wishes and expressed his want for it so deeply that Grandma eventually caved in.

Apparently he was also very talented in combat instinct, which also helped sway Grandma, but I had yet to see any of that as he never sparred with me.

I found something peculiar occurring as I trained however. The more and more I trained, slowly but surely my ‘aura’ began to mix with my skin and bones, giving me more and more control over them similar to how I manipulate particles with magic. My ‘aura’ capacity also increased the more I physically trained, although the increase over time was still far inferior to the effect that meditation provides.

I surprised the adventurer kid, whose name was Barry, one day when I showed up far stronger than before.

The reason for this was because of me experimenting on my body a day prior. I thought that since mixing ‘aura’ with my body granted me more control, I could forcibly imbue ‘aura’ into it and improve my combat capabilities. I only imbued a small amount, but it still took about 8 hours and left me drenched in sweat afterwards.

It was a success and my body was far stronger and I could walk and run with ease, but was still too weak to carry the ‘weapon’ without magic. Although I had initially thought everything was fine and dandy and questioned why mages didn’t think of this before, I quickly realised why.

When I ‘imbue’ my body with ‘aura’, it actually doesn’t imbue it, but rather changes the movement of it and where it exits to. For example, for a normal mage they have something that I have named an ‘aura’ vein, which allows the ‘aura’ to travel out of their bodies from a single point and manipulate particles.

However, these veins can be created and destroyed, likewise, they can be moved and altered. In my case, I created 4 additional ‘aura’ veins which lead from my soul to my limbs. This makes it so that I constantly send a percentage of the ‘aura’ I regenerate into my arms and legs.

To put it simply, my experiment ended in my ‘aura’ manufacturing speed being reduced and lowering my overall fighting capability in magic. Of course, as a result of this, I had gained far more physical strength and maneuverability than training had provided me, but the actual combat strength potential had been reduced far more than that which I gained, not like at my age I had any at all.

Increasing, decreasing and altering ‘aura’ veins took a lot of concentration and ‘aura’ capacity in itself, so I had decided to avoid doing that anymore unless incredibly necessary.

I had proceeded to train ‘aura’ control in my soul body when asleep and capacity for a few hours whilst awake. However this all changed today.

“Huh?”

I awoke and made such a sound after I woke up and came to my senses.

There was something clearly different about my sleep last night compared to before.

I didn’t transition into a soul body that night.