The light that engulfed me slowly faded away, and there was nothing but darkness for a split second. I opened my eyes, and there I saw a humongous man! His face covered with a full beard, his eyes look fierce, which somewhat made me tremble. The giant man reached out his arms towards me, his arms were covered with scars and scorch marks.
The giant man grabbed me and placed me in his arms, I looked at his face, his face was full of tears, nothing you would expect from a tough looking man like him.
"Dear, how is the baby? Is the child breathing? Is the child okay?"
I looked towards where the voice came from, there I saw another giant, this time a woman. The woman had a tired face, but even though she looked tired, she seemed to look happy.
It seems I can understand their words just fine, but I couldn't understand why she was talking about a baby, I looked around, but there was no baby anywhere. Then it hit me, I tried raising my arms, they were chubby and soft. My legs were the same too, I finally realized, that I was a newborn baby.
These people weren't giants, they were just adults.
"Yes dear, the child is breathing, and its a boy!" The bearded man that was carrying me around said with a tone of delight while tears were still running down his face.
"Good, thats great to hear, we have truly been blessed today, after so many years of trying, we finally conceived a child." The woman, which I assume to be my mother started crying as she said those words.
I guess this big bearded man is my dad. As I look around, there was only one other person in the room, and she was an elderly woman with a gentle smile on her face. I guess she was the one that helped deliver me. The room was quite small, and was made out of wood, my mom was lying on a bed that looks like that it was made out of straw.
As my dad was swaying me slowly, his tears finally stopped and looked towards my mom and asked.
"What shall we name our kid?"
"We will name our child Faust, Faust Godhand."
My eyes widen as I heard the name Faust, and a smile fell upon my face.
"Seems like our little child likes the name" My father said as he slowly leaned over to my mother and passed me onto her.
As I was being held by my mother, I felt something within me, my body turned warm, it was a fuzzy feeling. It a feeling that I have never experienced before. A feeling that can only be given to you by a mother that truly loves you.
________________________________
3 months had gone by, and everything was normal. I learned many things just by observing and listening to my parents. Our family was lower class, which would be categorized as peasants. Our family lived in the Chronos kingdom, and our village is located near the border of the Chronos, and the Radun kingdom.
My father is a blacksmith, hence the last name Godhand. My father told me stories about our ancestors as bedtime stories, he probably thought I wouldn't understand what he said, but he still told me stories nonetheless. Our ancestors were one of the first pioneers of blacksmithing in Newerth. As time went by, due to bad luck alone, our ancestors started to fade into nothingness, there were other pioneer blacksmiths that monopolized the trade, making the Godhands useless. As time went by, bit by bit, the Godhand name started to fade into the history of Newerth. In the Godhand family tree, there is only one root left that is keeping it alive, and its our family.
Nicholas Godhand ,my father is 7 ft tall, he has a big beard, and he doesnt tend to his hair very well. His covers entirely his forehead, and is close to fully covering his eyes. His hair and his facial hair are both black, with hints of white and gray as a sign of aging, My father is already 53 years old, hence the gray and white hairs hanging about.
Alison Godhand ,my mother is only 5.8 ft tall, she has a long silky black hair, she has a beautiful face. Her hair is also the same with my dad, covered with white and gray hairs due to old age. My mother is aged 51, she really does not have a set job. She does random tasks around the village. She helps with crops, she does laundry for people, and many other things.
At 3 months old, I knew I had the capability to talk, but I didnt want to startle my parents by saying full on sentences. So when I talk, I just say words, it still surprised them a little bit, but they were happy, saying how their son is a genius. Also at the age of 3 months old, I knew how to walk. Again my parents were surprised upon seeing this.
Our house is as small as any other houses around the village, its one floor, and just one big room. My mom and dad share a bed, while I would sleep in a crib that my dad made. Overtime before bed, my dad would sit on the floor in an upright position. It looked like a meditating stance, I couldn't hold back my curiosity any longer. I pointed towards him and said.
"What. . . you . . . do?"
My dad opened his eyes and smiled.
"Well, I'm not sure if you will understand, but what I'm doing is meditating, I'm absorbing the mana around us. Absorbing mana can be differentiated in two ways. The first is absorbing the mana and infusing it directly to your flesh, muscles and bones, this method is mostly used by warriors to enhance their physical abilities. The second way is absorbing the mana in your surroundings and infuse it to your mana pool, this is what mages usually do to increase the intensity of their spells, to determine how long they can cast spells without taking rests. A person will either be a physical or a magical type of person, how a person absorbs the mana will determine what kind of person he is, a physical or a magical. Of course when you are adept at absorbing mana, you can channel the mana on both your inner pool, and your physical body. But only a select few can do this, and usually it takes mastery of one side before one can start absorbing mana for the other. Only masters that have lived long enough to understand the concept can do this."
As my father was talking to me with full of enthusiasm our mother sat on the bed and started laughing.
"Why are you telling this to your child? Im sure he won't understand."
"Well, he can talk at 3 months old, I'm sure he understands some things, our son is a genius, if not, he's pretty close to one."
"Well, even if he is a genius, most people develop to sense mana at the age of 10"
"Even so, I'm sure he will understand."
"Hahaha, alright then, finish your lesson and then we will sleep."
My dad now faced me and continued talking
"As your mother said, normal children can sense mana at the age of 10 and can start absorbing them. Not all of the mana will absorbed of course, only a small amount of the total mana that you are trying to absorb on the surrounding will actually fuse with your body. Geniuses and prodigies can sense mana at an earlier age. But everyone uses mana one way or the other, everyone in this world can use mana. There are other ways to absorb mana and get stronger, but that will be for some other time, now lets go to bed."
My dad stood up and went to my crib and tucked me in. He then went towards his bed and lay beside mom, they both closed their eyes and went to sleep.
Almost an hour passed by and my parents were in deep sleep. I was still thinking about this thing called mana. It seems some amazing things are happening in this world.
"I wonder if I can absorb mana?" I mumbled to myself.
I set myself free from my fur blanket, and copied the meditation stance my dad used. I closed my eyes and started to concentrate on my surroundings. At first I could hear birds chirping, my dad snoring, the wind howling, the leaves and grass dancing. One by one the noise started to fade away until there was nothing left but total silence.
The silence continued for another 5 minutes, until I finally sensed something, it was something warm surrounding me, I guess what I'm sensing right now is mana. I tried to absorb it, but I think I failed, I only sense the mana surrounding my body, not actually going into me.
I concentrated harder and after what seemed to be an eternity for me, I finally absorbed a little bit of mana. Slowly the amount of mana I can absorb increased. I can feel my entire body warming up, I guess I'm the physical type of guy, but theres something else thats weird. I feel like that some mana is going towards near my stomach, I think this is the mana pool.
If I had to guess, It feels like 95% of the mana I absorb go to my physical body, while 5% go to my mana pool. I am happy, I'm not sure why I'm able to absorb and detect mana so quickly, maybe its because my mind is of an 26 year old. But I do not care, all I think about now is absorbing as much mana as I can and get stronger as fast as I can.
After 30 minutes of absorbing mana, my body feels weird, and absorbing mana starts to hurt. I tried to absorb more but my body is rejecting it. I stop and think for a minute. I think this is because of my tiny body and my body can't handle it. I sure hope this is the case. I guess ill go to sleep and see if I can absorb more mana the next day.
I woke up and feel like I've gotten stronger. There are no physical changes to my body, which is a relief, I don't want to become a muscle head baby. My father has already left the house to go work on his wares, while my mother is at the house watching out for me.
I tried absorbing mana once more, but it seems like my body is rejecting it. Im thinking theres a cooling period, but theres no way to test my theory this early in the day. So I went about my day like all normal babies do, eat and sleep and crawl around everywhere.
The day went by with me doing nothing. Finally night time fell and I tried absorbing mana, This time my body is absorbing mana. It feels like its absorbing more mana and is absorbing mana slightly faster than last night. This went on slightly longer than last night. It seems like my theory is true, and it seems like everyday the amount of mana I can absorb increases.
-----Time Skip 3 years-----
Its been 3 years of me doing the same thing over and over again. Eat, absorb mana, sleep and repeat the whole process over again. My body is relevant to my age, which is nice. I didnt want to be a 3 year old kid with a body of a 10 year old or something. In those 3 years I learned a lot of things. First of all, my father leaves the village every 3 or 4 months to sell his weapons at the nearest town, which is about 3 days worth of travel.
My father told me that the path towards the town is filled with monsters, but he can handle himself, he can take on a normal monster on the around easily. I also learned that these monsters are created from unpure or evil mana. Once you kill a monster, they will leave behind a mana core. The mana core can be used to strengthen yourself. Mana cores have mana in them that you can absorb. The stronger the monster, the more mana you can obtain from its core.
In those 3 years, I also watched my father do blacksmith work. My father creates mostly weapons with low grade ores such as copper and iron. Ive watched my father work on his weapons, and I can tell that he doesnt do a half-assed job with it. He gives it his all, not a sweat is wasted when he creates a weapon. Thats why when he sells his weapons over at the town, he gets a good amount of money for them. Even if they are made from low grade metals, his weapons are still top class.
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Now that I am 3 years old, I am more confident on speaking and walking. Children in this village do normal children things, they run around and have fun. But my mindset is too old for that, I want to be stronger. So from this day forward, I will dedicate my self to training.
First of all, since my body is still small, my training ends quite early. I couldn't even do half of the training I did before I died. Second, I get weird stares from the other villagers. At first they thought I was just running around the village, then I started doing push ups and sit ups. Even I would get weirded out if I saw a 3 year old running around and doing some intense training.
My parents didnt give me weird stares, they told me that I can do whatever, they told me I was special, and I know I'm special. My dad even made me a dummy out of wood so that I could practice some close combat maneuvers. After using my hands and feet to beat the lifeless dummy dead, I would grab the wooden sword which my dad made for me. By the way, the wooden sword is shaped like a katana and its almost as tall as me. I have no problem lifting the katana however, because of the mana absorption, my body has gotten stronger, I did not tell my parents that I can absorb mana, I didnt want them to think of me as some kind of monster.
My training took up my entire morning. Its now lunch time and I went back inside the house to be treated by a warm smile from my mother. After we ate, I went with my mother to do random work. We first go towards the fields where the local farmers work. My mother helps plow the land. I asked her if I could help.
"No dear, you are too young, let mother do the work." My mother said with a smile
"Its alright mom, Im plenty strong to handle work." I said while flexing my arms.
"Hahaha alright dear, why I plow these lands why don't you plant these seeds?"
I grab the seeds from her hands and I start digging small holes and putting the seeds in them. Field work continued for about 2 hours. My mom got paid 1 silver and 50 coppers, she usually just gets 1 silver, but with my help, she got more things done, hence the better pay.
Me and my mom went home and started to clean ourselves, after we done that we left home once again. We headed to other nearby houses and asked if they need any laundry done. With luck, a few of the houses felt lazy and hired us to do laundry for them. We washed clothes for another 2 hours, and we got 2 silvers total.
We went home after doing other tasks, the sun was already setting. My father just got back from his forge creating weapons. My mother is making dinner, and I was sitting outside meditating and absorbing mana. My mother yelled from inside to call me to eat dinner.
"How was your day honey?" My father asked my mother.
"It was great, Faust here has been a great help with work." My mother said while she was handing me a platte of food.
"Take good care of her son, tell you what, why don't I teach you how to be a blacksmith?"
As I was eating I almost spat out my food from excitement.
"YES! But I also want to be a warrior, a great fighter when I grow up"
"Hahaha its alright, ill just teach you the basics, and you can do whatever you want when you grow up."
"Okay! Thank you father!"
The night went by pretty fast, I washed the dishes while my parents were getting ready for bed. Once I finished the dishes, my parents were already asleep. I went to my bed and meditated once more.
Morning came and as I woke up, my father was already awake and getting ready to leave. He saw me wake up and said.
"Good, I was just about to wake you up, get ready and we will leave once you are finished."
I nodded and got out of bed and changed clothes. I went beside my dad and we left the house and towards the forge. The forge was pretty much beside our house. My dad placed his bag down and said.
"Alright son, making weapon is pretty simple, all you need is the guts to persevere."
My dad then started explaining to me the different kinds of ores. There are copper, silver, iron, gold, platinum, mithril and orichalcum. They rank from weakest to stronger in the order they are stated. There are also ores that have been infused with mana. When I say infused by mana, it means that they are usually located very deep underground or near places where there is an abundance of mana. Ores infused mana are harder to work with, but the quality is better. There are also ores infused with elemental mana.
My dad then proceeded to explain to me how smithing weapon works. It was a fairly easy process which was easy for me to understand. In my old world I was fascinated about "Ancient times" where swords had dominated the era, where metal weapons were the most useful. I read many books about fighting with swords, I also read many books with smithing. The process was the same. Of course knowing something and actually being able to do it is 2 completely different things. So I asked my dad if I can help him make a weapon.
The day went by and I learned a lot of basic stuff from my dad. From this day forward, I could be considered an apprentice blacksmith.
3 years went by and I'm now 6 years old. Since there were no schools nearby my village, the closest one was in town, which is a few days travel. I had to study on my own. My father bought me basic knowledge books from his trips. Since knowledge is expensive, he couldn't get me any fancy books, but I am satisfied. I wasn't really the study type of guy.
In those 3 years, all I did was train, and either help my father or my mother with work. At night I would study, and after studying I would absorb more mana.
When I was 5 years old, my father took me to the forest and showed me just how dangerous the wilderness is. My father lured a wolf monster, he showed me how harsh monsters were, and how to fight them. All monsters have weak spots, and find that weak spot and you win. I didnt get to kill a monster that day, and Im not too confident I could beat one. Ive never seen any monsters in my past life before, so in the sight of one, I slightly trembled.
I turned 6 a couple months ago, and for my birthday present? I get to kill a monster. My father took me out once more into the forest. He said he wouldn't do this until I was 12, after I started to gather mana for at least 1 or 2 years. But he found out that I could absorb mana at a young age, he guessed that I started absorbing mana at the age of 4, I didnt tell him that I started at just 3 months old.
I was confident with my strength, I absorbed mana for 6 years. I don't know how well I absorbed mana, since theres no one to compare to, except for my father, but then again, I don't even know how to compare our rates of absorption.
My dad gave me an iron katana, my weapon of choice of course. The battle went on pretty easily, my father would take the initiative first. He distracted the wolf, while I snuck up on behind him. I never really had the chance to test my strength, So I went all out, the wolf's back was facing me. I dashed forward and in an instance I coldest gap easily. The speed surprised my father, it even surprised me.
I pulled the katana out of its sheath, and in one swing, the wolf pretty much split in half. (It was a quick draw, I will be calling it that from now on) The strength surprised me, I guessed that I was just gonna wound the wolf, but to kill it in one blow? It was just amazing.
My father told me to not show my strength to anyone, I guess it was abnormal to be killing a monster in one blow at the age of 6. We checked the corpse and there we found the monster core, as a gift, my dad gave me the monster core, later that night I absorbed it. It wasn't a huge amount, but I could tell that it was way better than just absorbing mana from the surrounding area.
That day onward, up till today, I was just hunting monster cores once very 2 weeks. I also started harvesting the wolf meat, which was delicious, it saved us a lot of money for meals. Also their furs sold pretty well, it helps keep us and the villagers warm in the winter. Their cores I used for myself to get stronger, each and everyday hunting wolfs got easier and easier.
Today, I got caught up in hunting, I could easily handle 3 at a time, but right now I'm in a predicament. 6 wolves surrounded me. The first one let out a loud growl and jumped at me, I quickly drew my sword and easily sliced the wolf in half. With my sword out, I put on a defensive stance. 2 wolfs jumped at me at the same time, one slashed its claws towards me, while the other one jumped to my side and tried to bite me.
I easily blocked the paw, I was about to slice the wolf in half, but I had no time since the second wolf already opened its mouth and tried to bit me, I blocked with my sword once more. The sword was now stuck int eh wolfs mouth, with one brute motion, I instantly blew off the wolfs head.
I was about to deal with the second wolf right in front of me, but a sharp pain in my back stopped me in my tracks. My body was quite sturdy, but boy getting clawed at by a damn wolf sure hurts. This is the first time I've felt pain in this world. In a fit of anger, I faced back, raised my sword, and in one clean motion, I swung downwards. The wolf tried to block with its paws, but the result was bad for him. His 2 front limbs got cut off. Which led the wolf to be quite vulnerable. I instantly chopped the wounded wolf into pieces.
2 wolves down and 4 more to go. Dealing 4 was quite simple. The other 4 wolves went down without so much as a fight. They pretty much died in about 10 minutes. As I was happily gathering the cores I heard a fierce roar right behind me. As I heard that growl, I could sense something behind me.
*ROOOOAAAARR!!!!!!!*
The growl was heard as if it was right behind me, but in the distance, I could clearly see it. Its running pretty fast, and its running towards me. The closer it gets, the bigger it gets. I finally realize what it was. It was the leader of the pack! It was twice as large as a normal wolf. A normal wolf in this world is twice as big as a wolf in Earth. So yeah its pretty big.
I put on a defensive stance and prepare for battle!
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Hey guys, thanks for reading. Ill stop it here, sorry if it was a boring chapter. I really just needed to explain some things.
If you guys find any loopholes and any errors. Inform me in the comment section and ill try to get to you.
Im not sure how frequently ill be releasing chapters, next week I'm gonna be swamped with work and school.
I will try to release one tomorrow.
Hope you guys enjoy!