After coming out of his strange meditative state, Howard noticed that the entire room was filled with an extremely dense purple mist that almost prevented him from seeing his parents' faces. However, Howard quickly realized that it was all coming from him, and as if the spell had broken, the strange mist disappeared, returning the room to its natural state and leaving everyone present in shock.
His mother actually had a slight look of fear, which she managed to hide very well. When everything came to an end, she quickly grabbed Howard and hugged him. She didn't know what to do. He was a baby, unable to speak or understand sentences, despite showing such intelligence at times. He was still a stranger to this culture. And suddenly, without ever practicing, he had invoked a spell? How was it more effective than that of an adult?
For her, it was impossible to believe, but there was her son, doing it.
At this moment, Howard could only thank the heavens for not knowing how to speak.
His father, realizing that the social event had been ruined, followed his wife's subtle glances and quickly invited the guests, both friends from work, to leave, and they readily agreed.
However, the couple knew very well that everything that happened there would soon be the talk of the town. Even in the village, it made no sense, or at least, it wasn't meant to.
While all this was happening and his parents went out to discuss, Howard realized that he had done much more than he was capable of, and that's why he was completely out of breath, most likely due to him having spent all his "mana" while performing that useless and problematic scene.
Perhaps life would become a little stranger and less calm after that. His mother would probably stay with him every possible moment, not allowing him to practice his speech.
Unfortunately, exhaustion was stronger than his will, and he quickly fell asleep, right on the floor of the room, which at that moment was being warmed by a beautiful fireplace fueled by magic.
After waking up again, Howard realized he was now in his bed, and it still seemed to be the early hours of the morning, which was strange since he always woke up when the sun rose and slept shortly after it disappeared. Of course, he used to sleep during the afternoon and liked it, even though he didn't want to admit it.
Luckily, this gave Howard time to think about everything that had happened. Fortunately, he was not questioned by his parents, and even if he had been, he would hardly understand. Finally, he had performed magic. After so much doubt, he had finally discovered the simple answer to the thoughts that had been bothering him for months. Well, who could have imagined that magic would be based on an energy he knew nothing about, possessing both physical and metaphysical characteristics? But, even though this was not very "plausible" for his past self, it seemed to be how magic worked, and denying it at that moment by trying to find some logic in the whole situation would be nothing more than pure foolishness.
Howard, alone in his room and wanting to see how far he could go with this thing called magic, decided to try the light spell again, which he thought was the simplest and would presumably not absorb as much of his mana as the other one.
However, it took him a while to remember the sensation of mana enveloping his body and then being dispersed in all directions, feeling more like a strange tingling that he could have felt from something more mundane. Thus, by focusing on both this memory and the idea of light, at least a small sphere of light, he chanted the magical word.
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As he felt some mana being drawn from his body, a tiny ethereal ball of light formed right above his small bed.
When Howard saw that the magic had finally worked, he was truly relieved. So, this was magic? Well, at least magic in its most basic form. Howard had no doubt that if creating light was so easy, creating a simple fire or generating water out of nothing, what could a professional magician be capable of? Perhaps summoning meteors from the pure ether to destroy a city? Maybe something even grander.
Perhaps such people existed even nearby; Howard believed that this village was somehow special. Everyone he had seen there was in some way very young, with almost the same physical characteristics. For a modern Western man, this was almost impossible.
So, maybe they were some kind of magical experiment, or perhaps they weren't even entirely human. Howard knew that in a fantasy world, many races tended to coexist, not always in harmony, but they existed, usually explained through racial pantheons or something similar. But Howard wasn't in a fantasy world; he was in the real world, in a place that always made his thoughts relate to memories of stories he had read throughout his life.
Not only that, but everyone there was minimally capable of performing magic. Howard didn't know if this was entirely common in the world or not. He tended to believe it wasn't since this art had always been portrayed as exclusive, belonging only to sages or nobles in the books he read.
And even they were only using the most basic magic, which even he, a baby, could do. He had no doubt that they were capable of more, perhaps using magic for hunting, war, healing the sick, and much more.
After some time, Howard began testing some other spells he had heard of, like a relatively simple one that conjured a small amount of water and another that generated a small flame, which he quickly extinguished with another spell for fear of setting the whole house on fire.
When he realized he had tested everything he needed, Howard felt somewhat accomplished and decided to try to sleep until the morning, which should happen in an hour or less.
When he finally woke up, Howard realized his mother was already in his room, and as soon as she finished what she was doing, she picked him up, determined not to let him do anything mischievous.
The following days for Howard continued like this. He woke up and was immediately in his mother's care, as she took him everywhere she went, being much stricter than before.
Now that Howard was under complete surveillance, he began to secretly continue his magical training during the early morning hours. He also tried to exercise to be able to walk as soon as possible. He was also starting to understand much of what was said in the house, and the conversations that had previously terrified him were just simple domestic chatter. However, he obviously pretended he still couldn't speak or fully understand to avoid seeming too strange. He would keep this ability hidden until he was seven months old, so as not to appear too unusual.
Howard also developed a theory about how magic could be strengthened, comparing it to some kind of muscle. As someone who had practiced gymnastics and bodybuilding for most of his life, he knew that if you wanted visible results, you had to push yourself almost completely and slowly develop your physique over months. Perhaps magic was the same. He didn't know if it was safe to practice it during infancy, but he knew he couldn't stand still since magic was one of the only things that motivated him to get out of bed.
Thus, he decided that every day before going to sleep, he would try to use as much of his magic as possible until he passed out, as he had done before. Howard didn't exactly know how he would do this since, according to his understanding, no magic he knew of, other than the mana spell, had such a high cost to make it an effective training method.
However, this problem remained unsolved. He couldn't ask his parents, and he didn't think anyone would want to teach a few-month-old apprentice. So, he had to make do with what he had, even if it wasn't exactly efficient. Because, at that moment, it was all just theory, and he didn't know if this was how his magic would develop. It could be, like in some stories, linked to meditation, which Howard believed helped, or perhaps tied to certain magical schools. But Howard really didn't see how meditation could help him right now.