During the Dawn, just after waking up, Howard found himself performing his basic exercises. In fact, before going to bed, he had done everything he needed to do, exhausting himself from the constant use of magic to the point of fainting. Now he was walking slowly. In reality, he had been able to walk for a week already, and since he started training seriously almost two months ago, he had been getting better at it every day.
However, before he didn't know, learning to walk is simply very difficult, even for someone who has walked before. Contrary to popular belief, the ability to walk involves various muscles and movements that need to be carefully coordinated not only to stand but also to walk normally.
Fortunately, it was much easier for Howard, and within a few weeks, he was fully capable of it. But since he had to hide all of this from his family, he only practiced during the early morning when he woke up.
After realizing that he was good enough, by five months, he was almost walking normally for his extremely small body, which was really strange, and that's why he had to hide this accomplishment. Besides that, he already believed he was somewhat proficient in the village's language, which he learned was called Emrys, the name also given to the culture in which the village lived.
Howard knew he wasn't a great linguist. In his previous life, he only learned three languages out of habit or necessity: Italian and Portuguese from his family and English during his school period. But learning a language in four months and feeling proficient enough to communicate... that was something he had never experienced before, and he was truly satisfied with it. But he knew it was all due to his baby brain, as the way he learned this language was entirely different from how he learned English.
Unlike when he simply connected words to their respective meanings and translated them, now it was as if he was rapidly learning a new way of thinking, which, however, was quickly destroyed by his previous knowledge.
After finishing his exercises and returning to his bed, he decided to sleep a little longer on that day since he had already done everything he needed to do. His next obligation was only at the end of the day, so he had plenty of time to do nothing.
When morning finally came, and his mother came to pick him up, Howard did what he was already used to doing. He saw his mother working at home and in her garden almost every day, and even though it was extremely repetitive, he enjoyed her company, even though she didn't understand him yet.
But what fascinated him was the garden, as it was almost entirely managed by magic, turning a few square meters of land into a space more than enough to not only feed the three of them but also to have large quantities left for sale. The great productivity, in addition to magic, came from the potions his father produced.
Howard was looking for a way to show that he could speak. Not just repeating random words as before, but something that made sense, more like a sentence. He knew he had to demonstrate this continuously. If he started reciting a passage from "Os Lusíadas" by Camões in his first sentence to his parents, they would probably throw him into some kind of volcano.
While this didn't happen, Howard had soiled himself. Unfortunately, he couldn't use the bathroom as his height wouldn't even reach the toilet. Naturally, he used diapers, even though they hurt him. He learned a basic spell to heal superficial wounds when the diaper hurt him, something his mother taught him when she noticed it and quickly healed him.
Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!
Knowing he was dirty and unable to fix it, he did what any baby would do and cried, cried a lot, actually.
After a while, his mother arrived, sniffed the situation, saw all the mess, and immediately cleaned him up.
Unfortunately, it seemed that there was no spell capable of cleaning clothes or objects, not even one to conjure soap or clean clothes. Fortunately, this seemed easily solved by creating potions, a skill in which his father showed great mastery, and so the house was full of cleaning potions and many others.
After being properly cleaned and no longer feeling the dreaded sensation of a dirty diaper, Howard started practicing magic without his mother noticing. He did it out of boredom, summoning controlled weak jets of water and using something he learned on his own to keep the water floating and forming a curious circle in the air.
Even though it seemed like a silly trick, it was extremely tiring. The mana did its job in the water summoning, but after that, it was up to Howard's own mind to keep relatively difficult instructions at all times, focusing entirely on controlling the water. Although the water had no power, if he were in his previous world, this trick could easily be used to impress some young ladies.
Unfortunately, Howard couldn't maintain focus for long, and the water quickly succumbed to gravity and dispersed on the ground.
Luckily, his mother seemed to have a terrible perception of mana and didn't notice anything that happened.
His father, on the other hand, seemed to be the complete opposite, and he had come to Howard's room several times to see if he was okay, afraid that the baby would do something he shouldn't.
This was the reason for his caution during the training nights, which often could not be completed due to this fear.
And that was bad because sometimes he really couldn't finish practicing his magic. He realized that his magic was truly developing slowly from this peculiar training before sleep that he practiced. He noticed that now his mana could last much longer, but his difficulty lay in focusing when controlling a spell, especially if he had to call on several or more complex spells in the future.
Perhaps meditation would help him with this. But he didn't know any meditation that could somehow improve an individual's reasoning, so the only thing he could do now was to wait to grow older and be taught by someone. Until then, he would be stuck with the most basic spells. Nevertheless, even though he was satisfied with his current mana reserves, Howard saw no reason to stop his training. It was better to have plenty of mana for future use than to wait for the future to start training. For many days, this mana training at the end of the day made him want to keep moving forward in life. He decided not to stop, unless it started to cause some problem for him.
In this way, a few more good weeks passed, and during this time, Howard showed his parents both his rudimentary ability to speak and his ability to walk. They didn't know which made them happier, but they truly celebrated these achievements. Howard felt they were a bit too excited for his taste, as some very strange noises came from their room that night. Noises he didn't want to think about.
While Howard tried to forget everything that happened the previous night, he continued trying to practice his concentration on spells, and they seemed to be getting slightly easier to perform. However, he still couldn't maintain a spell for more than half a minute. For potentially attacking spells, Howard believed this could be solved by generating them quickly and continuously, but if that were the case, then the amount of mana loss would be absurd. Most likely, there was something else to it, which, again, Howard would probably only have access to when he grew older.