Time flies by, and it is now my first birthday. It is a small affair, only my parents, grandparents, and those who are under confidentiality contract are in attendance.

This also means Anna and her husband are here, which naturally means Emma is here too, and that is all too obvious because she is hugging me at the moment.

She has been clingy ever since she met me, but I can't say no to her, I mean come on! How can I say no to those big eyes and cute floppy cow ears that twitch every time I pet her head. She is like the sister I never had.

As for my presents, my parents got me a new rattle and a few different puzzle toys from the ones I currently have, and from my grandparents, they noticed that I was running out of reading material, which was to be expected due to House Ironcrest being new and did not have generations to build a decent library of books.

But along with the joyiest occasion of my birthday came the bad news. Now that I was 1 year old, I would be slowly weened, which means soon, there will be no more of that sweet nectar from Anna… *sob*.

But it was not all bad. Me being weened means more meat in my diet, in my case, even now I am eating a grown man’s portion, except that the food is all mashed up for me.

In other news, Mum is pregnant with my sibling. It happened about a week before my birthday, Mum got out of bed, fed me, and just as we were about to go to breakfast, Mum’s face turned pale, and shoved me into Dad’s arms and rushed to the chamber pot to throw up.

That's one thing I will need to fix when I get older. I will need to introduce modern plumbing to this world. With what I know of the current technological and magical capabilities of this world, I should be able to cobble something together. No way in hell am I going to live the rest of my second life without being able to take a proper shit in a sanitary environment or letting people, even if they are my servant, carry around chamber pots of my waste to dispose of.

Unfortunately, from all my reading and observing my surroundings, magic is mainly researched and used for the application of combat and very rarely used for mundane things like daily conveniences. If I am going to live in this world, that is something I will need to remedy, I am a city boy dammit! I am not going to settle for shitting in an outhouse or a hole in the ground.

Another thing to take care of is air conditioning, I miss my aircon in the summer, and as warm and soothing to look at as a well-stoked fireplace looks, there is always a smoky smell, and I had to smell that all winter.

—

A few days after my birthday, I be chillin in my crib, nibbling on my new rattle and pushing around mana for fun while waiting for my body to get tired and fall asleep.

It has been almost a year since I became able to manipulate mana, and I can confidently say I have become pretty decent at it, no longer are the shapes I construct out of mana a bunch of wobbly lines.

I mean they are not as well defined as Mum’s or my grandparents but at least my square is no longer mistaken as an oddly shaped circle.

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And as I suck on my rattle, I try to take inspiration from what I know from my previous life. I imagine the beads inside of the rattle that makes the rattling sound, which brings back a memory of one of those animated educational videos that show molecules bouncing around.

This then gets me thinking, how would mana respond when I apply the behavior of molecules to mana when I use mana manipulation.

I reach out to the mana within arms reach of me and vibrate it as vigorously as I can for a solid minute, hoping I can create combustion, or at least some heat, but try as I might, nothing happens. Maybe I need to try it on something instead of empty air.

I look around and swiftly decide that the bedding and wooden crib is a dumb choice, if I actually succeed, I will be burnt alive within my crib.

I then look at my new rattle and have second thoughts, I don't know why but at this age, my body compels me to bite stuff and the rattle is my current favorite chew toy, I would hate to burn it. But sacrifices need to be made in the name of science!

I hold up the rattle in front of me and concentrate hard on the top part, vibrating a spot on the rattle the size of a coin.

After a minute, I actually felt a rise in temperature of the rattle travel down the handle I was holding the rattle by, which shocked me out of concentration.

To make sure I was not just imagining things, I touched the spot I was concentrating on and felt warmth.

Just to double check I was not going insane in the membrane, I touched the back side of the rattle and it felt cool to the touch like any normal wood would feel.

I touch the 2 sides a few more times, and yes, I am not crazy, I just warmed up wood by vibrating the mana on its surface, very cool… but I think it takes more energy than normal mana manipulation because I am feeling real tired all of a sudden.

***

I woke up the next morning, did the usual, and am now stacking blocks with Emma while pondering the implications of using mana manipulation to heat up my rattle last night.

As I stacked blocks, I was not putting my heart or attention into it and Emma clearly noticed. She crawled around the blocks and tapped my shoulder until I looked at her.

She then held my cheeks to focus me on her as she gave me a pouting look. Oh God, she is so cute when she wants attention.

I bring Emma in for a hug and pet her head as she wriggles in delight. I can think about this magic stuff later, if I ignore Emma now, she will refuse to let go of me when she uses me as a hug pillow later.

At night, the moment I am left alone in my crib with Alice reading a book by the candlelight some distance away so she does not disturb my sleep, I start with my next experiment in what I dub for now as Molecular Magic.

Once again, the rattle is in front of me and I concentrate my mana manipulation on a single spot. This time, instead of vibrating the mana, I seize it and try to keep it as still as possible.

Before I even started this experiment, my thoughts were that keeping some mana still would be a walk in the park. It was not so.

Yes, I could keep the mana in one spot, but it was wobbling like agitated water in zero gravity.

I exerted more of my will on the mana I held in place and the wobbling slowed down but never stopped.

This lasted for around 3 minutes before I was too exhausted to continue. Now to see my results.

Just to make sure, I touched the back of the rattle and felt its temperature as a control result, and then I touched the spot I concentrated on.

It was… cooler?

I did a few back-and-forths with the control and supposedly cold spot.

I think I did it? It is too slight to tell, maybe it is easier to tell the difference if I do it on metal? Will try again tomorrow, sleepy time.