It's been one month since my birth and let me tell if you ever get the opportunity to get reborn you should ask something like skipping the whole baby thing because honestly, it's a pain.
It's like when you go to the cinema to watch a movie but you are forced to watch a ton of ads before getting to see the ingesting stuff.
Baby's life is that but for months.
Well, most of my time is spent sleeping, so I don't have to go through that much suffering.
It's not like I have better things to do alone in my bed anyway.
After one month my sight is finally good enough I can see my room clearly, I expected it to take a few months to get at this point but eh, I will not complain.
The room where I sleep, mine apparently, is pretty big. Putting aside my baby vision who without a doubt influences my perception, I would say the room is about 15 m2. The walls are all painted in a light red and orange while the ceiling is blue with what I think is supposed to be clouds. I think it's supposed to represent a sunset.
Well even if there is room for improvement, like adding a sun, I like it. It's better than having lifeless greyish walls and it gives a personality to the room.
My bed is what you would expect from a baby's bed. There are rods all around it to stop me from getting away, a little mattress which is very comfy with all the blankets, and there are tiny pillows! I must say, as inconvenient a baby's way of life, it's pretty comfortable physically, setting all the diapers stuff aside obviously, I don't want to talk about that.
From what I've seen so far I'm an only child, which is quite nice if you want my opinion. From all the memories I have I've concluded that more often than not, sibling's relationships are a pain.
Well I may not have siblings, I mean, I guess I don't have any, but the family is quite big. Since my birth, a lot of people came to see me, like at least once every 3 days there's someone different. If that doesn't ring 'huge family' I don't know what it does.
So far I still don't understand much of what anyone says but I'm beginning to. The language sounds pretty poetic, fluid, and a bit stiff too if that makes sense. It's as if someone decided one day to take japanese and norvegian and somehow succeeded in mixing them into another one.
I understand only a few words, which is already quite impressive for someone of my age.
A few days ago Mom took me outside for the first time in this life, literally. I don't know what I was expecting when thinking about how the outside world but it's sure not that.
For instance, there's no sun, as weird as it sounds it's true. You must wonder then how the heck there is daylight, well don't ask me because I don't know... yet.
Rest assured the sky is still blue, but if you remember your science it's in fact pretty weird considering our sky is blue thanks to the sun. And there is no sun.
Well, putting aside all the sun thing everything else seems pretty.. normal. Mom carried me to a big park where I stayed in her arms while she was talking with another lady. Letting my eyes wander what I see is mostly what you would expect from a park, trees, beds of flowers, a playground for kids, floating lamps.
Floating lamps? Why are the lamps floating? I know my eyesight is not excellent but I think it is good enough to notice there's nothing under any of the light spheres to support them.
Noticing my sudden interest Mom look at me. "#@@/%€ $€ ?" she seemingly asked me with a smile before getting on her feet.
Approaching one of the spheres, she releases one of her hands, lifting it toward the floating orb. Her hand is wide open, palm facing the object.
For a few seconds, nothing is happening when without warning a blinding yellow light assault my fragile eyes.
What was that ?! Did she flip a switch or something, no I would have seen it if she did.
"#@&% $€%€ §€#@*." She said with a giggle after seeing how astonished my face must look from her point of view.
There is truly only one possible conclusion that can be made here. Magic.
In stories involving being in another world, magic is in most cases always present in one way or another. But even if I am in another the world, which truth to be told is too quite unlikely to happen to anyone in the first place, I didn't expect magic !
Well, at least I now have a possible way of explaining the matter concerning the sun, even if just saying it's because of magic sounds a lot like a 'shut up, it's magic' to me.
Anyway magic exists ! I must try it, as the only (and every) human from Earth it is my duty to do so towards every fantasy fans ! Imagine the possibilities, maybe I can even fly ? I hope the magic is dope.
I don't for others but personally, I really don't like it when magic is limited to things like runes or having to go through something like a spirit to do actually interesting magic.
Considering the little performance Mom did for me earlier it's unlikely to be this kind of stuff but we never know.
When I left my thoughts I found myself in another place, within Mom's warm embrace.
She's walking with me on a little paved road which seems to sneak between the trees. It's quite the scenery, the reddish light making its way through the tall trees, the leaves floating gently toward the ground, the songs the birds sing.
It feels nostalgic.
Before I know it, there are tears on my cheeks. My first ones here eh.
I miss Earth.
Mom looks a bit panicked at my new reaction. Seemingly a bit disarmed, as it is in fact the first time tears leave my eyes, she lifts me with both hands, my face in front of her.
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Now that I think about it I never saw here with a sad expression, and looking at the one she is making now I wonder if that day will ever come.
"#@&/ §/%$ Silvia." she said to me with a beaming smile on her lips.
She gets me closer to her, my head on her shoulder, hugging me with a hand going through my still short hair in a circular motion. Telling me words I don't understand but somehow I get her meaning and that much is enough.
It sure feels nice to be loved.
A bit exhausted, I close my eyes and eventually fall asleep.
Back in my bed, my little nest as I like to call it, I dwell on what I discovered today. Magic.
From what Mom did to the lamp there are a few theories I come up with.
First and it's the first thing anyone would think of: mana. There's a way for humans to manipulate it, maybe it's somehow produced inside the body ?
Even if all this one month I never really tried to focus on my body, I don't sense anything "different" or at least it's not a big enough difference for me to feel it without trying.
There's also the possibility that there's no mana at all inside our bodies, but we instead manipulate ambient mana directly.
If I were to choose one of the two I would go with having mana inside me, just a personal preference.
No matter if the mana is either from inside or outside one's body, in both cases, it's possible to manipulate it freely, or maybe not. Maybe there are restrictions.
Taking what Mom did earlier as an example, maybe she could only control her mana between her palm and the sphere. I can easily imagine something like 'the mana need a receptor, like what a lighting rod is to thunder, to stay outside one's body otherwise it disperse.
If only I could have a book or something, I would get answers to my questions ! You may tell me I don't even understand spoken language so how could I read a book if I happened to find one. Well, that's only a small detail that shall not stop my eternal quest for knowledge !
Well I say that but I'm quite foolish, just today I missed a lot of opportunities to observe the world with my own eyes because I was either sleeping or lost in my head. Well, at least I can say it's because I'm a baby to excuse myself.
Moving on to another matter something is leaving me puzzled since it comes to my attention. Considering the fact I have the memories of every being who were alive back on Earth, shouldn't I act a lot more instinctual and less human ? Because if we compare the number of non-humans and humans the was quite a big difference in terms of quantity of specimens alive in either group back then.
Well, I will not complain as I am perfectly fine as things are, but still, it's perplexing.
Anyway, tomorrow I should try meditation, maybe I will feel mana.
----
As usual, there is no one but in the room. Well for once I will use my time efficiently ! Meditation here I come !
But first I need to calm a bit eh.
In general, the concept of meditation is pretty easy and at its core the same everywhere. It's mostly breathing and focus.
For someone as experienced as me, it's pretty easy to start. Even if the breathing part is a bit unsettling with this body in my opinion, I get a hold of it pretty fast.
Inhaling through the nose, holding a little then let out through the mouth. Rinse and repeat with a consistent rhythm and you have it, the breathing part.
Now for the focus, I check every part of my body one by one, slowly. Nothing out of the ordinary for now. But if Mom was able to move mana around then there must be a way to interact with it, it's only a matter of time before I find it.
Keeping my breathing cycle for what feels like an hour, there is still nothing different. Maybe I see the whole matter from the wrong angle.
Maybe there's so much mana everywhere that I can't notice it. Saying it like that it doesn't make a lot of sense but if you think about it there's something here.
Let me explain, imagine everyone had an aura of variable sizes around their body, and the only way to see the aura of someone is to be able to see it entirely. Now suppose someone has an aura so big it covers the entire universe, well, in that case, it's impossible to observe it as you can't get farther than the universe, but in the end, the aura still does exist.
I believe mana act in some way like that.
Now, using this theory to find a concrete solution is a different matter altogether. Maybe I should try to look at my body with more distance ?
But unless there's a method to do so it's for the time being quite impossible. Or I don't necessarily need to take distance literally.
When I think about it, what I'm doing here with Focus is only simply looking at my body, and maybe that exactly the problem.
I observe 'my' body but perhaps I should try to look at it as 'a' body if that makes sense. That reminds me of something there was back on Earth, it was called 'depersonalization', to explain what that is in a few words it's a set of sensations and emotions that make you feel distanced from your own body and the world around you.
If I use this sensation that could help. Well, there's no idly waiting for something to happen on its own.
Still breathing in a cycle, I open my eyes and observe. I don't know exactly how to explain it but when I look at things around me in a certain way I can't describe, this sensation begins to build up until it sorts of explodes in my head and leave in this depersonalized state. It especially works when I look at my reflection in a mirror.
Suddenly I reached it, to be honest, I don't really miss this state. It leaves me kind of lethargic in my case.
This time though it's a bit different, it's as If I were far away from my body, but not really at the time.
Now let's talk about what's important, mana.
With a new perspective, I observe once again my body. This time I'll try to look at it whole instead of just focusing on one part.
Getting more and more concentrated, I finally sense a movement after some painstakingly long minutes. It's was not longer than a second or so but I clearly felt it.
It was akin to a ripple on a lake, for a moment it spread through my whole body before disappearing as fast as it came. But why? I didn't do anything in particular.
Trying to recreate the newfound sensation, nothing happens despite my efforts.
Sighing, which breaks my now pretty long breathing cycle, I'm suddenly overwhelmed with sensations.
I don't know how I did not notice that before, it's like thousands of the movement I described earlier were occurring at the same time.
I was under the assumption that in the case mana was produced by the body, mana moved through circuits inside the body. Something like veins but for mana.
But oh boy how wrong I was.
If we compare mana with water, my body is filled with it like a tank. The movement I was speaking of can be compared with how water would react if you pushed it with your hand in a bathtub, for example, you can't really see it or not completely but it does move.
Honestly, that makes things more complex for me, how am I even supposed to control something like that ? Well at least I know it's possible that reassuring.
I will stop trying, for now, I've taken a big step forward with this discovery it's enough for today.
The whole thing was surprisingly exhausting, let's go to sleep for now.