Being in prison and all I didn’t really have much to look forward to, other than my ‘acting sessions’ with Radix and the occasional interaction with Genesis. However I did have recreation time every day with the other kids that were in prison with me, but most of them didn’t have the greatest personalities, and let’s face it I was severely lacking when it came to interpersonal interaction after 120 years of moderate isolation, so I voluntarily excluded myself from playtime with the other kids.

Instead I pestered the guards supervising the children. The guards were very stone faced when I first started to pester them, but after a couple days they probably got permission from their supervisor on what they could say. I was then able to get answers to my questions about magic and some other things.

You would think that after reaching the age of 180 that I would know everything there is to know about magic and the world, but that was far from the truth. Unfortunately I had to focus almost all of my studies and research on extremely niche areas of magic that required me to basically build everything from the ground up. So, although I could be considered an expert in my field of study, I was severely lacking when it came to the diversity and basics of my knowledge repertoire.

Needless to say, my actions, which were strange for someone my age to be asking, caused me to gain a reputation as the weird kid even amongst a group of problematic children. My efforts to learn from the guards didn’t yield much, probably because they were limited in what they were permitted to tell me, but it did give me a better grasp on some common knowledge I was unaware of before.

For starters most people were only able to do magic at a basic level; things like household magic, or things that were very easy to learn and didn’t require much understanding to use like the basics of artifact use.

For those that did want to learn magic they usually had to wait until the age of 10 before they were allowed to start learning magic in public schools. This was because the mana reserves of most children before the age of 10 were still growing, so it was considered pointless to teach magic before then.

This was nice to know, and explained why nobody wanted to teach me magic, but I wasn’t like most other kids. I already had access to massive amounts of mana that I could use to practice magic when I wasn’t using it for other things.

Although beginning to practice magic by myself at the age of five would be shocking and would definitely make me look like a prodigy, I would have to practice and improve my magical abilities before I would be able to escape from this prison. Also I really didn’t want to be bored for 2 hours every day during recreation time.

So after a day of pondering what kind of magic I should start to practice I decided to start with divination magic. I was already very familiar with anti-divination magic due to my past need for it, and divination magic wasn’t flashy and it would be hard for others to determine how much progress I was making. Meaning that even though I was being monitored it wouldn’t garner too much attention.

There was other magic that I would need to practice before my eventual escape from prison, but I couldn’t let my captors know that I was capable of things like space magic and time magic. I would have to wait until I was sure they wouldn’t notice before I started to practice those kinds of magic and divination magic would help me accomplish that.

Divination magic was a magic rarely ever learned independently even though everyone was capable of doing it. This was because it was very difficult to decipher the information received from a divination, and the fact that it was hard to be sure if a divination was a success or a failure. The problem of deciphering the information was usually dealt with by using the right spell to convert the raw information into an easier to handle and understand form. This method was just fine for most purposes but meant that divination magic was usually heavily reliant on knowing the right spell and how to properly use it, this was one of the reasons why it was hard to learn independently. But this wouldn’t stop me, because I had my Adaptive Mind and my memories.

[Metaphysical Organ: Adaptive Mind]

: The adaptive mind affects the brain and nerves as well as the metaphysical mind. This makes things like learning and improving through repeated exposure much easier and faster.

This was a basic description of the organ but there was so much more to it that would take much too long to fully explain, after all anything having to deal with the mind was an extremely complicated thing. However I was going to use this metaphysical organ to learn divination magic in my own way.

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Basically I was going to blast my mind with the raw information from divination magic and wait for it to adapt to the difficult to understand mess of information. This method would definitely not work for most people and would probably be painful, but it was the best option I had available to me.

Fortunately my Adaptive Mind had already gone through a similar adaptation process before, so I should be able to avoid most of the pain that would come with this training process. However there would still be some pain involved because my magic would be sloppy and without finesse because I currently was a complete amateur when it came to magic ability. This was because I wasn’t able to send my mana core with me into the past and as a consequence lost all of my magical abilities and had to build them up from the beginning; making my divination magic training not as painless as I wanted.

After starting my training during recreation time I almost immediately knocked myself out. This didn’t stop me though and I continued to knock myself out for almost a week before I was able to control my magic well enough. The guards were helpless in regards to this training, after all what could they do, send me to a Mentalist? Oh wait I was already seeing one and I didn’t care what he told me to do.

This training didn’t go unnoticed by the kids, and all of them started to call me Reckless Radiant, while the guards didn’t seem to disagree, silently acknowledging the nickname. Well the joke is on them because this was entirely on purpose and was great for my front as a naïve child, I wasn’t upset and nobody could say otherwise.

After about a month and a half I was finally proficient enough to perform the most basic self diagnosis by relying on The System as a basis. Although I hadn’t unlocked the system yet, it was still present and I could use divination to see what it would display if it was unlocked.

[Status] Level: 0 | General Tier: 1

[Ancestry]-(Human) (TechnicMorph)-

[Titles]-(Dimensional Traveler) (Time Traveler) (Conqueror of Mana)-

[Stats]-Mana(Nebula: Tier 0; Cells: Tier 2)

Mana Regen(Nebula: Tier 0; Cells: Tier 2; Other: Tier 5)

Magic(General: Tier 0)

Constitution(General: Tier 0)

Senses(General: Tier 0)

Mind(General: Tier 0)-

[Unique Talent]-Tier 7 (Not Awakened)-

[Magic Core]-(Color: None) (Characteristic: Mana Cell Enhancement)-

[Metaphysical Organs]-(Core) (Adaptive Mind) (Fractured Space Channel)-

[Metaphysical Physique]-(Body of Artifacts)-

[Traits]-(Ornate Chains of Talent) (Enchanting Talent)-

[Blessings/Curses]-(The Ever Present Archives Level 1 Infinite Pass)-

[Active Skills/Powers 3/3]-(Power: Mental Operator; Evolution:0 Level:2) (Skill: Mana Maintenance; Level:3) (Skill: Acting; Level:1)-

[Inactive Skills/Powers 1]-(Skill: Research; Level:0)-

There was a lot to look at but most of it was within my expectations. There were three things that were new to me, the two new titles (Time Traveler) and (Conqueror of Mana), as well as a skill I had never had before (Mana Maintenance).

After some more wrangling with divination I got the description the system gave for the two titles.

(Time Traveler): Congratulations! You have successfully traveled through a substantial amount of time without dying or being killed. Time travel itself is dangerous, but even more dangerous are those who dislike time travelers. Powerful individuals rarely take kindly to those that mess with the sanctity of their fate, so the system reminds you to keep quiet about your time travel activities lest you end up dead like your predecessors that couldn’t keep a secret.

: It is now impossible for others to discover that you have traveled through time unless you make it obvious.(Seriously don’t tell anyone)

This title was a great blessing and was probably the only reason I was still alive and not erased from existence by some ultra powerful being by now. This was one of the reasons why I had to isolate myself for so many years, because the less impact I had on the world the less likely I was to be noticed and stopped before I could time travel. There were more reasons why I isolated myself, but this gave me reassurance that I had done the right thing. Next I looked at my other new title.

(Conqueror of Mana): Congratulations! Through a combination of factors you successfully wielded mana 100 times your own maximum mana reserve for an extended period of time without failing to keep control over it. It wasn’t ice mana or you’d be an ice cube. So be more cautious in the future, or not, it's your life after all.

: It is easier to sense differences in mana type and density.

I was wondering why it seemed so much easier to sense mana and now I knew why. This was an extremely useful title and I had definitely noticed its effect, although as it stood I was still only five years old and my mana sense wasn’t that great in the first place.

The last thing was my new skill (Mana Maintenance). It was exactly as its name implied and just helped maintain control over my mana. While it wasn’t that impressive right now it could grow into something much better and I was looking forward to it.

All in all, my daily life has been pretty calm since I came back to my life as a prisoner. However I knew that this calm wouldn’t continue uninterrupted for long. My older sister had made a visit to me around this time in my past and she was the very definition of someone with an explosive and abrasive personality. I was somewhat dreading the visit from her, but mostly I was just glad that I would get to see her after so long.