Another 6 months have passed. I am already a year old now. Within the last six months, I have grasped a lot about this world and myself.
First of all, I think I might be a genius. The pace of learning of this body is insane. It was modest at first, but the more I grow, the faster the speed at which I can think and progress in magic.
'It's terrifying how fast my progress in magic is.'
I could already use Five-Word Magic, which was beyond my expectations six months ago. If I am not a genius, then I don't know who is.
However, I understand that I shouldn't get complacent. Almost anyone could kill me if they catch me off guard.
I mean, of course, I am still just a year old.
"But I am a toddler who could bend reality."
At this point, it isn't 'that' easy to kill me. I could easily make myself invulnerable with the use of Word Magic. It consumes a lot of mana to maintain that state, but my mana regeneration is off the charts so it's bearable.
Well, it is not true invulnerability. A continuous barrage of attacks that could overcome my mana regeneration will still kill me. A surprise attack could also kill me since my reflexes and physical abilities are still those of a baby.
If I could somehow level up, maybe I will be able to do something about that. I could increase my physical attributes as well with Word Magic, but it's not efficient as I use all of my mana to train all day.
Well, it's pointless to be that paranoid in this peaceful and quiet village. It would just be a waste of time and mana. Also, it would make me more conspicuous. Recently, my mana has increased to a point where my parents have started to look at me oddly.
Specifically, my mother, who seems to have more mana than my father. How do I know this? Because my mana manipulation skills are finally starting to bear fruit. I am now able to sense all mana in a 10-meter radius and it continues to increase with practice.
I feel it will be very soon that I'll have a new skill in my status window.
My status hasn't changed much except for my mana and skill levels. I also naturally received a few stats just by growing up.
[Status]
Name: Rafael
Age: 1
Gender: Male
Class: Peasant
Profession(s): None
Level: 1
Title(s): None
HP: 85/85 MP: 47,820/47,820
[Stats]
Body: 4 Mind: 9 Soul: 9
[Passive Skills]
[Word Magic Lvl. 7] [Rafaele's Hyper Regeneration Lvl. 26]
[Active Skills]
[None]
"My mana really increases endlessly... but my stats..."
Man, I can't wait to level up. I can already walk, but of course, it's impossible to sneak out of the village unnoticed. My mother takes me outside quite a lot now. She was reluctant at first, but she agreed eventually upon the urging of my father.
"My mother really can't get over her trauma from that incident... I still feel guilty."
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I was able to meet many other villagers here. Our neighbors, Jan and Marie. The blacksmith Don and his son Didier. The herbalist that my mom often takes me to, Henri. The village chief, Mainard.
"They all think I am a strange child... Well, I am an adult on the inside."
Anyway, the village was definitely livelier than I expected, and the people were happy. There was plenty of food here. Although the hills and forests that were a short distance from our village were considered pretty dangerous.
As for the name, our village was called Windorf. It was rather small and was located in a forest clearing, surrounded by gentle hills.
The air here was so fresh that I could almost taste it. It was a stark contrast to the polluted air of the 21st-century cities.
"If the people of this world were to breathe in the air of Earth, they might suffocate."
There were other kids around who were of a similar age to me. Of course, they couldn't even form proper words, let alone talk as well as me.
'I am sorry, Mother, but like I said, I am an adult on the inside. It would hurt my conscience to play with toddlers.'
Anyway, I was finally sure that nobody in this world could see a status window. It was a power unique to me.
That made me a little bit more confident.
***
My magic training never stopped. I continued to try to manipulate magic in any way I can. I was able to expend mana from my body, taking hints from the workings of [Word Magic], but it was very difficult to understand the principle.
The mana that left my body was difficult to control. It would lose its shape and diffuse into mana particles. If I wanted to perform any magic, I had to maintain control over this mana.
My sole option was trial and error. Eventually, my continued experiments expanded my understanding, and I knew that it was only a matter of time.
The mana that left my body started to be influenced by my will, and I finally felt a connection that I hadn't experienced before.
I understood that the control ability of my magic was directly influenced by my 'Soul' stat. Whenever I flexed my imaginary mana "muscles", I was training my soul itself. It was when my 'Soul' stat increased by one that I was sure. Just a single point increment alone increased my control ability by quite a bit.
"I guess the 'Mind' stat increases the strength of my magic?"
I was able to form shapes with the intangible clouds of mana that had left my body. I began practicing with newfound excitement at this breakthrough. I perfected the formation of shapes. Cubes with jagged uneven edges became uniform like high-quality bricks. Spheres became rounder and smoother.
The formation of mana clouds became the base for performing magic.
However, I knew I was still missing something.
This something seemed to be a form. This mana could be controlled, but it was yet to be realized in the real world in a material form. At first, I couldn't understand how I could achieve this.
[Isolate.]
[Create Fire.]
A One-Word and Two-Word Word Magic manifested one after another. A fiery magical orb of fire floated in the air, encased in a translucent barrier.
This is what made me understand what I was missing: an attribute.
Mana particles appeared to burn in the air, but the mana itself was not burning; it simply changed its attribute. The mana was imbued with the Fire attribute. Similarly, magic water possessed the Water attribute.
I spent many weeks trying to understand attributes. All that work finally led to this point.
[Congratulations! You have understood a new concept: 'Attributes'.]
[The 'Attributes' tab has been unlocked!]
[You have acquired the passive skill 'Mana Manipulation'!]
I almost wanted to cry. My hard work finally paid off.
[Mana Manipulation]
[Grade: Unique
Level: 1
Description: A unique skill that increases base mana control ability by 100%. Allows the user to imbue nascent mana with elements. Increases the strength and range of magic by 100%.]
[Attributes]
[Fire: 30%
Water: 16%
Wind: 78%
Earth: 7%
Force: 90%
Space: 48%
Life: 2%
Death: 5%]
Force and Space? I barely had any aptitude for other common elements except Wind, but it seems I had aptitude for more unique elements.
I wasn't disheartened; rather, I was delighted. I instinctively understood through the system that I could increase my aptitude as well with rigorous practice.
***
I was outside on my own today, practicing magic. I was a year and two months old. Our house had a small backyard where my father would grow herbs. It was a small space, but it was open enough for me to practice magic safely.
Using magic was a lot easier than it used to be. The most aptitude I had was for the 'Force' element. It was a rather elusive element. It did not have a concrete form. When I first imbued my mana with force magic, the shape of the mana cloud I had chosen was a sphere. The cloud materialized in the form of a hardened sphere which was easier to control. It was not even visible; it was an invisible sphere of hardened force magic.
By applying more pressure to pushing it forward, it accelerated rapidly and crashed against a tree, leaving a small dent. Was this what you could call a [Magic Missile]? By making the mana cloud a sphere, the magic itself did more blunt force damage.
By manipulating the magic cloud in this way, I could even increase the size of the magic, and by manipulating its shape, I could give it another form such as a lance or a spear. Something that I've been practicing recently was forming more than a single cloud of mana and manipulating them both at the same time.
Safe to say, it was difficult.
[Your skill 'Mana Manipulation' has leveled up!]
My [Mana Manipulation] was already level 5. Its growth was faster than other skills, perhaps because I was always using magic at every waking moment.
It was fun to see the numbers go up.
[Mana Manipulation]
[Grade: Unique
Level: 5
Description: A unique skill that increases base Mana Control ability by 200%. Allows the user to imbue nascent mana with elements. Increases the strength and range of magic by 200%.]
It was only a week later that I was able to finally realize using multiple clouds of mana at once. It was two at first, but I was quickly able to form 5 clouds of mana at the same time.
"The trick was to blur my focus and to broaden my point of view. It's rather vague..."
A single large cloud of mana formed which split into five different clouds, which struggled to stay under my control. In essence, it was still a single cloud, but like arms and legs, the split parts were rather independent of each other.
It was similar to when I had circulated mana to all the different parts of my body.
"However, it still relies on my ability to control them."
They were not as perfect in shape as using only a single cloud of mana, but it was a satisfactory result.
At this point, I was able to perform what I called a [Missile Swarm]. Throwing all five force missiles at once completely demolished the tree that I used as the target.
[Reverse.]
The damage easily repaired itself. Without Word Magic, I wouldn't have been able to practice magic as efficiently.
"It's still my greatest ability."
Oh, right. I was not bringing the tree back to life. Even a fallen tree was still alive. I was simply healing it, repairing the damage.
However, I wondered in passing. What would it cost to create life?