I was dead...
"Well fuck," I pouted to myself, this was boringggg, surely this wasn't to be my fate for all eternity. It'd already been at least 3 minutes, which was frankly a rather excessive amount of time for absolutely nothing to have happened. Made even worse by the fact that I was nothing more than a rather dark purple floating light, "Where are my hands?" I lamented. I was surrounded by a seemingly endless expanse of nothing but the occasional soft blue light which seemed to just fade in and out of existence. It was like I'd been stranded inside the home screen of some video game console, but the menu had disappeared as well as the soft background notes that would typically play.
Thinking about it, I wasn't even sure how I'd died, although I was kind of hoping for a truck related death. Everyone knows afterall that getting hit and killed by a truck has the highest chance of getting you sent to another world. "Boy wouldn't reincarnating in a fantasy world be cool," I muttered to myself as I began to aimlessly wander around the seemingly endless place I'd found myself in.Strangely moving about felt similar to how I would manipulate my dreams when I would lucid dream, I kind of just willed myself to move and it happened.
As it was, there wasn't much else to do and thinking about the past seemed kind of moot at this point; and the more I focused on my memories the less real they felt anyways strangely enough. "Well I suppose it doesn't matter much at this point anyways, seeing as I'm dead and all, strange that I can even talk without a physical body." I said continuing to walk, or rather float around, getting farther and farther away from where I initially was. Some of the background lights appeared to be getting closer and closer, and also less ethereal loooking. Having nothing else to aim for I made it my goal to approach them and see if I could somehow interact with them.
Suddenly a voice sounded, seemingly from within my own conscience, "Ah, please don't wander around too much. We're currently behind schedule but should be with you in due time. I ask that you remain patient until then." Reminding me of a receptionist for a doctors office informing me that I'd be seen soon, despite the fact that it'd already been hours since my scheduled appointment. If said receptionist had one of the most beautiful sounding voices you'd ever heard that is.
"Excuse me, angelic receptionist lady? can you explain what's going on??" I paused waiting for a response briefly to see if the random voice had any answers for me before I continued on towards the multitude of little lights that was slowly but surely getting closer to my own. Hmph, "Should've given me something to do if they didn't want me to wander off, and won't even answer me. It's not even like there's any trouble I could possibly cause by just wandering around this place, the only thing here is these little lights anyways," I said, finally close enough to reach out for one of the little lights, not realizing what I was about to do was probably the start of nearly all my future troubles.
Strangely enough, despite only being a small light myself I could reach out and interact with the little light in front of me, and being the curious person that I am, I did just that.
The soul has come into contact with mana for the first time.
Fixing. . .
[ Creating Vessel ]
Fixing. . .
[ Creating Higher Grade Vessel ]
Fixed. Vessel capable of containing primoridial mana created.
I was briefly and vaguely aware of several screens flashing in front of me in succession, too fast to make any sense of or even be surprised by before I felt an intense burning inside of me making me utterly incapable of focusing on anything else. Strangely enough, the burning didn't hurt but instead felt like a space inside my body, if I currently had one, was being carved out and expanded upon. Then, something new was added to me, feeling almost like a second stomach deep inside the core of my being, but like one I'd never put any food inside of, which I suppose was accurate as it wasn't there before. Then the little blue light I'd reached out for was sucked inside of me, causing a strange but all too tiny warmth to bubble up inside of me.
"I need more of those little blue lights."
An unkown amount of time later I realized I may have gone a little overboard, looking around I could no longer make out even a single of the lights that'd previously been the only other things to take note of wherever it was that I'd found myself. Still I was feeling quite content as the warmth from the little lights gathered inside of me was substantial now, and extremely comforting. Due to this comforting feeling, I was positive that I'd done something right, despite not having a body I felt complete, in a way I never had before while alive. If I'd bothered to pay attention to myself I'd have noticed that where before I was just a dark and small purple light, I know was near blindlingly bright to behold, and substantially larger.
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"Angelic Receptionist" POV
"Oh my goodness." I muttered to myself in disbelief, after turning my attention back to one of the many souls slated for reincarnation under my jurisdiction who'd been left to wait, I was busy afterall. However, I'd gotten a strange notification that the ambient mana making up one of the multitude of containment planes had sharply declined for some reason. "She hasn't even been here an hour! How does some random soul from earth do this?! They don't even have mana there!" I complain, "She shouldn't have even known how to move around, let alone absorb the flipping mana around her."
I had to calm myself down though, I had an image to maintain after all, being an all-powerful extradimensional being. It wouldn't do to have my disbelief show and give some fledgling soul the wrong ideas about how death worked. Also it's not like the problem isn't fixable, it's as simple as redistributing some mana really.. it just meant that some souls I'd normally be in charge of would fall through the cracks around the edge of my jurisdiction and end up drifting for all eternity, "Oh well, if anything she's saved me some work hasn't she?" I think, smiling to myself now as I prepared to speak with the little troublemaker. Who was now blazing like a purple inferno from where her soul previously would've barely amounted to a flickering candle, "Y'know, I'm sure that won't cause any problems," I say, knowing full well it will, "I'll just send her somewhere where magic is common."
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Finally! The voice in my head had returned! And not the normal voice in my head either, which I'm pretty sure is just me, but an actual voice! Angelic receptionist lady had returned after what must have surely been hours if not even days, time in which I'd certainly listened to her previous instructions and not completely disregarded them. "So can you explain what's going on miss angelic receptionist lady?"
There's a brief pause in which I'm sure she's contemplating how best to communicate with me in a way that my pitiful mortal brain can comprehend and not at all because I just referred to the being which lords over death as "Angelic receptionist lady."
"Ahem, well your soul has fallen under my purveyance which means that you'll be getting reincarnated. However, due to your... now unique circumstances.." she says sounding slightly exasperated, and for someone reason I momentarily feel like I've somehow done something wrong, "your soul is no longer suitable for the typical worlds that earth souls are eligible to reincarnate into."
So I was apparently going to get reincarnated! How exciting, I hope it's somewhere with magic, or if not magic then technology so advanced as to be indistinguishable from magic to me. "Can I go somewhere with magic?" I eagerly ask whats been more or less dominating my thoughts this entire conversation, "I really wanna go somewhere with magic."
"That was my intention now that your soul has come into contact with mana-"
"So when can I go?? How're we doing this, will I like take over someone's body and have to fulfill their dying wish? Or maybe you'll open a portal, and I'll be dropped into the woods somewhere? Oooh, maybe I'll be summoned as a hero to fight against evil?"
"-Well since your soul is already of a considerable strength," she says, and I get the strange feeling she's annoyed with me, "I can send you immediately, do you not have any questions about how you died or anything like that though?"
"Not really? I'd much rather focus on what's going to be my new life than worry about how my old life ended." I claim, trying to sound wise, and not at all like an excited little kid before christmas at the prospect of being able to live a life with actual magic. I'm like 90% sure she's been fooled by my brilliant acting although I can't be certain.
"Very well, then I wish you happiness in your new life." And as her voice fades away, already I struggle to clearly recall that place as I feel myself being whisked away across time and space.
First there was nothing, and then suddenly everything came back.
First sounds, an incessant whining like the crying of a newborn. I felt warm, and wet, and like I'd been squished down to be smaller than I'd ever been somehow. It was dark, "could I be in a cave?" I thought until I realized I just had my eyes closed.
Then colors and lights as I opened my eyes, and took my first look around my new world. Everything was incredibly blurry but I could tell I was surrounded by giants! I tried to cry out and that's when I realized I was already in fact crying. The constant whining noise was actually me crying, I'd been put in the body of a newborn baby, "Thank god I wasn't alert through the process of being born, that could've been a nightmare." I seemed to be surrounded by what were presumably my parents and a couple others, doctors? nurses? maybe midwifes? I couldn't be sure as I knew nothing about this new world I was now a part of.
"I hope there's at least showers and toilets here," I think to myself suddenly wishing I'd tried asking for some info about the world I was being sent to, "What if people don't regularly bathe? Or there's no proper toilets??" I involuntarily began to cry even harder at that horrifying thought. Thankfully I'd find out my concerns were for naught rather quickly.
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Mother's POV
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
"Well at least she's got healthy lungs," I say as I take hold of my new daughter, who for some reason abruptly started to cry even louder which I try not to take personally, "I'm sure Rone would've cried himself if that was her first reaction to him holding her." Thankfully, although we were in a fairly remote town in the eastern reaches of the kingdom we still were able to find a proper doctor and due to their magic the our new daughter was delivered without any cause for concern. However they don't have an awakening stone here so it'll be awhile before we can get that taken care of and gauge which of mine or my husbands talents and affinities our new daughter inherited. "From her looks though, she definitely takes more after me," I think smiling to myself slightly, she's got my same piercing violet eyes, which almost seem to glow with intelligence and power, and her hair although short, is the same obsidian color as my own with it's slight purplish sheen in the light. "Looks like she didn't get your charcoal hair or silver eyes Rone," I say poking fun at my husband, "Shame we can't check her stats and see just how much she'll take after me unless we postpone our mission to go to a larger town or city."
"It's probably best she takes after you Alianna, I'd rather our daughter inherit your beauty over my gruffness," Rone says, laughing, "If you're eager to have her stats tested, I suppose we can begin making our way to Treyvol after you've had a couple days to rest, although I'm willing to bet she'll inherit her affinities from you as well, aren't all the awakened women in your family born with an affinity for lightning specializations?"
It was true, my family was especially well known for their high affinity for lightning. While his family varied a lot more, leaning towards higher fire and earth affinities. "You're probably right," I say sticking my tongue out at him then winking, "maybe the next one will be a boy and he'll take after you." I laugh as he blanches slightly at the thought of having another child so soon, we are adventurers after all, quite well known ones at that. While one child on the road might be manageable, two would likely be pushing it.
I focus back on the decision before us though, Treyvol being the closest town large enough to hold an awakening stone, but it was nearly a month east from their current town of Trent which was located in the extreme southeast corner of the empire. Due to my pregnancy we'd been given the fairly easy task of searching the southeastern border of the empire for any new dungeons that may have been born and gone unnoticed. Since the empire was currently at peace, such tasks basically amounted to vacations for us. The question is if we should finish our surveying of the southeastern border for any signs of increased ambient mana, or temporarily postpone the mission to awaken our daugther. Awakening was important since it had to be done before the age of 5, but it was beyond unlikely that we'd take so long to traverse the length of the border we were in charge of.
"Before we decide what to do for now, we should name her," I say nodding to Rone, beginning to gather the mana inside of myself as he does the same to bestow our daugther with her name, she'd finally stopped crying and is now staring at Rone and I intently. "How intelligent she looks already." I think to myself before we both speak in unison bestowing her name with a little bit of our power.
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Congratulations! You have been given a name infused with the power of your parents mana, all stats will go up by 1.
Name: Syllara Illionan
Extra stat point retained for further distribution upon awakening.
Time remaining to awaken: 1,824 days, 23 hours, 52mins
"Holy shit," I try to say to myself although it ends up sounding like your typical baby noises eliciting smiles from who I guess are my new parents, but the ability to properly use profanity is something I can put off for now. I had a name! And more importantly this world has a system!! I don't know what it means by my mana not being able to get the +1 that apparently all my other stats received but unfortunately there's nothing I can do about that right now. Nor did I know what awakening referred to, some sort of quest perhaps? Over 1800 days seems pretty generous for a quest though, I could definitely worry about that later. Once I learn how to use the system though I could figure it all out I'm sure, oh I just couldn't wait! Although being a newborn baby I unfortunately didn't have much choice in the matter, my body wasn't developed enough for me to do more than cry, and make vague noises at the moment. I couldn't even lift my head by myself for fucks sake. Surely being an adult trapped inside of a babies body can't be that bad though, righttt??
4 months later
Being a baby fucking sucksssss. I've been travelling with my parents for months now I think, their names are Alianna and Rone Illionan. A fairly respected adventurer couple, judging by the reactions and treatment they've gotten the few times we've been in any sort of proper town or village since my birth. At first I was excited to get to travel around a brand new world considering how expensive travelling on earth could be. But I can't fucking see!! Babies eyes' take months to properly develop so I haven't been able to appreciate our travels at all, I can hardly even make out how my parents look, although sometimes if I close my eyes and focus I feel like I can sense them. Mother feels like when you're charged with static electricity and you get close to a piece of metal without touching it, the subtle build up of positive energy but without the ZAP! Father is harder to feel, like a soft heat emitted from something that's been sanded down to be smooth and polished. Since I don't really have anything else to do I tend to focus on these feelings, I find it strangely comforting to be able to sense my parents when they're nearby and I focus internally. I don't think this was something you could do on earth, perhaps this was the most basic of ways to use mana?
6 more months later
It'd been 10 months since my birth now, weirdly enough my parents don't find my rapid development too strange, I can crawl and even stand! Albeit briefly. I swear my head must be abnormally large it's so hard for me to balance for more than a moment, I still lack a lot of muscle development being less than a year old after all though. Learning to speak has been surprisingly difficult, I always sucked with other languages on earth, thankfully my baby brain truly seems to be a sponge for new information so it's not entirely hopeless. I can also properly see now, this world is incredibly beautiful, a true fantasy wonderland! I've even seen massive islands floating high in the sky when the clouds part, and two moons!! And the stars, I genuinely burst into tears at them the first night I truly got to look up at the sky, there's no pollution it seems, so you can even see what must be the bands of whatever galaxy we're in, it's incredible. The atmosphere must be slightly different as well, because the sky has a slight emerald tint to it, instead of the blue of earth, which I think means less nitrogen and more oxygen but who knows, the periodic table could be completely different in a fantasy world after all. I've also figured out what my parents are doing out here for so long, we're apparently looking for a dungeon! Dungeons are real, like not the medieval places where people got tortured but actual story dungeons, massive underground creations that expand and grow, filled with loot! My goal already is to conquer every dungeon in the world and become the strongest adventurer!! Unfortunately I still haven't figured out how to use magic or even open any basic menu of the system at all in these 10 months. I've gotten decent at sensing my parents aura as I've taken to calling it though, now mother feels more like those big suspended powerlines but like one that doesn't lead anywhere, just raw power contained inside her looking to ground itself. Father feels like a refined piece of metal used to forge a blade, folded in on itself with the impurities hammered out numerous times but the blade has yet to cool down, like the inside would still be red hot. More and more often I wonder just how powerful my parents truly are in this new world.
13ish more months later
We're on our way to the town of Treyvol now, sadly no magical dungeon was found but I think this mission was meant more as time-off for my parents anyways. I can't believe it's been just under 2 years since my birth. It's almost strange how quickly time has seemed to pass, like if this were a book the author would be skipping a lot of my earliest development so they can write about more interesting things than a baby in a fantasy world. We should make it to Treyvol by the time I turn 2 years old, and that's where I'll finally get my system properly activated! Apparently cities and medium sized towns will have some sort of crystal that displays your stats for the first time, which they call "Awakening." I'm not sure how it works or why the smaller villages and towns don't have access to them but you need to have one of these crystals used on you in order to unlock your system for personal use as well as your magic it seems.
Not everyone is allowed to use these crystals though so I guess I was quite lucky to be born to my parents who are allowed access to them due to their standing. How sad would it have been if I'd been reincarnated in a fantasy world but born to a family somewhere that's not given the privilege of awakening. It makes me wonder though just how class driven the empire really is, do the elites controlling most things while the commoners don't have access to the same oppurtunities and are even forbidden from some of them? Oh, and our kingdom is called Veera; a seemingly prosperous nation, ruled by a king who's apparently been the king for hundreds of years! I can still hardly believe people can live so long here, but if he's been ruling that long it must mean the nation is quite stable. I hope he's not some sort of all-powerful tyrant ruling with an iron grasp though. "Knowing his age does add becoming immortal to my list of goals though, and maybe following that is taking over the world, who knows." I think to myself as I giggle in a totally normal for a two year old and not at all maniacal way, pretending not to notice the concerned stares of my parents.
"Mama, there yet?" I ask for what must have been the 700th time, making a proverbial ass of myself. I snicker briefly from my mother's back where she typically carries me. Judging by the vacant expression on fathers' face to my left, he's long since decided to stop paying attention to my antics.
"Syl, you'll know when we're there. Why don't you take a nap sweety? Cute as you are, dad looks like he can't handle it anymore."
"I know they say terrible twos, but I hope this isn't some sort of omen for whats to come," I barely make out my father say under his breath. But when he looks at me he can't help but start to smile as I tilt my head to the side seemingly in confusion at what he said.
As gruff as Rone tries to act, he's definitely the one to spoil me far more than Alianna. He especially loves trying to show off and look cool in front of me, though I haven't actually directly seen either of them do anything beyond the most basic of magic I think I've trained him quite well these past 2 years. "Papa, show Syl magic pwease!" I demand, even referring to myself in third-person to seem more cute so that he'll agree, today would be the day I see real magic! Jokes aside though, both of my parents seem to be incredibly powerful. At least by my standards coming from earth, I used to practice martial arts and gymnastics, but the strength, dexterity, and stamina of my parents is leagues above any blackbelt or gymnast I'd ever encountered. Not even mentioning their magical apabilities which I'm sure catapults them far beyond my comprehension of what humans should be capable of.
Rone glances at Alianna briefly as if to get her permission, which thankfully she seems to acquiesce to the display, then taking a moment to decide what he could show me that I'd find suitably impressive without being scared, he set his sights on some poor unsuspecting tree along the road which we had been travelling on. He goes over to the tree and takes a moment to stand there and I can sense that he's gathering his mana into his core, before sending it back out throughout his body effectively circulating his internal power almost like veins circulate blood. I begin to wonder just how skilled father is to be able to guide his mana through his body so intricately before I'm snapped back to attention as he reaches out his right arm and places his palm against the trunk of the tree. I vaguely sense his aura spike as he suddenly exhales, and then all of the leaves explode outwards from the branches of the tree, where time almost seems to freeze as they're briefly suspended before gravity takes hold once more. Father is just getting started though, as the leaves start falling down around him my eyes can only widen in amazement as I see hundreds or maybe even thousands of sparks fly out of his body to ignite each and every leaf before it falls to the ground, burning in a multitude of colors like some sort of magical firework.
"Holy shit, papa is the coolest!!" I say in awe before I realize I'd just cursed in front of my parents as a two year old, "It was my first proper time seeing magic though, I hardly think I can be blamed." I think, gulping as I feel the Icy gaze of my mother turning between me and my father in disbelief.
Congratulations! For using profanity at such a young age, you have earned the title: "Pottymouth"
"I didn't teach her that," my father hurriedly tries to defend himself, slowly putting the now leafless tree between him and his wife with a nervous chuckle.
"Mama, what's a title? And what's a Pottymouth?" I ask trying my best to look cute and innocent.
Father and I both had to wash our mouthes with soap everyday until we reached Treyvol. Also mother's magic is scary, "that poor tree..." I shiver at the memory, I did at least learn that titles are given conditionally when someone accomplishes certain feats, and some of them grant special effects and bonuses. Mothers title is "Lichtenfield" and fathers title is "Blaze Sword" which I think sounds cooler.