My birthday came and went with a simple celebration made up of just a special dinner and some sweets my mother personally cooked. A year had passed since I last thought about my past life in great detail.

An interest sprung from me which brought those memories of my past back to mind.

I wanted to study more about my condition. It helped that I kept up with my remedial courses about this world. No thanks in small part to my father's excellent choice in reading material.

In the latest book I read about the formation of the empire. I lingered on the minor detail about the man who had appeared to join in the defense of the capital of the empire: Honeyville. He was said to use only his bare fists and kicks to battle. It was unheard of, mostly because the existence of the sword styles alone proved martial arts needed at least a proper weapon to channel supernatural strength.

That wasn't the interesting part, it was the fact that he had admitted to sources of this book that he did not learn these techniques from our world but from another. He continued his explanation with the admission that as a boy he had grown up odd due to the lingering memories that came to him from birth.

He eventually forgot about the details of his past life, but when it came down to fighting, the moves he spent a lifetime honing resurfaced and saved him from death.

The only reason this man's condition was chronicled was because the emperor's magic instructor was a woman that shared a similar story.

This was the fuel that poured over my new intellectual desire.

As for my sword training, I was now five techniques deep. Still not even half way through.

'Alert Acrobatic Aesthetic', kind of a tongue twister, was a move that built on the second technique's result of adding distance between myself and the opponent. The dummy was of course more than happy to freak me out with its aid.

Instead of merely approaching me, the dummy launched pellets of cloth at me after I used the second technique. It was forcing me to utilize the next technique. The haphazard placement of several obstacles and structures of the dojo suddenly made more sense.

This third technique was another field maneuvering move. It allowed me to safely and smoothly dodge the pellets from the dummy without twisting my ankle or breaking my wrist.

The activation for this technique was more akin to the fear you get when you're about to miss a quick time event in a game. The risk was that I'd hurt myself if my legs didn't land in just the right way, or my hand and sword don't get a good enough grip.

Once I had enough of running around like a monkey, I used the new attack technique I learned.

'Jitter Driven Contortion', it was a strange move that required my body to be in a relaxed state, then in an instant a swing powered by an intentional tensing of my arm that pulled it forward. The swing was further reinforced by my body twisting to put all the weight on the wooden sword.

I liked to imagine the dummy was facing off against me in life or death showdown and the technique was my way of drawing and firing all at once. Kind of like a cowboy in a western.

I would cycle through the four techniques over and over. It was an exhausting set of moves that left me drained physically almost every day.

The fifth technique took a little getting used to before I could casually implement it into this delicate routine.

'Craven's Gaze', it was neither a maneuvering technique, nor an attack technique like the one before it. This was a targeting move. It tags a single foe with a tunnel vision focus. This was by far the easiest technique to activate, I simply thought of the dummy like one of those weeping angels or scps that snap your neck if you stop looking at them.

Easily some of the most terrifying fictional entities concocted while I was still a child in my last life.

Whenever I used the fifth technique, the rest of the arena became obscured and unfocused to my eyes which forced me to move based off my memory of the setup. In return I could naturally forge a path in my mind to instantly arrive to the dummy without getting struck by the flying pellets.

"Fantastic performance as always, master Fred."

Hilly maintained her promise to Carmin and accompanied me to the dojo every day. In order to keep up her efforts as a maid she would bring me a pitcher of water and a cup to keep me hydrated. On some days she would prepare me a snack if I was ever slightly hungry.

I appreciated the effort greatly. I considered her my personal cheerleader.

Father's lessons came next. In a year my siblings were finally able to confidently replicate what I had done on my first day with them.

"Ig!"

"Good Zues, now Vanilla."

"Ig!"

"Well done Vanilla, Luca go on."

"Ig!"

"Grand, now again!"

Of course they hadn't learned to cast silently yet. In place of silence, Father taught my siblings to use the lower power abbreviation. Every magic in every set had its own unique abbreviation. There were three tiers to these abbreviations: lower power, higher power, and supreme power.

Although I was more advanced in regards to chanting the magic, I was far behind in the size of my mana pool. My siblings, Zeus in particular, could probably last until the dead of night before their mana would run out from conjuring the same spells as me.

My mana pool only lasted up to half the practice time with the simple conjuring the water spell. Compared to the near instant limit I reached in a minute a year ago, this was a huge improvement.

"You're getting there, Fred. Thank you for being so patient. I know you would've preferred moving on with higher level magic."

"No. I know I have to work hard every day if I want to get the results I want, Father. I don't want to rush anything, you know better than I when I'll be ready to move on."

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My father patted my head with endearment.

"I'm glad you trust me, and that you're so dedicated. It was quite a hard road to get your older brothers and sister to do such a monotonous task every day."

"It's still a chore but it's not like it achieves nothing, I'm already lasting this long."

"I'm glad you can see that growth."

"Father could I bother you with a request?"

"Nonsense, you wouldn't bother me at all, ask away."

"Do you have any stories about people like the first emperor's magic teacher or the man who used his fists in the defense of Honeyville?"

"I'm not sure I understand your question."

"Do you have stories about people who claim to have memories from other lives? They're quite fascinating to me you see."

"About that. Hmm, let me think about it for a second."

My father pondered my question. I wondered if he suspected anything about me now that I'd gone and asked him about something that obvious.

"I might have a couple of books on the phenomena. The subject you're asking about is rather peculiar. Reincarnation, or more accurately the reincarnates. It might be a little too advanced, you've hardly had any readings about the gods and the church of the ruling gods."

"I did a little reading on my own about the ruling gods and the unruly gods too. Well, it was a pictured book and it was mainly about magic."

"Hmph. You really did get ahead in ways I can't believe. Regardless, I'll send some tomes covering the church and the gods. The reincarnates make more sense once you've come to understand the role of the gods and the world."

"Thank you."

"No, It's my pleasure to ensure your mind continues to unravel with knowledge my son."

Dinner came soon after. Cassie was the new addition to the table, it still hadn't become too cramped with all us children around the long table. Kraimer began boasting about how close he is to breaking through to the third rank in fire magic, Vicar. I still remembered the day Logan had explained the ranks to me.

That means Kraimer was getting close to being able to not just conjure his spells perfectly, but also teach that magic to others.

"Kraimer, pretty soon you'll have to help me teach some your younger siblings."

"What! I thought you said I'd go to the Magic academy soon. Maybe it's not my place to say it Father, but you should've maintained your chastity. Especially if training your own children would become a burden you alone couldn't handle."

"Hah! It certainly isn't your place to say, but I was kidding, of course. Indeed, when you're ready I'll enroll you to the magic academy. Your mother's been asking how much longer it'll take you."

"Has she? Will she finally come visit us?"

"Veruca has been quite busy to not drop by for nearly two years, hasn't she dear?"

My mother spoke up to pile on to Kraimer's concern. Veruca was my stepmother, I hadn't seen her for a long time. She was a noblewoman from birth like my father, but her duty to the magic academy often meant she would leave home for long periods of time.

My father had on occasion been called away as well to answer the summons of the emperor. He rarely took longer than a week to return. It happened recently this past year. He was only gone for three days, but I didn't stop my sword training, nor my magic training.

"She was asked to tutor the emperor's youngest daughter, it's an effort that's forced her to postpone her visits. If all of you would do me the favor of leaving this at the table. That child is quite unremarkable and lacks discipline for the arcane."

"It's unfortunate. But the emperor has no right to hold our mother hostage because his daughter's a dunce."

"I would agree, but it's not something I'm willing to go to war over. A letter from her arrived yesterday telling me that she'd finally have some time soon enough to see us."

"Well Mylo, we can start making preparations for her homecoming then."

"Right."

The rest of dinner didn't have anything else exciting to offer. I wondered what kind of person my stepmother was. It was obvious that with my few memories of seeing her in passing I didn't have any clue who she really was.

It was bedtime. I imagined what kind of pleasant hell awaited me as I removed my boots and outer layers of clothing. Teresa was quite witch-like for immediately giving me the worst nightmare I've ever had the same day I told her I wanted to keep going.

In that dream I found myself strapped to a table. There were many vicious looking people cruelly smiling at me. Then they plunged their knives into me repeatedly, I vividly imagined the metal that was slicing into my guts and chest.

This was the kind of fate that awaited me every night. I couldn't say I was getting used to it, but I also didn't think it bothered me enough to stop me from going to bed at the same time as always.

My heart rate was elevated as I pulled the cover over me. My arms were trembling as I put out the nightstand light. I closed my eyes tightly, but slowly afterwards, I relaxed my body and drifted off into a dream.

Slithering sounds echoed from all sides.

I felt the sliding and slipping of scale after slimy scale. Whenever I tried to grab hold of something to climb out, the pain of a penetrating bite forced me to let go. Even kicking around led to a retaliation of several bites across my legs.

I allowed myself to sink further into this pit of vipers. I would blink and open my eyes but all I could see were scales of varying shapes and sizes, they were brown and black with white streaks.

The blinking set the vipers off as well, I received lightning fast bites to all areas of my face.

My body reached a complete standstill, but the urge to reach the surface grew stronger than my fear of the pain.

I kicked up and pulled myself higher through the vicious vipers' biting assault.

Through every heart beat the burning sensation from the venom coursing in my veins pulsated.

I did not stop moving. The vipers took notice.

Scales became entwined around my limbs. The snakes were now aiming to squeeze me stiff.

I freed myself over and over again, the bites started to feel like hooks trying to pull me back down.

All of it did very little to prevent me from willing my body to move. The ocean of serpents finally ended, and I had reached the surface.

An invisible ledge acted as my final wrench to pull away from the encircling snakes.

One more snake chose to coil and launch itself right to my throat. I grabbed it with my freed hand and crushed its head bloody.

The serpents suddenly went quiet and stopped biting me. I properly lifted my self on the ledge. An unlocked door was waiting for me.

"For a minute there, I almost believed I pushed you too far and you'd let yourself sink to the bottom. Once again you did good, Fred. Care for some tea?"

"What flavor is it?"

"Whatever flavor you'd like."

"Sweet tea then."

"A rather distasteful selection."

"You asked."

She sighed before she conjured a different cup for my tea than the kind she used. It was a glassware cup that you would find in a bar or restaurant, hers was a traditional tea cup.

"Then go on and make it yourself."

"Alright. It's simple as just asking for it isn't it?"

"Go on and do it then."

I passed my hand over the top of the glass cup and called for it to be filled with sweet tea and ice cubes, along with a straw so I could sip it calmly.

The dream world was beyond the simple notion of concentration or effort, and the drink appeared as I had willed it.

"Perhaps children can more readily accept fantasy over reality, you are after all still six."

"You did remember my birthday!"

"You're my only source for the flow of time outside of this realm. Your appearances are my only indicator that night has come and a day has passed. Of course I'd keep track in my own way."

"You make me seem like more of a tool than a friend."

"I apologize but it is the truth. How is life on the outside anyway?"

"Well it's the same as always, sword training, magic training, eat, sleep, and wake up to do it all over again."

"I hope you're just summarizing and not seriously neglecting to give yourself time to spend with those you care about. I don't think you've ever expressly mentioned being alone."

"I'm not, I still spend time with my family. The other day I wrestled a little with my older brother Luca, my training made it way harder for him to catch me. I also go to the city with my family every so often and play with the friends I've made on the soccer field."

It may seem like isolation would be best for honing my skills in either my physical or arcane practice, but I still needed to maintain a public image as well.

Teresa let out a sigh of relief.

"I'm glad you're able to have such a vibrant life with people that you love, aside from all this fear business."

"Yeah, well it wouldn't be the same without having all of them with me to keep me going. You included."

"Thank you for that. You're one of the only people to come in here and not immediately hate me for the cruelties you endured in the nightmares."

"No problem."

I felt the tugging once more.

"Our time is up once more."

"Yup, oh I forgot to mention my stepmother is visiting soon, I might have something to tell you about it next time. If you want to hear about how it goes."

Teresa didn't care for how my progress in either the magic or sword department went, but for the little things in life she liked to be told about them.

"I'd love to hear about it."