I stood there in stunned silence for what felt like forever. How could we not have magic? Did that old grandpa lie to me? If he lied about that, what else did he lie about? “Though I believe one of your cousins was able to get the terrain affinity for their first talent,” she continued after a few moments. She may be a calm person, but she must have a dark sense of humor, trying to give a two-year-old a heart attack like that.

“What’s a talent, and what’s a terram affinity?” I asked. In all my years of life in this new world, I had never heard anyone refer to "talent" in such a specific way. I also didn’t quite understand the concept of a terrain affinity. Is it like an earth affinity, or is it more specific? Can you control all terrain, such as frozen terrain or even a lava pit? Once again, I was betrayed by my young body—I did not mean to say terram.

“A T-E-R-R-A-I-N affinity is the ability to control the very ground beneath your feet. As for talents, well, you will learn more about them in the future, dear. You get your first one when you are ten years old. Do you know how long you have until you are ten?” After that, my mother went back to talking to me like I was a baby. I mean, I was a baby, and she was remarkably good at using a normal voice instead of the typical baby voice, but that didn’t mean I liked being talked to like that.

While I wasn’t happy that I wouldn’t be able to start deciphering the key to the universe's building blocks yet, I was glad to know that I at least had a goal to work toward. This also made me realize that I should probably investigate the terms used for everything in this world. It would not be a good idea to go around calling something an earth affinity when it’s terrain, or air when it might just be wind or something else.

With that knowledge in hand, I went back to trying to meditate and develop an awareness of everything around me. The meditation training was easy. At the end of the day, before going to sleep, I would close my eyes and review the things I had done, trying to find ways I could improve while not allowing other thoughts to intrude. Whenever a random thought popped up, I would acknowledge it and let it pass, then continue with my review.

The more meditation I did, the more I found that the things I recreated in my memory felt more real, for lack of a better word. When I recreated something I had done or used, I noticed improvements when using those items in my mental training. However, when I tried to create something like a random person with a sword to train against, it seemed less real, and I never noticed any improvement.

The awareness training was going well. I won’t say it was easy, but it could be kind of fun. I would close my eyes and wander around my house, trying not to bump into things. The first time I tried it, I had never actually gone through my entire house before since, you know, walking was kind of hard. So, I ran into a lot of things. After that, I decided to walk around my house to create a mental map, then close my eyes and try to navigate without running into something—or someone.

Speaking of my house, I guess my father was a noble? Apparently, he was a knight and was, therefore, technically considered a noble. This allowed us to have a few maids in the house. Nothing crazy, mind you—just two who helped my mom around the house, Beatrice and Samantha. That was also how I learned the name given to my family when we became nobles: Obexis, which sounded like a Latin name, unfortunately since I never learned Latin, I did not know what it meant.

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After running into tables and Beatrice or Samantha several times over the next two years, I felt I was able to develop a sort of sixth sense. This sense allowed me to know when one of the maids was nearby, even with my eyes closed. Since I was able to sense where things were and move around freely with my eyes closed, I took some wax from a candle, made earplugs, and started all over. With the wax in my ears, I found I could still sense items or even the maids if they didn’t move too much or too quickly. If they moved quickly when I was near, I wouldn’t notice and would run into them again.

Another thing that happened was that my mother was pregnant and expected to give birth shortly after my fifth birthday. During those months, my father was around a lot more. Usually, he worked as a guard captain in the city, which is how he earned his knighthood—he saved a duke from an assassin while in the city. Unfortunately, a guard captain works from sunup to sundown nearly every day, so we didn’t get to see him often during the day.

I did my best to stay out of trouble and be as helpful as I could, which, to be honest, wasn’t very helpful considering I was walking around with my eyes closed and wax in my ears. But I was trying, and that’s really all you can expect from a four-year-old. I did, however, always ask my mother if she needed me to do anything or help with something, which she and my father both seemed to appreciate.

For my fifth birthday, my father got me a training sword and shield and even showed me some basic steps on how to use them. The shield felt fine, if heavy, but I can tell you now that no sword expert was going to take me on as a student. I tried the first step my father showed me: hold the shield up, covering most of your chest with just your eyes showing above the shield. Pretend to block a strike, then move the shield to the side and swing the sword in a diagonal slice from top right to lower left. I ended up hitting my own shield, which caused the sword to bounce back and hit me in the head.

As my father laughed uproariously at me, I slowed down and tried to do it again, only without hitting my shield. While I was able to complete the swing, the sword just didn’t feel natural to me. I could swing it just fine, but I felt I would do more damage to myself than an enemy if I tried to use it in a fight. I even tried a few more swings, and anytime I lost concentration, I hit the shield with my sword. Luckily, it didn’t always bounce back to hit me in the head.

I swore to my father that I would continue practicing every day, thinking it would at least help me build muscle. My new routine became, wake up in the morning, go to the yard to practice with my sword and shield, train my perception, go to bed, and meditate on the day.

After a few days of practice, when I wasn’t hitting the sword on the shield anymore, I started adding perception training to my morning workout. I started with the wax in my ears, though, instead of closing my eyes. I imagined I was fighting against an evenly matched opponent and that there was a second opponent I couldn’t see. As I fought the strong opponent, using the steps my father showed me, I imagined my perception picking up the other person thrusting toward my back or slicing toward a blind spot. I don’t know if this helped with my full awareness, but it was definitely pushing me to improve physically.

Only two months after my birthday, my little sister Ayla was born. I knew right when I saw her that I would make sure nothing ever happened to her. She had just a little peach fuzz on her head and the brightest blue eyes I had ever seen. My mom said my eyes used to be that way, but they changed over time to the hazel they are now. She seemed to already be paying attention to everything around her.