I opened my eyes to find myself in bed with my parents. They were in the middle of a discussion.
“So, what do you think of Oliver?”
Oh, nice one. Please let me have it.
“I like it. Better than my name, that’s for sure. Who names their boy Tristan anyway?”
“Why, I like your name, Sir Tristan Hudcalon,” my mother chuckled.
“Hey, that’s your surname too, however ridiculous it might sound,” my father whined in response.
As a cheeky smile was forming on my face, I was reminded of my situation. I hated to interrupt their conversation, but I smelled rather bad. So I did what any baby would, and began crying.
“Oh, I think he doesn’t like his name, honey,” my father concluded. I reflexively shook my head, I liked that name.
“He stinks, I guess he pooped on himself. Will you, my dear?” my mother asked as he pointed down at my undergarments. My father’s face immediately fell as he picked me up and accompanied me to one of the more embarrassing moments of my life.
My father picked me up again and we moved towards the kitchen. It was my first time clearly inspecting my surroundings. Everything looked ancient. Not ancient in an old, rotten way; like straight out of a history book. The wooden structure of the house, the thatch roofing, oil lamps rested on walls, a longsword by the door, wooden plates and tankards on the table… I felt my eyes widen in shock, I really was in mediaeval times.
For the first since my… death, I seriously faced the absurdity of my situation. I was in a newborn’s body, my old life behind. With my memories intact nonetheless. Reborn or… reincarnated. Had I seriously died? That’s such a shame, I was just starting my journey. Oh man, why did I have to die?
“Is he alright?” my sister asked as she pointed her chubby fingers at me. My father quickly looked at me with an immediate concern on his face. I tried to lift my hands to cover my face, but they were too weak. Then I realised I had tears wetting my face.
“Hey honey, can you conjure a lightball, it worked whenever Evelyn was crying,” my father turned to my mother.
She kissed my forehead to grab my attention and lifted her hand. An orange fireball appeared over her hand, then slowly decreased in size and opened in colour. Soon enough, there was a tiny white ball over her hand that started flying around me.
What?
A chuckle came from Evelyn.
“It worked, so pretty…”
On the other hand, I was trying to comprehend what I was seeing. Tiny lightballs no more than 2 centimetres in radius continued to appear over hand and flew around me.
“I seriously can’t understand how you have such fine control over mana,” my father commented.
What, “Ma-na?” I involuntarily mumbled the word. I lifted my hands to cover my mouth, to no avail of course. I shouldn’t even be able to speak yet!
“Holy shit…”
“Language, Tristan!”
“He just spoke honey, he– he said mana.”
“I heard it, but calm down.”
My father took a deep breath as lightballs around me dispersed to air, much like how they formed. It was too much for me, as I could feel my eyelids getting heavier. Processing the shock, I fell asleep.
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Waking up for the second time in the day, I found myself alone in a huge double bed. From the table sounds just on the other side of the wall, I could tell I wasn’t asleep for long.
Mana, I thought with a long sigh. That was magic; plain, straight up magic. I can’t believe it. I had thought I was just in mediaeval times of my world, but that wasn’t the case. I was somewhere else, somewhere magic existed.
I took a few more minutes to organise my thoughts and began crying. It was my only way to communicate from afar, after all.
Or not, I thought when I saw the look on my parents' and my sister’s faces. I can’t believe I just spoke aloud like that.
Erasing the curious look on her face, mother picked me up. She sat on the bed with me on her lap and hushed the two away. My father flashed a smile to my mother that I wished I couldn’t understand. After all, which man wouldn’t want to see his wife’s breasts–
Of course I’m not old enough to be fed normally, I thought as my mother began breastfeeding me. I didn’t know whether it was because I had already started to perceive her as my mother or because of my infant body, I didn’t find the situation sexually stimulating, which I was glad for. On that note, the milk was strangely delicious.
With my stomach full of warm food, I drifted off to sleep again.
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I spent the next few weeks in a similar state, half-asleep. I was often presented with lightball shows, as my mother quickly noticed my interest in them. Our neighbours from the village–yes, we were living in a village–made rounds congratulating my parents for the baby. As weeks turned months, I felt my motor control developing. I had finally mastered my own bladder after turning just two months. I began crawling around two weeks later, then learnt walking after another week. It felt great to be walking again.
My parents were more curious than they were shocked as they witnessed the fast development of their second kid. My older sister, Evelyn, was nothing short of a marvel, but I was even more so.
Well, things didn’t end there. After I turned six months old, on Evelyn’s sixth year birthday, my mother successfully awakened my sister. Awakening was the birth of a mage, as one needed to build a mana core to use magic. From the clever eavesdropping I had done over the six months, I learnt only eight to ten percent of the population awoke as mages, and mostly did so at ages of ten to thirteen. It was a biological process that occurred naturally. Evelyn’s awakening was super early and was thanks to the efforts of my mom. She had been developing a method to help children awakening. Evelyn hibernated for three days straight after an urge to eat as much as she could passed over her. Her body built structures needed to control mana, namely mana veins and channels. As both of my parents were mages, they didn’t really talk much about these, so I didn’t know what each part did, but that would change soon enough.
After Evelyn woke up from her slumber, lessons on mana began. As a backseat guest that wasn’t supposed to understand what they said anyway, I enjoyed my mother’s lessons alongside my sister.
She first began with four types of mana humans were able to manipulate. Earth, water, air and fire. Then she went on about what different body parts were used for. Mana core was responsible for purifying ambient mana from its elemental properties and storing it for further use. Mages had to use purified mana to cast any spells. Mana veins were used to circulate mana inside the body, whereas mana channels allowed mana to cross between the body and the environment, whether it was for sucking mana or casting a spell.
The next topic was the types of spells. Although there weren't any clear classifications, my mother used three groups to explain them. Augmentations, conjurations, and manipulations. Basically, augmentation type spells were where the spell affected the mage’s own body. Most known examples were the body strengthening spells. Conjuration types were where spells took effect outside the body, such as earth bullets, fire and waterballs. Manipulation types were the one step ahead version of conjurations where a mage not only used purified mana from their core but also further used it to manipulate mana already present in their ambiance. These spells required a huge amount of mana and very precise control over it to cast, but also was leagues above any conjuration spell.
My mom also had a theory on elemental affinities. Most of the mages were of solo affinity. She believed in earlier years of childhood, when a mana core was forming naturally, a child was able to sense all four elements, but in years to come, they leaned on their natural tendency and lost sense of other elements. For that reason alone she was determined to educate her children on all four elements. For all I knew, that might’ve been the sole reason why she wanted to have children, as she was only a triple-elemental.
As my mom assumed a meditation pose with Evelyn to teach her how to gather and purify ambient mana, I tried to do the same. Of course, I didn’t have a mana core to sense and gather mana, but that didn’t stop me from trying. As a baby who was six months old, I had nothing else to do.
I had to assume I spent well over an hour fooling myself into believing I could sense a magical power around me. Of course, no mana core meant no mana sense, so my efforts were fruitless. Just as I was preparing to get up and stretch my legs, my father entered the house, picked up his longsword and left. I had seen him do that numerous times, but I was always too sleepy to watch what he did. But, for some reason, I was feeling rather energetic, so I got up and followed him outside.