Several weeks later

By listening to his mother's reading, Ariel in an amazingly short period of time managed to learn the writing of this new world. He didn’t know why it was so easy, but he credited it to the brain of a newborn.

From the books that were read to him he learned an abundance of information. At first his mother would only read him story and adventure books, but later on when she was picking ,which books to read she started reading their names out loud. This gave him a perfect opportunity.

Ariel needed to only show some kind of reaction when she read the names and then his mother would pick the book to read it to him.

Using this method he managed to learn the very basics of this world. Still the books didn’t have anything too specific, only the most essential knowledge.

First thing he learned was the name of this world, Saria. Just like Ariel has guessed, this was a fantasy world full of magic, fighting and abnormal things that you couldn’t find on earth, like monsters.

This world had 5 different continents, the biggest one was the eastern continent which currently is completely unexplored and unnamed, so there is not much information about it.

The other four continents all have their own race ruling over it. The continent in the center was as big as the other three habitable continents combined, second only to the eastern continent. The race which is ruling over this continent is of course the humans, who created kingdoms and empires spanning vast territories. They don’t have any unique capabilities but, are the ones with the largest population and the most adaptive.

The southern, or also known as the dragon continent, just as you have already guessed from the name is being ruled over by dragons and dragon kin. Dragons is the most powerful race which usually doesn't interfere with the ruling and are more like the continent's protectors, while dragon kin are outwardly almost like humans who have horns, but their strength couldn’t be compared. Their capabilities lie in a powerful constitution and inherited strength which could easily overpower most humans. They form clans who each follow a dragon instead of kingdoms like the humans do.

The western continent is ruled over by the beautiful elves. Mostly they keep to themselves and no one knows much about them, except that they excel in magic and aren't too kind to outsiders.

The northern continent is the last one, and is ruled over by demons. Demons seem to all be born with unique abilities, which correspond with their linage. They can be separated into species and usually tend to stay around their own kind, but they do have demon lords and demon kings who rule over them, and all they have to have to be one is strength to keep the title. Another interesting fact is that the northern continent has the largest amount of dungeons comparingly to all the other continents.

Yes the same fantasy dungeons that you hear about everywhere on eaeth. Further more it looks like there is an adventurer’s guild, but Ariel didn’t hear anything specific.

Back to the topic, even tough the demon continent has much more dungeons it seem to be less dangerous than the dragon continent because of the monster power scale, that is much higher in the southern continent.

If you are interested, the danger rank goes like this:

Eastern continent > Dragon continent > Demon continent > Human continent.

The western continent is unranked because not many people go there. Over all each continent is connected by the ancient gate ways on the human continent's four sides that people are free to use, except the on going to the elves continent which they took over and they allow only certain people through it.

He didn’t hear anything about his family but that was to be expected, to find out about that he would need to read some kind of archives, it is unlikely that random people would write about their family.

But there was something Ariel heard about that was very important, the power ratings of this world. It looks like. as far as he knows, there are 7 ranks which furthermore each have 3 levels.

Ranks go like this:

Acolyte < Disciple < Elite < Master < Grandmaster < King < Emperor.

These ranks also each have early, middle and late levels. All of them also need a breakthrough to be able to reach them. Ranks are naturally more difficult to breakthrough than levels. However it also largely depends on luck.

While listening to his mother he heard how warriors become stronger, he found out that they cultivate something called Inner Aura and the more they cultivate it, the stronger they get. When Ariel heard this he became exhilarated because he might actually get stronger in this world, but his dreams were instantly shattered when he heard his mother tell him that they first needed to have a powerful vessel.

Next subject however had once again ignited his hopes, as it was about mages. Mages relied solely on absorbing Mana and they had to train not their bodies, but their minds. So at that moment Ariel understood that the only way for him to achieve some kind of level of power in this world was to solely concentrate on magic.

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Unfortunately, unlike being a warrior, magic was something picked by chance, and it seems not everyone is capable of it. It meant that he couldn’t know if he had talent for magic until he was quite a bit older.

Right now Ariel was racking his brain about how to increase his Mana, if he did have talent for magic, before finding out about it, and realized that he wasted all this time, since absorbing Mana didn’t actually have anything to do with casting magic.

The problem was that the only thing that is known to him is that to absorb Mana, mages meditate. Yet he didn’t truly understand that completely, since warriors also meditate to increase their own Inner Aura, just like mages, but there are no books specifically about magic in his bedrooms bookcase.

When he was thinking about this, his mother continued reading a book, and conveniently enough she was reading about a mage meditating. Ariel, shaking out of his thoughts quickly pointed at the word meditating, in hopes of attracting his mothers attention.

Luckily his mother saw that and in a surprised voice asked. “Are you interested about meditation of mages?” Once again not expecting him to reply she continued. “Mages meditate to absorb raw Mana, they are born with a small Mana core inside their bodies which each have an affinity that specifies what magic they could use. That is also the reason why they can only use their own Mana and not all the abundant raw Mana in the air. When they meditate they should be able to sense the Mana in the air and slowly lead it trough their body to the Mana core which absorbs it. Warriors are quite different, but it seems to be the time for you to go to sleep, good night Sweety I’ll see you tomorrow.” After explaining to him about meditation his mother tucked him in and slowly left the room.

Unknown to her, Ariel was too exited to even try to sleep. He hurriedly sat up and tried meditating like his mother described it. Nevertheless he failed to feel anything inside or outside of his body which largely disappointed him.

After a month of trying he still couldn’t feel anything when he tried to meditate. On one of the nights, he had once again failed to find anything and could do nothing but sigh. ‘I can’t feel anything. Maybe I really don’t have any talent for being a mage.’ Slowly, unspeakable sadness appeared in his eyes, he was always weak in his previous life. The only good thing about him was his brain, yet everytime he met a situation where he needed power, Ariel would feel completely helpless. In this new world he had hoped that maybe he finally could get rid of that feeling by learning magic, but his hopes are being crushed every second that passes.

Once more sighing Ariel looked out of his bedroom's window. On the other side he could see a beautiful full moon that seemed to take up almost the entire sky. This was another thing he discovered, this world's moon was the most wonderful thing he has ever seen. Cold and detached like himself, always far away, yet people can’t stop themselves from being attracted to it.

He closed his eyes forgetting all his troubles for a moment, while feeling the moonlight on his skin and listening to the night critters through the open window. Right at that time he felt his consciousness slip away. When he came too it was completely black around him and he could barely distinguish it as his inner mind from simple instinct. Suddenly he slightly shook, as before him he could see a small little dot, almost unnoticeable, but for Ariel currently it was the most important thing in the world, his Mana core. It looked just like described in books, apart from its cold blue color.

Unfortunately, the excitement broke his concentration and he woke up, but that didn’t matter to him because he knew that someday he could use magic and that already made him satisfied. Ariel didn’t know, but the reason he wasn’t able to enter meditation before was because of his anxiety of fearing about himself not having talent. Now that those fears disappeared he wouldn’t have such a problem any longer.

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For the next several weeks Ariel has been trying to move on to the next step and succeed in feeling Mana, but once again he met a wall and only after few more weeks something finally happened.

One day he was once again trying to feel Mana. ‘There is nothing here. I don’t understand what, do I have to do.’ He was very frustrated because of the lack of progress. Fortunately at that moment he caught a sight of something at the corner of his eye. ‘What is that?’ Having that thought he slowly came closer, and as he did that, a happy feeling started going through his heart. No matter from which side he looked at it, It could only be a particle of raw Mana, the thing Ariel has tried to find for so long, without any luck.

He quickly tried to lead it into his body, but it was quite difficult, unlike he previously had thought, and it took a few hours to achieve. When the particle finally came close to his tiny core it started to be sucked in to it on it's own volition and Ariel could clearly feel how his core changed for the better as it's size slightly increased. Coming out from meditation he had a happy look in his eyes. From now on he had something to strive for while still being a baby, that is besides listening to his mother reading books.