Imperial Calendar June 22nd, 1006

My family sat around me in a semi-circle at the dinner table, me sitting on my mother’s lap while we all surrounded a very fresh and delicious smelling pie. It was my 2nd birthday; I was moving up in the world, ever so slowly.

“Happy birthday Ace!” Sang my entire family in unison. Even the ever-serious Nicholas wore a smile on his face today, turning slightly strained as he was being hounded to cut the pie for me. Situated around the table were four chairs; I sat in the middle with my mother while grandpa Uther sat to my right, Nicholas to the left, and my brother sat directly across from me. While we certainly had more fancy dining rooms, this one was easier to hold such an occasion, as it was smaller and more out of the way. The walls were made of an odd-looking intricate wooden design, with the floors made out of a lighter brown than the walls. The head maid, Serie, stood off to the side in the corner of the room, watching over the proceedings. She also had her daughter to take care of, so I hadn’t seen her all that much lately, but she had still decided to attend my birthday.

I had gotten used to my name, Ace, instead of Josh now, eventually being called something for so long ingrains a habit into you. Also, if you hadn’t already noticed, they used pie instead of cake in this world for birthdays. It was a bandicot pie, a fruit native to Ethens. It grew on trees in forests and was entirely pink and circular, with a small green stem on the top. It reminded me a ton of apples, which they had as well, but bandicot also tasted good when boiled and cooked, making it a staple in the country’s culture. Cake still existed as far as I could tell, but wasn’t used for celebrations very often.

I was finally handed a plate with the bandicot pie, readied my utensils (which I could now use), and began scarfing down the food. My teeth had mostly grown in now, so I was capable of chewing easily enough, but I doubt I’ll ever forget how much they hurt growing in. My mother patted me on the head and laughed at my gluttony. I looked up to see Nicholas handing a plate of pie over to my brother Calvin. Calvin, however, was looking right at me with an odd look on his face. It looked like jealousy but also bordered on disgust. He was now four and a half years old and had pieced together that he would most likely be the heir to the family. I could understand him being upset that my mother was showering me with affection, but seriously, that look was scary!

I returned to my pie and left it alone for now; after all, I was still two, so there wasn’t much I could do. I had started speaking in sentences nowadays though, so I gave a thank you, and I love you to my two parents, watching their faces light up with glee. I noticed Uther watching from the side, so I also thanked him and Hubert, who was perched comfortably on his head. He was still as strong as ever, I opened my mana sight on him every so often, and the mana he gave off hadn’t diminished even a little. Speaking of magic, my grandpa tested my affinities, which is how I found out I was continuing the family lineage with water and wind mana as my specialty. I was curious about what was up with the space mana; I had assumed I’d have an affinity for it when I realized all the stuff I could do with it.

For example, when it was nighttime, and I couldn’t reach the bookshelves, I used space mana to teleport the books right into my bed! I also noticed several things; starting off, I realized that I was just willing mana into my eyes to use mana sight. I had a sort of ‘core’ if you will; it was a circular ball of light that resides directly underneath the heart. If I focused on my body, I could feel the mana flowing through me. I had come up with the idea of using mana sight on myself. So, I went to the mirror and turned it on, and I could see the mana running through me. It followed a path similar to where I’d expect my arteries to be, all connected to my core. I tried to use the way Uthers mana circled his body as an example to help do it myself. I had been trying to loop the mana around my body, but it proved incredibly challenging.

When I watched Uther do it, he made it look so simple, but the truth was that it was akin to trying to control your blood flow consciously; it was a subconscious thing. Mana still flowed through my body but much, much slower than I would have liked. I had spent weeks trying to will the colorless mana to loop through my body until I finally achieved it! I’d suddenly felt stronger all over; I had even attempted to run. But the second I started moving my body from the meditative pose I’d taken, I lost all the control I’d built up and fallen over, back to your average toddler. It seemed moving around and sitting down were two completely different things. A quick side note is that the colorless particles were known as pure mana. It was mana generated from a core. People could will their pure mana to influence other forms of mana.

An example is when I had forced the mana attacking my soul to stop a few years back. If two people tried to exert control over the same particle of mana, then the stronger, more potent pure mana would win out. The only exceptions were if one person had an affinity for the mana being influenced and the other did not. So even if their pure mana was weaker, they still could force control over the other type.

Additionally, while different forms of mana seemed to exist everywhere, similar to atoms, you could convert your pure mana into any other form. So if I used my pure mana to create fire mana, It would change. The main drawback of this was that it costs much more mana to create your own than just utilizing whatever was in the area. On the other hand, if you had an affinity for the type of mana you wanted to create, you could expend much less mana to make it. So for me, producing water and wind-type mana was much easier than any other form. I had tried to create space mana out of my pure mana, but nothing had happened. It seemed it was just another way that space mana was an outlier.

In the present, I could walk around while reinforcing my body with pure mana, making the task much easier. I had learned in a book that children typically couldn’t manipulate mana until they were at least six, so doing this much was quite the accomplishment. I still kept it a secret from my family, though. However, the most shocking thing I’d discovered was the apparent rarity of the ability to manipulate space, and not just that, but the fact that the only way you could see space mana was if you had an affinity for it. The only reason the general public knew it existed was due to being told by spaces mana specialists that it was there. When my grandfather checked my affinities, he did not sense space, just wind and water. I decided I’d keep it a secret for now; it was so rare that the book I’d read said one human space mage comes along once a century.

With my mana sight on, I could focus on one spot, connecting the space mana into a gateway for short periods and over the distance of my room. That was how I’d managed to read so much, by teleporting books into my bed. Space mana sure was convenient. But for as convenient it was, it was also equally draining. Utilizing wind or water in small quantities wasn’t too much of a strain, but manipulating the space mana was nearly enough to knock me out every time I used it. Of course, that was while I was only connecting a small book over the distance of my room. I now had learned to keep up my mana cycle whenever I was alone; I had it going at all times as long as I was safe from prying eyes and could feel myself getting a little stronger with each passing day.

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The next most reality-shattering thing I’d discovered was that there were many other races of humanoid beings. Ethens was situated on the top of the continent, to its east was the Apax Empire, which we had been at war with until recently.To our south was the Great Forest of Atron, and the Kingdom of Atharia, a nation of normal humans. To Atharias west was the Drav Confederation, a country most inhabited by dwarves. In the book I had read this in, I was able to see a reference photo of the appearance of the dwarves; they were as large as I had expected them to look, about four feet tall with thick muscles and an affinity for earth mana. Even the females were stocky and usually muscular. Drav bordered Atharia to its east, the Atron Forest to its north, the sea at its south, and the country of Lusva to its west.

Lusva was probably the weirdest country I’d read about; It was primarily comprised of spirits. Angels and demons lived here along with natural spirits born out of mana. Yes, you heard that right, angels and demons lived together here in harmony, so much so they’d even named the capital city Harmony just to prove their friendship. As both angels and demons were classified as spirits, it seemed that many powerful spirits migrated there to live.

Spirits were all typically born from high-density mana areas. For example, a place like an ocean would be home to water spirits. Spirits gathered mana over time and could eventually evolve to gain a sense of self. After that, if they were lucky and had enough time, they could evolve into a humanoid spirit. Once a spirit reached this stage of evolution, it was said they were as strong as a thousand normal humans. Humanoid spirits also tended to have affinities for light and dark mana in addition to whatever else they had. They could shift forms at will and turn into a human or pretty much any race that caught their eye. They were normally also gifted with high intelligence and had been known to cause trouble on many occasions. I was inquisitive about whether there were any space mana spirits; if so, I’d like to meet one. This country bordered Drav, the Atron Forest to its north, and The Emerald Nation of Rosalia to its west.

Rosalia was a place of many greens, which is where it got its name from. It’s water was green, its housing was green, its food was green, just about everything. The people living here were demi-humans, meaning fox, cat, dog, and so on people. I was looking forward to seeing a bunny and cat girl when I got older. This country also bordered the Forest to its north and The Elven Nation of Esena to its West.

The book I read didn’t have much information on the elves; all that was known was that they were highly proficient in magic, on a scale completely different from normal humans, and that they did not welcome visitors. It was also known that they were a long-lived race, some estimates saying they could live up to 500 years. However, they did not have a high fertility rate but that was only one of the contributors to their low population. The other was that they had fought a large civil war, wiping out most of their population.

It was a lot to wrap my head around, especially the elves. If we had been living on the same continent as them for so long, then why did we know next to nothing about them? The next thing was about the Great Forest of Atron. It bordered nearly the entire continent, taking up more landmass than some countries yet had not been claimed by any. The only nation not sharing a border with the Atron Forest was Esena, the elves’ country. The book said that there was one city in the Forest, not ruled by any country, where there was a hugely diverse population of pretty much every race other than elves. The forest was also home to many unknown and dangerous monsters, much of it unexplored. I was particularly interested in who kept the peace in the Atronian Forest Capital city of Droskya. I remembered I had a world-famous adventurer beside me at the dinner table and decided to take a risk and ask.

I finished up my pie and wanted to get a map to ask Uther about Droskya, so I got off my mother’s lap before turning to her.

“I be back,” I said in my frustratingly frail voice before trying to waddle my way out of the room. It was frustrating not being able to use mana and even more frustrating when my mother picked me back up and placed me back in her lap. She nuzzled her head against mine and laughed when I giggled. I wasn’t” ”””” laughing cause I thought it was funny. At all. A quick side note, did you know that some babies are ticklish on their cheeks? Because I did, and it was not fun.

My mother started humming a tune and stroking my head while Uther and Nicholas talked about their upcoming trip to Ethen’s royal capital, Pride. It was one of his duties as a noble to attend. The problem was that it was quite a large country, and Clarity was located on the outskirts of the country, and was directly bordering the Great Forest of Atron. The travel time from Clarity to Pride by normal means was almost six months.

Thankfully for us, however, was the existence of what was known as the Eternal River of Renaissance. The enormous river flowed through the entire continent, from the tip of Elena to the edge of the Empire; no matter where you went, you’d find the Eternal River.

One branch of this river flowed from Lake Clarity to right near Pride. If you took the trip by river currently, it would take somewhere around three months. That was nice enough on its own, but the actual usefulness of the river came when the season turned to Vivall. Fall, Summer, Winter, Spring and Vivall. Those were the five seasons of the year, four of which were named similarly on Earth. While the language was different, the words meant the same thing, but Vivall was entirely new. Vivall was a shorter season, ranging from the start of the new year to the end of March.

Many places would experience unheard-of weather during this season, and mana levels would fluctuate immensely, sometimes involving fiery rain, blades of wind sharp enough to cut down houses or literal chunks of earth mana. However, each time Vivall came, it seemed only to change the weather for four to five cities, leaving the rest of the continent entirely unaffected, other than changing the river’s currents.

One of the only constants known of Vivall was the changing of the Eternal Rivers currents. They would shift entirely, becoming slower or faster and utilizing the ambient mana in the environment. One of the changes in currents involved the river speeding up immensely on the way to Pride from Clarity. The main drawback to this for ordinary citizens was that for safe travel on the river, you needed someone skilled enough in either wind or water mana for safe travel on the river to situate the boat and guide it along with the current for extended periods. The faster currents during Vivall let anyone with enough mastery of their vessels travel from Clarity to Pride in just under a month. The meeting Nicholas had to attend was timed precisely during Vivall so that many nobles would be able just to take the river and arrive faster, not needing to leave their respective territories for too long.

I wondered if Uther would be going. My grandfather was loving and kind, but he was also clearly aware of everything. He knew I could use and cycle mana, but he hadn’t yet talked about it with me at length. He’d even looked at my soul when I was born; I had no idea how much he knew or if he’d be mad.

The truth was, I was unsure of my existence. Was my being born here destined? Was I meant to die, survive and be reborn, or had I somehow killed the soul of the baby that was supposed to be born? I had no way of answering, but I didn’t know if that was the same for Uther. Uthers stride was always confident; his head always held high, he looked as if he’d be comfortable no matter what situation happened to him; it was as if he knew everything.

I didn’t know how old he was, I never asked, but he still looked young, maybe in his 50s max. The topic of his wife seemed purposefully avoided, no one mentioned her, and when something came up where she should be noted, my grandfather would always get a pained look on his face.

I resolved to ask Uther about my mana and the capital of the Great Forest, Droskya, some other time and decided just to enjoy my birthday.