Hiya! Your favorite reincarnate back on his grand adventure! I wonder what kinds of things we'll get to do today? Ryuhi narrated, as he lifted his right hand in the air, determined to reach his goal. Carefully setting his palm against the ground to ensure his balance remained steady. All right finally time for all my training to finally pay off! Lifting his left knee up he pushed himself forward landing on his knee preying. The mission was successful! Ryuhi crawled for the first time. His parents, and even Ally, stopped what they were doing to watch this triumph and exploded into applause in response to the completed movement!
"Whoa! I cant believe he's already crawling at 4 months old! That's *hick* about the same age as some of the greatest swordsman!" Avon called out drunken before returning to his mug. Ryuhi laughed internally, they don't really take note of those feats in this world, do they?
"Now, Now, there's no need putting that kind of stuff into his head at this age!" Twila scolded him, before lunging forward, pulling Ryuhi into her arms. "He just has to know he's the specialist boy in the whole world." Yeah, Yeah mom. Let me go, I was making some good progress here!
After another week I had managed to start crawling a few feet and withing the month I was able to start scooting around the house like a mouse. Or more accurately a rolling potato Ryuhi thought pointedly. He shook the thought out of his head. Focus, next step, see what kind of books these guys have. The potential magic books. His heart began to squeeze in excitement. Right so the first step is reconnaissance.
The following several days, Ryuhi began to place alphabet blocks into the doorway and hoped his parents wouldn't notice when the door didn't shut. Next he would wait until their footsteps quieted or stopped before he shoved the door open with all his might and would land in the main room. Then he would crawl really stealthily to another door that looked ajar. There were three other doors, the middle one lead outside. The one on the left was what he had discovered to be Ally's room, confirmed after he accidentally crawled in on her wiping herself down with a wet rag. Which was awesome until she grabbed him and gave him a bath. Luckily she assumed Twila left me there to bathe as a reward for a good days work.
But even after doing this for a week, not once was the other door left even slightly open despite how nonbaby proofed the rest of the house was. But that made the goal even more salivating to Ryuhi. Alright! Time to be more precise, patience is key after all, and I have all the time in the world. Ryuhi cried a little at the end.
The next two weeks whenever Twila in particular left the room, Ryuhi would strain his ears as he tried to hear where her footsteps took her outside this room, making a mental note every time he heard the right door close and about how long she was in there with three counts, short, a while, and forever. Anything higher than he could focus for was forever and anything past 5 minutes was a while. It's not an exact science but it gets the job done, Ryuhi thought.
Two day's after finishing his recon he set his plan into motion. He followed step one and two, perfectly landing in the living room, but as he pushed pass the wedge in the door he made sure to nudge the wooden block out of position into the main room with him. Grabbing the wooden block smirking, alright signs of my escape removed and key item acquired, now its time for the stealth mission. Ryuhi crawled carefully next to the door and hid underneath a wooden chair that sat beside it and laid in wait. After eight minutes, he heard the door swing open and watched his moms feet turn away from the door as she pulled in close. Patience. Her right foot swung forward and the door was still closing, this was his chance! Ryuhi pushed the block with a practiced accuracy, managing to stop the doors close quietly.
Ryuhi began to sweat as he watched his mothers feet start moving toward their room, that wasn't part of the plan! Her steps stopped, "Whoops wrong way, I'm just so used to going straight to my little Ryuhi but I shouldn't interrupt his nap". Ryuhi sighed in relief as she turned and went out the exit instead. Damn woman, gonna give a baby a heart attack! Though she wouldn't expect a baby to know her schedule more than she did. Ryuhi made sure to make a mental note of that for the future. But that brief fear melted away as his face turned up in excitement. Its time!
Pushing his way into the room he found what looked to be a small study with a desk that took up a good chunk of the room with one bookshelf pushed up against the wall. Target acquired. Ryuhi made a mad dash to the books grabbing the first he could grab and heaved it onto the floor. Panting heavily Ryuhi grabbed the cover and found the Title "The Beginners Principles of Magic". He flipped to the next page without any hesitation and began to read. Remember the Alphabet blocks well luckily it was normal for parents to hand down the same toy's they had as children to theirs, and my Grandfather had saved my Mothers since she always loved to play with them. And thanks to his mothers cleanly nature she had so resourcefully stacked them in order. At least Ryuhi was glad she had otherwise none of these words would make sense to him now but his brain seemed to grab onto the patterns in the blocks a lot faster than if he was trying to do it as a man. Then it just came down to cross-referencing how words looked in his head and repeated it over and over during the long hours he was left to stare at a ceiling for hours as an infant.
Ryuhi tried his best to imprint all the pages into his mind but ultimately stopped after the first page forgetting everything that happened on the last due to his excitement. So there was the typical inherent mana source that you're born with, mana vessels to spread the mana throughout the body, and external mana that lay in everything. After summarizing that from the first couple pages so he could remember it better, he arrived to the classes section. Woah! I feel like I'm suddenly reading out of a DND manual. Welp mines the only one that matters at the moment Ryuhi thought, limited time you know, as he flipped to the back of the chapter to summoner.
The happiness bubble punctured a little as he read. Apparently summoners could only utilize external mana due to the apparent lack of mana vessels despite having typically large inherent mana. Apparently its theorized that parents with abnormally high inherent mana tend to have summoners for children since the inherited mana most likely burns the mana veins in development. And they have poor mana control since they have no way to guide their mana so they tend to only be able to summon the weakest of monsters after years of practice. Ryuhi felt his eyes start to sting, damn you for getting my hopes up "Me" you bastard... I can't even curse him without feeling self-deprecated.
Ryuhi saw the paper begin to glow and he looked down and jumped in fright as a rainbow glow poured out of his body, causing it to disappear almost as soon as he got a look. Was that mana? Ryuhi thought still shocked. Shaking his head he turned to the next chapter not caring what the book had left to say about summoners. This section labeled "Harnessing" sounded promising. There was only one word, Focus and feel the flow of energy expand from your core permeate throughout your body. Haha nice joke book, Ryuhi said as he flipped to the next page with the title page "Practical Use" on it. Well there's no use in knowing how to use magic if you don't know how to activate it in the first place, Ryuhi wanted to scream!
Calm down maybe there's incantations in this world so I can just skip over this stuff. The first sentence of the next page read "If you have not figured out how to Harness magic power you will not be able to cast any of these spells." Well screw you book, like I'd take you at your word! Scanning through the next two pages he finally found a spell and it seemed like incantations well at least magic words... and a lot of stuff about the way to redirect you mana flows in certain ways! Damn 0-2, book in the lead. Whatever just reading this book is a God send thought Ryuhi as he reached down to flip to the next page. But before he could lift up the paper the door swung open, slamming into the wall with a bang, revealing Twila's gigantic figure, looking tensely around the room, her hand ready at her waist as though ready to out draw someone, Texas style. Ryuhi squeaked in surprise raising his hands up, face planting into the book.
"Ryuhi?" Twila looked down at the book he was on top of and half smiled incredulously, "you didn't activate your mana did you?" Ryuhi began to sweat, I know in manga they don't care but if it was me I'd be way freaked out if my son could read this early, I just turned five months old for god's sake! "No way! It had to be one of our neighbors, but I didn't know any of them could use mana... Wait! More importantly, how'd you get in here babyyy!" She yelled before clutching Ryuhi in a death hug. "I leave the window open in here, you could catch a cold!" Wait! That's why you kept the door closed?! Damn you woman!!!