The next few days were far more exciting than anything I'd experienced in my combined lives thus far.
Evidently, my position was formally recognized by the citizenry after my fifth birthday, allowing me much more leeway than I ever had before. Instead of being under the constant supervision of my parents, I was shadowed by my caretaker, Jonet. Much to my joy, however, she mostly trailed far behind me wherever I went without so much as a hint of emotion. Be it in the indoor courtyard to train or while aimlessly wandering the estate. Everywhere I went she followed, save my ventures through the Shadowfell. At which times she'd wander about the estate at a brisk place, searching for wherever I was most likely to appear from the shadows.
As much as my privileges grew, however, I was still locked out of a third of the house until Telin knew when. Still, through my ventures around my still small world, I managed to learn that the estate was primarily a linear structure of wood and stone that stretched east-to-west along the edge of a cliff. Aesthetically, the buildings appeared like ancient Asian castles constructed atop stone foundations. The inside on the other hand was fashioned in the same baroque aesthetic as my nursery. Polished stone floors and walls adorned with paintings and tapestries and busts made from presumably the finest hands in these lands.
On the far northern end was a hub or wing that I wasn't allowed entry to. A formal hub in the words of Jonet, intended for nobles, guests, or people coming to pay their tributes to my father. After learning such things, I expressed a significant lack of desire in exploring that part of the estate and turned the rest of my attention to exploring my growing world and discovering the inner workings of magic.
Separating the formal hub from the rest of the estate was a vast and elaborate outdoor courtyard that contained everything from Japanese gardens encased in the snow to greenhouses to statues to stone mazes.
On the eastern end of the estate proper, was the nursery I was born and, up until that point, raised in. The service wing was near twice the length of my nursery. Containing the living quarters for all the tenders, as well as the pantry, laundry facilities, and other dedicated rooms needed to keep such a large household running. Perpendicular to my nursery and half of the service wing was a private courtyard that mostly contained a large lake that poured underneath the eastern end of the estate and over the edge of a sheer cliff. On its shore was a modest cabin that had once been the residence of my mother and father. Though with me being here, it's been largely abandoned. Leaving the vacant structure to be slowly reclaimed by nature.
The final wing of the estate that I had access to was what I assumed to be a training hall of sorts. A vast indoor courtyard that'd been landscaped and gardened to the point that it was indistinguishable from the boreal lands outside. It had to be well over a hundred meters to a side, making it by far the largest portion of the estate. Expanding my petri dish by a relatively large margin. It was hot and humid inside like a summer day and a harsh yellow light splayed from all sides like the sun had multiplied and scattered across the walls. Vibrantly accentuating the vibrant green of the abundant flora around me.
It contained everything from grassy fields to forest meadows. Lakes and rivers and what looked like the face of a cliff on the entire right wall. And at its center was the same platform of volcanic rock that my grandfather took me for my first magical lessons.
The place where the majority of my time was spent.
In those days, my routine consisted of finishing my nightly meditation; or waking up in some cases, just before dusk to freshen up and get dressed. Unsettlingly, Jonet was always present at my door when I left the nursery for the service wing for breakfast and conversation with Gerolt. Through our talks, I learned that he's wasn't only a chef and a hunter, but a fisherman as well. And that he had a lot to say about the surrounding areas and their local fauna.
What one would expect from a boreal forest. Moose, deer, and elk. Lynxes, wolves, wolverines, bears, and even tigers. And hares, owls, otter beavers.
More interesting, however, was the fact that I was able to gain some much-wanted information regarding the local topography. Specifically that the Cole Estate was located on the western end crescent-shaped island that housed all the royalty of the Deapou Empire, Deap Ridge. The Emperor and his family lived on the eastern end of the island, while at the center was the Cast Iron Mountain. A neutral zone of sorts that was both a port city and the royal capital of our dual-empire.
According to Gerolt's map, the mainland sat just across the sea to the north. Deapou Island was a mass of land shaped much like a speech bubble on the map. Complete with jagged coasts sprawling the entirety of the outline that indicated hundreds of inlets and coves and bays. And on its southeastern end, a tapered peninsula extended out into the sea. Pointing towards the next closest continent, Epeth. The largest landmass in our world. Maru.
Rivals to us Deapouans, evidently.
After my breakfast and evening chat with Gerolt, I meet Grandpa Lich in the indoor courtyard for his lessons on mana and elemental manipulation, which is essentially just him repeating the same things over and over again for a few minutes before leaving me to work in silence.
Following that, the majority of the evening and night would pass without issue. I'd practice mana manipulation. Then elemental magic. Succeed at one. Fail at the other. Take a break and form theories, then repeat the process all over again.
Despite my failure to meet my grandfather's standards, I had yet to grow frustrated. Perhaps it was my affinity that kept me coldly rational, or perhaps it was due to the unconscious understanding that he wasn't as separated in mental age from me as he thought.
I couldn't say for sure.
I could say for sure that, half-drow or not, I'd have moved to a more nocturnal schedule shortly after being born. Even in my past life, there was always a peaceful stillness to the night that I thoroughly enjoyed. The temperatures were cool, most animals were sleeping. As was the constantly bustling society that the humans of earth created. And most of all, be it out of fear or them minding their own business; people left me alone.
In many ways, nothing changed in this life. Many nights in the past were spent researching, studying, practicing, and gaming until the sun came up. The only difference now was that I lived under a new sun; two suns, and I had a new field to study to my heart's content.
Like anything else, manipulating and sensing mana became easier over time. Not only could I see it if I focused, but I also began to passively feel the energy around me after following my mother's advice and taking a few hours outside my somnolent needs to meditate.
Through my will and concentration alone, I could freely move the raw mana around me after just a week. I learned that the manipulation of the energy became finer with the aid of hand movements, greatly increasing what I'd already learned in manipulating the dynamic energy. Yet I still saw little to no progress in manipulating the elements.
Much like Grandpa Lich said, interacting with mana was a matter of reaching out with the mind. To form a connection with the ambient energy with an intended result in imagined- a palm-sized vortex in my case. Still, after all this time, I could only manage a slightly stronger breeze to blow over my hand.
Not much a different from my first attempt.
"Ugh." Grandpa groaned. "Are you even listening to me? It's been nearly a month and you still haven't grasped it!"
'Yeah, I am listening.' I mentally rolled my eyes at him storming off. 'Maybe that's the problem.'
Wait.
No. That is the problem. I was listening to the ramblings of an old geezer when I should've been listening to the literal god of this world.
According to Telin's word coming forth from my Eternal Eye, an individual's magical ability is determined by the user's imagination, and of their understanding of the element or phenomenon in question. In the context of elemental manipulation, mana couldn't be transmuted into air or fire, or water. It was simply an engine that used mana. A tool that allowed a human to make an element behave how it would naturally behave under the right conditions.
It was using mana to create a fuel source and friction for combustion. It was extracting moisture from the environment to create bubbles of water. It was pulling the ground itself into any desired shape or form. Or compressing, expanding, and guiding the flow of air.
This meant that instead of using mana to drive the air into my hand, I needed to use mana to make the conditions right for air to move into it on my own.
With that in mind, I held out my palm before me; ready to test my hypothesis with newfound vigor, I visualized what I wanted to happen before attempting to take hold of the mana around my hand. Like I grabbed hold of it with my mind; as strange as that sounded or felt to me. I imagined using the energy to create a region of low pressure just above my palm and in one smooth motion, I spread the blue smog of energy outward from my palm. Forcing the air back with it and causing my hand to begin numbing and tingling as if it were being probed by a thousand needles.
I released the mana in my hand before the swelling began, forcing a modest breeze past my face from the displaced air rushing to fill the void I created and implode above my hand with a balloon's pop that echoed throughout the otherwise quiet courtyard.
Grinning wide from the results of my experiment, I quickly refocused on the mana to again manipulate the air around me. Instead, this time, I focused on increasing or decreasing the air pressure in certain areas. A method that I found to be a far simpler endeavor than how my grandfather instructed me.
Regardless, he was correct in his assumption that air magic would be the easiest for me. By nearly sunrise, I was able to produce fairly strong gales of wind or up to three, palm-sized cyclones within a five-meter radius.
The glee and pride of my sudden success drove me to continue with the other elements and attempt to master them as well before returning before my grandfather. Pushing me to spend my first all-day-er in this life.
With my Eternal Eye bringing my knowledge of fluid dynamics and the properties of water to the forefront of my mind, I moved to the lake near the indoor 'cliff' and focused on the large, literally golden fish swimming on the far side near the water's edge. Roughly ten meters away. I reached forth with the mana to grip a sizable portion of the puddle from the surface and suspend it in the air.
'As I thought.' I grinned wide as I reached my arm around and arced it out to my side.
With only a slight delay, a tendril emerged from the amorphous blob of water to mimic my motions. Gently spreading and opening my hands, I slowly drew them up towards my shoulders over and over again. Amassing more and more water into a shaky blob suspended a meter above the water.
Its surface rippled. Toiled at an ever greater rate as it increased in mass and eventually came to bring a strain on my mind until I lost hold of the fluid and it crashed back into the surface with a loud splash.
By then the sun was cresting over the eastern walls of the house, casting yellow-orange lights through the ventilation windows near the ceiling. And almost immediately, my mood began to sour.
Throwing in the proverbial towel, I looked down at my shadow before hopping into it. Plunging me into the cold embrace of the shadow realm where I swam through the now dilapidated courtyard and past the ghostly visage of Jonet, nearly jogging back to the service wing.