A space so big that could fit dozens of elephants in its halls, yet no noise could be heard other than the pouring rain of the grim skies. Our castle is the symbol of prestige and ideals that my father carries. And yet, as a person who idealizes a world of happiness, this place is anything but that.
As I continued my walk across the corridor, a big white door and a man in black came in to view.
"Your highness, your mother is..." The man in black bowed his head and politely gave me a greeting before informing me. Shifting my gaze from the butler to the white door, I raised my hand to knock. But I hesitated. It's not like I don't wanna see her, as a matter of fact, I do, I really do.
But I can't.
Especially when it's her wish that I should just keep on working on myself. Funny isn't it, even when she's dying before my eyes, all I can do is respect her final wishes to not care about her and prioritize my duty as an heir to the throne.
My hand failed to reach the door as I stepped back and walked away, away from the only person who ever loved and cherished me. My vision became blurry as tears started to flow. I hastened my footsteps, and I continued walking, not stopping for anything. To where exactly? I don't know. All I know is that I'm walking, walking away for my mother, this is her last wish after all.
So I walked and walked away. Until only silence and pouring rain remained.
...
I woke up to a familiar breeze of fresh air, reminiscing about the dream I just had. The world I used to live in, contrary to its traditional outlook, is without a doubt a modern one with a lot of technological advancements.
Few countries in our world took down the monarchy system and ruled democratically for the sake of, well I guess you could say the people's freedom. However, such systems are hard to maintain, as people are born with a 'free will' that could develop a desire that would easily collapse the cycle of the system.
My father, the king of our country, ruled the country in an unfashionable way. I guess people could call it barbaric or even hypocritic. Because as someone who promotes people's happiness, he was always busy conquering and decimating other nations.
Even to the point of pushing aside my dying mother to continually seek his goal. Well crazy as this may sound, he was eventually able to unify the continent, but at the time that he did, my mother had passed away. But I doubt he even cared, he brought home a lot of concubines after his expeditions anyways.
He became an Emperor that unified the continent as one empire, and as an emperor, no one could demean him and everyone could only just aspire and follow his visions like they always have done, but that's merely a façade.
As someone who was told to think first before prioritizing his emotions, I could clearly see the despicable and sickening intentions of these nobles beyond their masks. Did my mother ask me to become a perfect prince for "these" bunch? or was her love for the emperor just too great that she can't even see how vain it was.
I stood in front of the window to see the familiar yet unnatural view. After giving a slight stretch, I sat on the wooden floor and closed my eyes to meditate. It's been a few months since I reincarnated in this world, and it's really been fulfilling, to say the least. White's grandfather is really an amiable man and everyone is just as fun and easy-going, except for my annoying master.
Although I still do somewhat feel distant when it comes to them, that is something I really can't help with. After all, I did just take over the life of another person and I don't even know what happened to said person. But something is for sure, his memories are so unreliable!
He knows a lot of things. Things that are not even important in surviving in society. Of course, even he has yet to venture out in this world, but a little bit of worldly knowledge would come in handy right? He knows more things about the dungeons and lumoines which are supposedly found in the deepest parts of dungeons instead of things like cooking or cleaning.
I mean, I myself have never tried both those things, and I doubt a 7 yrs old would as well. But it would have been cool if he did, no? I mean I always wanted to try cooking and-- bzZZT!
The mana circulation got disturbed. One needs to concentrate on his mind and body in order to properly circulate mana. Of course, as great as mana circulation is, failing it would be detrimental for the person.
Once again, I calmed my breathing and let the air around me transform into motes of red. My mind entered the same feeling of having an imaginary space expand as I take in and circulate mana around my body.
Blue icy flames appeared within my palms as I continued the process. One thing I learned from my magic, is that my body is still weak against it. In a matter of seconds, the icy chill the blue fire produced made my hands numb from the cold and my breath winter white. Reaching my body's limits, I decided to stop for now.
My instructor-- Mr. Renard-- taught me that mana circulation doesn't have to expel mana as attributed magic, but I could still expel the excess mana circulating in my system as just mana. Which made me wonder what would happen if I continuously cycle mana in my body while expelling the excess as attributed magic? The results were simple yet meaningful:
I would have an easier time maintaining and expelling attributed magic. In the beginning, circulating mana while processing the excess ones took a toll on my mental capacity. It was like shuffling with one hand, such a thing would be hard especially if one of the things your shuffling comes at a different pace compared with others.
As time passed, however, I was able to fully conjure the form of my attributed magic, which brings us to my present capabilities.
Doing another round of stretching, I headed towards the patio in our small sand garden to have breakfast with my--well, White's-- grandfather. Although I do feel guilty when I'm talking with this man, he seems to be very caring to the point that I could forget about my guilt and replace it with a sense of warmth you'll only see in a person who truly cares about you. Though that itself is something that adds up to my guilt every after our time together.
"Good morning grandfather"
"Hmm? Oh, good morning White!"
The old man, seeing me present, placed the book he's reading down and ecstatically greeted me back in his ever so jolly manner. I sat down to have my fill along with him, while Sophia poured us some tea. The unique ambiance of the environment's untainted elements gave me a sense of peace as I finely ate my meal.
"Child, have you been using magic lately?"
"I've been practicing mana circulation to help with my training." That wasn't a lie, it's true that I've been practicing mana circulation, I just didn't add the fact that I'm modifying it.
"Hmm is that so," The old man looks at me with doubting eyes then continues, "child, it's not that you're not allowed to use magic, It's just that your magic is unique. You already know that no one is capable of wielding two or more type 1 attributes, yet your magic takes the form of one and has the effect of another. If people we're to know of this, you would be objected to many, many eyes."
"I know grandpa, that's why I'm practicing my sword."
As much as I want to use my magic, I would really hate it if I'm subjected to the same eyes I decided to run away from.
"Hmm... That's good then. As long as you know."
The old man finished his statement with a somewhat satisfied look. Finishing my meal, I embraced the old man goodbye before heading out again to the village to meet my Master.
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Since I have already trained with the sword in my previous world, adjusting my knowledge in accordance with this world's style would be easy-- or at least I want to say. If I learned anything from my time here hunting those monsters, it's that fighting them is harder than fighting an armed human. The way they move, their size, durability, power, and instinct make it hard to just fight them head-on like fighting in a duel.
I also needed to keep up my mana fusion steady, which even if I was doing it unconsciously, is still hard to initiate perfectly. When I engage in combat, my mind is trained to think only of combat. That, surprisingly, is one step towards the perfect mana fusion. This is why I could somehow do it unconsciously when I first fought the wild cats here in this world.
Other than that, one needs to be used to mana circulation. Thankfully, White had already laid the foundations, and all I need to do is polish and maintain this body.
This is why I use my time going to the village to practice simultaneously doing mana circulation and mana fusion while doing parkour on the trees along the way. Of course, I always wanted to try something like parkour, but I'm also doing this for my training and not just because I want to try it...
Doing so, I arrived in half an hour, half less than my time walking here.
Master and Kayla came into view, but for some reason, Mr. Renard was in deep thought and looking at a carcass or a Spiked Wild Cat dragged and ravaged just outside the storage shed.
"Good morning Mr. Renard, Kayla"
"Good Morning, White!"
"I thought I told you to call me instructor, brat?"
I greeted them as I closed in. Kayla's as energetic as ever while Master is still as haughty. Well, I already call him instructor in my thoughts as a sign of respect, but calling him like that right in front of him would only fuel that arrogant smug of his, so I'd rather not.
"What happened here? Is it another one?"
"Dunno, just ravaged overnight. Probably a wild beast in the works again," Mr. Renard says after giving out a sigh.
"But isn't the village barricaded? wouldn't signs of the wild beasts be spotted if it ever goes inside?"
"Yeah but look at this! It's a big feather right?"
Kayla then grabs my chin and turned it towards her direction, where she's waving around a snow-white feather, about the length of my foot.
"So it's a bird beast then?" I asked.
"Probably... but I don't think a bird would know how to open a shed's door to grab and lunch on this."
Mr. Renard points at the Spiked wild cat. It's true that the chimera wild cats were slightly bigger in size compared to wolves, which means the said "bird" would need to have great intelligence and strength.
"Well, whatever. I'll just bury this thing and we're gonna head out."
""Okay."" Kayla and I responded at the same time.
Must be because she found it funny, Kayla turned towards me with her ever so smug face. As much as I found myself to have become more casual, I still can't seem to respond to this kind of thing. Although childish, it's not in my or White's area to talk to these kinds of people.
Feeling uncomfortable. I turned my head to the other side where I saw Astesia looking at us with her unreadable gaze through the window. Although a child like her with fair skin and short and straight hair makes her look adorable, I still find it hard to call her that with her strange stare that could make anyone uncomfortable.
After a few minutes of dilly-dallying and listening to Kayla's nonsense, Mr. Renard finished burying the carcass of the ravaged Chimera wild cat and we set off to our hunting grounds.