Nine months after his rebirth, Dayn showed his parents that he could speak, albeit in a very simple way. During this time he had also begun to crawl and eventually walk on his own. Next on Dayn's list however was to learn how to read. Soon, another winter would pass, and Dayn would reach the age of 1 year old.
Inside their house, Dayn had noticed that his parents possessed a few books, so one day he asked his Father, the pushover, what the books were.
"Papa,", he said in a sweet voice giving puppy dog eyes and pointing towards the books, "what's that?".
"Those are called books Dayn, but you don't have to bother with them yet as you can't read.", he replied.
"But papa can't you teach me how to read? I wanna know what's in them!", he said giving his best smile.
"Ugh fine.", he replied with a sigh, "But I can't teach you, your Mother will have to."
As he was saying this Helen walked into the living room.
"What's going on?", she asked.
"Ah, hon, the kid wants to read the books but you'll have to teach him."
"Please, Mama I really want to know what's in them!"
"That's fine, but I want Anne to teach you instead.", she replied, "I can also take him down to see her early tomorrow."
.
.
.
The following day they visited the village, and as it was spring again the walk was quite pleasant. Dayn and his mother soon reached Anne's door before knocking and being let in.
They were once again in the cozy living room, but strangely enough, the two books on the far bookshelf were gone. Dayn immediately noticed this but said nothing as he did not want to reveal that he could sense their Qi.
Anne sat down across from them before engaging in casual conversation with Helen. Eventually, Helen brought up how Dayn wanted to learn to read, and then proceeded to ask Anne if she could teach him.
"He wants to read already?", Anne said with a questioning face.
"Is something wrong with that?", asked Helen back.
"No, no, of course not, it's just a bit early, but it is a good thing that he is showing such curiosity."
"Will you teach him then?", asked Helen excitedly.
"I will, but I have a condition."
"Go ahead."
"Once I teach him how to read, I won't be teaching him anymore past that. He will have to learn other things on his own."
Dayn smiled inwardly at this, the reason being that after learning to read he would be able to learn on his own instead of with someone else. He thought that if he learned with someone else his pace would be too fast and they would become suspicious of him.
"Does that sound good to you Dayn?", said Helen while looking at him.
"Yes mama!", he replied cutely.
"It's all settled then.", said Anne with a smile, "You may go now Helen I will teach the boy, and you can pick him up later in the evening."
"I'll be off then,", she replied, "and once again thank you."
.
.
.
Now it was just the two of them left in the living room. Anne looked over at Dayn and seemed to be contemplating something.
Suddenly she asked a question that had been bothering her for quite a while.
"What are you?"
'Shit, does she know?!', he thought in a panic. 'No, there's no way, I've even tried to act as normal as possible up until now.'
Dayn showed no reaction on his face and instead responded with a slight tilt of the head.
"Ahhh, never mind, that was a dumb question", said Anne while sighing. "Let's begin now okay?"
"Okay!", Dayn said. Inwardly he was still panicking and he tried his best not to show it.
Amidst his panic, Anne had walked over to the bookshelf and taken out a book on the lowest shelf. Dayn noticed that the book was thicker than most of the others. Anne then sat down next to Dayn, putting the book onto the coffee table.
"Alright kiddo, you ready?", Anne asked.
Dayn didn't respond but instead leaned forward to get a closer look at the book's cover.
"This book is called 'Tales of the Great Mage Alexander'.", she read out while pointing at the symbols on the cover.
"What's a Mage?", Dayn asked suddenly wondering what that word meant.
"A mage is someone who is able to use the Mana in the atmosphere and within themselves to cast spells.", Anne explained. "Just like this."
Anne then extended her open palm outward in front of her. After just a short instance, a small white orb appeared out of nowhere floating above her palm that exuded a soft glow.
"This is what we call a spell kiddo, this spell, in particular, is called Light Orb, but you most likely won't need to know this, I just wanted to show you.", she said with a laugh.
"Now back to teaching you how to read."
Dayn showed no response to her last words however as he sat there in a daze, because to him, he had seen Qi come out of Anne's body, as well as surrounding Qi in the atmosphere collect onto her palm before the ball of light had appeared.
"How'd you do that?", he asked forgetting to use simple words.
"Magic.", she replied.