Volume 1: «Preparation»
Chapter 3: «Bradomir Bach»
***
— Good morning, Aaron," the old man said as he entered the room without knocking. — You're looking chipper, even a little too chipper...
The older man was the current head of the Bach clan, Bradomir Bach...
He looked imposing: about two meters tall, broad-shouldered and muscular. At first glance, the man seemed quite young, but the gray hair and a slight stoop gave away his real, rather, respectable age.
His features included vivid and bright purple eyes, along with a sharp confident gaze, and two scars, one under his left eye and the other on his chin. Bradomir also wore a rather remarkable haircut, a short gray bob at the front of his head, and a thick mustache on his face. He was dressed in a comfortable gray shirt, tucked into dark pants, and wore leather boots on his feet.
— Grandfather... — in a slight state of prostration, Aaron squeezed himself out.
The sight of this man, whom he had not seen for a long time, sent many thoughts racing through his mind and his heart began to beat faster. To Aaron his grandfather was a very special man, one might even say that he was a kind of reference point for him.
Bradomir Bach was a strong warrior, ruthless to his enemies, but caring to his family. Despite the fact that he was born the most ordinary commoner, he managed to create his own clan...
Thanks to his phenomenal natural talent, which caused him to awaken the divine spark of lightning, as well as his tremendous hard work and courage, he achieved military glory and significant military exploits. For these accomplishments the grandson greatly respected his grandfather, but the main thing that admired him, but which he could never achieve, was the immeasurable nobility and bravery of Bradomir.
In fact, Aaron was the exact opposite of these qualities, and was rather unprincipled, cunning, and extremely cowardly, but you have to give him credit, having common sense, he tried to hide these traits smartly.
— Dear grandfather," the old man corrected, faking his anger, and then abruptly slapped his grandson's face.
— Damn!" Aaron exclaimed, falling from the bed to the floor. — It hurts...
— It's nothing, when I was seven years old, I got kicked in the forehead by the neighbor's horse... And you know what? — Bradomir said with a chuckle. — There's nothing wrong with me, I'm eight decades old and nothing. And you are so old...
— Don't be absurd, you can't live through this at seven," said the grandson indignantly as he rose. — Either you're lying, or it was not a horse, but a donkey, or even a little pink pony...
— No, it was definitely a horse," the old man said confidently, and then he rubbed his chin and continued, but with doubt in his voice. — Though it was rather young...
— Well, I believe you, you're really hard-headed... — Aaron said with a chuckle.
After this phrase he got a second smack on the head, which was physically impossible for the child to dodge. In spite of his murderous appearance in his previous life, Aaron was in fact perfectly capable of close combat, with good reactions and reflexes. However, in this situation, even with his vast experience in his past life, he is still an ordinary seven-year-old child, and is simply helpless in front of a bison like his grandfather.
Bradomir specializes in close combat with weapons, and support in the form of simple magic techniques, as well as techniques involving the application of his divine spark.
Aaron can fight in close combat, but prefers to use magic rather than confront his enemies directly. And the power of his divine death spark has always been abnormal by nature... In order not to kill everyone around him, he often had to be very restrained.
The problem is that magical energy and the divine spark can only be awakened at the age of eleven... So the only thing he has now, so to speak, in his arsenal is quite extensive combat experience, and the physical strength of a child...
The whole time-return process was conceived primarily for the purpose of subduing his divine spark. There were problems with this in his past life...
Because of this, Aaron, especially in the first time after awakening, was like a bomb that could explode at any moment. He even had to run away from home so he wouldn't hurt anyone. Now, with his knowledge and experience, he would have no trouble channeling the power of his divine spark in the right direction.
— Let's eat," Bradomir said, peering sarcastically at his grandson holding his head. — I'm so hungry, I'd love to eat the horse that kicked me.
— Gee, you're so vindictive. — snorted the boy.
— It's a very useful character trait, I have no more enemies thanks to it," the old man said with his arms outstretched to his sides.
Then Bradomir was silent for a moment before he looked thoughtfully at his grandson.
— What is it?
— Nothing, forget what I said, it was a joke...
— All right, whatever you say," Aaron replied nonchalantly, secretly contemplating his grandfather's strange behavior.
***
Aaron enjoyed his breakfast, and found it hard to control his emotions. A wave of nostalgia and a kind of immense joy came over him. For the first time in a long time, he felt happy.
— It is a pity that Balthasar and Jane are at the Academy," Bradomir said, sighing sadly. — It's rather empty without them in the house.
— You sent them there yourself and now you're grumbling," Aaron added, spreading butter on his bread. — But it's easy to understand your decision...
— What do you understand?
— I know why you sent your brother and sister to the academy.
— And what reason was that? — Bradomir asked, smirking.
— Prospects, connections, knowledge... — Aaron answered. — Well, there are many reasons... Probably the most important one... You wanted them to take their minds off the deaths of their parents.
Bradomir said nothing, for he felt, quite strangely... His youngest grandson had been a very intelligent child before, except that his keen senses, intuition, and life experience were literally screaming that Aaron had changed a lot today.
The boy was not at all embarrassed by his grandfather's doubts, for that suited him in principle. Having just woken up this morning, he had already decided for himself that he was not going to pretend to be a child, or pretend to be something he was not...
This is just stupid, because in his past life he was thirty-three years old, and the man, whose soul he absorbed even was as much as sixty-six years old. He is even older than his grandfather, if you add up both of his lifespans. He is a year short of a century altogether!
However, the researches he made before the ritual preparation unequivocally say that the soul exists outside time and its age should be objectively determined by the age of the present physical body.
In addition, one would think that Andrew's soul, which had existed much longer, should have had a major effect on Aaron, but this is far from the truth. All that has changed is that Aaron has gained useful knowledge from another universe... First hand, along with the interesting experience of another existence, as an ordinary man for whom magical energy is nothing more than a fiction...
How exactly could the soul of an ordinary man, who at most stood out a little from the general population, change the soul of a great necromancer? How could it affect the soul of a genius sorcerer who, practically from scratch, created a ritual that allowed him to travel through time, by moving between universes?
Aaron now did not feel that he was suddenly older, on the contrary, it felt as if he had been born again... The world was bright, new, special to him again, just like when he was a child. Maybe it was the fact that he was in a child's body, or maybe it was the fact that now, for the first time in a long time, he didn't have to contain the power of necrotic energy...
So far, Aaron has not noticed any dramatic changes in his personality, in the future, after more profound assimilation of knowledge and experience of Andrei, it may begin to change little by little. However, it is silly to be afraid of this, the change is a natural process, the main thing is that this very process is beneficial.
The family members, of course, will notice the changes, and Aaron was not even going to justify himself to them, in this case...
He did not take over someone else's body, he just returned to his own, native, but younger. Therefore, in the course of deep reflection, the relatives will at most come to the conclusion that Aaron has matured. Because of the transition to the adolescent phase of development, growing up is, quite, a normal phenomenon...
Especially in users of magical energy, you can even say that if it doesn't happen, the chances of awakening magic, and even more so a divine spark, become much lower.
— Don't be clever, Aaron," Bradomir said after thinking for a while. — You think you're so smart. You're only seven years old, you're small, frail, and impertinent.
— What?" he nearly choked on his breath. — Where do you see a small and frail boy here?
— Hmm, you don't argue with the cheeky part, do you? — Chuckling, the old man asked rhetorically.
— It's a useful character trait...
— Yes, if you want to get it in the neck...
— Not only if you're very determined," Aaron said with a chuckle in return.
Maybe he does think too much of himself. At the moment he had a lot of plans, Aaron had wanted to change many things in his past life. First of all, he wouldn't want to lose his grandfather, his brother, and his sister. When he was very young, he didn't think that family was that important, but with the accumulation of life experience he gradually realized what really had value for him...