The instant the blue gem dissipated, Ezra's body went through a qualitative change while he slept.
His past-life memories were now complete and began to arrange in a sequence from the earliest to the last events before his death.
His soul had become very stable and solid, Kevin Reed and Ezra Miller had truly become one and the same.
The next minute, Ezra began to grunt while clutching his pillow, black liquid coming out of every pore ever so slowly, his white body became red hot with veins very visible all over his body.
"Mmmm" Ezra bit his lips so hard it got punctured, but he muffled his grunts of pain and instinctively endured it until he fell unconscious due to the increase in pain.
...
..
.
"Ouch!" Ezra said, immediately clutching his head as it was aching severely. At this time, a familiar voice called out to him.
"Ezra! You're awake!"
Ezra couldn't register the voice before he felt two arms embracing him.
The person turned out to be a woman in a noble gown. She had a round face, small jaw, golden long hair, deep blue eyes, moderately endowed in both sides and with a height of 5 foot 7. She was…
"Mom?"
His mother. The only person who had sincerely cared for him without ulterior motives. The one person he had vowed to protect with this life.
He looked at her as his head cooled down, and saw her with black circles under her usually radiant blue eyes. Nevertheless, she didn't seem to care about such things at all as she barraged him with questions.
"How is your body?"
"Are you hurt anywhere?"
"What about your head?"
"What happened to your eyes and hair?"
She looked seriously worried asking these questions to an Ezra who was still disoriented. After all, he had his memories as a 52 year old man along with his memories of the past five years cramped up in the mind of a young kid.
All of these memories were scrambled all over the place in bits and pieces, and now they were coming together like a puzzle, but instead of a single puzzle, it was like attaching pieces of paper to make a book, and you were to arrange an entire bookshelf!
This would normally be impossible to do without causing permanent mental damage to even a beginner mage, not to talk of a normal person.
But Ezra was no normal person, his cognitive abilities were on par with intermediate knights, being mentally 57 years old now, as well as the fact that his brain was enriched with mana stupendously, and his past-life memories had given him enormous mental fortitude.
This was why his body was still in one piece, but it took all his mental capability to prevent his brain from burning out due to information overload.
Hence making his brain's processing speed very slow, like opening ten games at the same time on a single phone. The phone would have to use some portion of its processing power to make sure the games don't crash the phone, but it causes the phone's response to become annoyingly slow.
After a whole minute since his mother asked him questions, he finally answered.
"My body feels better than before, thank you"
"My head is the only thing still aching"
"I've answered this question"
"What happened to my eyes and hair?"
Ezra answered slowly with his small body still very hot, causing his mother along with the royal healer, who stood patiently waiting for me to get myself together, and a lot of maids to sweat at the increase in temperature.
A maid brings me a mirror at the order of my mother.
One look at it and Ezra grew astounded.
His black hair became silver and his blue eyes became black. This happened due to the accumulation and condensation of mana in his head, as well as the residue of the dissipated gem.
Ezra suddenly felt his head become a lot lighter, like a boulder had been cleared from his brain.
His hot body began to cool down slowly, and as if a thick fog had being lifted, his sight became clear, his earing became clear, and most notably, he felt his body at a degree that it felt surreal, but he was taken out his reverie when the royal healer spoke up.
"Your Highness, can you explain how you ended up in this state?"
To which, Ezra replied…
"I'm sorry, you are?"
"Where are my manners, Hamilton Winc at your service" he said while slightly bowing before standing straight.
Only then did Ezra take notice of his surroundings, but the first thing that hit him was a nauseating smell.
He grips his nose and mouth, forcing back the urge to vomit, before looking at his mother and Mr. Hamilton with an incredulous expression, wondering how they could breathe such a horrible smell and still be fine.
The healer noticed it and chuckled before addressing the matter that seemed to baffle the child.
"I used a cleaning and detoxification spell on this room, but you have to clean up thoroughly to completely get rid of it"
I nodded, because the origin of the horrible smell was my body.
Without replying, Ezra ran to wash and cleanse his body.
His mother couldn't help but chuckle seeing her son act in such a way, before moving out of Ezra's room along with the healer.
-----------
"Haaah"
Ezra couldn't help but sigh in relief after washing his body of the nauseating smell before hastily moving to dress up.
While doing so, he began to examine his body and couldn't help but feel energized, invigorated, like a car whose engine was upgraded. And it didn't take him much to figure out why.
His mana pathways had opened up, allowing him to passively absorb mana, albeit in little quantities, and like a chain reaction, his physique was further elevated in numerous ways.
His skull became harder, his hearing became better, his eyes allowed him to view things from further away, his bones, harder, and his skin, unblemished.
Yet, the best of all was his cognitive ability increase, his brain became better, and more importantly, he could now remember his past-life memories in chronological order without as much as a hitch.
Upon discovering it, his eyes became blank and his body stiffed for more than a minute before reverting back to its black color.
"Haaa…Haaa…Haaa"
Ezra breathed heavily with sweat all over his forehead and his hand on his chest before sitting on his bed, his brain going through all sorts of thoughts which caused his demeanor to constantly change for over five minutes before gradually settling down.
His eyes had a dangerous glint and his mouth formed a wicked grin soon after with multiple thoughts going through his head.
'Those guys, if I am right, should be around my age, no, maybe younger, hmm, wait, what year is this?'
He grabbed a book nearby, quickly flipping the pages before coming to a halt.
'It's 1705' he thought, before it suddenly hit him.
'1705!'
'But I was born five years from now in my past life, right?' he thought, trying to make sense of what he was seeing before suddenly face-palming himself.
'I'm such an idiot. I was born five years from now, but I also wasn't born in a castle in my last life. Let's go over this again just to be sure'
Ezra closed his eyes, as he uses his newly upgraded cognitive abilities to view the events of his past-life as if he was watching a movie, only that it was being fast-forwarded at a breakneck speed before turning black and resuming with the vision of a baby.
Ezra opened his eyes as he ascertained many things but questioned many more.
Firstly, counting his current age, he had somehow ended up being born ten years before he was born in his last life.
Moreover, he found that he was born in this same empire in his last-life, but as the son of a peasant in a rural village.
Do note that although he had his past-life memories since age 1, he couldn't make any sense of most of it at the time, as it came like pieces of a page. Only with his memory complete did he now understand.
At this moment, he wanted to scream, to look for his subordinates which had died while fighting alongside him, to head out and behead both the friend as well as the one whom he pledged his allegiance to that betrayed him, but he kept it in, he kept it all in.
His brain filled with thoughts once again.
He had somehow reincarnated, that he was sure of.
He was now a prince of the world's biggest empire, yes, but that wouldn't stop him from taking his revenge on all those who betrayed him.
He now had a mother, one who would go to any lengths for him and this was the most concerning. He couldn't just leave her, for he had seen her cry, smile, and laugh so many times because of him.
If he did go to take revenge, would his mother follow him? And if she didn't, would he abandon her?
All these thoughts and many more were going through his head at this moment.
If he did leave, would he be able to guarantee success in his revenge?
After all, these were nobles of the most powerful empire in the world, and worse, at the top of the list was a man who was an Emperor, well he would be a prince as of now. But that didn't change the fact that he was a bonafide member of the royal family.
Thinking up to this point, Ezra couldn't help but sigh.
He was getting way ahead of himself at this point. A five year old boy trying to kill a prince of the most powerful continent. Anyone who knew what he was thinking would call him out as a King of madmen.
'Hmm, the fact that he is a member of the royal family is extremely unnerving' he thought before something clicked.
'Wait a minute, aren't I a prince too? Am I not also a member of a royal family? Of the biggest Empire to boot?'
His mouth once again stretched into a wicked grin as he changed his way of thinking.
'As a prince, I can succeed the Emperor becoming one myself and use this empire to fulfill my revenge'.
'With the knowledge I have of the future, I'm sure I can raise the empire's fighting power at least three-fold'
At this moment, Ezra Miller set his first objective, which was to become the next Emperor of Niton.
At that moment…
*Knock…Knock*
Someone knocked on his room's door.