(UPDATED CHAPTER: The system will now be directly speaking to Zareth instead of saying "Host."
Along with this, the species stat and bloodline stat will also be added.)
[Status]
Name: Zareth Vanaheim
Species: Human
Bloodline: Unknown
Age: 2 Months
Level: 1
Exp: 0/5
Combat Power: 1
Vitality: 100 Years
Health: 3.0/3.0
Stamina: 2.0/2.0
Strength: 1.0
Agility: 1.0
Defense: 1.0
Body: Basic Earth Bound
Rank: Normal Human
MP: None
-
Skills:
Godly Constitution (Passive) Immune to most toxins, poisons, venoms, and diseases.
Worlds Polyglot (Passive) Ability to comprehend, read, and write most languages through magic translation.
-
'Truly a blank slate huh?'
Zareth continued to stare at the semi-transparent blue panel in front of his eyes as the carriage began to move again.
He then closed the panel before looking outside at the vibrant sky through the window.
From the age of one year old, he assumed that his meridians would first begin to form similar to the Immortal Realm.
Thus, natural mana would begin to flow into his body through these meridians and rejuvenate his life force and structure.
Without anything else in mind, Zareth knew all he could do... was wait.
***
Ten months swiftly flew by.
During the first few months, Zareth had done nothing except dread in his peaceful, yet excruciatingly boring days.
He had no responsibilities, only having to sleep, eat, poop, pee and annoy his parents occasionally.
However, after eight months or so when Zareth first gained the ability to walk, he began exploring his entire house for anything that could help him gain useful knowledge about this world.
Eventually, he found a small bookcase with several books which were quite unrelating to his quest for strength but quenching to his everlasting boredom.
He learned a few things here and there that he had sort of already known, like basic mannerisms and such.
However, just as he came to the final line of books inside the bookcase, he found one that actually involved information about magic.
Right now, Zareth could be seen sitting down inside a dark wooden room that only had one round window looking out into the front yard of his cottage.
Next to him, he had a single hefty book.
On the cover, it read "Basics To Mana".
Zareth was inside his attic, unbeknownst to his parents who were currently both outside.
He already knew what mana was. However, he realized mana in this world worked very differently from the Immortal Realm.
Still, just by reading this book, Zareth learned that conjurers in this world would use a type of breathing to absorb free-flowing mana from nature itself and pour it into the cores of their bodies.
In turn, strengthening their souls and bodies and allowing them to break through into even more powerful ranks of existence.
These types of breathing exercises were called breathing techniques.
Unfortunately, even after getting through every random and useless book in his house, this book about mana was the only one useful to him in terms of gaining power.
No actual breathing technique books were inside his house, not even the weakest ones.
So, Zareth decided that all that was left to do was to create his own breathing technique from the description of what it was from the book next to him.
He closed his eyes and sat in a lotus position before beginning to breathe subtly through his nose.
In the darkness, he eventually saw himself sitting down, almost as if he was looking at himself from a 3d perspective.
As he continued to breathe and concentrate all of his focus on his breathing, he suddenly began to see mana all around him in this darkness.
It was colorful... beautiful to gaze upon.
It danced naturally, following the waves of the air itself.
Now, with each and every breath, Zareth began to attract and absorb this mana through his nose.
His body became transparent, as he could see this mana travel through his meridians, making them slightly bigger and tighter as they coursed through.
Eventually, all of the mana flowed into the core of his body and collected there.
A long moment of time passed before Zareth could even notice as dawn turned to dusk.
By this time, both Freya and Drufus had been looking for Zareth for over six hours.
In the beginning, Zareth getting lost had not worried them.
From their perspective, Zareth was a silly little baby who would randomly hide and pretend to read books.
It seemed he really like pretending to read these books as well...
A little too much...
However, after a couple of hours, they were in a panic.
And by now, they had gone through and trashed the entire house to try and find him.
However, Zareth had not paid attention to the time. It only felt like mere minutes to him.
Also by this time, Zareth's mana core had nearly reached its full capacity of storage.
Suddenly, he heard a shattering sound in his mind.
On hearing this, his concentration was immediately broken.
Seconds after, Zareth felt his bum cease to touch the floor.
He was hovering in the air!
A brilliant light shined from the inside of his body, highlighting every one of his organs and illuminating the entire attic he was sitting in.
As this light continued to shine, Zareth felt each and every joint and tendon of his become revived with newfound dexterity and strength.
Each muscle fiber, bone, and vein in his body were also freshly revitalized.
Finally, Zareth opened his eyes.
Immediately, he noticed the clarity in his vision.
It seemed that his sense of smell and hearing had also gotten much better, as he could hear the sounds of his parents racketing and screaming throughout the house for some reason from where he sat.
Looking down, he noticed his body was still chubby and pathetic.
Of course, this was a given, as he was still a baby.
'Three more sub-ranks until the final rank huh? Well, it seems this breathing technique is quite useful. I will name it: Hale.'
Zareth thought to himself before standing up.
He felt much lighter, and his brain was more clear as well.
'Who knew advancing such little power in this mortal realm could be so exhilarating?'
He smiled with his teeth, finally showing the excitement he had gained from breaking through into another rank.
No matter what, gaining power seemed to always be thrilling.
Now that Zareth had ranked up, his stats increased as well.
Along with that, his rank was now shown as [Foundation Creation (0.0%)].
However, what confused him was his MP stat.
He could clearly sense that his core was depleted of all mana, as he had used it in breaking through into the Foundation Creation rank.
However, his MP stat showed [40/40].
It was still somehow filled to the brim.
[The mana in your core and the MP stat differ in certain ways.]
On hearing the system suddenly speak, Zareth decided to hear it out.
'Go on...'
[The mana inside of your core cannot be used freely. It is there to help you break through into higher ranks and must be manually absorbed each time.]
[However, the mana which exists outside of your core - your MP Stat - can be freely used to cast magic. It cannot be used to increase your rank cultivation, and will automatically refill over time.]
[To differentiate the two, your MP stat will show your usable and automatically refillable mana, while your rank percentage will show your unusable and manually refillable mana.]
'I see.' Zareth thought. 'If that's the case, why don't I try casting magic for the first time right now?'
He turned to the window and raised his hand in the air.
With extreme focus, he tried to imagine the MP that existed inside of his body to concentrate on a single point, the middle of his palm.
Eventually, a warm sensation began to radiate in and around his manus, before finally, a ball of wind slowly whirled into existence.
It moved fast and pivoted around like a small air planet the size of an apple.
*Ding* [New skill learned: Wind Sphere]
[MP: 30/40]
'So each wind sphere uses ten MP...'
With more concentration, the ball of wind in his palm became even bigger.
[MP: 20/40]
[MP:10/40]
[MP:0/40]
Right now, the ball of wind in his hand was repelling the skin on his face away, almost as if he was on a roller coaster.
The sphere was as big as a large watermelon.
Zareth wanted to try and create as big of a wind sphere as he could, however, it seemed that his body could not handle the force of the magic in his hands
At full size, the sphere began to spin out of control, and eventually crashed into the ceiling of the attic, blowing a hole through it as it escaped into the atmosphere.
Thankfully, none of the debris from the explosion hit Zareth, who had already laid down to sleep due to his exhaustion.
It seemed that using a breathing technique for the entire day and depleting all of your MP was enough to completely tire you out, especially if you were only a one-year-old child.
At the sound of this loud explosion, Drufus and Freya hurriedly barged toward the attic.
"It came from here! Quick!" Drufus yelled as he helped Freya climb up the attic ladder.
On entering the attic, the two immediately noticed the large hole in the roof, and also Zareth who was fast asleep on the floor right next to it.