Dinner that night was humdrum. Still, Anakin relished it. It was a relatively novel experience for someone like him, and candidly, he doubted he'd ever get tired of it.
A family dinner. To call it nice would be an understatement. The delectable food, lively chatter, and cozy ambiance that were characteristic of it were delightful, and they gave Anakin the feeling that he truly belonged to a family.
The feeling was a weird one, as he still held conflicting emotions about it, but it was one he nonetheless welcomed. It felt warm, warm enough to thaw out his half-frozen heart, and mirthful, almost like he was frolicking in clouds of happiness.
Dinner at the Aldritch manor shattered some of his expectations, but it was still poles apart from the dinners—if he could even call them that—he'd had growing up. Surprisingly, they were largely informal, and placed a reduced emphasis on the etiquette his mother had been instilling in him.
It was strange. He'd thought for sure that the dinners would be prissy, as aristocratic Victorian Dinners usually were. Apparently, that wasn't the case, and Anakin didn't know whether to think it was as a result of cultural differences, or that his family was just an outlier.
As he had expected, though, the food was heavenly. The meat particularly. He'd never tasted anything like it. On most days, it was steak, and it had a slightly sweet, yet still savory, flavor. In addition, its texture was tender, though it still had the smoky aroma he was familiar with.
Its distinct taste made him wonder whether it was cut from the carcass of a magical beast, or just from a native non-magical species. Already, he knew magical beasts existed, and he was pretty curious about how they tasted.
He had a hunch that the steak was indeed from a magical beast since whenever he ate it, he would become sprightly, more so than he'd ever been. At times he even felt like he could run a marathon several times and not get tired.
Most of the time, the entire family —his parents, grandmother, him, and Loretta— were present for dinner, but on some days, his father and grandmother were absent. He often wondered the reasons for their absences, especially his grandmother.
The woman looked like she was well over fifty, so he had assumed that she didn't have a lot of obligations and would spend all her time in the manor, immersing herself into her hobbies. But evidently, it wasn't the case, and she was just as busy as his father, if not more.
'Business, and social aristocratic duties?' He'd reasoned a few times. It was cogent, as aristocracies usually had strict social norms and customs that demanded attention, and the family was loaded, so perhaps the management of the family businesses required her presence.
He was curious about it, but not curious enough to actively search for an answer. In his eyes, whatever the reason was would become apparent to him eventually. There were other things, more important things, that garnered his assiduity, namely magic…
***
It was dark, but Anakin could still see the clock across his room. The soft, ethereal moonlight trickling through his window made its hands crystal clear. They had reached witching hour, the hour he'd been awaiting.
It's time, he thought, and with a grin, he took off his sheets and descended his four poster bed. The floor was cold, but Anakin paid no attention to it, and within moments the infant was at the first obstacle in his quest for knowledge.
His door.
It was tall, way taller than him, yet he was unfazed. Quietly, he reached for its knob and gently twisted it. There was an audible click, and after it, a gust of frigid air brushed past his dark golden brown hair.
'Its cold'
Colder than it usually was. It seemed tonight's weather was chilly. He'd noticed it had been getting colder the last few days. Winter was probably a little too eager this year.
Gently, though, he pried the door open and slipped between it. What greeted him was an eerily tranquil hallway. It was dark, not as dark as his room, and the melancholy it sang enticed him. It's sadness signified he was in the green— no one was awake.
He carried on. Slowly but steadily he set one foot in front of the other, until he reached the next junction —the hardest one to cross. It was the stairs, and it was particularly thorny because of its location. The slightest noise would immediately alert several of the manor's residents, the most important of which being his parents.
What's more, the stairs' wooden planks creaked easily. At times, all it took was one remarkably firm foot before it screamed alarmingly. Then, it would be all over.
Anakin took a deep breath and ran his little hands through his hair. He looked to his left. Another eerily tranquil hallway. That was good.
He looked to his right. It was the sa—...no, it wasn't. This hallway was brighter, and at the end of it, faint orange light was flickering. Immediately, alarm bells rang in his head, and for a moment his chest tightened. Any light was bad, especially if it came from the direction of his parents room.
The anxiety in him howled to abort, but rationality dismissed it as noise. Any light wasn't always bad. His father was infamous for bringing work to the bedroom, and he'd often forget to turn the oil lamp off after finishing whatever it was that he was working on. That was the reason. It had to be…no he wanted it to be.
Anakin's eyes shifted back to the stairs. 'As long as I'm quiet, it should be fine,' he convinced himself that it wasn't anything worth worrying about. It wasn't the first time he'd seen the glow anyways.
He was determined to continue his quest. The prospect of learning about the supernatural was too alluring, and like a succubus, it so foxily seduced him, nudging him to take the risk. It was naughty, even he had to admit.
With nimble feet, he crawled down the irritable stairs, pausing every so often to regain his bearings. He really didn't want to get caught. His mother would give him an earful if he was. The woman was a stringent disciplinarian, and her scolding could hardly be called bearable.
After what seemed like an eternity of careful movements, he reached the ground floor. He was almost there. Just a few more steps and voila, he would be in front of the library's foreboding doors —his target.
Each step made Anakin feel like he was treading on tenterhooks, but he persevered, and soon the familiar door was within view. It was enormous, more so than any of the other doors he'd seen, and was littered with golden decorative accents. It was lavish, like many other things within the Aldritch manor.
Anakin held his breath and reached for the doors knobs. The door creaked as it opened, but Anakin's actions never stopped. Once it was wide enough, he entered and gently shut it behind him.
'Phew, I made it,' he softly exhaled as he turned to view the final destination of his quest. As mentioned earlier, the library was colossal. It had several bookshelves spanning its width and length, and various pieces of artwork —from oil paintings to antique maps— furnishing its walls.
The air was thick with the smell of old paper and polished wood, and the lighting was dull. But Anakin could still see. The moonlight helped him, as it usually did.
Without much fanfare, he made his way over to the bookshelf he had searched the night before, and as he did, he reviewed what he had already discovered hitherto.
Much of his initial guesses were right. He'd reincarnated as the eldest son of a wealthy, and renowned, aristocratic house in a nation-state called the Pruvian Empire. The Empire's history was rich; it was founded in the year 1278 AS, and it was one of the largest, and most powerful, polities currently in existence.
His house, House Aldritch, was one of its eight founding houses, and as such, the influence and prestige it held was titanic. Bar the founding houses, and within Pruvia, none could compare to its history and heritage.
Its history was largely scholarly and militaristic. House Aldritch was a house famous for the number of venerated magic scholars, and military commanders it produced. They were numerous, and the feats some of them accomplished looked like something straight out of an epic fantasy tale.
The discovery had caused the boy to wonder. If House Aldritch had existed since antiquity, how come they were so few? Except for his immediate family, he'd seen no other individual bearing the last name 'Aldritch' within the manor's lands. To his Earthian mind, it was odd.
The best explanation he could cough up was that perhaps the rest of the Aldritch family lived elsewhere, and that the manor was only meant for the Head of the House, and their immediate family.
Yes, their. Another thing he'd gotten a whiff of was the house's succession laws. Though he hadn't seen them directly, he could already conjure a decent replica of it based on what he'd read. Contrary to what he'd expected, it was purely meritocratic, with no bias on gender.
Throughout the house's age-long history, there have been several female Head of Houses, and some of them were even amongst the Empire's most decorated military commanders. Anakin had found it to be a bit bizarre given the historical timeline the world was in.
The Victorian Era was ill-famed for its trademark social inequity. It was deeply rooted, and women couldn't even vote or obtain an education easily. So it was really surprising; evidently, the women here had no such constraints, and were not excluded from positions of great power.
Though, the discovery made the infant extremely unhappy. It basically turned his adorable little sister into his biggest rival, and he despised it. It was even more disconcerting since, lately, the girl had been showing signs of possessing gifted intellect. Like him she could already read, although her limit was simple words. She couldn't read full sentences yet, thankfully.
He had already resolved to drastically ramp up his prodigious displays. In these early stages, he wanted to build an advantage so great that the young girl would see it as oppressive. Then, she would have no choice but to submit. The title of heir to House Aldritch was his, and he would not compromise whatsoever on it. Unwavering determination was his creed, and evidently, it had yet to wilt.
With regards to the history of the world, however, he knew little. Much of it was shrouded in a thick fog of obscurity, and every written record he'd read only dated as far back as 1651 years ago. Anything prior to that was unknown, and Anakin found it to be very bizarre.
It wasn't just that. There were many other unusual things about it, but two stood out to him the most. The first was that the world had no actual name. There were continents, and each had their own names, but there was none for the world.
In fact, it seemed that its inhabitants knew very little about it, as nearly all the world maps he'd seen had blacked out areas indicating that they were incomplete and had several uncharted regions.
There was a common consensus for the term used to refer to the entire known world, however. It was 'The First Domain', and Anakin found it to be particularly interesting. Why was it called the first? Were there others? He'd looked for answers, but came up empty handed so it was still a mystery.
The second bizarre thing about the world's history was the history itself. From most of the records he'd come across, all the sentient species in The First Domain arose after an event called The Shardfall. It was exactly what it sounded like. A 50-year-long celestial event in which gargantuan crystal-like shards bombarded The First Domain's atmosphere and terraformed its surface.
The event marked the start of all sentient life in The First Domain, and the Solarian calendar — The First Domain's standard calendar — was based on it. The Solarian calendar had 540 days in a common year, and it counted every solar year as years since The Shardfall.
Now, the unusual thing was that immediately after The Shardfall, civilizations existed. Even by the year 0 AS (After Shardfall), several ancient civilizations with distinct cultures, ethnicities, and religions were in existence. To call it stupendous would be understating it. How could civilizations have existed the year sentient life started?
It was like going from 0 to 1000 km/h in a millisecond. It was illogical, and Anakin was certain that something was missing to explain the drastic change. Though, he didn't have the slightest clue what it could be, nor did he find any answers that explained the odd occurrence.
***
'This is getting annoying'
Anakin was getting tired. He'd just spent the last half an hour searching for books on magic, yet he hadn't found anything. The duration wasn't long, but the frustration of a prolonged search waned his patience. He wanted answers, and he wanted them now. Why was it so hard to find one damn book on magic in a world where it exists?
'Tsk'
In frustration, he slammed his minuscule fist on the bookshelf he was leaning on. It groaned in response, even with the minuscule force applied to it, and a book suddenly appeared beside him.
The sound of its impact with the ground was muffled by the plush crimson carpet, but Anakin paid no attention to it. Instinctively, his eyes darted to its cover, and once he read it, his pupils lit up brighter than the night sky on new year's eve.
[Uncovering the Laws of Nature: A Journey through Arcane Theory by Alhahzared S. Aldritch]
He finally found it! A book on magic! Well, it read 'arcane', but surely it must be related to magic, right? It had to be.
Excitement immediately surged through his veins. Here it was, the thing he'd spent the last two years searching for. The leather-bound tome holding the secrets he so strongly desired was now within his palms. The way he found it was unexpected, but he thought nothing of it. Coincidences happen, after all.
The author of the book intrigued him, though. He was pleasantly surprised to see it was an Aldritch, and his first name made him wonder. Alhahzared, it definitely wasn't Pruvian. Perhaps it was some other language. He'd find out later.
Anakin took a deep breath, and unceremoniously opened the book, his bright blue eyes glittering with curiosity that seemed too child-like for even a child.
Unbeknownst to the infant, though, a brass mechanical owl perching on a shelf in the direction the book fell from was observing him fixedly, blinking its pearly white eyes that seemed to be swirling with some otherworldly energy ever so often…