It has almost been a week now since I started training my body, mostly just practicing reflexes and accuracy with the outer extremities, but still can't crawl decently yet. Without magic that is.
The cool thing about (Neutral Body Strengthening) I found is that when I applied it to my whole body, it helped my muscles support me. It felt like the neutral strengthening made my body lighter, but in actuality, it just helped my muscles support me.
So, while I couldn't crawl on my own yet, I could do it with magic. The only downside was that I couldn't use the magic for long. I had advanced to (Bright-Scarlet) now and could fit 7290 mana into my core, but the whole neutral body strengthening took 700 to activate on my full body and took 70 mana to maintain so I could only use it for around 90 seconds at a time.
It also took me over a full minute each time to recharge my mana core. Even with that, I managed to explore the room I was in quite a bit. After realizing I was starting to crawl, my parents gave me a lot more freedom, and I could venture into both of their studies as well as the master bedroom where my crib was.
As expected, the rooms had been even more majestic up close, with every corner being as clean as could be and displays of wealth everywhere. The furniture was of the highest quality, with the best wood and metal possible. In both studies were grand dark mahogany desks with shelves on either side of them. The desks faced away from the window near which they were situated to allow the person sitting there to monitor all entrances to the room.
Both studies had 2 doors leading into them from the outside with one of them connecting to the master bedroom and the other leading out onto the hallway. The master bedroom had 5 doors in it, with one leading out the hallway, 2 leading to studies, and the other two leading to a bathroom and a closet. The bathroom and closet were situated between the master bedroom and the studies leading to a short hallway being built between the rooms.
I mostly stayed in the master bedroom so as not to bother my parents with their work, but it was spacious enough for me to do all the things I wanted anyway. In the master bedroom was a shelf filled with many books that occupied most of my time. Ever since I had started crawling the maids stationed to take care of me had made sure to keep a closer eye on me to keep me safe. As such, I didn't get much time to practice my magic.
The maids didn't bother me much as I went around with my business and mostly did other stuff while keeping an eye on me; be it reading or cleaning around the room. Another thing to note was that my grandparents were rarely to be seen this past week, only stopping by once or twice. I just figured they had work come up and were dealing with it or were traveling around.
During the week I had been reading when not practicing crawling or magic. I was slow at first, but started picking up pace quickly and had already finished two medium-sized books. It helped that I had been an avid reader in my past life too.
At first, the maids were astonished to see me flipping through the book and scanning through it, but they soon got used to it and even read to me. The two books I read were "The Basics of Magic and its History" and "An Overview of the Known History of Euclidiya".
The first book, "The Basics of Magic and its History" was quite useful. It talked about how there had always been some humans who could use magic on instinct since the beginning of recorded history, but it was the Mage Astrella who had figured out the rules of magic and how to manipulate mana consciously. Astrella was also the one who had created magic circles.
It was magic circles that caught my eye in the book. So far I had just been manipulating mana to do magic, but most people in this world used magic circles for optimum effects. People made magic circles by taking their mana, sharpening it, and writing on the world so to speak.
Not only were magic circles more cost-effective, but for most people, they were faster and more reliable than shaping and controlling mana manually. This type of mana circle was called "Inscription". The other common form of magic circles was "Chants".
Chants were just magic circles, that instead of being written out, were spoken out. This process required infusing mana into your words and was often used as a faster, but less reliable and cost-effective process than inscribing.
Most people used both methods at the same time in "Casting". This was sort of a middle ground where you would say the chant and a magic circle would be inscribed because of it. This was the norm of magic for humans, and many other races used different methods of making magic circles to use magic.
I was a bit scared of testing out magic circles in the house as I didn't know what could happen so I refrained for now.
The other book, "An Overview of the Known History of Euclidiya" was also very useful. Euclidiya was a vast planet with many wonders, but there were only 3 Continents on it save for the poles. To the southwest was the Demon Continent, where, as its name suggests, demons reside. The Demon Continent is known as the most dangerous continent as it has the worst climate with a vast deserted wasteland taking up most of the continent.
The Demon Continent also has the most abundant natural mana allowing for the residents there to be much stronger than the rest of the world. Next, there is the Middle Continent which stretches all the way from north to south and is the biggest of the three continents.
Many species live on the Middle Continent including humans. The humans live under 3 empires on the west coast of the continent. The northern Empire is called the Boreas Empire, the southern empire is called the Rhatos Empire, and the country where I am is called the Aeulus Empire.
The other places of value are the Beastmen Kingdom, in between the Rhatos and Aeulus empires, and the Great Forest of Tellus to the north and east of the Aeulus empire where all the dryads, treants, elves, and treefolk live. There are also the northern and southern wastelands to the northeast and southeast of the continent.
And finally, the Eastern Continent which is the smallest of the three continents. The Eastern Continent contains even more beast folk and dwarves, as well as a small population of humans in the Eastern Kingdom.
These kingdoms all came about after the end of the Warring era which is the beginning of written history. The Warring era as suggested by its name was a time of constant war where all the races were battling each other for supremacy.
The demons were the strongest, but smallest in numbers, then the nature races, who had amazing magical strength, but weak bodies and minds, were the second strongest. After them came the beast folk with their amazing innate strength, but all of their populations dulled in comparison to the humans who had more people than all the other races combined.
As the wars drew to stalemates and the people became sick of fighting, the strongest leaders of all the races convened to make peace and split their lands. The demons and their allies got the Demon Continent, the dwarves who hadn't participated in the war could stay in the Eastern Continent with the beastmen and some humans who had settled there.
The rest of the races got the Middle Continent. This convention which was symbolized in history as the Gathering of Heroes, had happened almost two hundred years ago. I had actually been born in the 199th year since the convention and this coming year was the 200th year.
Being born towards the end of the year, it was winter, and once spring came it would be the next year. This planet worked on a seasonal calendar with each beginning of spring in the northern hemisphere, or the beginning of autumn in the southern hemisphere, being the turn of a year. In a couple weeks it would be the year 200, and my first new year in this world.