'Man, being born again with my consciousness active sure was a pain. From pure darkness to being blinded by the light, how could I not help but scream?'
It had been two days since Carter was born into his new life. At first, he was very skeptical if it was all real or not, but after a full day of time in this new world, he accepted that the voice he heard really wasn't his subconscious.
Carter still couldn't understand anything of who he believed were his new parents were saying to him, but they did repeat a word that sounded like saying cane in English repeatedly. So, he assumed this was his new name. Although, he didn't know how it was spelled in this language or his new last name yet.
As the days passed by, Carter now Kayn, started to figure out different words of his new language and could understand a little more of what his parents were saying to him.
He realized that the restrictions placed upon him since he had to go through what any other newborn would was actually a blessing in disguise. His mother breast fed him, but rather than feeling any lust or desire, all he felt was hunger until it was satiated and then he slept.
While he found it should be embarrassing to urinate and defecate in his underwear, he slowly got used to the feeling of discomfort and accepted that it would be this way until his body matured a bit more and he could control his muscles.
Since he couldn't do anything aside from eat, sleep, and poop, Kayn decided it was best to just use his intelligence and awareness to observe his surroundings to learn more about this new world the best that he could.
Even without being able to understand much of the language, Kayn was able to learn several things in the first couple of weeks of his life.
First, he definitely was not a human. He noticed both his mother and father had interesting traits that didn't match with any human he had ever seen in the past.
His father had crimson-colored eyes and hair, but also had somewhat long and pointed ears. At the same time his mother looked mostly human aside from her bright golden-purple eyes and snow-white hair. He also noticed that his mother's pupils would turn from normal round pupils into slits like that of a snake on occasion when she was staring at something far away or if it was bright.
As much as Kayn wanted to speak to his parents about who they were and what kind of a being he was, he couldn't even form sounds other than 'ah' and odd babbling sounds.
Kayn also discovered that he must be a little brother, as there was a small girl, a striking image to his father, running around that he deemed no more than 4 years old according to Earth's standards. He didn't know how time worked here yet or how his race aged, but he assumed that bodies should grow similarly, if they didn't, he would learn this in the next few years.
Most days Kayn was carried around by his mother, even though they didn't leave the house much aside from walking into the garden near the home, he enjoyed this time as he began to have warm and comfortable feelings towards his mother as any child would.
This time also allowed him to use his Analyze skill which he was honestly pretty disappointed with as the results were always too simple to even be helpful such as [Book] or [Rock]. There were even occasions that he would get back the result [Unable to Analyze]. The words would just hover above the object like ghostly writing, then disappear once he stopped trying to Analyze something.
If he could remember what his infancy was like in his last life or the emotions from it, Kayn was sure that he would have felt these same emotions towards his first mother. On the other hand, his feelings towards his father were still neutral since his father was gone most of the time, but still held and played with him occasionally when he was home.
…
Eight months had gone by, and Kayn continued to observe his surroundings day in and day out.
He learned that his father's name was Ezekiel while his mother's name was Zerana. He also interacted with his sister, Clementine almost every day as she would steal him from his mother's embrace to play with him on the floor.
Kayn himself had learned how to crawl and then walk during this time, and even though he was awkward and stumbled on occasion, nor could he walk fast, he was making progress. As frustrated as he was that he didn't have muscle control, he was determined to be running around by the time he was a year old.
Apparently, this world had a similar calendar to Earth in that it had days, weeks, months, and years. Time here still revolved around whatever the big glowing ball in the sky was called in this world. Each year was split into 12 months, each month had 3 weeks, and each week had 10 days. He was not positive on how they denoted any smaller amounts of time yet though.
One of the more important things he learned during this time aside from understanding the language, walking, and speaking basic words like 'mama' or 'papa', he learned his father was one of the highest-ranking people in their empire's military.
…
Another year and half went by in a flash. Kayn was now over two years old and had continued with his intellectual and physical growth.
During these two years he would often wake from his sleep drenched in sweat due to nightmares from his trauma just before he died, but his mother was always there to comfort him and lull him back to sleep.
He was now allowed to wander around the house now with his mother following him around. Kayn was finally able to get a good look at his younger self in a mirror. He was particularly proud of having pure snow-white hair just like his mother and even noticed he had normal length ears, however they ended in a point.
The most peculiar part of his appearance that he noticed was his eyes. He had crimson irises, very similar to his father, however, in the middle of his iris, he had black circles around his pupils. Each eye had one thin circle of black that would expand and shrink with the contraction and dilation of his pupils. Honestly, he found it slightly creepy.
His mother noticed that he was a particularly bright child and since his sister was five and a half this year and learning reading, writing, and mathematics from a home tutor, she allowed Kayn to sit in on the lessons after he expressed interest. To her surprise Kayn made astonishing progress and was even receiving higher marks than his sister in most areas.
The only area where he couldn't surpass his sister, was during the second tutor's lessons which were physical exercise and flexibility training.
Kayn just assumed that he would be able to beat his sister's marks in time since he was smaller than her and his control over his body was still subpar.
The last, and the topic Kayn loved the most, were the theoretical magic classes. Most children were not able to manifest what was called a mana core until they reached 13 years old at the youngest, and many never developed one at all. However, those coming from parents who had cores had a better chance to develop their own.
Any child that was 13 to 15 years old and manifested their mana core was declared a genius of the highest level and would most likely have astronomical levels of mana control. The typical age for core formation was around 16 to 17.
The mana core typically manifests as the color of the primary element that the individual can control. Each mana core's strength is determined by what stage they are in, with six being the last stage. Each stage influencing the quality and quantity of mana an individual had.
The lessons mainly focused on the different elements and how they are utilized. However, some lessons included the theory of ways to feel and manipulate the mana in the body in order to increase the flow and control of mana.
Mana intrigued Kayn because he didn't have it in his previous world. While he had knowledge of different technologies that this world didn't seem to have yet or maybe they are useless, he had no clue about mana and magic aside from fantasy novels and games he had read or played.
To Kayn, learning about mana and magic was his main priority and he focused most of his time in this subject during independent study times. The flexibility of mana to produce different magics amazed him.
The only downside that Kayn could find was that each individual had their own strong suits towards specific elements and each element was ranked on a rarity chart. Most people could only use one, and the rare individual could use two or three different elements at maximum, and this made Kayn very disappointed.
He hoped with all of his heart that he would be able to use any element he wanted, but knew this hope would surely be doused in the future. The bright side to this was that his father was a rare wielder of the lightning element. This brought him hope that maybe he could manifest lightning or another rare element as well.
The lightning element was partly the reason why his father was so highly regarded in the military and their family name, Vestarius, had been spread throughout the empire where they resided. People who mainly used magic, were classified as mages. There were other classifications, but since Kayn had a lot to learn, he just decided to lump everyone into a simple term for now.
There were also people regarded as magic warriors, which was just a broad term used for people who used any type of melee with their mana rather than ranged magic spells as their specialty. They would typically imbue magic into their weapon to fight and use spells to enhance their melee combat and movements
Unfortunately for these types of fighters, their race could hinder their talent. For example, a human would typically be at a disadvantage against a strength-based demon race. But there were anomalies for every race, and humans had the majority of them.
As for Kayn, right before his 7th birthday he finally gathered the courage to ask his mother what he was to determine his standing in this world as each race had their own strengths and weaknesses when it came to personal power. It was also at this point that he finally stopped having nightmares due to the comfort and love of his new family.