Chapter 2: purpose
A month has passed by in the world of 'TRMCP', Nero who's been reborn as a crow has somewhat… gotten used to the life of a crow and by now it's normal for the fledglings to have left their nests already.
Though… Nero, who was a human, has never flown literally before except on planes or helicopters for emergency surgeries, so to put it bluntly, Nero is afraid of diving head straight into the ground dying.
"Who can blame me!" Nero complained, still standing at the edge of his nest that's barely fitting his now grown bird body, his parents flew towards him confused "use wind" it said. Obviously Nero is confused, while he knew from the novel that every living creature has mana, he who was a human in a world of science, simply couldn't and didn't understand what mana is…
Frustrated, Nero's parents landed next to him and pecked on his head, hard enough where some blood was leaking "what the hell?!?" feeling bullied he lashed out at his parents before noticing they're crowding the spilled blood on the branch 'what are they doing…'
Nero's parents flapped their wings towards the blood and as Nero got closer he felt a small yet evident breeze coming from his blood?
"Wait so mana is contained in the blood? But what's this feeling though…" He said confusingly, while he knew that he's still bleeding from his wound on top of his head, the distant feeling of bleeding is different from the usual… a minty sensation? Nero who's lived for more than 30 years has experienced a fair share of blood loss and he has never felt refreshed from bleeding before, it has always been a warm, pulsing, bitter pain that rushes out as you bleed.
Trying to understand the minty sensation by focusing on it, 'could this be mana?' Nero questioned himself. 'If I had to describe it, it feels like my body is a cup and straw and the mana is like the liquid inside, every time I turn my head I could feel the minty feeling rotating in the direction of my head like water in a spinning cup. This is a 'bio-magical' breakthrough isn't it!' He squawked.
With this new found knowledge he tried flapping his wings and surely enough he could feel something in his blood was moving towards the bottom of his wings, not only that in 'TRMCP' it's been heavily stressed that the way mana moves will determine the attribute it becomes.
– In burst of solid clumps of mana would generate earth magic –
– In a gentle unending movement of mana would generate wind magic –
– In a rapid, upward flickering burst of mana would generate fire magic –
– In a slow, smooth, spreading rush of mana would generate water magic –
With that as an example he flapped his wings in a slow, rhythmic movement, and started to feel a sudden breeze generate underneath his wings as the minty sensation(mana) left his body, which propelled his light crow body upwards. Successfully learning how to fly as a crow in 'TRMCP', which made him really intrigued in mana as a man of science. Seeing their son, Nero learn to fly, the parents left forever without saying anything.
"Not that I care~" Nero exclaimed, still intrigued by the mechanics of mana.
Wanting to test it's full capabilities, Nero forced more mana into generating wind compiled by flapping his wing to guide his body, seeing that there's no predators in the forest of thunder from above, he thought living as a crow might not be too bad, as it's surprisingly quite peaceful… isn't it? Despite the novel's horrifying description of it, and yes it's true that everything mentioned was there, but nothing was made particularly hard for the crows to live in the forest…
Feeling confident, he poured more mana into his wings at a faster rate, which helped him reach an unnatural speed. The passing grotesque trees soon turned into a blur, as his speed started slowly climbing up to Mach 1, evident to him by the fact that he felt the air pressing against him become painful… pushing past the pain, he felt a sudden dizziness akin to iron deficiency for a second, Nero could no longer feel the minty sensation in his body and his speed and control started to shut down.
"SHIT!" he screamed out loud, flapping his wings in a panic he somehow did learn to fly like a normal bird. Feeling relieved, Nero made a vow to never rapidly spend mana ever again.
"Ha… it's fun while it lasted…" he exclaimed, the sudden rush of adrenaline was addicting to someone that was in the modern age, the fear of diving from a high altitude was exhilarating, than… he remembering the time he dissed people getting injured from skydiving while being alive and felt sorry to the people he dissed.
…
Nero felt empty… leaving earth behind while he lived only half his life, but… it wasn't like he had any friends, family nor siblings to look after, Nero only had himself for the majority of his life working from the bottom all the way to the top.
In the midst of his thoughts, he arrived at the edge of the forest of thunder.
A nearby town under construction, Nero flew atop one of the buildings and looked around for anything interesting, trying to figure out where this is. He suddenly heard from someone in the distance that the budget for the mayor building might be delayed. Which was then a young looking blond male spoke up "that might be a little bit troubling…"
"My deepest apology, Sir Dick Coalson, but-"
"What???" Nero squawked, "Piss off, shoo!" shouted Dick Coalson angered by the sudden interruption of a crow
Nero flew away but was deep in thought 'Dick Coalson is known to be one of the wealthiest people that was in TRMCP, but he said they'd run out of funds? And isn't he looking a bit too young? At the very least 20 years… since this is his town, I guess this is the Cloud Harrison, the only town that Dick Coalson built which was also a property of the aurora household…'
Flying past a calendar, Nero's suspension has been answered, as of right now it's 20 years before the novel begins and 3 years before any of the protagonist are born
(Right now, 06/6/580 L.E = Lunar eclipse: the year name i will be using)
'If that's the case then… I have more than enough time and ways to save her.'