Starting around when I turned six months, my father would hunt mana beasts that my mother would cook into an almost applesauce mixture to feed me. The mixture was not delicious at all, yet I would eat every small bit of it because I discovered something inside of it. Mana.
The magical power inside of the mana beast was something that I could absorb and refine using the meditation techniques of my home world. It might as well be non-existent compared to the divine energy I was blessed with, but for my infant body? It was overwhelming. Humans did not start to consume mana beasts until around eight years old, for fear of the mana overloading their system as this world did not appear to have a very developed refinement system like my meditation provided.
In truth, I was only eating it now because I had stolen a piece out of curiosity from my parents meal and discovered that my meditation did work in this world, which means I could use the mana to refine my body earlier on. My parents freaked out at first and tried to siphon the mana from me to find I had refined it already.
"The mana is already refined? How?" My father asked.
I looked at him with my blankest baby look I could.
"He's a baby, he does not have a mana core so how could he refine mana when a 1st Tier Mage has a hard time learning to do so?" He asked my mother.
"I-I don't know! There has never been a documented case about a young child doing this, much less a six month old baby!"
"There does not appear to be problems with this, but feel this Lenora." He motioned for my mother to feel my back. "His mana channels are using the refined mana to purify themselves already. He must be somehow directing the mana to refine his body and clear his channels of their impurities from when they were made?"
"Let's keep an eye on him for now and see if anything happens, and if it turns out to be a good thing.. Let's find proper mana beasts that are more suited to his body" My mother said.
I was unfamiliar with the magic system classifications here, but it did not matter because using the mana to refine my body was highly beneficial to my development.
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This resulted in a massive achievement for any baby… I can crawl!
My horizons expanded, and the world was my oyster! Well, my house was anyways. If someone was looking, I crawled and explored. If someone was not looking? I truly explored. Both of my parents were mages, which was already impressive as the majority of mages were of nobility, but they were also retired adventurers. That means they had to have books, scrolls, or whatever was used to write about magic in this world, and I needed to find it.
I came to a realization when I found a small bookcase in what I thought was a spare bedroom or storage room in the house, that I could already hear the language my parents spoke, and now that the words on the titles of the books made sense to me. It was written and spoken in a different language than my first life, but I somehow understood it already. It did not help my physical inability to speak it well, but I was slowly making progress on that front.
The only conclusion I reached was that it was something to do with the Lady of the Abyss's power inside of my chest. The diction of the writing system in this world was almost a comfort and an irony to me, because it felt like the dense style of writing used in the holy scriptures in the Order. It brought both good memories and complicated emotions but the important thing was that I could roughly read it.
It took me a while, but I managed to safely drag the "Field Guide to Magic" from the bookshelf onto the floor in front of me. Luckily it is the size of a small notebook, so opening and flipping the pages was not too difficult.
Taking advantage of my parents being asleep, I devoured the contents of the book like a starving beast that found easy prey. From what I understood, the magic system of this world was structured like this:
The ability to utilize magic was not necessarily related to bloodlines. Anyone could manipulate mana, BUT having mages in the bloodline passed down stronger mana channels, which gave an advantage when learning to use magic. This explained why nobilities had more mages, and commoners were less likely to become proper mages.
Magic was classified into three types, being offensive, defensive, and utility based magic. Of the three types, utility was the least advanced as magic originated for military use in combat, which in turn means more resources are diverted to combat oriented magic research.
The basic elements of magic are Fire, Water, Wind, and Earth, with some rare exceptions being variations of one or more elementals combining, such as Fire/Earth creating Lava magic. Mages with dual affinities were heavily sought after by countries to use for military applications, and were given a high status.
Mages could theoretically learn all four elements, but this was considered inefficient as one element would be prominent, and it would take years or even decades to even unlock the basics of a secondary element. It is not known how the prominent element is chosen, but bloodlines tend to affect it as well since a family that has a lot of fire mages has mana channels used to channeling fire mana over the other elements for example.
In my first life, I had received multiple blessings from the Divine and was able to use multiple elements, including ones that did not seem to exist in this world like the Light element. I wonder if that experience from there will influence my element here, or if it will allow me to be proficient at multiple elements?
Is that something I want though? This world seemed to be in constant war with the mana beasts, and if I was a mage who could use multiple elements… The military would take me and train me to be a weapon. I would just be reliving life as a weapon in another's hand this time… I refuse to do that. A life of peace is impossible for me, but my purpose in life will not be as a sword to swing at a problem anymore.
Putting those thoughts to the back of my mind for now, I continued reading more from the book:
"To cast magic, a mage must first form their mana core. It is unknown what causes a mana core to form, but it usually occurs in human mages around the age of 12-13, with other races, such as the elves occurring earlier around 10-11. While a mana core is capable of channeling magic, a mage is typically unable to do so until they have created a magic circle on their core to refine mana from their environment into mana they can use.
When a mage forms their first magic circle on their core, they officially become a Tier 1 Mage. As the mage develops their abilities, they eventually can add additional magic circles to their core, which advances their tier and magical capabilities equal to their total number of magic circles. The current known peak for mages is a Tier 9 Mage, and only very few have reached that height, as adding magic circles is a risky process that can result in the mana core erupting and killing the mage in the process if not done properly.
Magic is the art of using chants to channel your body's mana from its mana core into the type needed for the spell. A mage's mana core was crucial to the utilization of mana, and any damage to the core can break their ability to channel mana entirely. Protect your core at all costs."
Chants were also something used in my previous world, and yet I was privy to a secret the Divine did not want the public to know: Chants served the purpose of creating the correct "image" in the user's mind to properly channel the blessing to create the spell. A skilled user could learn to create the image in their mind without the use of chants, decreasing the time to cast and allowing advantages in combat with other magic users. The Divine liked the ways humans would offer worship in chants to them to "use" their blessings, so they did not want anyone but their strongest to do so.
Would that work the same here? I would have to cast a spell normally to understand how the mana flows in my mana channels. This would have to wait until I form my mana core, or does it?
My parents seemed surprised I was refining mana at all, and mentioned a tier 1 mage being the starting point for mana refinement. I have already been refining the mana from the mana beast I have eaten, but currently I am still unable to refine mana from the environment, as mana beast has concentrated mana, while the environment is still too diluted for me to absorb it efficiently.
This was a risky thought, but I want to try to channel a spell. I need to test my theory if my previous experience will affect my magical abilities here, regardless of if I have a mana core or not currently. I can form a small pool of refined mana through my mana channels if I try to contain the leakage of mana when refining it from the food. It makes me feel bad to do so, but if I cry for food more often my parents might indulge me if I seem really happy to eat mana beasts.
I wonder how long it will take to form a safe amount for a small spell?