POV: Aleron (Infant)
Everything was slow.
Heavy. Muffled. Like I was underwater, but breathing.
My limbs refused to move the way I wanted them to. My hands curled on their own, twitching with newborn reflexes. My body ached in ways I didn't understand—hunger, heat, cold. It was all jumbled. No control. Just sensations crashing into each other.
Is this what being a baby is like?
I cried. Often. Sometimes I didn't know why.
The woman—Rina—was always there. Her arms were strong, her voice steady. When I cried, she answered. When I flailed, she hummed a tune and held me close. Her scent was always the same: firewood, herbs, and the earth.
She never called herself my mother, but she treated me like her own.
And I… didn't know how to feel about that yet.
The days passed slowly.
Time didn't flow the way it used to. It pooled and dragged like honey, stretching endlessly between moments of alertness. My body demanded sleep constantly—my eyelids too heavy, my breathing too shallow, the beat of my own heart a thunderous drum.
But when I was awake... I saw everything.
The world was bright—blinding, at first. Light didn't just illuminate; it shimmered. It moved. Dust particles hung in the air like falling stars. The beams of sunlight filtering through our shutters weren't just golden—they rippled with something deeper.
Something alive.
It took days—maybe weeks—before I understood.
I could see mana.
Not just sense it. See it. Wisps of soft blue, threads of green, occasionally flecks of silver. They drifted through the air like lazy fireflies, gathering in corners, soaking into stones, lingering around people like invisible auras.
Rina glowed faintly every time she touched me. Her mana was warm, calm, grounding—like hearthfire in winter.
Outside our cottage, the air was thinner. The mana flowed slower, more spread out, drawn toward the river or the trees. Some days I saw tiny sparks dancing between the leaves. Other days, they pooled in the soil like dew.
This was not how I remembered mana in my past world.
This was raw. Wild. Organic.
And it was beautiful.
I slept more than I wanted to. My body needed it. Even brief moments of awareness took their toll. Thinking too hard gave me headaches. Trying to move drained me instantly. I'd cry out in frustration, not because of hunger, but because I couldn't do anything yet.
Sometimes I'd forget I was only a month old.
I had once lectured grandmasters on arcane theory. And now, I couldn't roll over.
So I listened.
To Rina's voice, to the wind, to the heartbeat of mana beneath the soil. I tracked patterns. Studied vibrations. Catalogued colors and reactions like I had my old magical experiments.
And when the fog lifted long enough for me to stay awake, I practiced.
Not with spells—I couldn't. But with thought. With focus. With intent.
I concentrated on the space just behind my sternum. The core space. The inner well where mana was meant to gather and grow.
I visualized it.
A sphere. A spark. A blueprint.
Every breath was an inhale of mana, every exhale a shaping. I couldn't form a core yet—but I could prime the space for one.
My body wasn't ready. But my soul had done this before.
On the morning of my first month, something changed.
It began with a whisper—not a sound, but a sensation. Like silk brushing the edge of my mind.
Then came the chime. Soft. Clear. Resonant.
A sound no one else in the world could hear.
And then, before my eyes—no, within them—text formed. Crisp. Gentle. Floating.
Like starlight scrawled across glass.
[God's Whisper Activated]
System Initiating…
Welcome, Aleron.
Task Assigned: Form your First Core – Path: Wizard
I stopped breathing for a moment.
Or maybe I just forgot how.
I knew this. I remembered this.
Nyx…
You actually did it.
It hadn't been a dream, or a god's lie. She'd given me the system she promised. And it was awake—watching, waiting, ready.
The fog of infancy hadn't stolen everything after all.
It had just been… waiting.