by L Travern
Of course, another possibility was that they didn't know better and thought one-year-olds only had so much mana available to be sucked out of them, or even might not have the means to provide him with a better mana-sucking tool. But even so, they should've done their homework better and focus more on the young, for they were the future of the family! Stagnation always led to disaster.
No matter how distant he was from the throne, crippling anyone from the royal family at all was stupidity.
Either way, he already thought of his family as incompetent in his heart.
* * *
Matthew learned very soon that his father was a good man, but a subpar mage.
The three strongest people in his family were three level 9, Ascenders, followed by the seven level 8, Eminences, of which his grandfather was one. As the son of an Eminence, great expectations had been placed on Matthew's father, but the man had barely been able to get to level 6, Notable Mage.
It was a great shame to the man, and it was evident in how he looked sadly at the Mana-Sucking Ring from time to time. Nevertheless, Grand Elder Eminence Richard Firebringer loved his son dearly and had gone to great depths to get the man a commission in the army. Level 7, Champion, was required for the Major position, but Matthew's father became the sole exception.
Despite his shame, Major Notable Alphonse Firebreather was a cheerful man most of the time. He always played with Matthew when he was home and told the boy tales of his mother. He treated the servants like family, unlike how Firebringer did, maybe because of how he himself was treated by the rest of the family for being a failure as a mage.
Matthew's life was filled with love, and he ended up returning his father's feelings, much to his surprise. For someone as old as he, love wasn't something easy to come by.
It was something very surprising indeed.
* * *
When he was two years old, he learned how to escape his crib at night to visit the library. He was caught three out of every five attempts, either by servants or guards, but the instances when he managed to get to the library were fruitful.
It was also a couple months after his second anniversary that he got to level 5, Five Stars Mage.
The episode made him realize there was an obvious pattern to his growth. Starting from two months to become a Three Stars Mage, he had taken double the time as before to get to the next level.
Meaning he had become a Three Stars Mage in two months after his prior advancement, a Four Stars Mage four months after that, and now a Five Stars Mage about eight months later.
He liked that rate of growth very much. It everything went well, he would get to level 8, Eminence, a couple months after he turned twelve! He only had to hope pubescence didn't hit him before that.
* * *
On his three-year anniversary, his grandfather replaced his Mana-Sucking Ring with a better one, but it was only twice as effective as the old one and was almost useless to grow his mana pool, which was already grade 5.
At that time, his greatest annoyance was that despite his readings, there were no books about magic theory in the library, and he had found no way of learning magic yet. When asked, his father always replied only with "It's not time yet."
* * *
On his fourth anniversary, when he was already level 6, Notable Mage, he was pleasantly surprised. He and his father were in the dining room, Matthew having just eaten a delicious birthday cake, when Alphonse spoke.
"Son, it's time for you to learn magic."
"Magic, dad?" Matthew asked excitedly.
The man smiled. "Yes, magic."
As if his words had broken a damn, servants flooded the dining room carrying metal cubes about half a meter wide, placing them on the floor close to the walls. Each cube was exquisitely made, with arcane symbols drawn on them. There were tens of cubes, placed side by side, partially hiding the walls' footer.
Curiosity filled Matthew, while his father looked at his son's bewilderment with a smile.
When all the servants were done, Alphonse snapped his fingers. There was an energetic disruption in the air, and all the crystal cubes came to life at the same time.
Each of them projected slowly-rotating holograms in the air. The images made Matthew remember neon lights of different colors, twisted in curves and lines, surrounding and surrounded by arcane symbols.
"These are spell signatures," Alphonse told his son. "You're too young to understand what exactly they are or how to use them, but they'll be all around the house from now on. Eventually, you'll memorize one and use it by accident. Either that, or you'll be properly taught when you're thirteen years old like I was," he said in a sad tone. "Anyway, the blue signature is for the First Light spell, green is for First Clean, yellow is for First Levitate Object, red is for First Mana Shield, white is for First Heat, and black is for First Cold."
The boy made a face, pretending not to understand most of what the man said. Alphonse laughed self-deprecatingly. "Don't worry, I'll repeat it often." He kissed Matthew's forehead. "Dad has to work. Have fun." He left.
Matthew immediately turned to look better at the lights.
Spell signatures!
Magic in any universe was nothing more than using the right kind of energy to draw the right symbol, through the right medium, with the right intent behind it, then releasing it at the desired target. Five simple immutable steps.
By using his experience and simple deduction, he concluded that in his current world, the energy was mana, the symbol was a spell signature, the medium was the very soul of the mage, and the will behind it was, of course, understanding and focusing on the spell results. The target depended on what the spell did.
He now had six different spell signatures to study, which was exactly what he needed to understand how mana — that strange energy — worked. He had long been thinking about how mana would interact with his body, his soul, the world, and the universe, and now he could check if his assumptions were correct.
Ignoring the delicious cake on the table, he devoted himself entirely to studying the spells signatures at his disposal.
* * *
Three days later, he pulled mana from his mana pool into his soul and used it to perfectly draw the spell signature he wanted to use. He did so effortlessly, something only his level 7 control over mana allowed him to do.
First Light, he thought.
More mana was pulled from his pool without him willing it, and the signature flared, becoming a shapeless light inside his soul. He willed it into his body, his hand, and finally, targeted the air. A ball of light suddenly materialized a bit away from his open palm.
New spell learned!
Name: Light
Element: Light
Level: 1
Chapter 4 - Spells
Chapter 4 - Spells
His success enlightened him on the nature of magic in that world.
Before successfully casting his first spell, he had studied the signatures for three days, only to find that none of the theories he had come with made sense.
The issue with each spell was that they required different elements besides Pure mana. However, he had no access to said elements and didn't think any four-year-old would have. That being the case, what was the use of providing him with spell signatures that he couldn't use? Was his father that failure of a mage, as to not realize the obvious issues with delivering him those signatures?
However, now that he used his first spell, he understood that his theories did make sense, except he had been missing a key piece: the help of the world itself.
As soon as he used the First Light spell but failed to provide Light mana to it, he felt an external force pull huge amounts of Pure mana from his pool and convert it to Light mana at a rate that he was confident was incredibly wasteful.
First Clean, First Levitate Object, First Mana Shield, First Heat, First Cold.
He tried all spells and the same automatic conversion happened. They also reinforced his idea that the rate of conv
ersion was wasteful, for if higher level spells required that much Pure mana, they would be very limited in what they could do.
As luck would have it, after observing each forceful conversion once, he knew what to do. Eons of experience and the title of the best energetic manipulator ever born in his old universe had to be worth something.
He took a bit of mana from his pool and applied knowledge and pressure to it.
Knowledge about what that mana should become, about how the process should happen, step by step. As simple as it sounded, it required the understanding of some secrets of reality itself, of the Laws of the universe.
And pressure, willpower, for that mana to change the way he wanted it to.
Lo and behold, his mana turned into Light mana. As he expected, the quantity of mana consumed in the conversion when he did it was one-hundredth of when the external force did so.
The World's Writ appeared before him.
New element learned!
Element: Light
First Light!
He used the spell again, now converting and providing the required Light mana himself. It worked much faster than before. He did the same thing with all the other elements and got access to Air, Fire, and Ice.
Knowing what to do, in the next days, he then used his knowledge to convert his mana to all elements he could think of until the World's Writ showed a pleasant message.
All elements learned!
You've mastered all available elements.
Just to make sure, he tried to turn mana into other elements, like Void, but it all failed, showing that mana could only be changed in specifics ways. Satisfied, he went back to analyzing the six spells, trying to pry their secrets open.
* * *
At his fifth anniversary, when he was still at level 6, Notable Mage, his father brought him a different kind of gift: a woman. It was a beautiful young lady, fifteen years old or so. Matthew could feel mana coming from her and was surprised to realize she was the very first mage he met outside his father and grandfather.
Now that he thought about it, he had been living a very sheltered life, without having ever left the house even for a bit of leisure time. He had been focusing on studying, and since training for long periods of time without leaving his room was common in his past lives, he hadn't thought about how unusual his upbringing was, until now.
Even more uncommon was how long he had taken to notice it. He felt that something was wrong, and he would have to think about it, maybe even question his father at a later date.
For now, he used a Heavenly Skill to check her level, regardless of being able to guess it just by feeling the amount and density of mana in her mana pool. Sometimes the Heavenly Skill would give different information than his conclusions, which in turn would have different implications depending on the situation.
Check Level, he thought, and a tooltip appeared above her head.
Level: 4 — Four Stars Mage
In terms of level, hers was lower than his by two. In terms of magic knowledge, however, she was his superior.
In the past year, he had studied and derived many things about mana and magic, thanks to the six spells available to him, but he doubted he could beat her in a direct combat by cleaning her clothes or by making her feel slightly cold.
The spells he knew were level 1 and had a limit to how much power they could deliver; it was impossible to set anything on fire using the 'First Heat' spell or to freeze anything by using the 'First Cold' spell. It only made sense, since they had been given for a four-year-old to use. Although he had theorized ways to create level 2 versions of those spells, he was still learning new things from the level 1 versions and had postponed investing time on advancing them.
If he fought the woman, he would be like a bodybuilder who had never learned to fight facing a skinny MMA veteran, and the result would be his defeat. He had the strength but no way to use it.
"Hello, little Matthew," she said with a sweet voice and lowered herself to get in front of him. "Nice to meet you."
"Hi," he replied, pretending to be shy while wondering who the hell she was.
"Son, this is Sara," Alphonse said. "She will teach you many things from today on."
Matthew's eyes shone. "She teaches magic, dad?"
"Not yet," she said delicately. "You must learn your letters and math first. Only then will you be able to learn magic."
"Don't worry," Alphonse said when he saw his son's face sadden. "I'll bring you two new spell signatures tomorrow."
"Thank you!" Matthew said happily and hugged the man's legs.
Alphonse smiled and patted the boy's head. "Sara will start tomorrow. Today, there's cake!"
"Cake!" Matthew yelled happily and ate his fill as soon as the food got to his reach.
It was only for nourishment purposes, of course. He was a growing kid and needed the energy. There was no way an exalted former Origin Immortal like him, who had feasted on banquets unimaginable by mortals, would ever find so much pleasure in eating cake.
No way at all.
* * *
"Asa," Sara said, pointing at a letter in a book.
"Asa," Matthew repeated.
"Aoli," she continued.
"Aoli."
"Akur."
"Akur."
* * *
"One plus one equals...?" Sara asked.
"Two!" Matthew said excitedly.
"Good boy!" She smiled. "You earned extra dessert today."
"Yay!" He punched the air.
* * *
Sara was a dedicated teacher, who didn't seem to love teaching, but did her best and didn't complain. By listening to her talking to his father, Matthew learned that she was a distant relative who was studying magic from a level 8, Eminence, from the family, but was having troubles to pay for her studies, and therefore had decided to teach kids.
For one year, Matthew pretended to learn at a fast speed, but nothing that would alert anyone. He also pretended to use the Light spell for the first time, making his father almost explode in pride.
The promised new spell signatures that were placed around the house were Second Light and Second Clean, level 2 versions of the First Light and First Clean. They made Matthew notice the words 'First' and 'Second' in the spells' names denoted their levels. He loved having received level 2 versions of spells he already knew because they showed that his theories on how they should look like were on the right track. In fact, he believed he could create better versions of the level 2 spells than the ones he had been provided with, and when he put it to test, he succeeded.
He wasn't sure about the right speed to pretend to learn new spells though, so he decided to show one every three months. On his sixth anniversary, he showed his father the fourth of the six level 1 spells, and for a moment he was sure the man would physically burst in happiness right then, right there.
"Amazing!" Alphonse yelled. "A heaven-defying genius! This is my son!" He laughed, took the boy, and threw him up. "This is my son!"
By Sara's astonished face, Matthew realized he might have been showing spells too fast, but when his dad stuffed a huge study room with nothing less than a hundred different spell signatures, Matthew decided it had been worth it.
The spells were mostly levels 1 and 2, except for ten level 3 ones, and a single level 4 signature.
"These eleven spells are for the future," Alphonse explained, talking about the higher leveled spells, "but it won't hurt for you to take a look at them now."
For Matthew, that was the best gift ever.
His magic studies increased by leaps and bounds that year, and he was so distracted by it that he also ended showing a faster progress in his math than he should, which made Sara inform not only Alphonse but also Matthew's grandad, Firebringer.
* * *
Matthew, almost seven years old, was having lunch with his father one day when his grandfather came like a hurricane.
"Alphonse! How dare you?!" Richard Firebringer yelled in pure rage.
Matthew's dad immediately paled. "W- What are you talking about?" He stuttered.
"What I'm talking about?!" The old man yelled even louder. "You're hiding my genius grandson from me! He learned all six base spells before he's even seven! And Sara told me he can do math as good as her!"
"She told you?" Alphonse said in disbelief.
"Yes, and she did it two months ago." Firebringer crossed his arms. "I waited for you to come to me, but you're deliberately hiding it, aren't you?! I repeat: how dare you?"
Alphonse gulped. "Father, I'm just trying to protect Matthew. If news of his potential spread, it might attract unwanted trouble..."
"Bullshit!" The old man said. "You're just afraid he'll fail like you, so you decided to wait and see, didn't you? You didn't even contact any Eminence about teaching him! What was your great plan, hire low-wage students to teach him until it became clear if he took his magic talent from you or me?"
Alphonse's hand was trembling as he used them to hide his face in shame. Firebringer sighed and approached the man, putting one hand on his son's shoulder.
