I Ask You, What Is Magic?

Time continued to pass unhindered, hours turned into days, and days turned into months.

Summer had come and gone, and the rains have arrived.

Along with the rains, my birthday has also arrived.

How did I know?

'Status.'

[Status:

Given Name: Ryan

Age: 1 Year

Race: Hybrid (Human / Spirit)

Affinities: —

Runes: —

End]

'Exactly.'

And the fact that I could see mom prepare a supremely huge and aromatic feast. The likes of which we had on Ollie's fourth birthday.

On Ollie's birthday, I also started to be fed semi-solid foods, though I still had the delicious milk servings twice a day.

Along with that, mom also started holding me around the house more often, which I liked immensely.

As far as I have seen so far, our home that we lived in was a single story building, spanning quite a decent size. Starting from the back, there was a generously sized yard with wooden walls around it, a quarter of the yard was divided and planted with different quick yield and late yield spice herbs.

After that, there were two side by side rooms and a washing area next to them, all of them opening into the yard as well as the lobby ahead. The lobby was conjoined by a decently sized kitchen, common for the house and the eatery, which was the biggest room in the building, taking around a third of the whole place.

Surprisingly, the whole building was made of wood, except the smooth, stony floor.

As mom was still reluctant to take me outside, I had yet to see if our home was the norm or an outlier. Because for one, a house of this size was definitely something of a luxury back on Earth.

'I wonder what I'll get in gift, though.' I thought absent-mindedly. On his birthday, mom had given Ollie a combination of a handmade hat and a scarf.

Suddenly shivering under the cold breeze, I looked toward the window from my spot on the couch near the wall.

It had been raining for a few hours now, the sound of the pitter-patter loud in my ears. The windows here didn't have any glass panels. Instead, they were wooden planks hung vertically on hinges, painted in some sort of slippery material to prevent water and dust from sticking.

Currently, the windows were barely open at a steep angle to stop the rainwater from coming in, but open enough to let the cool breeze through.

'I have to suffer through this cold again, huh.'

The cold wasn't the worst right now, but it was going to be, unless I figured out how to numb my spiritual senses.

Right now, Triss and Ollie were helping mom with the dinner preparations.

[You can start now.] Codex headbutted into my train of thoughts.

Without any noticeable reactions, I immediately closed my eyes and got into a comfortable but alert position. After months of meditating a few hours daily, it had become extremely easy to slip in and out of this state, but it was still hard to maintain it for more than an hour.

A few days after I started meditating, I started to notice mana behaving differently on different parts of my body, and soon realized that this phenomenon wasn't localized to a few specific parts of my body, but actually dealt with different *types* of mana.

For example, the stone below my feet was smooth and hard, similarly, the mana flowing through it was slow and stubborn, never reacting to my presence. But the air around me held a nimble and slippery mana, continuously maneuvering around me.

Continuing to focus on them, I soon developed an instinct that allowed me to segregate these based on colors, the earth-ish mana below my feet being an obvious brown, the air around me being the lightest of blues, the feeling of warmth under the sun being the gentlest of yellows, and so on.

But of course, I still could not meditate with my eyes open, so it was all in my head.

Still, Codex and I continued to experiment.

Although it was considerably harder to meditate while moving, I tried doing so when held by mom, or when in contact with my brothers.

And what I noticed was that Triss, Ollie and mom had different types of mana unique to them, as well. Only subtly, but they all had a different feel to their manas... yeah, that sounds horrible, let's call them mana signatures.

Except, all of this, was barely a few millimeters above my skin.

So next on the agenda, I worked on improving my range of this mana sense I had developed.

Continuing to diligently work exercising my senses over the past couple of months, I had grown it to over a meter, stretching in all directions equally from my skin.

Recalling all these details, I exhaled calmly and sunk down into zen.

–

–

–

[That is enough.]

"Huh?" I mumbled out loud.

'But I didn't mess up this time, why are you stopping me?' I mentally asked without opening my eyes.

[Exactly because of that. It's been an hour, and you did not break your concentration even once, be proud of that. The food has been ready for a while now, everyone is waiting for you to wake up. Plus, I do not think I can gather any more data from this, next time, we will be moving onto the next stage of the experimentation.] Before he finished speaking, I realized I was laying on the couch, instead of sitting straight like I started out as, without me noticing.

I sat up and rubbed my eyes as a yawn involuntarily escaped my lips and a grumble from my stomach.

In front of me, on the floor, mom and my brothers were sitting around the table looking at me. Apparently, they had covered everything up to not let things cool down, having not eaten themselves.

Feeling strong emotions well up within me and heat in my face, I yelled with my arms extended in their directions.

"Birthdey!"

""Happy birthday, Ryan!"" They all said at the same time while clapping rythmically, following me.

Mom stood up and sat me in her lap across the table.

Having concluded their wishes, my hungry brothers dove down into the hot and delicious food, while mom mashed some vegetables and put them between my teething jaws, occasionally with mashed pieces of some mystery meat.

For a good while, we enjoyed ourselves in the delicacies. By this time, the rain outside had also stopped and sun had almost set, painting the outside a burning orange.

"Raiyu, here is your birthday present." Having finished the dinner, and set the dishes back into the kitchen, mom presented me with what seemed to be a booklet.

With mixed emotions, I took the booklet and found that it had a rough texture on the outside, like the bark of a tree, and soft, greenish brown empty pages inside.

The spine of the book was stuck using some kind of adhesive and it was bounded cover to cover with some thread sewn through it. The thread also acted as a holder and held a stick of thin, black substance.

To hide my swelling eyes, I carefully put the notebook to the side and hugged mom.

It had been years since I have had my birthday celebrated like this.

"There, there." She patted me head, as if she knew why I'd hugged her.

[Happy birthday, Ryan. Here's my gift. I took the liberty to rename it.]

[Status:

Name: Nova

Condition: Online - Intact

Total Volume: 500 ml

Free Volume: 200 ml

Power: 100%

End]

'Huh? Codex?' 

"Ryan, here, we made something for you, too." Triss called out to me from behind.

I sneakily wiped my eyes on mom's clothes and turned around to see Ollie extending a piece of paper towards me.

I took it and... it had a painting of four people drawn on it in black and white. A mother holding her baby and returning the hug of two kids from the sides, all sitting under the rays of sun falling through the window.

Holding the painting and the notebook close to my heart, I turned to all of them and said: "Thank you, Mom, Triss, Ollie. Thank you."

'Thank you, too, Codex.'