1 Starting All Over Again

Darkness. Why can't I see a single thing, Marius thought to himself. Is this how death is? Or is this the punishment for sacrificing the artifact? The last that I remembered was hugging Lana while being engulfed by the darkness.

While Marius was remuminating his "death" he felt a sudden stinging pain on his ass and was forced to shout out and swear a volley of profanity thinking that the punishment was a bit perverted. His mind came to a startling halt though when what came out from his mouth was unintelligent "Uwaah!" in an infant voice instead of the swear he supposed to shout.

As if it was not enough he heard an elderly woman's voice, "You have a healthy boy madam, and what a oddly quiet baby, if not for that brief cry I thought he is still born.".

"Let me see him, let me hold my baby." a gentle and sweet voice weakly came from a lady nearby.

As marius felt that he was being carried down and was transferred to a more comfortable bedding ang a gentle caress on his head can be felt.

'I'm reborn?!' Marius thought, 'Am I the only one that was reborn after being engulfed by that enourmous magical energy?'. He tried to remember what had happened when he activated the pre casted spell, but all he could remember was that he was clucthing Lana's unmoving body and the feeling of being unresigned to die unable to recall anything before everything went black. When the darkess engulfed him he lost his consciousness before he was able to remembered that he is in the darkness up to this point.

'Whatever, forget it. Its pointless to search for answers right now. I don't even know how much time has passed when since the war that exterminated my clan.' when he remembered how they were schemed and was attacked in all side, he felt angry but now he can hope that he will be able to avenge his wife and his clansmen. He never umagined he will be given a new lease in life.

'The heavens have not foraken me. If I'm lucky I can practice my magic again, let me try and check if I'm able to access my spiritual sea', Marius immediately concentrated his mind and sure enough he was able to enter his spiritual sea that has only a copious amount of spiritual energy at the center. But Marius was still elated and excited that he have a spiritual sea since that means that he can indeed train his magic, even though it is not brimming with spiritual energy it has the normal amount of what should be expected of a baby. What made him more excited is that the size of his spiritual sea is thrice the size of his previous life, which could mean that he have three times more in his magical capacity which means he could cast more spells. The downside is that since his spiritual sense is bigger than normal he would have to give three times more effort in training to breakthrough to the next level. He is not worried though, with his experience and knowledge from previous life he will definitely be able to achieve his previous peak in a shorter time. Granted that he was at the peak of Grand Magus which is not considered one of the strongest and one of the highest magical tier, he is just a step away in becoming an Archmage which is the highest tier under the heavens. Then exited his spiritual sea and try to resonate with the mana from the surrounding, he could feel the mana but could not resonate with it and he felt exhausted and can't helped but yawn.

"Oh! he seems to be sleepy, then just sleep my darling child, mom will be just here watch you sleep. If your father was here I am sure he would be delighted, but due to special circumstances he can't be with us.", he heard the gentle sweet voice of the woman again while he felt the caress on his head which made him more comfortable and sleepy. "Kindly lay him on the crib beside me please, Mrs. Worth.".

"Of course madam" the elderly woman from before replied and Marius felt that he is being carried away from the womans arms and was laid on he comfortable bedding.

While this was happening he was trying to resonate with mana from the surrounding but he was unsuccessful. Then he realized that trying to resonate with the mana makes him more sleepy and exhausted, 'This must be because my mind is not strong enough, I have my memories from my previous life but I don't have my previous strength. It looks like I have to retrain from the start.' he conjectured while trying to remember the mind exercise that his previous clan practiced, but he could not help it but fell asleep though, a child's body can just endure so much.

...........

After a while of being asleep he wike up. He felt uncomfortable, its like he is in lying in a shore, but instead of cold wet sand it is a warm wet sheets of cotton. Ge just peed in his bed, what an imbarrased, he felt helpless since he realized that aside from having his memories, he has no control on his bodily functions and he have no motor skills, he tried to grab his wet diapera but he could feel that he is just waving and kicking his arms and legs in completely idiotic manner. then he heard the voice of his mom and he felt that he was lifted up.

"Oh look who's up! How are you little guy? It seems that you wet yourself and your bed you little naughty boy.", when he heard his mom say that he was so embarrassed, how humiliating it is, when you have the mind of an adult vut helplessly wet the bed.

His mother changed his clothing and ask someine to change his bed and wash the soiled beddings. Then his mom 'fed' him with her natural milk, he was ashamed but he can't help but drink the milk since he was so hungry.

After that embarrassing episode when he woke up he proceeded with remembering his plan on training his mind to strenghten it. He tried to recollect the most suitable training method and he found the Art of the Flexible Mind Force to be the most suitable one, since he can already sense the mana on the surrounding area, the training method of the Art of the Flexible Mind Force was to use his mind and grab the mana in the surrounding area and hold it for as long as he could, it is exhausting but efficient. Since he don't have any other hobbies aside from sleeping then he could use that to recover and continually practice the art.

His early attempts on practicing the art allows him to hold the mana for ten seconds before he is exhausted, if he attempts to do it again he will fall asleep immediately, so he put an interval of thirty minutes to rest before he start again.

This training lasted a month before he is able to hold the mana for a minute, but he is unsatisfied since the minimum requirement is to be able to hold the mana for atleast ten minutes to be considered successful in the training of the Art of the Flexible Mind Force.

So the routine of his life consisted of sleeping, drinking his milk and training of his mind. It is mundane but he knew tjat his effort would be worth it.