1 Starting Over

After spending years researching about the dragon god's reincarnation magic, I'm pretty sure I've finally cracked it. Finally. Finally, I'll be able to see my family again. Sylphy.. Roxy.. Eris. This time I'll protect them. I won't let the man-god win. I think all the parameters are set; I just hope this works. If only Cliff was still around, I'd feel much more confident if he'd help me decipher this magic circle. At this point, however, I've done everything I can. I double, triple, and quadruple checked every layer back to the dragon god's reference material. "I can do this!", I thought as I poured my mana into the magic circle. Suddenly, my surroundings went white. It feels eerily similar to the void where I used to speak to Hitogami, but more like I am being yanked through it at incredible speed, much like what happened during the mana disaster.

The next thing I know, I open my eyes to see Paul picking me up and giving me a big smooch. What's going on!? Have I traveled all the way back to my birth? I wasn't meant to go back that far! Paul hands me over to Zenith and then proceeds to make faces and baby noises at me. Simply seeing Paul alive and Zenith happy and active brought me to tears and I started crying. Well, even if this was an accident, I'm going to make the most of it. This time, I won't let anyone die.

The days started to drift by. At first, being back at my home in Buena village was really nostalgic, but honestly… being a baby really sucks; there's nothing to do but eat and sleep all day. I can't even control my own bladder. Magic had become so natural to me that now I really have to focus hard to avoid using it. I have no idea what would happen if I were to use any magic this young; I feel like my body probably couldn't handle it. How old was I when I first started practicing magic again? It was shortly after I had gotten pretty steady on my feet; I think I was about two years old. I'll have to wait until then before I start 'practicing' magic in order to build up my mana pool.

I've noticed Lilia seems to be wary of me. I'm not sure why, as I've been far better behaved this time around. I have far too much love and respect for Lilia to try and press myself against her well-endowed chest or ogle her. Maybe she can sense that I'm not a normal kid. Paul and Zenith seem completely oblivious, thankfully. I'll just have to earn her trust like I did last time.

Finally, I'm starting to walk properly. I turn two in a couple weeks from now. I think it should be ok to start with my magic training. I'm going to start with the basic water ball spell and I'll only cast it when I am sure I have my privacy. I don't want my parents discovering my magical abilities early and hiring some tutor other than Roxy. The first day I could only cast water ball twice. The next day five times, then ten, then twenty, and so on.

Effectively, however much mana I used one day would be added to my overall maximum, so theoretically I can double my mana pool every day. This is how I amassed a mana pool surpassing even Laplace in my previous go at this life. Last time around, however, practicality greatly limited my growth. I was filling up buckets and vases with my water ball spells and emptying them outside. There was a limit to how much water I could create before it would become blatantly obvious to my parents that something strange was going on; but now that I know disturb magic, I can expend my mana to cast a spell and then cancel the effect with disturb magic. This method allows me to build up my mana pool far faster than in my previous life.

I've started incorporating gravity magic into my daily practice routine. For now I'm simply lifting one of our books and setting it back down. While my mana pool has already become outrageously large, there's a limit to how much I can expend all at once. Because of this, there is a limit to what I can do. For example, I can't use gravity magic to lift anything too heavy, like a bookshelf for example. I also can't increase the gravity of an object past a certain amount; I can feel from the strain it puts on my body that pushing any farther would damage me. Likewise I can't cast high level spells such as lightning or electric as they require too much mana all at once. As I was able to cast these spells without a problem in my past life, I can conclude that as I grow and get stronger, so will the spells I can cast.

After about three months of training, it got to the point that I could not expend all my mana even if I practiced at every opportunity from dawn till dusk. At this point my mana reserves have stopped growing exponentially, and started to grow in a slower, linear progression. I am also slowly building up the strength of my spells. I can now lift up the chest in our study using gravity magic and cast advanced tier spells. I only cast advanced tier spells after sneaking outside and making sure nobody is watching. Even though I cancel the effect with disturb magic, advanced tier spells are so powerful that it would have a devastating effect on our house should I ever get distracted and fail to disrupt them.

At this point I can tell that Lilia has started to warm up to me. I've made sure to always treat her as respectfully as possible. Whenever she would draw a bath for me, or prepare me a snack, or any other small favor, I thanked her with a large, bright smile. I truly owe her for all she had done for me and my family in my last life. When I wasn't practicing magic, I make sure to spend as much quality time as I can with Paul and Zenith. I enjoy listening to the novel Paul reads to me at night; the one about Perugius and his twelve followers fighting the demon Laplace. I find that story truly entertaining having met the man himself and knowing the faces to put to the names.

It's been three and a half years since I traveled back into my younger self. I've gotten back into making figurines. Not only is figurine making an honestly fun and relaxing way to pass the time, but it also requires a surprising amount of mana, making it a great way to continue training in the privacy of my own room. I've been making them out of the hardest stone I am currently capable of. I keep them in a stone lockbox I've made that is sealed with magic. I hid the lockbox under my bed.

Right about now is when I need to show my parents that I can use magic in order for them to hire Roxy as a tutor. I've been debating about how I should go about telling them. In the end I decided blowing a hole through the wall in the upstairs study was the way to go. I felt bad causing that damage to the house unnecessarily, but I needed to make sure that they would hire a magic tutor for me. I was worried that if I just walked up and told Paul and Zenith that I could use magic, they might not hire a tutor for me thinking I could learn on my own.

Soon enough, we heard a knock at the door. It was Roxy.