2 After darkness comes the light

Where am I?

As I looked around , there was nothing to be found, except for darkness. I desperately scanned my surroundings over and over again.

Mother... Jinah... they are both dead... Those were the first clear thoughts I managed to form. They can't be dead...

Denial. My mind suddenly cleared. Were these the effects of my passive skills? Or my mental fortitude? My mother and sister are definitely dead. I felt it in me the moment they died. They really died... and so did I.

How?! How did it come to this?! Is this truly the end for me? But if I'm dead, will I be able to reunite with them now? I hope so...

A single tear ran down my cheek, as if to announce an incoming flood. I didn't hold back and soon, I was full on crying.

I wasn't strong enough...Mother...Jinah... I wasn't strong enough...

My thoughts were interrupted by a sudden beam of light breaking through the infinite darkness around me. This beam, it encapsulated me.

It's so bright! I struggled and covered my eyes as I was drawn through this tunnel of light.

*voices talking to each other* *noise*

What is going on? Voices? Are those people? Where am I?

"Congratulations Sir and Madam, It looks like a healthy young boy" I heard someone say. Am I in a hospital? Am I alive?

Still blinded by the light, I tried to force open my eyes. I slowly adapted to the brightness and the first thing I saw was a wooden ceiling. Where am I?

Some guy suddenly decided to stick his big head right in front of my face.

"Hello small guy!" he uttered.

Piss off I wanted to say. But I couldn't. As I tried to figure out the situation, I made the wise decision to look at my hands.

Oh no! I became a midget?! No wait, I'm a baby! I was the one being given birth to?! What the hell?! Is this a hospital?! No it looks primitive, medieval I'd say. I can't believe it, I was reborn? No reincarnated!

"Oh myy! Such a sweet angel. He looks adorable!" I heard a female voice say.

I slightly turned my head and what I saw, was pure beauty. A woman smiled at me with tired but amazing green eyes and beautiful auburn hair. Her sight displeased me much less than the big guy. No, her presence. It was warm and gentle. I felt comforted from her smile alone.

I soon realised that those two were my parents now. My new mother was called Alice Leywin and my father was Reynolds Leywin. They called me Art. Art was short for Arthur.

But why was I here? Why was I reincarnated or more like how? And where is this?

I somehow felt like I'd soon know the answer to all those questions, but for now, I better focus on the present situation.

[Two weeks later...]

Time went by very slowly, and what made it worse was the flesh prison I was stuck in. This body of mine is so clumsy. I won't be able to to anything for the time being. It seems like I have to go with it.

But I learned quite a bit about my situation. I listened in on my parents' daily conversations and found out that this is a totally different world from mine. Clues such as the medieval theme around here already hinted at it, but I was certain after I managed to absorb a small amount of mana from the atmosphere. The mana here is different from the one in the Earth's atmosphere. The mana seemed more ... natural? Clean? Pure? Whatever it was, that was not an issue. The issue was, that my power was gone. My abilities in itself seem intact and my black heart is also still there, but it seems that my power is not manifesting in this small body. It's as if my body is not ready yet.

The people of this world use mana in a similar way the hunters did on Earth. Their mana manifests through a mana core inside their body. Their ability to channel mana, control mana and their reserve determined the stage of their mana core.

The people here usually form their mana core at early adolescence. In order to form this core, one needs to collect mana for a long time, wether consciously or unconsciously.

This is all the information I received or deduced myself. My movement was restricted as I wasn't yet able to crawl.

This unfortunately gave me a lot of time to think about my situation.

I was now reincarnated in another world, with my old world completely unreachable and with no one that I held dear around me. This was a new leaf. A second chance? Depends on what I want. What would be my reason for living here? I could always just die and refuse this second chance.

Give me just one good reason why I should continue living as a new person...