Chapter 3: Growing

A bit of time has passed since my rebirth.

The river of water flowed with essence as I and my mother watched it. I was enjoying these good times again with her, it had been so long since I even heard her voice. 

"Cedric, can you say mama?~"

She looks at me with an adoring smile which just warmed my heart, I stare at her, drool seeping from my mouth.

'He's only 8 months...it'd be impossible for that to happen-'

My small voice which sounded almost inaudible says, "Mama...."

She quickly puts her hand over her mouth and is in shock, "My god Cedric...what a miracle you are!"

I smiled at her words, just happy to make my mother proud at any occurrence. Now I could most likely walk but I didn't want to shock her so much that she had a heart attack or something.

At our small and humble home, she puts me on the floor. Oh yeah did I mention I could also crawl? I zoomed around the house like an oversized critter of some sort, my mother then walked over and picked me back up.

"Hey now, don't crawl around too fast!~" She just smiles and carries me back to my cradle where she then grabs the small portion of baby food from her pouch.

"I have to buy so much of this stuff Cedric, you just eat it all up~ but that's fine...babies like you need to eat a lot to grow big and strong!"

After she said that her face soon turned sad, "You may not understand me Cedric, but listen well...there are some bad men in this world, and you may come across them one day. But if you ever do, never and I mean never...sway from the light, okay?"

My mother realizes that she's trying to preach to a baby and just laughs it off, "Oh who am I kidding? you're just a baby...we'll have that talk when you get a bit older Cedric."

..

I was very happy right now, I mean very. You wouldn't believe what I achieved.

I am now at the stagnant red, I finally made it past dark red!

At this very moment, I was so happy I just wanted to get up and run on both my feet. But I calmed down and just embraced the moment.

In this world, there are 5 stages of mana gathering and colors.

[Stage 1: Dark Red, Stagnant Red, Light Red.]

[Stage 2: Dark Orange, Stagnant Orange, Light Orange.]

[Stage 3: Dark Yellow, Stagnant Yellow, Light Yellow.]

[Stage 4: Dark Green, Stagnant Green, Light Green.]

After those four stages that follow in the path of the rainbow, it jumps from green and ascends into Purple. As of now, the highest that people have reached is purple, no one knows if anybody has reached beyond that point. Nobody knows if it's even possible, but It has me curious. If I continue to train my mana what stage will I be at by the time I'm 12 or 13?

I chose not to think about it long and just wanted to continue focusing on gathering said mana. And I found the perfect place for that.

In the whole world mana is in everyone and everything, it is like the life force of this world. But not everyone can utilize and use mana the same way, some people are just natural-born geniuses.

We call them, 'The Mana Born'. They are said to be chosen by Mana and could already be master mages by the time they are in their late teens. Everyone has their own talents and abilities, and for the longest time, I thought mine was the sword.

But what the hell is this?

'How am I gathering so much mana? i knew this spot was perfect or am I perfect?' 

Now don't get me wrong, I'm amazing with the sword, I just never knew that mana gathering was a talent of mine.

..

it's been a few more months since then I am now 1 year old! you could say I had a good birthday. Went out with my mom, ate some food, and took a nap, just the usual.

During these couple of months, I was doing training like no other, sleeping! well not literally but literally! Now obviously I was gathering and condensing my mana during all of this, I couldn't let seconds go to waste when I didn't do a bit of mana training.

And now my mother decided to show me a bit of the kingdom, even though I already know what it's like. But it's nice to see it again, it takes me back.

The steep and rocky mountains stood tall behind the large kingdom where people of any kind could come and make a name for themselves, the kingdom of Virenth was well respected across the Ashone continent.

300 years ago a great Hero slayed the demon lord and created the Ashone kingdom which he named after himself. And here he already was, as a large statue in the direct middle above all the people below him.

Many kids stood around looking at the statue with high hopes of becoming a great hero like the man but this world was in the era of peace and harmony...until the demon lord would be reborn.

Every time the demon lord is reborn he grows far stronger than he was, and due to this it gets harder and harder to hold him back when he does come back. But since there were such strong people in the world and many 'geniuses' we overestimated ourselves and underestimate the demon lord, that's one of the main reasons we lost in the war.

While I was lost in thought me and my mother heard the sounds of swords clashing with one another.

"Oh look, Cedric, those knights are battling. Isn't that cool?"

She lifted me up by my waist and let me see the fight between the knights. they both had on full body armor and no one could get hurt. 

I enjoyed the fight between the men and watched until they both finished up.

They holstered their blades and removed their helmets, two handsome men of royal caliber bowed at the crowd of many.

"Thank you for watching our battle!"

"Thank you, thank you!"

Both of them thanked the crowd in unison, the small kids smiled and ran up to the men.

"MISTER, MISTER! THAT WAS SO COOL! HOW DID YOU DO THAT FAST CUT THING!?"

"WOW MISTER KNIGHTS I WANT  TO BE LIKE YOU WHEN I GROW UP!"

The two men who seemed to be twins smiled at the kids and then both of them got on one knee and patted the kids on the head with a smile.

"Now don't go growing up too fast~ Make sure you enjoy your childhood."

I watched this happen and so did my mother.

'Those guys seem nice, I wonder why I never heard much of them? twins eh? One with a lip scar and the other with an eye scar.'

After traveling the kingdom with my mother I was getting quite tired, I was gonna use this time to gather more mana.

As I fell asleep in my mother's arms I controlled my breathing and gathered my mana slowly. 

..