Chapter 2. Manipulating pure mana, growing Mana Pool

After waking up, I quickly realized my situation as I noted my strange and unresponsive new body, and felt a warm and rather unpleasant sensation around my butt crack.

Right, I reincarnated!

And now something sticky and wet was glued to my butt…

'Oh poop...'

Having realized that, I felt both uncomfortable and a little disgusted.

What now? Should I cry out loud, so someone comes and cleans it up?

However, the surroundings were completely dark. At a glance, it was the middle of the night.

If I started crying loudly, I would definitely wake up my parents and make them feel annoyed.

But of course, crying was something that a normal baby would.

It was only natural.

After thinking about it for a while, I soon ignored the matter for the time being as I instead excitedly focused on my special meditation practice once again.

When I woke up I had an idea that I wanted to try.

I remember it clearly.

Starting to practice with magic while you're still very young is the key to building up extraordinarily large mana capacity in Mushoku Tensei.

Coincidentally, I started re-reading the Mushoku Tensei web novel, so the early volumes were still rather fresh in my mind.

To my knowledge, it seemed that to grow my mana pool all that I needed to do was to simply exhaust my mana as often as possible during youth.

Every time my mana recovers back to full, my mana capacity would increase.

Anyone can grow their mana pool, as long as they start practicing from a young age.

In contrast, there was never an instance in the original show where someone meditated in order to restore their Mana or Battle Aura, or meditated to improve these. 

If I'm the same as a normal person, then meditating in the manner I did earlier would have no special effects.

What Rudeus did to increase his Mana reserves was simply daily using up his Mana on spells.

That was it.

No special magic training method or magical theory should be needed to grow a persons' mana pool, just the act of regularly exhausting your Mana.

However, even though I knew this, I still had no idea how to even get started with using up my mana or performing magic.

After all, I didn't even have even the most basic knowledge on magic and didn't know any spells or incantations.

As such, in the end my only option was trying to use my imagination again…

First, I simply tried to feel out my body and 'send out' my mana into the outside world.

Instead of absorbing energy into my body like earlier, I would try expelling it outwards.

I closed my eyes, concentrated my mind, tried to get attuned with my entire body and then focused on expelling my 'mana' out into the atmosphere.

Minute by minute passed as I kept practicing and experimenting with focus.

First I tried my meditation exercise while focusing on my breath again, focusing on exhalation, before I tried to rely on pure imagination, and then finally imagined 'energy' flowing through imaginary pathways running through my body like wires.

Eventually, as I focused on my heart being the vocal point, I felt something!

There was a change!

I had a faint feeling of something warm traveling along my veins, flowing from my toes, the top of my head and my entire body all the way to my right hand, akin to blood coursing through my blood vessels. 

'Energy' gathered in my right hand, at the tip of my index finger.

And then my body started letting out something through my fingertip.

It wasn't really quite the same, but it was similar to letting out my breath through a new mysterious organ.

'Yes! I did it!'

I felt incredibly excited when I felt this mysterious and magical sensation.

'Keep at it. Maintain it.'

I kept up my concentration and continued sending out my special 'energy' through my fingertip.

However, after just a dozen seconds passed like this, I felt increasingly tired.

A moment later, I was so exhausted I fell asleep before I knew it.

***

A month passed by.

Following my discovery that I'm able to expel special 'energy' by focusing on it, I continued doing it and exhausting my reserves whenever I was awake.

The fact that the 'energy' I manipulated felt warm and flowed along my veins threw me off at first, but then I recalled that Rudeus made a similar comparison.

As such, my assumption is that this 'energy' is simply 'mana'.

The pathways inside my body should be something like 'magic circuits', which coincidentally overlap with my blood vessels.

Meanwhile what I was doing was in essence 'pure mana manipulation'.

Fortunately, it was possible for me to manipulate pure mana and send it outwards, even though I had no knowledge of magic theory and didn't know any spells.

It reminded me of the time when Rudeus practically self-learned Disrupt Magic, which seemed to work at a similar principle - pure mana manipulation.

To my knowledge of this world, the fact that I was incredibly young and prone to learning new things should also play a factor in helping with my affinity for magic.

During the first time I did the exercise, I completely ran out of 'mana' after only a dozen seconds.

Afterwards the time I needed to expel all of my mana and the mana's volume slowly increased significantly and exponentially with every time I did it.

Fortunately, the volume of mana that I was able to consciously expel per second was also gradually improving during my practice, so my method remained viable.

If at first my flow of mana was just like a tiny and feeble stream slowly dropping from a faucet, then after a month of practice it was similar to water gushing out from a water hose.

This kind of progress made me feel extremely satisfied and excited.

Both my mana reserves and my ability to control mana should be rapidly improving.

And most importantly, I began this kind of training just a few hours after I came out of the womb!

If I recall the novel correctly, Rudeus only began practicing magic and working on his mana reserves when he was 2 years old.

Beginning 2 years earlier would certainly give me an advantage.

Not only this, but a newborn baby's constitution should be even more prone to changes and improvements than that of a 2 year old child.

My secret hope was that by starting my practice so early, I would be able to break through my possible limitations and enhance my potential even further like no one ever had before.

As a reincarnator, I obviously wished that I was born with an overpowered talent as well, like it usually is in fiction.

There was a high possibility that the body that I inherited had a powerful Laplace Factor, hence it was chosen as the vessel for my soul in the first place.

This is what happened to Rudeus after all.

But of course, as someone who read Reverend Insanity and Re:Zero, I knew to not blindly believe in the notion that I'm destined for greatness either.

It's possible that I was able to grasp the pure mana manipulation method so quickly only thanks to the fact that I'm a newly-born child with a flexible mind and body.

And the younger you are, the easier learning magic is to learn in this world.

I had no memories of my death or how I came to this world, so that didn't help either.

But because my grade of talent was unknown, it only made me determined to keep training even harder and with more focus to make the most out of what I was given.

The first time I exhausted my mana, I fainted, but afterwards I didn't go as far.

Then while I was out of mana and awake, I would always spend my time mindfully meditating to train my mind.

After all, even without any special effects meditation might still have a strong positive effect on my developing brain.

It was proven to even have benefits on adults, so what to say about a baby that was just born?

And especially so in a world of swords and magic!

As a baby I could do nothing else but to use my mind anyway.

Several times I attempted using my mana to do something substantial in the outside world like forming a gust of wind, creating a blob of water or pushing away a toy with telekinesis.

Unfortunately, all my attempts were unsuccessful.

I was able to manipulate pure mana and expel it when I put my mind to it, but I couldn't make it affect reality.

I tried to make my mana flow through my body in a circuit like chakra or something similar, but it was not possible either - I could only expel it outwards.

Being very careful about it, I also faintly attempted to compress mana inside my heart, but it didn't seem to do anything. In fact, trying to apply mana to any part of my body didn't seem to do anything as if mana itself had effect onhumans.

However, since I was still able to exhaust my MP just through this method, I didn't waste much of my time on trying things that bore no results and that I didn't need yet.

My daily routine usually looked something like this - wake up, cry out to be cleaned up and be fed baby milk, expel my mana and then mindfully meditate until I naturally fall asleep.

Then I would wake up and repeat the cycle.

Again and again.

As I expelled my 'mana' outwards, it didn't cause any phenomenon in the outside world. There were no shining lights or anything.

Pure mana seemed to be colorless, formless and invisible.

Because of this I still remained undiscovered.

During this time I also discovered that I can release mana through both of my hands instead of just one.

Doing this increased my efficiency by almost half.

Unfortunately, it was not a double increase, but it was still an improvement as I utilized both of my arms instead of just one.

I didn't need any training to do that, so I think it's a natural ability of any magician.

I imagined a magician holding a staff with both hands for that.

However, it should not mean that I can cast two different spells at the time. It's only about channeling mana through both arms.

As I continued experimenting, I also discovered that I'm able to release mana through my feet, mouth, other body parts, and even from my entire body simultaneously.

However, using any other body part apart from my hands was significantly less efficient.

Even if I try to send mana out through all the pores in my body, it is not as good as focusing on pouring it out through my hands.

This led me to believe that the 'magic circuits' in a human body were probably designed in this way - for the magic to be mainly released through one's hands. It's like a one-directional highway leading to a destination, the destination being a person's hands.

The rest of the body, like feet, could be used to channel mana through them as well, but it is not the best method, like driving against the traffic.

Putting aside my training, during the last month I became slightly more familiar with the world around me.

The couple that I saw when I first opened my eyes were obviously my parents, both in their early twenties and both with great looks.

My mother's name was 'Zenith' for sure.

We had a single maid in the house, wearing maid's clothing. Her name was confirmed to be Lilia, as it's what Zenith called her.

My father's name was not confirmed yet, but who else could it be but everyone's favorite - Paul?

The place I lived in itself was a room of a wooden medieval-style building. 

There were no signs of modern technology anywhere.

Lilia cleaned with a cloth, whereas the utensils, bowls and furniture were clearly made from wood. The light was not produced by light bulbs, but came from candles and lamps.

My parents' clothes looked like those of a medieval village or from a fantasy world.

At the same time, I realized that people did not call me 'Rudi' as I expected. It didn't seem that my name was Rudues.

Instead, my parents were addressing me as 'Seraph'.

In addition to this, I once looked into a mirror and saw my appearance - short spare blonde hair, like a baby would have, and blue eyes were my characteristic features. Looks-wise I took more after Zenith than Paul.

Initially I assumed that I had taken Rudeus's place, so I was very surprised by this. 

I seemed to be the first child and only child. In this world, 'Seraph' was born instead of Rudeus.

It seemed that this world was a little different.

Hopefully, the changes only extended to myself.

And hopefully, I was talented in magic just like Rudeus was.

And ideally also the sword, unlike Rudeus.

But while I dreamed of training to wield a sword and slash dragons in half, my current challenge was being able to control my bladder and bowel movements, which was frankly impossible.

While some people might find it comforting that they can just lay in bed, shit themselves and someone would even clean up after them, for me it was a torture.

Being a baby sucks.

However, thanks to starting as a baby I had a chance to train and greatly improve my condition, unlike those people in fiction who 'reincarnate' as teenagers or adults, so I did not complain.

The thing that allowed me to bravely persevere was my desire to grow stronger.

As well as the wish to one day meet the wonderful and interesting heroines that I only knew from the story before, I'll be honest.

***

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***

…

(Note: An explanation on what Laplace factor is, stemming from my research of various original sources. At least, this is my interpretation and also logic I use in this story for things to make sense.)

(A person with the so-called Laplace factor is practically someone born with some of the genes of the big evil overlord called Demon God Laplace who was known as an incredibly powerful magic user. In the case of Rudeus in the original novel, his Laplace Factor manifests in the form of his great talent for magic and unmatched mana capacity potential. His 'Laplace factor' is also said by the author to be the reason why Rudeus cannot use Battle Aura, because Laplace was also unable to use it.)

(Because the 'Laplace Factor' practically functions as genes, there are different kinds of 'factors' and they have different intensity. Depending on which ones a person manifests, it could grant: great mana capacity (what Rudeus has, and what Sylphy also has in a weaker version), powerful physical body (what Rudeus's son gets), green hair (what Sylphy and her son has), no talent for Battle Aura (what Rudeus has, it seems) and Laplace's Demon Eyes (probably). These are randomly manifested.)

(There is no such thing as mana capacity talent Laplace factor trading Battle Aura for more mana (sound silly, doesn't it) or the mana capacity Laplace factor being confirmed to make someone unable to use Battle Aura, but it is possible to simply inherit a Laplace Factor that's detrimental and makes you unable to use Battle Aura - aka Laplace's gene for being unable to use Battle Aura (95% of the population can't use Battle Aura very effectively anyway btw). A talent for magic and no Battle Aura is simply a genetic hand that Rudeus was dealt in the original, as we can view it, probably so he wouldn't become too OP as a main character and struggle as a pure magician.)

(The Protagonist in my fanfiction inherited the magic talent/mana pool Laplace Factor as the only factor, so he is not stopped from being able to progress as a swordsman as well (by relation, it also allows him to use silent Healing magic which Rudeus could not do). | I believe it's better to be transparent here, even if it is a spoiler. Seraph did not receive any wishes or cheats. What he has over Rudeus is not receiving a nerf to his Battle Aura.)