*** Kiara ***

  At first glance, the cube her father had placed in her crib looked like a normal wooden toy block. However, at closer inspection, she found shallow carvings on its surface and several small holes drilled into it.

  She couldn’t make out any obvious function of the carvings, but the creator would have needed to comment on his creation for her to make any sense out of any of it, and that might be a little bit much to ask. The idea of a thousand small info dots she could press to get information for what a section did, only to get uninspired half-hearted statements which barely explained anything, made her chuckle. Definitely not something she missed from her old life.

  “Let’s take a step back. What do I know?” Kiara mumbled to herself.

  “First, there are toys for children that have a magical component. Second, they seem to be uncharged or dormant, or at least they were not doing anything I can perceive so far.

  Assumption 1: Toys are used to teach children essential skills, in my old world, fine motor skills and sometimes logical thinking. Essential skills for children to start developing early on.

  Assumption 2: My father does not hold any bad intentions towards me. Nothing he has done so far would indicate it. He seemed kind, warm, and protective. Probably had a sharper mind than I have initially given him credit for. From her grandmother, she might have assumed a trap of some kind or form, but not from my father.

  Conclusion, if the toys are magical in nature and are meant to teach me something and my father had no ill intentions towards me, they should be safe, easy to understand and since it seems most likely they are intended to be interacted in some magical way, magic must be safe for children to practice and not hinder their development.” She reasoned in her mind.

  “And now what?” Having decided to fully engage with the magic toy cube, she did not know what to do next. “Why did it always seem so easy in all those books she read in her past life? You reincarnate, you learn magic and or reinvent gun powder, revolutionize industries, and become the king of a small nation in like no time at all. I don’t know how to do any of that.” A wave of sadness washed over her as she thought back to her old life. She missed her friends. They had gone through thick and thin together. One might actually be able to reinvent gunpowder, maybe. She chuckled at the thought. They had been close. A group of a little more than half a dozen close friends. No, they were more like a family to her.

  She missed them dearly and hoped they were doing well. She hoped they had gotten drunk and had a good time at her funeral. She pictured them in her mind sitting around a fire, telling each other stories, laughing, and being there for each other.

  She brushed away some tears, and yet she smiled, thinking about it. Grief was a strange thing. By now she had mostly accepted her situation and had coped with the depression and left it behind, but at random times it just came back and sat on her chest like a damn big rock, constricting her and making it difficult to breath. They would do alright, and maybe there was a chance they would see each other again.

  In a somber mood, she took another closer look at the cube. Lines over lines all over its surface, forming complex structures, and some of them just ending in dead ends. She found a small twenty-seven etched into the bottom of the cube, and some small gaps filled with glue forming near-invisible seams. Leading her to believe that the toy might be constructed out of several layers and might be more complex than one might guess.

  She focused on the cube itself, trying to feel anything special about it. Sitting there in her crib, her eyes closed and deep in concentration. Time passed, and slowly she grew frustrated. As she leaned back against the force barrier, she suddenly felt something. A gentle pull and a tiny sensation were running through her body.

  It felt similar to when she had been near the nothingness orb. Only on a far smaller scale. A small tingling, especially in her left arm. Opening her eyes, she saw the ring finger of her left hand touch one of the small holes in the cube, and a gentle glow emanated from an adjacent line. Barely a few millimeters of the line were glowing faintly in a green tint.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  Excitement ran through her. She was doing magic. Freaking magic. She had no clue how, but she was doing it.

  Leaning forward to inspect the glow more closely, it suddenly vanished. She immediately stopped and concentrated on what had changed. The tingling feeling had stopped. The glow had vanished abruptly, and on second thought, so had the sensation of her back touching the barrier.

  Leaning back once more as soon as her back touched the barrier, the tingling and the glow started again.

  “Interesting,” she mumbled and smiled.

  Retesting it over and over, she verified the connection between the contact to the barrier and the glow. Changing her position several times, she got to the conclusion that it didn’t matter which part of her was touching the barrier as long as one part of her was connected to the hole, or maybe it was better described as an indentation, and another to the barrier.

  Depending on which part of her touched the barrier, different body parts tingled, most likely because the Mana from the barrier was taking another route through her body. Longer ways led to an even shorter distance lighting up on the cube.

  “So I am both a conductor and work as something akin to a resistor, if I am to compare Magic to electric currents.”

  The goal is probably to light up the complete cube or to get magic to light up all of the lines leading to the very center of the cube, if there even was such a way to the center.

  She experimented with the cube until her eyes grew heavy and she fell into a deep slumber. Totally consumed by her new task. She didn’t even notice when her father gently opened the door to look after her and found her totally consumed by her new toy. A faint smile formed on his lips before he closed the door again and left her to her devices.

  *** Magdalena ***

  Someone had given Kiara Petro’s old Mana training tools. If mastered, they allowed one to precisely manage and control their Mana, which was an essential skill for any aspiring weaver. However, one needed to form at least a dormant Mana source to even attempt to do such a thing. It would normally form around the age of four, but sometimes as late as six years old, through exposure to the ambient natural Mana all around them.

  Once formed, it was important to start magic weavers as soon as possible. Like with all skill growth, the early years had the most impact. Growth was fast and near effortless. For a young child, it was quite normal to increase one’s skill tier and progress through skill levels. At her age, it became nigh impossible to make meaningful progress without risking one’s life or being kissed by Lady Luck.

  A lot of the potential was determined in this early development stage. Most important for weaving was the increase in the size of the internal Mana source, and the ease with which it could be used. A larger source meant that large-scale rituals became easier, weaves could be sustained for longer, and more Mana could be spent before exhaustion set in. The easier one could access his Mana, the faster weaves could be drawn, and one would struggle less against his own Mana when creating more complex weaves.

  All great Houses had their own training regimes for the young generations, but all shared the same principle: You have to start as early as possible.

  The twin studies of Greyfort Academy had proven this procedure once and for all scientifically.

  Some tinctures could help prolong those years of rapid growth. Something her family could not afford anymore, and even at their height, reserved for the most promising of proteges among them.

  She yearned for the times when progress had come easily. Groomed from a young age to become the next head of the family, she had left her peers in the dust, mastered her skills, and completed mission after mission. Luck had played its part, that she could admit. Not every demise was due to a lack of preparation or skill, and not every lucky encounter was earned.

  The time for all of that had passed, and too many of the decisions she had made, she came to regret.

  She should be happy seeing her granddaughter light up one of the training cubes. It was close to a miracle. But she only felt cold dread. This should not be possible.

  “How did she even get them?” she mumbled while staring into the orb.

  Kiara was leaning against her barrier and happily playing with one of the more complex cubes. The Mana levels the orb was reporting had to be wrong. Kiara had to have more Mana to accomplish this. It only registered traces of Mana in her granddaughter, worrying in and of itself, but if she was suppressing her own Mana at the same time…

  What she saw was a monster, sitting there in its little crib, happily smiling as it grew stronger and stronger. Yes, Mana levels were low, far below anything that could hurt anyone, but the situation was rapidly escalating, and she felt she was slowly losing her grip on it.

  She would not lose her family a second time, this was all that remained of her once great family. The tragedies of the past might not have been her fault or they might have been, it was difficult to say, but she would be damned if any harm came to her daughter and her family. Something needed to be done, and if she would be shunned and never accepted back into their home, so be it! She was doing it for them, to protect them from whatever sat in that crib.