Chapter V - #27 and a threat to her family

*** 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 probably have needed to comment 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 halfhearted 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 which have a magical component. Second, they seem to be uncharged or dormant or at least they were not doing anything she could perceive so far.

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

Assumption 2: Her father did not hold any bad intentions towards me. Nothing he did so far would indicate anything of the like. He seemed kind, warm and protective. Probably had a sharper mind, than she had initially given him credit for. Had her grandmother given her the same toy she might have assumed a trap of some kind, but she trusted her father.

Conclusion, if the toys are magical in nature and are meant to teach her something and her father had no ill intentions towards her, they must 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 internally with herself.

“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. 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 gun powder, maybe. She chuckled at the thought. They had been close. A group of a little more than half a dozen close friends. To her more of a second family.

She missed them dearly and hoped they were doing well. She hoped they had gotten drunk and had a good time at the funeral. She pictured it in her mind them 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 the believe, that the toy might be constructed out of several layers and might be more complex than her initial assessment had led her to believe.

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.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

It felt similar to when she had touched 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.

Excitement ran through her. She was doing magic. Freaking magic. How, she had no clue, but she was doing it. A bright smile showing on her face.

Leaning forwards to inspect the glow more closely it suddenly vanished. She immediately stopped and concentrated on what had changed. The tingling feeling had stopped. Of course, the glow had stopped and on second thought as had the sensation of the barrier behind on her back.

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 indentation, it wasn’t really that deep and another to the barrier.

Depending on which part of her touched the barrier different parts of her body 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 shaping training tools. If mastered they allowed one to precisely manage their Mana and force it into specific forms which was a much needed skill for an aspiring weaver. However, one needed to form at least a dormant Mana source to even attempt to do such a thing. Normally around the age of four, but sometimes as late as six years old, the source would form through the exposure of the ambient natural Mana all around them.

Once formed it was important to start weavers as soon as possible a lot of their later potential was determined in this early development stage. The growth in magical potential was the fastest in those early years. The size of the internal Mana source increased the fastest as well as the ease with which it could be used was significantly improved as shown by the early twin studies of Greyfort Academy. Laying the foundation for all training regimes of the Great Houses and even the smaller families all tried to get their offsprings started as early as possible.

There were some tinctures which could help prolong those years of rapid growth, nothing her family could afford anymore and they were only used on the most promising of protegees of the Great Houses. Of course, there were other lucky encounters which could help one to a growth spurt, but most were a double edged sword or at least not easy and reliably reproduced. There was a reason she was not progressing any further at her old age. The time for that had passed and too many decisions had been made she came to regret later on.

She should be happy seeing her granddaughter not even one light up one of the training cubes if only a little, but instead she only felt cold dread. This should not be possible. She had missed on how she even got them. What she saw was a monster, sitting there in her little crib happily smiling as she lit up the cube time and time again and what worried her most was that her enhanced observation orb was starting to detect Mana in her granddaughter. Probably at the lowest levels she had ever seen and not on a level, which could harm anyone, but the situation was rapidly escalating.

She would not lose her family a second time, this was all which remained from 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 drastic 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.