“Khreee, khreee” the sound of stifled laughter emerged from Meemauy, causing me to look at her with narrowed, irritated eyes.

“Oh please! Let an old lady have a joke! I bet you didn’t expect ranting me to pull a prank!” Meemauy guffawed.

I continued squinting at her.

“Little little baby is upset...Woohoohoo...I should just take away this book...woohoohoo” Meemauy singsonged while summoning a book with the title “Mana Affinities and what you should know about them”

“Sure, take away the book. I bet you know more than anything in that book” I said, suddenly feeling smart

“And waste my time giving you, a bratty baby, an unfair advantage? No thanks, but sure I’ll take away the book” Meemauy said as she made the book disappear.

I’m not a smart baby...wait I’m a brick?Or I was a brick...I’m a baby now. Suddenly I fell apart as the realisation struck me. I wasn’t the oldest spirit brick in the palace anymore, I was just a baby, a little inconsequential baby...who didn’t even have a name.

Ariana Arlford

And that didn’t work. Even after millenia,Ariana hadn’t figured babies out, guess she got it wrong this time too.

Looking at the little crying baby Arianna felt great pity at the tiny being, only three months old and it had already experienced the disregard of it’s parents.

Maurise wasn’t a bad person, he just didn’t comprehend how much attention babies needed. Having Juliana babysit didn’t help either. Arianna had always maintained that parents should have to take care of their own babies. That was the only way any of them would learn to take care of the children. Having Juliana do it just gave them an excuse. her opinion had, sadly, been ignored.

At least she could help this one. First though, she must figure out what was wrong. Time for some well intentioned mind magic!Suddenly she felt a seal on the baby come to life, it was bright orange with an eye-tearing green sword on it. The colour scheme was chosen by one fool 15,000 years ago. Narvin, Predator of the Arlford family and sworn brother to her husband. She knew that he’d checked the baby, but she hadn’t known that he’d cared enough to protect it this heavily. Being the third highest ranked on the Level and second highest on the Mana mass list his seal was not something she could break easily, and definitely not without first informing him. Which would be messy, Narvin had opinions about mind magic, opinions he would not keep to himself. Time for some old fashioned talking.

Suddenly, as she was beginning to try and talk, the baby just stopped crying, one second it was balling its eyes out, the next it just stopped.

“Can you tell me about the elements?” the baby said, clearly avoiding something.

“Sure” Arianna said, complying to the baby’s unspoken request. “Magic has a great number of elements, all suited to their own selves and and only themselves. Remember this little one, there is no person completely forsaken by any element, at most the affinity is negligible and thus doesn’t show up on your stat screen.”

“There are many elements of Magic, new being discovered every day...well year actually but we’ll just go with the day for the theatrical effect?”Arianna had found that these little anecdotes made these explanations much more interesting, for her and the listener. “I’ll just explain those important to you.” Arianna caused a table to appear, so that she could explain things better, After alll tables were best at everything, weren't they?

The five primal elements are Fire, Water, Earth, Air and Gravity. They are the oldest elements, used in civilizations long dead. Pretty useless now.

Then comes the more useful, when compared to the primals, grade 1 elements. Namely, Force, Will, Power, Electromagnetism, Thermodynamics. Useful for skills and their like, impractical for any kind of dynamic magic though.

Now the grade 2s, finally something that's useful in real life! Primality, Emotion, Substance. As you can see these are elements that delve into real stuff like Crafting, Emotional healing, and of course war. Because war is very much a criterion.

Grade 3s! The life of fun! Mind, Galacsia, Law. While the second is among the less used of the grade, the fact that I used it to alter Launeior a few minutes ago should give you some perspective on the power of it! And let me tell you kid, power gets you everywhere.

Grade 4s!Where the fun ends and the destruction begins, known for their destructive properties, Grade 4 element users were once considered weapons of war. Energy, Order, Chaos are examples of elements that lie under this massive hat. Their use is strictly controlled, they are however some of the best at other things too. Chaos+Order magic is for example one of the requirements of Alchemy.

Finally the Grade 5s, Space, Time and other things you won’t know about for a while. Grade 4s were a weapon. Grade 5s are a weapon of mass destruction. The first five grades can be gained through potions and their like. Grade 5s cannot, they are elements that have been used to destroy entire civilisations. As someone with an Outrageous affinity for Space, you will need to learn to control your power, for one day you may be required to wield it.

Arianna finished her presentation expecting some kind of reaction, all she got was a blank stare.

“You were going to tell me what the elements do, Not tell me these useless grades!” the arrogant, self righteous baby said.

“Humph! You know nothing little guy! How will you know the difference between Galacsia and Gravity if I didn’t explain Grades to you! Grades are the first building block in the monument of magic. Explanations aren’t important anyways because they are just useless.Here’s what your elements can do. Fire and Earth, absolutely nothing that you can’t use other things to do. Mind is good, but too heavily regulated for the current you. Chaos is very useful for crafting, we may be able to get you an Order affinity potion so that you can do Alchemy...not before you’re ten though. Grandmist...missed that one, it's a Grade 4, basic creation, you can use it to make things scaling up with control and mana. Space, too few limits, but at your level you can just get places. Will and Force are just for your skill. Ignore time, the thing is bloody useless most of the time anyway.” Arianna said, feigning irritation while actually trying to gloss over a single fact. Hopefully the bored baby won’t figure out that Space basically negated all of her wards that were holding him here.

About a minute later the baby was nowhere to be found.