"I don't want to go."

"Well, then it's too bad you don't get a choice isn't it, young lady?"

Alexa looked up and shot her mother an angry glare. She'd just turned seven last night as their world, Eleria, finished its rotation around their sun for the 5'655th time, turning them both one year older. It was weird sharing a birthday with the new year but she didn't mind all that much. It just meant the celebration time was more focused on new years and she could sneak off to play with her presents. This year hadn't been like others in that regard though as Alexa found herself being hounded by her mother to pack her things.

"Why don't you have to go? She is your sister, shouldn't you be visiting her?" Alexa asked.

"I have too much to take care of on my own not to mention managing the estate while your father is out playing soldier. It's your job to visit when I can't."

"Since when is that a rule!" Alexa pouted.

It had never been a rule before. Most likely her mother was making it up, this being confirmed by her next words.

"Since I just made it one you little brat. Now get packing. The trip is going to take you at least two months and you'll be there for four years until it's time to enter the academy."

"WHAT?!"

'That did it,' Petrina N'moran thought, as her daughter lost all restraint and began her tantrum in earnest.

Amazing how so much energy could be contained in a body so small. She had spoiled this little girl too much.

"THERE IS NO WAY IN HELL I-"

A sound like a huge book being dropped onto a tile floor reverberated through the halls. Servants flinched and departed from the scene as fast as possible. A slap from her mother had stopped the young girl in her tracks as she realized her mistake. Complaining was fine, but using language unbefitting of a lady... Whereas before it was understandable for her daughter to complain, now she wouldn't even be allowed that. If she tried, Petrina would bury her.

"Pack. Now."

The two words the child involuntarily shiver. Two words sent her scampering into her room with a suitcase her mother had brought to her to pack with all she had.

'If only she'd just cursed to start out with,' Petrina thought.

She knew Alexa could be a handful, but Petrina wouldn't just demand things of her without good reason. She just hoped Vanessa could handle the girl, maybe even give her an attitude adjustment.

Things were getting tense in Hylum and Petrina didn't want her daughter to be a potential weakness to her family. She'd be more useful when she got older and could marry.

'Now then, I guess I should let Vanessa know her niece will be visiting.'

"Well don't keep me waiting all day, report!" A man yelled out to no one in particular, the dining room he was seated in seemingly void from everyone except his own self.

350 years of age, Carien Duflos. A glutton, made obvious by the way he piled food into his mouth and less obvious by his slim figure, and a masterful tactician. None on Hylyu had been able to deduce how he won his battles or how he knew the enemies plans yet it was painfully clear the country and Empire would be in a more perilous state had he not been around.

The light near a window seemed to break apart and distort as a Nivari faded into being. Pale orange and seven feet tall, this one was on the shorter side of their race. Lithe yet muscular, the creature has long arms reaching just above its kneecaps with another set of arms protruding from its waist, these much shorter spanning two feet in length with each holding a blade against its legs.

With a raspy voice yet smooth in its execution, the creature responded.

"The lord moves, yes. He advances to the South. Humansss there will have no chanceee against his peonss. Dispatch a force of one hundred of your bird magesss. Maybe they will turn the tidesss, yes?"

Sighing and rubbing the bridge of his nose, Carien spoke up, "Which lord? Why one hundred? Where in the south, you buffoon? If you want my help in containing your kind, you need to give me DETAILS!"

Throwing a chalice at the Nivari served no purpose as it passed harmlessly through the creature and continued on outside the mansion before dropping out of sight.

Finally, after a few tense seconds, the Nivari responded, "To the southhh. Where else is south but down, yes? The port of Invalnnn. Which lord should matter not to you, human. Jusst do what I say, yes? Rewards to be had. Experience to be gaineddd. Dispatch your birdsss."

After ten minutes of trying to get more details, Carien finally relented. The Nivarian wouldn't speak. It was a miracle he'd even gotten the town's name from him. Carien waved the creature away and rested his head in his hands as he thought. After an hour had passed, he sent a [scan] out of his premises and found no intruders.

"So, how much of what the demon said is true?" He spoke to an empty room.

"All, my liege. Though I would suggest fifty, not 100 birds. One hundred is much too many for the forces that will be coming." A being stepped out from behind his boss, an amalgamation of shadow and sentience.

Thrashing his hand against the table, the lord Carien sent his tableware flying into a nearby wall as he shouted, "DO NOT EVER-," he paused and took a deep breath before continuing slowly, "do not ever refer to us as birds again, do you understand, Smith?"

"Yes, sir," The shadow said with a bow, or what looked like a bow.

"What of the Families?" Carien asked after a brief pause.

"The Ruidens have thrown support behind the throne openly and have sent their able to the frontlines. The Cornalis have sent aid but not yet declared a stance. The N'moran's still support the throne as well and have sent their daughter away in the midst of all this," The shadow replied.

Sighing out loud once again, Carien sat pensively for a minute before he continued his line of questioning.

"And where did they send their daughter to?"

"Your scouts lost track of her due to her families protection. She has disappeared."

"Where did they send their daughter to? Hathen?" Carien asked, displeasure on his lips.

Minutes passed upon which no one spoke before finally, the shadow responded with agitation in his voice, "My master has deigned to gift you a response to your insolent question. The child is en route to a town named Carlon. She is not alone, yet is suspected to be once she arrives."

"Send a squad of five. Do not be seen, do not get caught. What of her brother?"

"Still at the front with the father, my liege," it responded with a nod, anger present in the shadow's tone.

"Good. You are dismissed."

Turning away from the wall, the man sunk back into his chair and seemed to age fifty years physically. A servant entered the room as the shadow dissipated and poured the lord some red wine then began cleaning up the trays that had been thrown across the room.

"Why are you making this so easy, Petrina?"

The question echoed through the room, none able to understand its implications except its maker.

I'm two now, or my body is at least. Apparently, my birthdate is in the second month of the year.

Dates are confusing to me still, as is time management. Five hundred and twenty-two days spread out over eighteen months with twenty-nine days, each holding thirty hours. Luckily, there was no confusing daylights savings time thrown into the mix on top of how complicated the days already made it to figure out my actual age. At least this worlds hours and minutes were similar enough to the hours and minutes of my world. You'd think in a civilization less technologically advanced, time of all things would be more on the simple side...

Eleria is my new world, Carlon the town I live in. Once they learned I could read, writing became simple to justify and the questions began to flow. Unfortunately, that was a two-way street and I'd had to answer quite a few uncomfortable questions pertaining to affection, Vanessa, and scritchy kisses.

The Empire of Forthum was where I lived on the continent of Illain. All sentient beings on this continent, even some on the islands nearby, bowed to the Emperor of these lands except the Dwarves. We were at war with them and the Nivari, some sort of bipedal fish/human with bonus arms on... I don't know, just a confusing-sounding creature. The Celestials bothered little in Human affairs typically but were helping us fight this fish nightmare due to an alliance our Emperor had with their capital city of Hylum which was located on the continent of Hylyu. Hylyu was directly overhead the South-Western portion of our continent. A floating land. Floating.

That had driven me into a state of shock, and that was before I remembered I'd actually seen it, though I couldn't tell anyone that.

A floating island. How? Why? Insane.

The island was easily a tenth the size of the continent as well, which itself spanned an impressive length.

Money seemed simple enough. Gold coins, Silver coins, Bronze coins. Typical other-worldly layout. If there was anything strange about the coins I'd have to say the inclusion of a diamond coin, but those were reserved for the disgustingly wealthy being worth 10'000 gold coins apiece unlike the usual one hundred of the other coins' conversion rate.

All in all, I'd call them finding out about my intelligence a boon. They still treat me like their child only now I receive the treatment of a prodigy, My Emily responding to my beck and call and my Garrett helping when he can.

Yes, my Garrett. It turns out the man isn't so bad. After my little reveal, he basically rips me away from my bed in the mornings to help him cook breakfast and come watch him alter gear in the shop. He talks to me non-stop about the high hopes he had for me following in his footsteps and gets depressed when Emily takes me away to practice the forms.

That brings up another point of interest, mana. FINALLY. After almost a full year of practicing, I finally did it! I actually moved the air! Or mana. I moved the mana. Same thing.

It happened on a day I was particularly... overworked. Garrett had kept me all day watching him and Emily had made me practice late into the night, only to be awoken the next day early for the same routine for about a week straight. During my final moments of hell I started to become slightly delirious and that apparently saved me from months more of this. I was having a mental block, knowing too much of the science and logic of my old world to truly let myself feel, as Emily described it over and over and over and....

Anyway. Feel the mana and magic of this world. Luckily once delusional, my mind seemed to no longer care about the logic of it all and once I broke through and made it happen with my own two hands it was like a flood gate had been opened, my broken mind accepting magic as a natural law in the logic portion of my brain, enabling me to continue to practice.

I'd be proud and brag about my skill if Emily hadn't told me it usually takes about a month before people can manipulate mana. The only saving grace I'd had was that most Humans are unable to until their tenth birthday. The youngest recorded instance being in a Human of the age of eight. Clearly, I was ahead of the curve.

In any case, I got lucky. Had they not overworked me I'm not sure if I'd have ever gotten over my mental block. Yay for delusions!

I'd also learned through trial and error that Emily was wrong, or that she misunderstood, one thing; The two paths of manipulation were not 'Mutually Exclusive'.

One could, in fact, train in both paths and receive benefits. The caveat was you couldn't train both at the same time and it would take obscenely long amounts of time to do. When you practiced the forms, that didn't mean you lost all Rumina time you'd spent, it just meant that it took twice as long to improve upon where you left off. If I spent one year on Rumina that meant that to receive any improvement in my mana manipulation through the forms I would need to spend a year getting back to a neutral zone in the forms, then, depending on how far I'd progressed in the forms prior to switching, an equal amount of time getting back to the level I was at. I would not lose any progress, or gainz, from the effort I'd put into the other path, I would just lose the time it took to work myself back into the other forms mindset.

This was all subjective though, as the higher you progressed the harder it became to advance, but essentially it meant that to advance in one meant to forsake the other. The higher you went, the less feasible it became to try and switch your field of study.

What I drew from this was that there was a finite amount of time I could spend on rumination and be effective. One year, to be exact. One year would increase the strength of my base body by about two times, after that it began to fall off massively. A second year would net me a bit less than three, five years would net me four, and so on. This was only on average of course. It seemed illogical but when you took into account they could still use mana, albeit on a more physical level, the fact that people lived for hundreds of years, and the fact that most people had physical labor dependent lifestyles, it made perfect sense why most people of this world would choose that path, forgoing the path of a True Mage.

It wasn't that Combatants couldn't commune to become a True Mage, it just became much riskier for much less rewards. The chance of dying for the ability to create huge firestorms and tornadoes was much much less alluring when you wouldn't be able to control enough mana to create them in the first place. The strongest Combatants could decimate a True Mage in one on one combat already, communing was an unnecessary risk. In any case, even if rumination wasn't the path I'd go down ultimately, there was no telling when a slight increase in my body's constitution would save my life, so I figured time spent on a physical increase would be indispensable later on down the line. Therefore, once I became able to manipulate mana competently enough, I began condensing it into my body.

Garrett wasn't too excited about it when I started meditating, fearing I'd forever be lost to the path of a mage. Emily, on the other hand, was shocked yet rather smug towards Garrett whenever they discussed my training.

One large detriment I'd recently discovered as well was how my new body was affecting my mental faculties. I couldn't exactly focus as easy as I used to be able to, in my old one. I was starting to get emotional quicker and I was getting more and more comfortable toward Emily and Garrett whether or not I wanted to. It was as if the young body I was inhabiting had been slowly affecting me ever since I came to this world but I finally had pinpointed the effects of it, mostly because one day Emily called me cranky and it was true.

I had literally not done anything different than my usual routine but Jasper randomly decided to lick the back of my calf and it set me off, huffing and puffing out of nowhere. Emily baby talked at me and called me cranky and ten minutes later when I'd stopped feeling like I was going to burst into tears of anger and frustration, I took a moment to question just why I'd gotten like that.

Hopefully, in the future, I'd be able to control it better.

I assume it's also what causes the random flashes of light I see every so often when I look around outside. Blue, green, red... random colorful streaks occasionally crossing my vision quickly. It would make sense that it's my eyes still developing.

On a final, more upbeat note, Vanessa had family that was coming to visit. A niece. The absolute best news I'd heard since coming to this world! Celestials were amazing. I'd only ever met Vanessa, but I'd already determined them to be perfect in my mind. I knew this one would surely be just as enchanting.