Jolting awake, It took me a second to realize what was wrong.

I hadn't moved so fast in years. The usual stagnant state of my body was gone. I felt a new source of energy and life flow through me. That should have been impossible.

After all, I had researched it enough to know. My mind came to a halt when I finally came to grips with my surroundings.

The world had changed into something far too familiar to be real. Gone was the dinghy room, my one solace in all the great halls of the Library of Belti.

The surroundings were sinister, the simple room laced with pain and madness. This was the room where it all started. Down below me was my failure of a father. One of the many drunks of the outer ring. Someone who hadn't cared for my presence for far too long.

The despair of it all soon gave way to elation when I saw the state of my body. The youthful hands, fresh and nimble. The skin was smooth, not a burn in sight.

There was no mirror in my room, but what was the need when I could see for myself most of my body.

I jumped from the bed, marveling at my new range of movements. I was no longer limited to a broken body. Thinking along those lines brought me to a new point.

I looked within myself with the same deftness I had grown after many years of trial and error. The raging river of mana that was within my body brought tears to my eyes.

Gone were the slow streams of a cripple. I could become a mage. The path I was always destined for was no longer out of reach.

I didn't know what deity I had to pray to for my resurrection. The memories of my past were crystal clear, my memory being my only strength and solace in the past. Now though, it was blurry. I could remember moving through the forbidden aisles of the library as I usually did. Then nothing.

Yet that meant little to me for the moment as I immediately went down to meditate. I had no idea what time I had been brought back to. That didn't matter. I hadn't been crippled yet. The world was open. I had all I needed.

The euphoria of mana rushing through my body was like nothing I ever felt. I had never learned to tap into my mana before the incident properly, used to the minute amount of mana I could conjure through my channels. The control and finesse I gained through that hadn't gone away.

I was well on my way to making a natural awakening.

All it would take would be a few days of meditation, and I would be joining the rank of mages.

Then I could truly make a difference.

Banging on the door brought me out of my reverie.

"Hey, you little shit. Your mother is outside looking for you."

That was all it took to reveal precisely when I had been brought back to.

Two weeks before the entrance exam to the Forpus Academy of Excellence.

The banging was constant, so I pulled open the door with equal force. I wasn't above being petty with my father. I had never truly gotten even with the man for squandering away all the help Mom gave us.

He nearly fell into the open doorway as he prepared for another round of knocking. I was surprised he managed to catch himself. He shot me a glare as I strode past.

Whispering under his breath, "You'll pay for that."

I couldn't care less what he was saying as I strolled through the rundown house—the stairs creaking heartily under my step. The door was left ajar as I came down into the hallway.

The sight of my mother filling my heart with ease and anger.

She was healthy, but her wrinkles all around her face spoke to how she was treated in the house. The third wife of a noble was not a great position to be in, especially with the baggage of having a child in the outer rings hanging onto your reputation.

"Hello Gan, how are you? my child, you look well."

Her smile lit up both her face and my heart. I had long since let go of any baggage about her leaving me with my father in my past life, even if it had been too late at the time. I wasn't going to let it affect this one.

I fell into her open arms and returned her hug with earnest. That did take her surprise.

"That was the first time you've hugged me in a long time."

I just grabbed her tighter, making up for any lost time I had spent dwelling in a place of misspent anger my past life.

"It's good to see you again, mom, it's been too long."

The hug only got tighter, her body shaking with gentle sobs.

"What are you doing here, Lily?"

A boorish voice broke the touching moment—my father. You would have thought he would have asked that before he got me.

Like that, she quickly broke away from our hug. Wiping her hands under her eyes quickly. It took her a second, but soon she reappeared as the noblewoman she now was. My father had lost his chance of ever seeing her as anything else.

She nodded at him before turning to me once again.

"Gan I have some great news. I managed to get you into the entrance exam for the Forpus Academy."

I hoped my look of surprise was suitably convincing. Luckily my father stuck in his nose before I had to test my incredible acting abilities.

"What crap are you saying Lily, there is no chance of him going to a place like that. He ain't smart enough. Plus he ain' noble like those other folks. He'll be killed."

Lily's glare quickly broke his bravado.

"Headmaster Williamswizz has assured all students would be treated equally, no matter there origin, plus I have managed to get my hand on some magic texts. He has two weeks to study. With that, even if he can't enter Forpus, he will at least manage to gain entry to a lesser academy."

Which was precisely what happened last time. Of course, I had been forced into that path for different reasons. Reasons that would not be repeating themselves this time around.

With that, she moved towards her carriage. Nobility did have its perks after all. She handed me a package that once held all my hopes and dreams.

She kissed me gently on the forehead.

"I will come to see you before the exams, study hard, my child. I need you."

Those words had been lost on me so long ago—an absent mother trying to appease her forgotten child. I knew differently now.

"I will, mom, I love you."

She left the house where she once lived for the first time in many years, with a smile on her face.

Now would come the more challenging part. A hand fell on my shoulders as soon as the carriage turned the corner.

"You are gonna hand those books over to me, kid."

I ripped myself free as soon as he said that. The action was all too familiar. The first step that sent me on my path of doom. It would not be repeated even if I didn't need the books any longer.

"What the hell are you talking about, you fool."

He came up to my face, his drunken breath overwhelming so close. His unkept hygiene was even worse.

"We can do a lot with the money we would get from selling those books. You are never going to get into one of those fancy academies anyway."

He went to grab the book bag yet again. Luckily years of drinking had made him slow in both mind and body.

"You are mad. If I became a mage, the money I could earn from a single job would be worth ten times any of these books would go for."

Not strictly true of the lower levels, but when I broke through the first barrier and became an intermediate mage, that much would mean nothing.

"Kid, you have to be real here. It is only one in a thousand people who have any chance of breaking through the first barrier. Neither of your parents managed it, making the chances of you doing it nothing."

I rushed past him, yelling as I passed.

"Then we can sell them after the exam you drunk. Think for a second, wouldn't you."

The yell accomplished all I needed. To get the attention of the rest of the street so that the old man had no chance of retaliation.

Now the real fun could begin. I hadn't lived a full life moving from library to library for nothing.

My path to magic had only just begun.