The next night I waited for mother to fall asleep before getting up. I still had to try my magical possibilities as a human of the first circle. Standing in the middle of my room, I try to invoke the ice to me and my hand suddenly was filled with mana. I lifted it at eyes level to see my right hand taking a withe-blue color slowly. Slow trace of icy steam could be seen around it. I was satisfied with what I saw, I had no more trouble in controlling the ice than before which was pretty surprising because I was not a lich anymore. So part of my soul transferring still keep part of my abilities, notably my affinities and not just the memories.

So my affinity with the ice was the same so I could reasonably assume that at least my affinities were at the same level than before if not higher. I was particularly curious about the life and light affinities. The possibility to learn, control, experiment with brand new magic was appealing. I try to invoke fire with my left hand and found a little resistance but not as much as before. Not really surprising because a lich is still vulnerable to fire more than anything except light and life which were deadly. I tried with the rock magic I knew and it was the same as before. Normally speaking, rock magic was excessively rare. Not because it was powerful or the affinity rare but the opposite. Most mage using rock magic were earth mage. But to manipulate earth magic you needed to use life magic, not really a problem for every races safe the undead and most of the sentient undead being just didn’t care for a magic that was inferior in almost everything to the ice magic, so why bother ?

But I was scholar so i studied it and mastered it even. But know I had life magic available and with both earth magic, meaning all rock magic will be more powerful and less mana costly plus the fact that it could help control most of the plants and some bugs. While it could also be use as suggestion to other living being, giving a sense of either security or danger, to be taken as prey danger impression, it remain as a suggestion and not really something of real control.

I next tried lighting magic and while the light made by the tiny ball of sparks was not bright enough to cause problem, the sound created by the friction between the air and the sparks was. I rapidly stopped and focused all my attention on my hearing to see if I had woken up someone. Luckily I hadn’t, I think, I was confident enough in my new ears but that opened a new problem. I couldn’t test everything here. Even if I excluded some magic because of the sound it produced, other were simply impossible to try indoor without big exposure, like death magic. It rotten everything even the air at some point so how was I supposed to try it. While I was pondering this problem I was at the same time trying other magic.

From what I test it remain globally the same as before my rebirth. Some were slightly more powerful but no as the leap I gained with the fire affinity. I hadn’t try the light and life magic because I hadn’t trained them before. Not that I didn’t know how to use them, I had after all learned everything I could about them and their usages, but I didn’t have control over them. You might know how to cook in theory, when you try it for the first time, burn or uncooked food is not surprising.

I finally came to the decision that I needed to go somewhere outside to do this. We didn’t have a cave and the garden was way too exposed for that. I decided after tens of minutes of self-deliberation that it was not really that important right now. Everything I tested was so far pretty much even in raw power, depending on the affinity. The only draw back was light magic because even if life magic was very versatile, it needed a higher raw power than I could use to be somewhat useful in anything relevant. I could probably accelerate the grow rate of a flower but that was it. Maybe heal a little myself if I got hit or cut but even then it would be barely noticeable.

But light magic was not the same. Light had many usages. The two commonly used are for healing and for illuminate. The healing part will have the same problem that the life magic but not the latter. I could use it to see in the dark or to read at night without having to switch the light on at the opposite of the room. It could be use as distraction of some sort way more subtle than a big fire like some sort of illusion but not affection the mind. It would be closer to an optical illusion like in the desert. Not all of this could be use at the first circle, the last point couldn’t for example but most of them could because it draw very little in raw power. Well at higher level you could use the same illuminate spell to blind your opponent which I could not right now but that was just the raw mana injected in the spell.

I will have to find a moment during the day to test light magic, it would be less likely to attract unwanted attention.

All of this finished, I returned to my bed and sleep until the morning. When mother woke me up in the morning, I saw her frowning and sniffing. Apparently some of my tests left a lingering sent, I was not really sure which one. Lightning was the most powerful in that aspect, leaving an heaving sent of ozone in the air but I didn’t use it long enough to get anything remotely detectable after so many hours. It was not fire ou ice, ice because it didn’t have any sent and fire because the it didn’t produce any smoke of some sort. It just burned mana which was odorless. Maybe rock magic ? Probably, I didn’t see anything else capable of changing the sent enough and at the same time still lingering.

—————

Three years passed and nothing really changed. I cultivated when I had time and I successfully attained the bone tempering. I was five years old and as strong as a healthy adult if I used all my strength but my muscle would be injured.

I had been upset and disappointed when I learned that I could not go to creche. Not because I wanted to avoid my mother or anything but because I was eager to see more of this world, to meet other people even if only children. I knew that I would probably not be anything popular or anything, I was too cold for that, but even so… Well at least I would be going to school normally next year. I would be supposed to learn to read and calculate.

I already knew to do both so I was in front of a choice. I could either display my reading capability and skip two or three class or I could play low and fake I couldn’t. Both had pro and con. The main pro to do that would be that I would be in a class with older children and older children would mean more mature and educated children but at the same time I would be a lot younger than them which would outcast me even more than if I was at the same age. I wanted to go to school to make some friend so the con was too big.

The only problem left were my eyes and hair. While my hair could be both a pro and con, it could increase the curiosity or produce either jealousy. I was proud of my hairs, I loved them. They were both natural and exotic. The color was so strange that it attracted the eyes but not flashy enough to cause problem.

But that could not be said of my eyes. Pitch black without an ounce of color in them. They were pretty scary I had to admit. That was why we were actually outside for shopping with mother. Not my first time shopping but I still thought it was strange. There was so many different model, color, texture, labels, quality, etc. and that was just for the clothes… This industrial era was overwhelming but I could see the advantage of it. But today we were not here to buy clothes.

I was wearing my blindfold to not attract to much attention and we were here to buy some sort of glasses for my beginning in school. We didn’t buy them before because they were apparently to expensive for the rare exiting we had and I was growing to fast for the expense to be made. But I would need them for school, I couldn’t really go at school with a blindfold to learn to read after all…

We entered a shop I had never been before and my mother asked for some help.

— Hello, I’m Jack, how can I help you ?

— Hello, I need new glasses for my daughter here.

She pulled me by the arm and I saw the man put a surprised face. I didn’t really see it, I used my spiritual vision. It’s range had increased to a little more than 2 meter now.

— Do you want glasses for blind ?

— No, my daughter can see very well, probably better than me.

The confusion on his face only increased, I could see that he didn’t understand what was happening here and I could not really blame him for that… How many people would go buy glasses with blindfold and perfect vision… I suppressed a chuckle at the though and waited for the following.

— My daughter has some unique characteristic about her eyes that are… well pretty disturbing and we need something to mask them. She will begin school next year. So I need glasses without any correction that could be used indoor, by cloudy or rainy weather and that would completely hide her eyes.

— What you are asking is pretty unique and I don’t it in stock. But could I ask to see your daughter eyes to have a better idea of what we are talking ?

I saw my mother hesitate and I squeezed her hand and she relaxed even so slightly.

— I would need to take measure in all case and take off the blindfold for that, he insisted.

— Ok but I warned you. Honey, you can take it off.

I put took the blind but keep my eyes closed for now and faced the man. I asked him one last time.

— Ready ?

— Yes

I opened my eyes and I saw him take a step back. I could see fear and fascination in his eyes. The fear rapidly reduced and curiosity took place. I was pretty sure that all our warnings had made this possible. He was still afraid, I could sense it but he controlled it but I was sure that if I just walked in and looked at him, he would be running by now.

— I can see why you would want to hide them. You have some pretty unique features little girl.

I tried to play the shy girl by hiding behind my mother and I get some decent result when I saw him laugh lightly. He then turned to my mother and asked several other things about the glasses I would have.

After that he took us inside and begin to measure my face and my eyes. I put back my blindfold when we finished and made our way to the checkout. My glasses would apparently cost near 450 dollar. I didn’t how if it was much but seeing the face mother had when she heard the price, it was no small amount. Mother then took some paper and handed them to the man. Another thing that greatly surprised me. They used paper as main currency. I get it’s smaller, lighter and easier to transport but wouldn’t it be too easy to replicate ? I mean paper is used everywhere so it’s not some rare commodity or anything. I think they had some mean to prevent that even if I didn’t what it was. Maybe some hidden magician of the government ? I had so doubt about it but it was my best guest to the moment.

Two weeks after I had my first pair of glasses. They were pitch black when looking from the outside but I could see clearly when I put them on, only a slightly darker than without. Apparently even when looking by the side, my eyes were hard to see, I didn’t really get why but he told us something about shadow and reflexion, I didn’t understand most of it, sadly.

And just like that I was ready for my first day at school which would be in less than a year, we just had to go to some specialist of the eyes to get a medical prescription to use my eyes in class. I did’t get why we would go to the specialist after buying the glasses, I mean it’s like counting our chicken before they hatched, kind of, maybe in reverse ?

Anyway, we had an appointment next week.