If the fact that Ray became a baby wasn’t already clear from the breastfeeding and ‘Ah, Ah, Gah’ sounds that came out when he tried speaking then his lack of body control was also a good indicator. Ray’s body simply wouldn’t move like he wished… He could feel sensations on his limbs but couldn’t grip things or sit up. In the end, one of his siblings, who he assumed to be the previous youngest, would carry him everywhere in their home. Well, more like a bunch of large houses and mansions overlooking a city and a beach than what he would consider a home…

For a month Ray was breastfed against his will, carried around by some young, possibly 10 year old, female, and mortified by his automatic soiling of his pants.

‘This is a joke, right? Maybe I was in a coma after the plane wreck? I mean, I was a twenty year old college senior. I spent so much time studying during my long school years so I could enjoy a money-filled older life with expensive vacations. There’s no way I died and became a baby that can’t die, right? There’s just no way, right?’ Thought Ray. After a month of complete humiliation and being unable to control his body, Ray finally began to snap. Everything he worked towards, everything he did, it was all in another world in another life. But at least in that life he could grow close to people. Well, he can still grow close to people in this life but they will die while he lives, their children will die while he lives, even their grandchildren. Everyone will die unless they have some crazy high cultivation and are near immortal.

‘Dammit! Dammit, God Dammit! A new world, a new life, a wasted past life, and I mean for fucks sake I don’t even know what language is being spoken. Let’s ignore the whole immortal thing for now and just try to grow up as soon as possible. As long as I can speak and walk I won’t be this humiliated but at the very least I want to be able to eat normal food and control my bowel movements. These are the goals for now, basic body and bowel control, learn the language, and be capable of walking,’ Thought Ray as he began to think and calm down.

From then on, Ray began to listen when people spoke, try moving his body whenever possible, and paid attention to his surroundings as he wanted to know his situation. What he saw as he was unwillingly carried around was that he lives in a massive mansion surrounded by some smaller mansions and homes for servants. The estate was in an upper class area of a massive fantasy, medieval style town with a good view of a beach and seemed high class even for the neighborhood. So surely the family he was born into had some money, also, since he’s the youngest he shouldn’t be expected to do anything like taking over as the family head.

Just like that, half a year had passed. Listening to his parents, siblings, and talkative sister that was obsessed with carrying him, Ray started to understand his situation and the local language a bit. He assumed it was because of his young age but learning things seemed pretty easy. He learned that he’s the youngest prince, named Jay Rei, of some large kingdom called ‘Central Rei’, however, he didn’t know how wealthy his family was compared to the world as a whole.

Well, either way, Ray was excited because he could understand the language and, by this time, he had learned to crawl. Being able to move on your own is a great thing and Ray had never truly understood that until now.

Pouting, his sister said, “But if I carry him around then you all won’t forget that I’m no longer the youngest!”

“Listen Mya. There are twenty of us. The oldest two are the ones who will compete for the throne while we either find something to do with our lives or marry a noble. None of us have time to care if you’re the youngest or not because we have to cultivate, everyone in our family has to at least reach the core formation realm, otherwise they have to find some other way to be useful which usually involves a political marriage.” Lectured one of Ray’s older sisters.

“B-But he’s so cute though, and cultivating is so boring…” Mumbled Mya.

“How about this? Take him with you to the cultivation section of the library and read the cultivation technique manual to him so you can spend time with our youngest brother and learn the cultivation technique at the same time.” Suggested the older sister. She seemed to be at her wits end with Mya.

“Ookayy!” Said Mya excitedly as she picked up Ray and skipped off to the library.

This might be the first time Ray didn’t mind being carried by her because he was excited. He was going to learn to read! His sister was just going to read to him for fun but he fully intended on learning the written language because in his old life he loved reading and missed doing so up till now.

Mya carried him to the biggest mansions library and then walked to a smaller room in the back with some bookshelves on the left wall, a shelf of shiny stones on the right wall, and some tables with books on them in the back. She grabbed a white rock from the right wall and then sat down at the table on the far left. After placing Ray on the table facing the book, she began to read.

From what she said, Ray learned some about the world’s cultivation system. Cultivation is split into different realms and stages within that realm. The first realm is Body Foundation, split into low, mid, high, and peak stages. For Body Foundation you absorb strands of pure energy from the atmosphere into your body to shed your mortality as your human body can’t withstand the high speeds and pressure of higher cultivation realms without strengthening. After that is Meridian Opening which is split into different stages based on how many meridians your cultivation technique requires you to open. With twelve being the standard.

Similar to the mortal body, the meridians in your body are unable to withstand the high speeds and pressure needed to circulate the world’s energy at higher levels, so, in this realm, your goal is to create meridians. Some people prefer to strengthen their bodies more as they cultivate so they carve their meridians into their bones and, as they circulate energy through them some energy will seep into their bodies to continue strengthening it. They typically do hand-to-hand combat or some other form of close combat. However, other people prefer a larger energy pool than a strong body so they form meridians outside of their bones which allows the meridians to be larger and slowly increase in size as you circulate energy. No matter which method chosen, it’s important to note that most people only form what this world calls the twelve standard meridians and wait to form more until they pick an element and a suitable technique later on. Meridians can be created but not destroyed during cultivation as destroying them damages your entire body, crippling your cultivation, so if you want to change techniques you have to find one that uses the meridians you formed already. Hence why people stick with the standard twelve that all techniques are based on.

Mya’s book didn’t talk about any realms beyond that. It seems the table next to this one has that information. Either way, Ray was very interested in cultivation because, not only can it let you do what Earth would consider heaven-defying feats, it increases your lifespan so if he reaches certain levels he will be able to associate with people whose lifespans are practically endless so he wouldn’t have to see everyone around him die of old age. Someone at the peak of Body Foundation can live to be 100 years old while someone at the peak of Meridian Opening can live to be 500 years old. Now he understood how he had so many old siblings, his parents could live for a long time so some of those he assumed were his siblings were actually his nieces and nephews and this made him feel a bit better about being immortal.

After reading to this point, Mya read slower and slower before falling asleep, luckily she read about the beginning of Body Foundation before falling asleep. Basically, you learn to sense pure energy in the atmosphere, the amount of strands you can sense at the beginning showing your talent, and use your ‘mental strength’ to absorb it. Mental strength increases with your soul's age so although his talent is supposedly atrocious, at least he won’t have to spend a few weeks training it to absorb the energy. Interesting though, there’s a way to learn to sense the atmospheric energy faster and to pass through Body Foundation faster overall. That method is to absorb energy from white energy stones, containing pure energy, which are only suitable in that realm. After which you either need beast cores or energy stones of your chosen element.

This was exciting to Ray because he could use his family's money to make-up for his shitty talent, at least for now. Not being stupid, Ray new that nothing good was free so he assumes that this method won’t work after he reaches whatever’s beyond Meridian Opening but for now, this was enough. The unfortunate thing is that although you can reach the peak of Body Foundation young, forming your meridians before the age of 16 is apparently dangerous as your body has yet to hit it’s major growth spurt and can break earlier formed meridians when it does.

Once Mya woke up, she brought Ray back to his room before leaving. From that day on, Mya would get some food for meals before getting Ray from his room and heading to the cultivation library. She would take a couple of hours to read to Ray before spacing out to cultivate the Body Foundation and, as she spaced out, Ray would crawl to the right shelf and grab a small white energy stone and use it to cultivate secretly. If his stone still had energy, he would hide it to use the next day. Continuing for three months, although he was still a baby, Ray was happy for a few reasons. First of all, when he started cultivation, he reached the age of no longer being breastfed. Secondly, a few weeks after starting Body Foundation cultivation he could weakly walk but now he could smoothly walk. Third, a few months in, he finally learned how to read. Lastly, everytime he absorbed pure energy he felt a warm sensation flow through him and he loved it like a drug addict loves cocaine. Perhaps the most important thing, though, is that he no longer had uncontrollable bowel movements.

__________

Five months after Mya started taking him to the library, Ray had an odd day. So, his body felt really itchy but he wasn’t sure why exactly… Also, when Mya took him to the cultivation library she kept looking at him with an odd glare but perhaps the most distressing thing is that instead of cultivating, she spent more time reading which means that he can’t use the stones to cutivate. However, this itch really was unbearable so he decided to absorb some pure energy from the atmosphere to have that warm feeling counteract the itch. Unfortunately his talent is garbage so, unlike most people with talent for cultivation who can sense a few dozen strands, Ray could only sense and absorb three strands per hour.

Cultivating seemed to only make the itch worse but he didn’t know what to do so he just kept it up for another two hours until he heard a crack in his body and the itch suddenly disappeared.

The moment his itch disappeared, Ray heard someone scream from behind.