It had been a month since his birth, and Will had gotten used to his quirky family. The weird things they say and the odd actions they do has become fairly normal to him.

He has also somehow gotten used to being carried around by his neck, and the random fights his parents seem to have constantly. Either they got married by force or they showed their love for each other through angry yelling. Regardless of the real reason, Will felt that he better not go near that landmine. Not unless he wanted a say in someone else’s relationship. Which, considering his past experience from two lives of zero, he doubts he could say anything.

Fortunately there wasn’t some kind of a blue stat screen in front of him. Chances are his relationship level might even be below 0, it could be over -9000!

Adjusting to his new body was the hardest. While looking like a little shota, he has the physical ability of a grown man. Seriously though, there must have been a mix up in the genes or something. He had bright blue hair, blue eyes, and pale skin. When Will first saw his actual appearance looking back from a pond. He thought that God had accidently used too much white skin tone color and out of anger, threw down the blue paint bucket next to him. That was the only logical explanation for how Will had such a drastic difference in appearance compared to his family.

That or a green hat might show up later, but seeing his "mommy" henpeck his father... Will kind of doubt that was the case.

Currently, judging only by outside appearance, Will looked like any 3 or 4 year old child. Still cute and cuddly, but slightly bigger than when he was first born. He was much smaller compared to Shui-er, seemingly able to easily pass as her adopted little brother. Shui-er on the other hand, already looked 6 when he saw her and then seemed to have grown a few more inches a month later.

Of course Shui-er, like Will, had went through the same molting process he had. The only difference was, she went from newborn baby to 6 years old, while Will had his molting apparently halted by “mommy”. So it ended up with Will several inches shorter than Shui-er even though they had less then two weeks in age difference. A fact that Will found really surprising when he found out. Cause you know… where was he kept while Shui-er was being born? A second… cough… container?

Another interesting thing was ever since Will's molting, he had the weirdest feeling that there was a source of energy spinning within himself. At first he didn’t even notice it, as he had more important issues at hand to deal with. But once Will got time away from his family and sat in his little crib to think, he finally felt it. This was also when it occurred to him that he could see colors again!

After feeling the same sensation for a month. Will had finally concluded that it was a real sensation and not just an imaginary hope that he wished for.

He had acquired his mana!

While it was somewhat late in arriving, at least it was working properly. After trying to examine it closely, Will felt that his inner mana seemed to be slowly absorbing the outside mana somehow. Then it was filtered out inside his stomach to create more of his own personal mana.

Unfortunately, it seemed that it took a long period of time to filter the outside mana, so in terms of actual increase, there wasn’t really much progress. Not to mention that Will didn't recall having anything in his stomach that acted as a filter...

As such, Will had taken things into his own tiny hands and set out to increase the growth of his mana - by following the valuable knowledge given by his forefathers of anime and manga.

Which is why he was hanging out in the forest that was near his house. Accompanied by his father and Shui-er as the afternoon sun beamed down on them. They're all staring down at a little white bunny stuck inside of a trap. Well, to be more precise, the trap was just a pitfall that Will got his father to dig. Also, there wasn't any real reason an animal would go in it because there weren’t even any bait in it.

At the time, when his father had finished digging out the pitfall, Will had asked him for a suitable bait, like a carrot. To which his father replied, “What’s a carrot?”

After that conversation, Will just slapped some fern-looking plants on top of the hole and hoped a dumb animal would wander in.

The white bunny he’s staring at is the aforementioned dumb animal.

Through a month of practice, Will could easily play out his role as a newborn infant. He “learned” to speak within days of his molting period, and walked as easily as breathing the moment he broke out of the black stuff. He also "mastered" how to make random things out of mud and such with Shui-er, and became proficient in calling everyone by their names.

“Pepe! Look! We got a little bunny!”

“Right you are Will! But again, you’re supposed to call me “daddy”, like Shui-er. Come on, da-ddy.”, his father again tried to get Will to change his pronunciation.

“Big sissy! What is Pepe talking about? I don’t think I’m saying it wrong.” Will tilted his head and spoke to his sister, who was crouching down as she stared at the bunny.

“Don’t worry Will! You’re cute the way you are! But daddy, this bunny is shivering. Does it need fire or something?`` Shui-er pointed at the trapped animal in the hole.

The hole in question was only about a meter tall, but considering the size of the bunny was about that of a hand. There was no real way it could get out of the man-made hole. As such, it could only stare helplessly at the three humans standing above it.

The small amount of light that filtered through the thick canopy above them illuminated the small mammal, making the white fur seemingly glow with light.

Of course, for Will the odd part was that it seemed to be just some random bunny - white fur version. Where was the noob horned bunny? They always were in the first map that the main characters go to. Unless he was living in a place that was even weaker than the beginner’s town?

Will could only sadly conclude that he was living in the farthest rural village of all. In fact, now that he thinks about it, Will only ever saw his family. There was literally no one else living anywhere near them.

During the day, usually his parents would go out for a while and then return in an hour or so. Will had always wondered where they went and what they did, as there were only forests around. The only spot that was not overrun by vegetation and trees was the clearing that their house was built on.

He spent his days living with his new family and making random things with Shui-er, who seemed to have some weird obsession with building things out of mud. Other than sleeping, he had wasted the rest of the time messing around with his sister.

There were a few changes compared to his old life that were different. For one, it seems that there was no need for him to eat food. Apparently Will could if he wanted to, but any food he eats would just be converted into… something. “Mommy” never really explained it completely, she simply told him that there was no need to eat.

Oddly enough, his parents believe that there was no need to be called by their actual names when they were the only ones around. As such, they wanted their children to call them by their titles, like “mommy” and “daddy”.

Therefore, Will had decided to call them names that he felt would better suit his current form, “meme” and “pepe”. Shut-er, as the older sister, had been dubbed “big sissy”.

As a result of Will having too much time on his hands, he decided to catch a pet to raise. To be honest, he just wanted a test subject to practice his mana on. He figured that a small animal would make a nice lab rat.

Which is where the trap came in.

Thinking back, Will felt that he really used his time unwisely, instead of increasing his mana like any normal protagonist, it was spent making mud bricks.

Of course he obviously tried the usual spells commonly found in fantasy. After he had concluded his mana was real, Will ran outside excitedly, pointed his palm towards a nearby tree, and shouted loudly, “[FIREBALL]!”

After that, Will never tried to perform any spells again, especially near the house. “Mommy” thought that he was yelling for help and came out with a meat cleaver in her hand. Where it came from was a mystery because after that incident Will never saw it again.

Will had taken time to look over what happened and concluded that it was because he didn’t have enough mana to cast [Fireball]. In hindsight, Will felt that he was lucky it didn’t work, else he would’ve caused a massive wildfire. So Will had gone through the tropes in various media to find a method to increase mana without having to empty out his mana pool.

He remembered there was one method that needed him to capture a monster and make it his minion. This would result in increased mana pool for both sides, a side-effect of their shared mana pool.

This tactic was then dubbed - “Monster Catcher”.

His first minion would be this bunny in front of him.

While missing the horn and basically useless - unless used as a source of emergency food supply, Will felt that it’s what a beginner should start with.

He was like, level 0? Level 1? Best to start from the bottom, he didn’t want to trigger any flags afterall.

Pointing at the trapped animal, Will asked his father, “Pepe! Can you grab that bunny? I want to keep him!” The lab rat part was left out - he felt that it would be better to not say anything about that.

His father compiled, grabbing the shivering bunny out of the hole with a hand. Handing it over to Will, who held it with a death grip on its neck, he spoke, “Will, you know that these things eat stuff right? We don’t have to eat, so you need to be responsible and take care of it’s needs alright? Only if you follow these rules can you keep it.”

“Me understand Pepe! Me be a good boy and take care of Professor Bun-Bun!”

“Professor Bun-Bun?” Will’s father looked confused for a second, until it seemed to dawn on him that Will had already named the little bunny. “Err...Will, why are you speaking in second person? Or was it third?”

“Me no idea what Pepe is saying! Me to go home now!” Turning around, Will ran off with Professor Bun-Bun in his hands, eager to start his mana increase training.