As I looked at the big-breasted individual smiling at me right now and then at my mother, I couldn't help but to have cursed thoughts.

(What?! Why is my father so hot?!) I was surprised by the reveal.

"Hi little Zandrius, I'm sorry I'm late, a lot happened today, but I'm very happy to have you! Just look at him! He has mine and your eyes! Oh and look his cute little chubby checks! He's the most adorable baby ever! Truly could only be my son!" She burst with excitement as she began playing with my checks. 

"Your son? How bold of you to say that after coming here late. It seems someone is a bit too brave for their own good. What do you think little Zandrius? Should we kick her out? We could give your dad a week outside to help her clear her thoughts." Mom said with a very forced smile to the point I think I could see a few veins popping out.

(So, my dad is a futa? How dastardly of G to do this... ) I was a bit surprised by the development, but it wasn't something that uncommon in the Endless Fantasy world. I just didn't expect it to happen... 

"I think we're being a bit hasty here. Our son will surely be sad if his father has to wander the streets for a whole week... I mean, who knows what could happen? It's not safe out there." Dad began snuggling onto mother while caressing her hair with a weak smile on her face.

"Hmph! Of course, I'm not going to let you wander out in the streets for a whole week, you're too much of a lost case to trust with that. But you're going to have to reschedule whatever plans you had for the rest of the week, we're spending that time with little Zandrius." Despite how she sounded, mom had a small smile on while she was being caressed, she seemed to appreciate the attention.

"Amora, my love... I understand how you feel, but isn't that a bit too drastic? I have a few important meetings scheduled for this week and probably won't have that much free time until next year... But I promise that by then we'll be able to spend all time we want together as a family with everyone back at home." Dad increased her movements as she talked and began slowly kissing mom on her checks and slowly to her neck while her hands were being used to smooth mom's milkers.

"I... I mean... Uhm... It's not that hah... Not that bad to wait a bit of... No! What am I saying?! No! Not this time! You're smoothing me into letting you get away with this one! It's already decided and you have to choose, work or m- I mean family!" Mother was slowly being lulled into letting it go before she pushed dad away and began scolding her again. It was an odd situation to be in the middle of as a baby of all things.

"How cruel... You don't really leave me with much of a choice, but you're right, I've had you waiting for long enough. One week with the family won't exactly destroy the business anyway." Unable to retort, father conceded as she got pulled into a hug by mom.

From then on the two of them started talking more casually and I learned that I'm now part of a pretty full house. Back at home, there are my grandparents and two sisters. That aside two of my siblings, a brother, and a sister are currently studying at a prestigious magic academy. Honestly, I don't know what's more concerning, the number of family members from a single house or how many cliches got booted into my background. My parents even talked about dad's business as she's a merchant and a few other people, it seems I have a two aunts and an uncle just from mom's side of the family... Just how big is this family?!

Father seemed to avoid talking about her side of the family throughout their conversation up until I fell asleep due to this infant body.

Eventually, I woke up in a crater and a different room. Obviously, I had been taken home and put in bed. Having nothing more pressing to worry about, I began meditating to expand my consciousness to the world around me, but this time something unexpected happened. The moment I did so, I could immediately feel the stream of mana in the atmosphere surrounding me, and just like that, the first step to creating a mana link was completed. 

Now, it was time to move to the second step, Core Rebirth, which consists of filling up one's mana cores... Well with mana to the point of re-emergence. Doing so only requires you to use what you've learned through meditation in the first step, and let yourself open for the mana to come in. It takes time and your skill in meditation affects your efficiency, but patience is the key in these initial stages. Normally this process happens naturally on a much smaller scale for every sentient being, though it usually takes about 14 to 16 years to fill up that way, that also being the reason most apprentices in magic schools or towers are in that age range when they get recruited. 

Similar to the first step it's also possible to ease this one a bit by receiving help from a proficient mage, as it can cut the time in half to do so.

The body of every living being has at least one mana core but in the case of humans and humanoids of a similar structure, there are 2 mana cores. One in the heart and the other in the solar plexus, which both should be filled with mana during the process of the second step to create a mana link. Unfortunately filling both is a hard task and tends to take double the normal time to do, so people avoid doing it or just ignore it and move on. Why not just do the second one later? I asked myself when I first learned of this and the answer is pretty simple, you can't. 

Once you activate one of your mana cores, the body begins functioning with that taken into account. Two processes begin occurring naturally, one is the circulation of mana into your body as it now constantly intakes mana for your core and the rejection or readjustment of variables contradicting that in the body. That variable is your inactive core, since it would still be trying to intake mana for itself it's interfering with the now active mana core, so the body rejects it and gets rid of it as it is serving no purpose other than wasting mana, after all, you yourself already rejected the inactive core when you activated the other one on its own. The process is called core shedding and is said to be very painful.

Being rather short-lived in comparison to the other humanoid races, humans can't really afford to casually spend from 28 to 32 years trying to activate both their cores. This led to it being common for humans to only have one core, and being known to be less proficient in magic than the other humanoid races. 

Having organized my thoughts on the second step, I moved on to once again meditate and advance my training.

Time went by in a flash and before I knew it, 4 years went by just like that in the blink of an eye. 

I had grown and gotten aquatinted with every in the house for a while now. My progress when it came to training was outstanding and completely outside of my expectations, as I was already halfway through with both of my mana cores. Aside from that, I started getting tutored at home by mom it's honestly nothing too hard because of my <Eidetic Memory> skill, all academics became a bit trivial since I could just site everything in the books and change a word or two, done.