Chapter 3 - The Rhythm of the World (Part 2) - Mana Reflux and the first real breakthrough.
In practice, life kept the same short, harsh tide.
And between one day and the next, Christian did what he always did when he couldn't change the world.
He changed himself.
The nights became a laboratory.
In the dark, with Lia sleeping beside him, he repeated the inner circulation he'd felt from Yana's touch.
Chest, stomach, back, chest.
The energy responded better when it obeyed a path.
Not when it was shoved around in a rush.
With each attempt, his wind became less pathetic.
The problem was the cost.
Three seconds of a tiny whirlpool and his body wilted.
Four, and his vision blurred.
"This isn't just muscle weakness," he thought. "The core is emptying too fast."
Then the idea came.
Obvious.
And because of that, hard:
"If I spend my core, why not pull mana from outside while I spend it?"
He closed his eyes, adjusted his breathing, and created the sensation of "vacuum" in his chest.
As if the core were an empty cup asking for something.
Inhale.
Feel the world brush the core.
Exhale.
Accept what came.
At first, it felt like imagination.
Then a light tingling came.
A discreet warmth.
"Okay… there's external flow."
He named it on the spot.
"Mana Reflux."
Over time, he realized it wasn't a faucet.
It was a trickle.
Small, but constant.
And enough to keep him from blacking out in three seconds.
The first night he combined both, the difference was brutal.
Reflux.
Core lit.
Flow organized through his arm.
Wind released.
The little whirlpool was born between his fingers, small but stable.
Three seconds passed.
Four.
Five.
He waited for collapse.
It didn't come.
A tickle came instead.
Right on his nose.
First weak.
Then annoying.
Then impossible to ignore.
"Hmm…", he muttered internally, trying to keep his focus.
The tickle grew, became a feather spinning inside.
He rubbed his nose with his fist.
Mistake.
— HATCHOO!
The sneeze exploded far too loud for his tiny body.
The wind shattered instantly.
"What the hell…"
Christian froze, staring at the ceiling.
He tried again.
Reflux.
Whirlpool.
Tickle.
— HATCHOO!
Third attempt.
— HATCHOO!
By the end, he was panting, teary-eyed, his dignity sprawled across the crib.
"Amazing. I've invented a kind of magical rhinitis."
"Well… at least a dumb side effect is better than blowing my channels up and dying."
The important part was simple.
He had advanced.
The spell lasted longer.
Consumption was lower.
And now he knew, with conviction strong enough to bet his life on it, that mana existed inside and outside.
And that the core was a bridge.
"It's slow, but little by little I'll improve this."
He fell asleep with stubbornness glued to his chest like a second skin.
♦
In practice, life kept the same short, harsh tide.
And between one day and the next, Christian did what he always did when he couldn't change the world.
He changed himself.
The nights became a laboratory.
In the dark, with Lia sleeping beside him, he repeated the inner circulation he'd felt from Yana's touch.
Chest, stomach, back, chest.
The energy responded better when it obeyed a path.
Not when it was shoved around in a rush.
With each attempt, his wind became less pathetic.
The problem was the cost.
Three seconds of a tiny whirlpool and his body wilted.
Four, and his vision blurred.
"This isn't just muscle weakness," he thought. "The core is emptying too fast."
Then the idea came.
Obvious.
And because of that, hard:
"If I spend my core, why not pull mana from outside while I spend it?"
He closed his eyes, adjusted his breathing, and created the sensation of "vacuum" in his chest.
As if the core were an empty cup asking for something.
Inhale.
Feel the world brush the core.
Exhale.
Accept what came.
At first, it felt like imagination.
Then a light tingling came.
A discreet warmth.
"Okay… there's external flow."
He named it on the spot.
"Mana Reflux."
Over time, he realized it wasn't a faucet.
It was a trickle.
Small, but constant.
And enough to keep him from blacking out in three seconds.
The first night he combined both, the difference was brutal.
Reflux.
Core lit.
Flow organized through his arm.
Wind released.
The little whirlpool was born between his fingers, small but stable.
Three seconds passed.
Four.
Five.
He waited for collapse.
It didn't come.
A tickle came instead.
Right on his nose.
First weak.
Then annoying.
Then impossible to ignore.
"Hmm…", he muttered internally, trying to keep his focus.
The tickle grew, became a feather spinning inside.
He rubbed his nose with his fist.
Mistake.
— HATCHOO!
The sneeze exploded far too loud for his tiny body.
The wind shattered instantly.
"What the hell…"
Christian froze, staring at the ceiling.
He tried again.
Reflux.
Whirlpool.
Tickle.
— HATCHOO!
Third attempt.
— HATCHOO!
By the end, he was panting, teary-eyed, his dignity sprawled across the crib.
"Amazing. I've invented a kind of magical rhinitis."
"Well… at least a dumb side effect is better than blowing my channels up and dying."
The important part was simple.
He had advanced.
The spell lasted longer.
Consumption was lower.
And now he knew, with conviction strong enough to bet his life on it, that mana existed inside and outside.
And that the core was a bridge.
"It's slow, but little by little I'll improve this."
He fell asleep with stubbornness glued to his chest like a second skin.
♦
The next morning, the world didn’t get prettier, but it got noisier.
The smell of food — something between warmed bread and thin broth — was the first sign the day had started for real. Footsteps crossed the house, chairs scraped, voices mixed in calls and complaints.
Lia was in the kitchen, organizing their few provisions: a small piece of salted meat, some vegetables from the garden, yesterday’s bread, counting everything with her eyes.
Tomy and Caliste were finishing getting ready to leave; boots being tied, simple cloaks thrown over shoulders, knives checked on belts.
— Love, don’t forget what Mara said at the start of the month — Lia said tensely, not stopping her stirring. Steam rose, fogging her face briefly. — That creature… it might still be around. The forest has been strange lately, and the last thing we need is another problem. Be careful, okay?
Christian didn’t catch every word, but a few were already pinned in his mind: “creature”, “forest”, “problem”. Her worried tone filled in the rest.
"Hmm, what could it be…", he thought, watching Tomy run a hand through his hair automatically. "It’s a creature, that’s a fact, but… probably some kind of mana beast or something. How different are they? Maybe like the fictional ones from fantasy tales…"
Tomy, as always, tried to ease the mood.
— It’ll be fine, sweetheart — he replied with a tired smile, stepping in to kiss Lia’s forehead quickly. — We’ll be back with what we need. I promise.
Caliste, leaning against the door, tapped the sole of his boot against the ground impatiently.
— Let’s go, dad. The more time we waste here, the less chance we have of finding anything — he said, eyes narrowed, like Lia’s warning was just another delay.
Lia looked at him for a moment, maybe about to answer. In the end, she only breathed out.
— Be careful, then — she repeated, for both of them.
"This Mara is probably a hunter, an adventurer, maybe both." Christian followed them to the door with his eyes. "If adventurers even exist in this world…"
His body, as it was, made it impossible for him to learn more about the wider world. Everything he knew so far was what he’d seen being carried through the village: humble houses, strange plants, a few familiar faces.
The sound of boots outside and the creak of the door closing marked their departure.
After the men left, the house shifted into “domestic survival mode”.
Lia and Lyra went to tend the garden. Lilia stayed to organize the small storeroom.
Before leaving, Lia put him down in the bedroom, lying in the crib with a clean cloth beneath him, a light blanket, and the window cracked open.
— Stay quiet, okay? Mommy will be right back — she murmured, adjusting his position and lightly tapping his nose as if it were an off switch.
"If you only knew," he thought, staring at the ceiling the second she left. "Perfect moment for me to mess up." A wicked baby chuckle slipped out of his mouth without meaning to.
Silence took over the room. A bird sang outside. A faint breeze came through the crack, stirring the patched curtain.
Christian breathed in.
"Testing fire magic in a wooden, straw-filled crib is suicide. Hmm, maybe water? Worst case I turn into a fish or grow gills if it goes wrong." He stretched his tiny hands in front of his face.
He closed his eyes, calling the core again.
He felt the heat in his chest spark up, faint but present. He focused on coolness, imagined water sliding over his fingers, damp air on skin, droplets on a lake’s surface. The Flow Resonance came almost automatically — his breathing matching the mental movement.
Slowly, a feeling of light moisture formed between his hands.
When he opened his eyes, a small bubble of water floated there, a bit bigger than an orange, trembling like it might explode any second.
"Hehe… what do we have here…"
He kept the sphere stable, fingers shifting slightly to guide the shape. He felt the energy inside it, alive, with its own density. Totally different from wind — heavier, fuller.
"Okay… stabilize, little baby. Don’t shake. Don’t explode." He frowned, stuck his tiny tongue out, the portrait of concentration.
For two seconds, it worked.
On the third, disaster began.
The bubble’s surface vibrated. A tiny inner wave spun too fast. Christian felt the connection slipping.
"No, no, no…"
He tried to correct the flow, clenching his fingers like that could fix it.
The bubble imploded the wrong way.
Water splashed over his hands, face, chest. A cold jet hit his forehead and ran down to his nose. It soaked the cloth, spattered the blanket, and dripped to the side of the crib.
— Urgh!
He shut one eye on reflex.
He sat there drenched, looking freshly betrayed, breathing through a wet nose. For two seconds he held a dignified silence.
Then he couldn’t.
"Damn, this thing’s still unstable." He blinked fast so water didn’t get into his eye. "But it’s a start at least…"
With his little hands he tried to wipe his face, mostly spreading water instead of drying it. His hair stuck to his forehead, half the cloth already damp.
"I look like a rat that fell into a bucket." The image was so ridiculous he smiled. "Still have to improve my magic refinement a lot…"
Even so… he had done it. He’d created water where there was none, held it for a few seconds.
"Well… for a baby with zero motor control, that’s great." He leaned his head back on the improvised pillow, letting the cold fade as the cloth absorbed it.
He closed his eyes for a moment, hearing far away the sound of Lia and Lyra talking by the garden, their voices mixed with the scrape of a shovel in dirt.
He was still deeply worried about the reincarnations. If he died again, would he be reborn again? And for how long would that last? Eternity?
"But one thing I know… I need to get strong." A strange tightness pinched his chest. "This time I won’t just be a passenger in this world. Even if I turn into the devil himself." A stubborn smile spread across his still-wet face.
The rhythm of the world stayed the same: hunting, garden, pot, worrying about creatures in the forest, simple spells to light fires and clean houses.
But between one day and the next, between a feeding and a nap, between a sneeze and a failed water bubble, Lian was, step by step, tearing from this world the right to be just another baby stuck on the edge of a forgotten village.
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