*From the perspective of Thomas Massimo, two days after the incident in the park.*
It had rained recently.
Though it was still early morning, the sun had already begun its ascent to the celestial throne.
Its rays illuminated the cityscape.
Multi-story buildings stood like concrete giants, looming over the people passing below.
Here and there, patches of lush green nature, both man-made and untouched, were visible.
The sun’s rays reflected off windows and small puddles on the ground and asphalt, painting the world with streaks of light.
They were blinding.
Birds flew across the sky, greeting this beautiful morning and, of course, the sun with their songs.
There wasn’t a single cloud in the sky.
Just the blue of the vast heavens.
A beautiful sight.
But my mood was far from this.
The scenery passing outside my Ford’s window didn’t touch me at all.
My mood was not very rosy.
It was like a cloudy day with a howling, fierce wind.
Sara and I had been on edge for the past two days.
The incident in the park just wouldn’t leave our heads.
It wouldn’t release its grip.
Thankfully, it hadn’t affected Kael at all.
He was still either watching his surroundings or studying our house for the umpteenth time.
What a calm child.
Now I was driving to work, thinking about the situation.
The appearance of that strange patient and the pack of dogs that had nearly torn my family apart had to be connected.
This thought hammered in my head like an alarm bell.
The day after the incident, I wanted to visit the patient, but he hadn’t regained consciousness yet.
Which was understandable, given the massive blood loss.
The prognosis was that he would wake up within three days.
Hopefully, today or tomorrow, he’d come to.
The sooner we figure out our situation, the better.
I parked the car in the hospital lot, went up to my office, grabbed the patient’s file, and headed to his room.
According to his chart, he was recovering quickly.
He’d probably wake up today or tomorrow.
Entering the room and closing the door behind me, I turned to face the patient and met a wary, studying gaze from jet-black eyes, as dark as a moonless night.
We stared at each other for a minute.
“My name is Thomas Massimo,” I broke the silence.
“I’m your attending physician.
What’s your name?
How are you feeling?”
The man, though he looked more like a young man, remained silent.
Only his furrowed brow showed any reaction to my words.
We played the staring game for a few more minutes.
“Sir,” I broke the silence again.
“Could you please say something? Enjoying the story? Read on at g.com.
I need your name and address so I can contact your family and inform them of your whereabouts.”
Again, silence.
Birds sang outside the window, and we just stood there, mute and motionless.
This situation was starting to get tense.
“Regulus.
My name is Regulus Black,” the young man said in a slightly hoarse voice.
Well, that was a start.
***
*From the protagonist’s perspective.
Location: the Massimo family home.*
Two days had passed since the incident in the park.
During this time, my parents had seemed out of sorts.
Things would fall out of their hands.
Dad would freeze while reading the newspaper, not reacting to anything.
Mom would start crying for no reason.
I even had to comfort her a couple of times, as best I could.
At times like that, she’d hug me and cry on my shoulder for a few minutes, and I’d try to calm her down.
I fully recovered from my first magical burst on the second day.
My body had rested.
My head didn’t hurt anymore.
The world wasn’t spinning.
My First and Second shells had recovered, and I could even see changes in my Second shell.
The rate of prana production had increased.
Not by much, maybe five percent, but it gave me optimism.
I was developing, not standing still.
The density of my prana had also increased.
Because of this, my body, my First shell, got tired less easily.
This was incredible.
Even my brain worked longer, though that probably wasn’t due to prana.
I was getting less tired because of prana, but working better because of the mana flowing into my brain through the newly formed mana channels.
Changes had also occurred in my Seventh shell.
As soon as my mana recovered, it began an intense process of growing channels into other parts of my body.
I didn’t ignore this.
I “commanded” the mana to grow channels into my organs first, and then into the rest of my body: arms, legs, bones, muscles, and so on.
The process went exactly as I wanted.
It didn’t harm my body or my Seventh Principle.
On the contrary, the speed of my Seventh Principle’s development increased.
In my head, the channels began to expand.
Initially, the channels had grown into my brain, eyes, ears, mouth, and nose.
Now, smaller channels began to “branch off” from the main ones, capturing my entire head.
I had some vague ideas about what that might mean.
I had also made progress in controlling my mana.
Whereas before I couldn’t control the mana inside my body or release it outward, now I could.
I could even release mana into the environment.
It was like gaining a new limb, not yet fully developed and barely controllable, but still mine.
Right now, I was sitting in my crib, trying to mentally direct mana toward a rattle lying in front of me.
It wasn’t working very well.
What was I trying to do?
Push it away.
What was happening?
Mana, like a fog, was emanating from me and partially enveloping the rattle.
And then…
nothing.
The mana dissipated into the environment.
What if I tried a different approach?
Imagine a hand made of mana?
I thought.
That would require much more control than I currently had, obviously.
But nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Imagining a hand made of mana, I tried to grab the rattle.
I immediately felt dizzy.
Too much concentration was required.
From the outside, it must have looked funny.
There I was, a six-month-old baby, sitting in my crib with a serious, frowning face, staring at a rattle.
My eyebrows would knit together, then shoot up almost to my hairline.
Thinking about the situation, an idea came to me.
What if, in the early stages, I enclosed the rattle in a sphere?
Like, instead of a hand grabbing it, I completely enveloped it?
No sooner said than done.
Concentrating, I imagined the mana hand losing its form and “spreading” over the rattle.
As the process neared completion, I tried to “lift” the rattle.
Very slowly, the rattle began to rise.
Step by step, it rose and hovered in front of my face.
It only stayed there for about five seconds before falling back into the crib with a soft thud.
My head started spinning.
I felt dizzy.
But I was happy, even joyful.
I had done it.
I was a wizard.
So what if I wasn’t very powerful yet?
I was young.
I had my whole future ahead of me.
Persistence and perseverance were what mattered most.
And I had plenty of both.
Thinking about this, I absorbed mana from my surroundings, helping my core in its work and development.
I had a feeling this kind of training would continue for a long time.
Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?