About a week had passed since Sam woke up in Draven Dunvyr’s body.
A week was enough to accept several things.
The first was that he definitely wasn’t dreaming, the second was that there didn’t seem to be any simple way to return to his world, and the third was that being a seven-year-old child was much more annoying than he remembered.
"One... two... three..."
Draven was sitting on the ground behind his house with his legs crossed, his eyes closed, and both hands resting on his knees.
"Four... five..."
He breathed slowly.
"Six..."
He opened one eye, but nothing happened, so he closed it again.
’Focus.’
He had spent the last few days trying to figure out exactly how much he could take advantage of his knowledge of Valkaen, and the answer so far was fairly simple.
Less than he had expected.
Inside the videogame, controlling mana was extremely easy, since the player had a blue bar, so you used a skill and the bar went down.
You waited a moment, used a potion, or activated some recovery ability, and the bar went back up.
That was it, but in reality, things were different.
He didn’t have a blue bar floating in front of his eyes, nor did he have numbers telling him exactly how much mana he possessed, and he couldn’t open a menu to check his stats either.
He had tried, several times.
"Status."
Nothing.
"Menu."
Nothing.
"Information."
Nothing.
"Stats."
Nothing.
He had even tried a few ridiculous words simply because he had nothing to lose.
"System."
Only silence answered him.
Draven opened his eyes.
"That was too much to ask."
Luckily, there were other ways to check mana.
Valkaen had books, teachers, and characters that explained different techniques for beginners to learn how to sense it.
Draven knew many of them, but the problem was getting them to work.
He extended one hand.
’First, feel it.’
According to one of the instructors at the Aster Academy, the most basic method consisted of keeping your breathing steady and focusing on the energy flowing through your body.
Draven had considered that explanation pretty useless when he was playing, and now he hated it even more.
’What exactly does it mean to feel an energy inside your body?’
He concentrated.
Nothing.
He moved a finger.
Nothing.
He frowned.
’Come on!’
After almost a minute, he began to sense a faint warmth around his chest, so Draven immediately opened his eyes.
"There."
He raised his hand and tried to move that sensation from his chest to his arm, but his concentration broke, causing the feeling to disappear.
Draven remained silent.
"Damn it."
He started over.
It had taken him three days to manage to feel mana for the first time, and during the first two days, he had thought he simply had no talent.
Then he had finally found it.
It was a faint sensation, but it was definitely there, and now the problem was controlling it.
He closed his eyes again, breathed, searched for that sensation, and found it a few seconds later.
’Good.’
This time, he didn’t rush and tried to move the mana slowly.
Chest, shoulder, arm, forearm, and hand.
Draven opened his eyes, and a small blue light appeared above his palm, causing his expression to change immediately.
"Yes!"
The light went out and Draven watched it disappear.
"...No."
It had lasted less than two seconds, and on top of that, he immediately felt the exhaustion, which wasn’t too strong, but it was there.
Draven looked at his hand.
’Again.’
He repeated the process.
The small blue light appeared again, and this time he managed to maintain it for almost three seconds, but then it disappeared.
Draven let his arm fall.
"This is terrible."
It wasn’t the first time he had done that test, and he had tried other methods as well.
He had tried heating a stone by imitating the magic Kevar used, and the stone had increased slightly in temperature after almost five minutes.
He had tried reinforcing his legs with mana, which made him run a little faster for approximately four seconds before he ended up breathing heavily.
He had tried forming a sphere of pure mana, but it ended up being a tiny ball the size of a marble that disappeared before he could throw it.
He had also tried concentrating as much mana as possible into one finger, and that had worked, but the problem was that it was completely useless.
Draven raised his index finger and a small light appeared at the tip.
"Impressive."
He turned it off.
"Now I can light up my nose."
He let himself fall backward onto the grass.
During the first few days, he had tried to convince himself that the problem was his lack of experience, since he was seven years old.
It was completely normal that he still didn’t know how to control mana properly, and that was true.
However, there was something else he could no longer ignore.
His mana reserve was small, very small.
Draven had used several training methods he remembered from the video game.
One of them consisted of slowly releasing mana until reaching near exhaustion and roughly measuring how long he could maintain it.
Another involved charging an ordinary object with energy.
There were also techniques for checking how long it took someone to recover their reserve after using magic.
Draven had tried everything he could do without drawing too much attention from his parents, and the results were consistent.
He had very little mana.
"Great."
He looked at the sky.
"I reincarnate in a magical world and I have low mana."
For a few seconds, he remained silent.
"Couldn’t I have gotten something good?"
Draven closed his eyes.
That really was worrying, not because he necessarily wanted to become the most powerful mage in the world.
The problem was that he knew the future and knew what kind of people existed.
Mages capable of destroying entire buildings, swordsmen capable of reinforcing their bodies with absurd amounts of mana.
Dragons, demons, and powerful vampires.
Monsters that, in the videogame, could kill an entire party with a single attack if the player wasn’t prepared, and that wasn’t even mentioning the God of Destruction.
Draven raised a hand in front of his face.
"Yeah."
He lowered his hand.
"I’m definitely going to need something better than this."
There was one possibility.
His reserve could increase with age, since in Valkaen, a person’s mana wasn’t necessarily fixed for their entire life.
Training could help, certain items could too, and some blessings affected the amount available.
There were even paths related to certain deities that altered the abilities of those who followed them.
Draven knew several methods to become stronger.
The problem was that many required travel, others needed expensive materials, and some were dangerous even for adult characters.
’I’m seven years old.’
He looked toward his house.
’I can’t tell Dad I want to travel to a monster-infested cave because there’s a stone inside that increases mana capacity.’
He imagined the conversation.
"Dad, I need to go to a dungeon."
"Why?"
"Because there’s a rare item."
"How do you know that?"
"I saw it in a videogame from another world."
Draven shook his head.
"No."
That would end with a doctor examining him or Kali watching him all day, and neither option was good.
He stood up.
He still had time, since the main story was still far off.
He could train, prepare himself, gain some advantages little by little, and as long as nothing unexpected happened, it should be possible.
"Draven!"
Kali’s voice came from the house, so Draven looked over.
"What?"
"Come here!"
Draven sighed.
"I’m coming."
He walked toward the house, but as soon as he entered, he found Kali waiting with her arms crossed while Kevar stood behind her, and both of them looked more dressed up than usual.
Draven looked at them.
"What happened?"
Kali pointed toward the stairs.
"Go change."
Draven blinked.
"Why?"
"We have guests."
"So?"
Kali narrowed her eyes and Draven immediately understood that he had chosen the wrong response.
"I mean, who’s coming?"
"Important guests."
Draven looked at Kevar, who slightly averted his gaze.
’I don’t like that.’
"How important?"
Draven asked, and Kali smiled.
"Very important."
"That doesn’t answer anything."
"Go change."
"But..."
"Draven."
"I’m going."
He went upstairs and, while walking toward his room, began to think.
’Important guests.’
That was strange.
The Dunvyr family lived in a rural area of Aster, so they weren’t nobles and they didn’t have a great fortune.
Kevar was human, and Kali apparently lived as a normal human woman.
The house was comfortable, but it was very far from being a mansion.
’Who would come all the way out here?’
He entered his room, and there were clothes laid out on the bed, so Draven stared at them.
"This is too much."
They were much more formal than anything he had worn during that week.
Dark pants, a light-colored shirt, a small jacket, and there were even shoes that looked new.
’Who the hell is coming?’
He changed.
It took him a little longer than he wanted to admit, since he still wasn’t completely used to the proportions of his body.
Then he went downstairs and Kali was waiting for him.
As soon as she saw him, she walked over and began fixing his hair with her hands.
"Mom."
"Stay still."
"I can do it myself."
"No."
"Yes, I can."
"Not well."
Draven frowned and Kali finished fixing him up.
"There."
Kevar looked at his son.
"You look good."
"Thanks."
Draven looked at both of them.
"Now tell me who’s coming."
Kali and Kevar exchanged a look.
"You’ll see."
Kali answered.
"Why does everyone answer like that?"
No one replied, so Draven became even more suspicious.