The second day of his new life found Oryth staring at the ornate ceiling of the nursery, his infant mind struggling against the limitations of his newborn body. Sleep came in waves, dictated by biology rather than will, but in the brief windows of wakefulness, his thoughts turned obsessively to one thing: magic.
He needed to focus on it. Needed to lose himself in the puzzle of it, because the alternative—dwelling on Mia, on the life he'd lost, on her waking up to find him cold and gone—would drive him insane. Magic was a problem to solve, a system to understand, and problems were something he could work with. Problems kept the grief at bay.
The memory of the mage's healing was burned into his mind with perfect clarity. Theron had raised his hand, and golden light had simply appeared, flowing from his palm without ceremony or fuss. No words spoken, no dramatic gestures, no glowing circles or mystical symbols appearing in the air. Just intention and result, as natural as breathing. That simplicity was both fascinating and frustrating. It gave him no obvious starting point, no clear mechanism to reverse-engineer.
But Oryth had always loved fantasy novels. In his previous life, they'd been his escape during long commutes and lazy weekends. He'd devoured hundreds of them, each with their own take on magic systems—some soft and mysterious, others hard and mechanical. Now, lying in a crib in a world where magic was real, those stories became his reference library.
He started with the most straightforward approach he could remember: visualization and manifestation. Some novels suggested that magic was simply a matter of imagining what you wanted and willing it into existence. It seemed too simple, but simplicity had been the theme so far. He fixed his gaze on the space above his tiny hand, picturing water forming there—just a simple sphere of liquid, floating in the air. He imagined it with every detail he could muster: the way light would refract through it, the surface tension holding it together, the weight of it.
Nothing happened.
He tried again, this time with more intensity, really focusing on the image in his mind. He pictured the water so vividly he could almost feel its coolness, almost see the way it would catch the candlelight. But the air above his hand remained stubbornly empty, indifferent to his efforts.
Alright. Different approach.
Another common theme in the novels he'd read was the idea of mana as a tangible force that could be manipulated directly. He focused on his palm, trying to sense if there was anything unusual there, any energy he could tap into. Then he attempted to force something—mana, magic, whatever it was called here—out through his skin. He imagined it like pushing air from his lungs, except through his hand instead. He pictured streams of energy flowing from his palm, ready to be shaped into whatever spell he desired.
Again, nothing. His hand remained exactly that—just a hand, tiny and useless, with no visible energy flowing from it whatsoever.
The failure didn't discourage him. If anything, it narrowed down the possibilities. Magic here clearly wasn't as simple as pure visualization or external manifestation through will alone. There had to be something else, some component he was missing.
He thought back to Theron's healing again, analyzing every detail he could recall. The mage hadn't seemed to be forcing anything. There was no strain on his face, no visible effort. The magic had flowed smoothly, almost lazily, from his hand. That suggested control, yes, but also a source that was already there, already accessible. Not something created from nothing, but something directed from somewhere.
From where, though?
The question occupied him through multiple cycles of sleep and feeding over the next several days. His new body's demands were relentless and frustrating—he would just get into a productive line of thinking when exhaustion would drag him under again, or hunger would make concentration impossible. But in those precious moments of alert wakefulness, he kept working at the problem.
He recalled more details from his old reading habits. Many fantasy worlds placed the source of magic within the body itself—a core, a center, a wellspring of power that practitioners learned to access and channel. The location varied between stories, but one of the most common placements was the abdomen, somewhere near where ancient traditions in his old world placed concepts like the dantian or the solar plexus.
It was worth investigating.
Oryth turned his attention inward, focusing on his abdomen with as much concentration as his infant brain could muster. At first, there was nothing unusual—just the vague sense of his own body, the slight discomfort of an imminent need to be changed, the general warmth of being wrapped in soft blankets. But he persisted, pushing past the surface sensations, trying to feel deeper.
And then, so faint he almost missed it, something stirred.
It was warm. Not the warmth of body heat or fever, but something else—something that felt alive and responsive. The moment he noticed it, it seemed to pulse gently, as if acknowledging his attention. His heart would have raced if he'd had better control over his body's reactions. This was it. This had to be it.
He focused harder on that warmth, trying to understand it. It felt contained, sitting in his abdomen like a small sun, radiating gentle heat. In the novels, the next step was usually to move this energy, to guide it through the body and eventually out into the world. Could he do that?
Tentatively, carefully, Oryth tried to reach for the warmth. Not with his hands, but with his mind, his will, his intention—whatever it was that let him sense it in the first place. At first, it was like trying to grab smoke. The warmth was there, he could feel it, but it slipped away from his mental grasp. He tried again, adjusting his approach, thinking of it less like grabbing and more like... guiding. Coaxing. Inviting it to move.
The warmth responded.
It was slow, painfully slow, like trying to pour honey on a cold day. But it moved. He could feel it shifting, a tiny thread of that energy beginning to flow away from the central point in his abdomen. He guided it upward, toward his chest, watching with his mind's eye as it crept along pathways he hadn't known existed in his body. It was the most remarkable sensation he'd ever experienced—this tangible proof that magic was real, that it existed inside him, that he could control it.
But it was also terrifying.
This wasn't normal. Not by the standards of his old life, anyway. This was something alien, something that belonged to this world and not to the reality he'd been born into the first time. The strangeness of it hit him all at once, and panic flared in his chest. What was he doing? What if he hurt himself? What if this was dangerous?
He stopped abruptly, cutting off his focus, and the warmth immediately retreated back to his abdomen like water finding its level. The moment he released his concentration, exhaustion slammed into him like a physical blow. It was sudden and overwhelming, dragging him down into sleep before he could even process what had happened.
When he woke, he was ravenously hungry. Elara fed him, and he drank with an urgency that seemed to surprise her, though she just smiled and stroked his white hair gently. The hunger was intense, more than he'd felt since being born, and it took longer than usual to feel satisfied.
Once his immediate needs were met and he was alone again, Oryth's mind immediately returned to what had happened. The exhaustion, the hunger—they had to be connected to his attempt at moving that energy. It made sense, in a way. In his old life, physical exercise depleted the body's resources, requiring food and rest to recover. The most memorable detail was always the need for protein to repair and build muscle after a workout. This felt similar, but on a deeper level. He hadn't been exercising his muscles; he'd been using something else, something that apparently drew on his body's resources just as surely as running a marathon would have.
That warmth in his abdomen—was it mana? Was that the right term? He didn't know what this world called it, but it would do for now. And if using mana depleted him, then presumably his body needed fuel to generate more of it, or to recover what he'd used. The hunger made sense through that lens. His infant body was already demanding constant nutrition for normal growth; adding magical exertion on top of that would naturally increase those needs.
The realization excited him more than anything had since he'd arrived in this world. This wasn't just random fantasy magic—there were rules here, cause and effect, patterns he could observe and understand. It was a system, and systems could be learned, mastered, exploited.
He had to try again.
The next day, after being fed and changed and left to his own devices, Oryth turned his attention back to his abdomen. The warmth was there, steady and patient, waiting for him. This time he knew what to expect, knew what the sensation would feel like. He reached for it more confidently, and the energy responded more readily to his call.
He guided it upward again, that slow trickle of warmth moving through pathways in his body. This time he was determined to keep his composure, to push past the strangeness and fear. The energy crept higher, past where he'd stopped before, moving into his chest. It felt like being filled with sunlight from the inside, warm and bright and utterly foreign.
He tried to push it further, toward his shoulder, but the effort required to maintain the flow was immense. His concentration wavered, his control slipping, and then suddenly everything went dark.
When consciousness returned, it was morning. Light filtered through the window in soft rays, and he realized he'd been unconscious for hours. As a baby, he wouldn't have responded to any attempts to rouse him anyway—infants slept when they slept, and no one would have thought anything was wrong. He'd simply passed out in his crib and remained there until his body recovered enough to wake naturally.
But the hunger that greeted him was overwhelming. It was the first thing he felt upon waking, a gnawing emptiness that consumed every other sensation. When Elara came to feed him that morning, he drank with desperate intensity until his small stomach couldn't hold any more, until he felt slightly sick from the sheer volume. It still didn't feel like enough. His body was screaming for resources, desperate to replenish whatever he'd depleted.
But even through the discomfort and exhaustion, Oryth was thrilled.
He'd done it. He'd moved mana—or whatever it was—from his core through his body. Twice now. Yes, he'd passed out the second time, and yes, the cost seemed steep for such a small achievement. But he'd proven it was possible. He'd taken the first real step toward understanding magic in this world.
And more than that, he'd given himself something to work toward. A goal. A challenge. Every moment spent focusing on magic was a moment not spent drowning in grief over Mia, over his lost life, over the impossibility of his situation. It was a lifeline, and he clung to it with everything he had.
The pattern became clear. Using mana exhausted him and made him desperately hungry. The further he pushed it through his body, the more severe the effects. It was like any other form of training—there were limits, and pushing past those limits came with consequences. But limits could be expanded. Endurance could be built. In his previous life, he'd worked out regularly, had understood the principle of progressive overload, of gradually increasing demands on the body to force adaptation.
Could the same principles apply to magic?
The question consumed him. If his mana capacity or control or whatever was limiting him could be increased through practice, then he had a path forward. A way to grow stronger in this world. And strength meant options. Options meant possibilities. Possibilities meant maybe, just maybe, finding a way back to the woman he'd left behind.
Oryth stared at the ceiling of his nursery, his infant heart beating with excitement that had nothing to do with his new body and everything to do with the discovery he'd made. He had so much to learn, so much to experiment with. How far could he push the mana through his body? Could he get it to his hands, his feet? What happened when it reached those extremities? Would it dissipate, or could he push it out into the world like Theron had?
And that was just the beginning. He needed to understand the limits of his current capacity. How much mana did he have? How quickly did it regenerate? Was it tied to his physical growth, or could he expand it through training alone? What were the actual mechanisms at work here—was he moving energy through blood vessels, through nerves, through some entirely separate magical circulatory system?
So many questions. So many experiments to run.
For the first time since waking up in this new world, Oryth felt something beyond grief and desperation. He felt curiosity. Purpose. The familiar itch of a problem demanding to be solved. It wasn't happiness—he was too broken for that, too aware of what he'd lost. But it was something. A reason to engage with this new reality rather than just enduring it.
He would master this. Whatever magic was, however it worked, he would understand it completely. He would become strong enough that the impossible became possible, that the barriers between worlds became permeable, that death itself became just another problem to solve.
It was an insane goal. But he was a man reborn as an infant in a world of magic. Sanity had stopped being relevant the moment he'd opened his eyes in this medieval nursery.
As exhaustion pulled at him again—whether from his magical experiments or just the normal demands of an infant body, he couldn't tell—Oryth let himself sink into sleep with a sense of anticipation he hadn't felt in longer than he could remember. Tomorrow he would try again. And the day after that. And every day after, pushing a little further, learning a little more, building toward something he couldn't quite see yet but knew with absolute certainty was there.
The warmth in his abdomen pulsed gently, like a second heartbeat.
Magic was real. And he was going to bend it to his will, no matter how long it took.
Mia deserved nothing less.