The Unexpected Variable

Mana Core

Crawling toward Arthur, I quickly memorized the page, looked at him, and tilted my head. He kept reading his page while I started to crawl away. This world also has mana as well  as a mana core too however unlike in my world this world only has 6 stages black, red, orange, yellow, silver, and white.

A Mana Core starts off as black, due to the body's blood and other impurities mixed with the mana particles as they form together into a mana core. Each stage of the mana core colours is split into three shades(dark, solid, and light), except silver which is split into the initial, mid and high and white core which does not have stages. The lighter the mana core colour, the purer one's mana core was.

However, there are only 4 types of mana, fire, water, air, and earth. Each of those elements has a higher version of itself, Mages capable of using those are referred to as "Deviants". There are 4 types of elemental deviations:

Water → Ice

Earth → Gravity

Wind → Sound

Fire → Lightning

There are two types of Mages:

Augmenters: users who enhance their bodies using mana, allowing them to possess incredible strength, defence, and agility. However, their weakness lies in their limited range. An augmenter's talent is measured by the strength of the mana channels in their body. This measures their speed and efficiency to relocate their mana from their mana core into various parts of their bodies.

Conjurers: users who emit mana to the outside world allowing them to bend their surroundings to their will, possessing unfathomable powers. However, their weakness is that they must supplement their own mana core with mana from the outside world, to exert mana into their surroundings in the form of spells.

There were also beasts called mana beasts, Mana Beasts are various unique animals and creatures that were born with the ability to absorb mana into their bodies and create their own mana cores, called beast cores. Mana Beasts are classified into E, D, C, B, A, AA, S, or SS class, where the latter is rarely seen.

A beast core is a mana beast's mana core. They have an unlimited amount of uses, which makes them extremely valuable and highly sought after. The higher the classes the beast cores were, the more valuable.

All this knowledge was useful but the thing that got a giggle out of me was that they had to let the mana core form by itself.

In my old world mana cores were with you at birth so anyone could use magic however depending on their talent you'd be able to use basic spells.

I could unconsciously make my core however it would take me around 5 years to make it if I don't meditate. But 1 if I did.

I then noticed my mother entering the study and Arthur in a mediating pose.

"Oh here you 2 are" I crawled over and she then picked him up "Is little Art having trouble taking a poop?"

I then noticed his face was red.

Alice Laywin POV

Arthur and Ashton are the most adorable babies and I am not saying this as a doting mother.

No, I will be a strict and just mother. I can't rely on Rey to teach them common sense. For God's sake, he tried to teach them, my baby, how to fight them how to fight with they could barely crawl!

I knew one of the little racels would turn out just like their father If I let them be. As soon as they started to crawl, I was proud that I was on the verge of tears, but didn't know how much of a handful they'd be as soon as they became mobile.

I swear if I take my eyes off of Art for a single moment he'd crawl into the study room. It was weird we got many toys for him. However that is at least the opposite of his Father, Rey would never touch the daily newspaper.

Ash on the other hand always crawls around the house and I have run all around the house to find him. He sometimes goes into the study room and reads with Arthur. But he does fall asleep afterwards, they are pretty similar. He would always play with his toys.

We would always go into town as they were always interested around the town.

The next landmark that made it to my baby journal is purely for educational purposes by the way, not because I'm a doting mother.

He said "mama"

I told him to say it again and again just to make sure I didn't hear wrong. But my victory was short-lived as Ash confronted the sulking Rey by calling him "dada"

Then it was my turn to sulk.

[2 years later]

Ashton POV

It has been two years since I had come to this world or should I say born?

My life has been pretty dull for the past 2 years. Honestly, I just ate, slept, crawled around played with my toys also bull- I mean played with Arthur here and there.

"Arthur," I said, "what are doing?"

I looked at Arthur who was sitting cross-legged

"Meditating"

Getting bored, I then looked at the shelf full of books. They were mostly on mages but there were a few more, I slid one about mana theory. The book told a lot about some theories about Deviants.

In my old world, Deviants didn't exist we had light and ice magic but it was a separate thing. However, I used these theories to make my own theories and test them.

You know the scientific method.

"Hm maybe-"

*BOOM*

A sudden explosion happened and I quickly lifted a book to protect my head and curled into a ball. I looked up to see Arthur floating in his meditating pose and mana surrounding him but due to the force, I was pushed back into the derby.

After rubbing my back due to the pain I looked at Arthur again.

"Is he insane?" I grumbled