Steel and Mana

Chapter 2 – Growing Up

It turns out I wasn't dreaming. My weird experience was not a delirious dream while I was lying on the concrete floor after being run over by a monster of a vehicle. I indeed died; my head got pushed off from… whatever I was standing on, and then I got dispatched into reincarnation. It probably shouldn't have happened that way, as I retained my memories and even my modified brainbox. Just after coming out of my mother, the intense light pierced my eyes, making them water up, and the loud noises around me were just as painful to my ears. I tried covering it, flailing around, voicing my discontent with the whole situation, but I only managed to utter baby-like cries… figures.

It took me a day or two to get used to using my eyes, and finally, I could survey my surroundings. In those days, I was mostly in my mother's arms, who had long, blazingly red hair. She was a short but beautiful woman with breasts that would shame anyone I knew in my previous life… and now I had the privilege of sucking on them daily. This… isn't that bad after all~! When I was not immersed in sucking out my tasty daily meals, I was memorizing the words and world around me. 

My father was surprisingly tall and built like a tank, making me a bit jealous, to be honest. He reminded me of the ancient depictions of gods from the classical era, not to mention his straight blond hair and piercing blue eyes. I just hope I inherited his body, including his lady-killer spear between his legs… damn it… That thing was a weapon in itself! And I saw it in use! They never bothered with covering my crib when they went at it on the bed next to me. Not that I'm complaining…

Besides that, I immediately recognized I was in a room that reminded me of old images of a medieval noble's chamber. Fancy rugs on the floor, a huge canopy bed, paintings of my father in armor or in grandiloquent robes, or with my mother. Elaborate carvings decorated all the wooden furniture; even my crib looked like it should be in a museum or something. If my predictions were correct, I managed to be reborn into a life of privilege as some kind of noble's son. Firstborn at that, as no siblings have come to visit me so far!

Learning the language wasn't hard; I managed to do so by the time I turned one, surprising the two when I started speaking… in sentences. I may have taken this a bit too far, as my father threw a banquet for me, deciding to name me officially before my 2nd birthday. Which was a custom in this era, it seemed. Well, it was fine, but before they could bestow me with a name that went into the registry of the country, I myself suggested that I should be named Leon. Now… with that, I have truly taken it too far as never before anything like this happened in history… I think. 

Luckily, my parents turned out to be extremely protective and good people as I was given the name Leon, and everyone was threatened by my father; if anyone leaked that his son was a bit abnormal, they would be cut into four pieces and thrown to the pigs. Watching the maids, some invited lower-ranking nobles and merchants faces; he wasn't joking. At that point, I understood why he was named the Lion of the Frontier, Kalash, while my mother had the unofficial title of Handler of Kalash, Louise… and I got myself the title Cub of Kalash. What's up with these people…?

To that question, I got my answer in the following years while growing up and being allowed to tour our robust, sturdy castle and its cold, stone corridors. When I first went to the battlements and looked at the mountainous region, my jaws dropped to the floor; seeing the picturesque scenery was a true gift. I still wasn't allowed to visit the town I could see from here... but if our home was the way it is, I not just reincarnated but also journeyed back in time… a lot! Still... The first time I laid my eyes on the scenery, I was utterly mesmerized. So, it was a worthy tradeoff. The horizon was dominated by tall, snowcapped mountain ranges with a lush valley before us, dotted by small villages and pastures in the distance. I was born in the summer, yet the air was still only around 20 Celsius, which made me realize the winters must be freezing out here.

Our castle was located halfway up a mountain, looking over the expansive valley we were in. It wasn't a simple castle; it was also a fortress that guarded the passageway to the territory everyone called The Frontier. By the myths and sagas, my mother told me, it was a place filled with wild beasts and monsters that sometimes tried to come through and harass the people of Ishillia. At first, I didn't take it seriously, but it was weird that Ishillia didn't ring any bells for me. I was never a history buff, but… I should have known most of the kingdoms from medieval times, and I was sure that something like that had never existed. Not in Europe, at least… and I swore that my parents looked European.

"Call me Lulu and dress me in pink… this isn't Europe…" was my first thought when I looked at the region's map in our study at the tender age of 4. 

I was standing on two boxes to reach the table and glimpse at the things Father left out on it, including a map of Ishillia. The region was anything but resembling any place I knew about! Holy shit… I wasn't on Earth anymore! The revelation filled me with great excitement and expectations for my future. I couldn't read the text in any of the books or on the map, so I had to start learning the written language fast... I need to know more about where I am!

Neither of my parents was surprised when I asked them to teach me, and my mother took on the role happily. Thanks to my brain still retaining all my previous memory and enhancements, it was easy. By the time I turned 6, I was writing my own journal, noting all my ideas down in one place. Even if I could remember them perfectly, I liked penning them down; it gave me a sensation of turning them partially real. What I spent the next years with was reading, reading, and more reading, learning all that I could about the world I found myself in.

Oh… and with training in the sword. My father was an excellent fighter, a highly valued soldier and commander, but a small-ranking noble. What I thought of as a life of privilege turned out to be not really it. My family was nothing but a viscount tasked with overseeing the Frontier Region. That meant this valley and the only entrance to the wilderness, right where our castle was built. It was to be the first stop-gate against incoming monsters. Something that was relatively important but also would be sacrificial if it came to that. It was a glorified outpost, a stop gate, nothing but a warning bell that immediately soured my perception of this Ishillia empire or whatever. 

My mother came from a family of barons in the neighboring region, a vassal territory to ours, providing us with the necessary food that our soldiers consumed yearly. As to how they met, going by my father's words, he begged his parents to set up a marriage when he first saw her as a kid. Looking at it from my crib as a baby, they did love each other very much. Maybe even too much? Anyway, it turns out that my family does not really have any real power in any other place in the Empire. They are nothing but glorified guard dogs of the border region.

A pretty good one at that, I must say. I was 9 when I first experienced what it means to watch beasts trying to get into the kingdom. In the winter, there were three to five-meter-tall creatures throwing themselves at the outmost walls and traps we had built up in the previous decades and by the previous owners of this castle. Father was fighting them back valiantly with the soldiers, and he even led a cavalry attack, leaving the fort, sweeping the escaping ones in one of the battles. We were eating well that winter! They mostly resembled giant felines from Earth's prehistoric days, but I also noticed some had magical capabilities, like breathing fire. It was that moment when I learned that magic existed in the world, albeit finding mages was rare as anyone with the power to control mana was a strategic resource. 

Going by my parents' remarks, all the mages that Ishillia had kept their identities hidden and served as secret weapons of the Empire, guaranteeing national security against rival kingdoms and empires. My home, this so-called Ishillia Empire, was not a peaceful place at all. While I was born into a family that guarded their back, the forefront of Ishillia was constantly expanding, gobbling up small countries and city-states. It was waging wars with its neighbors in almost every decade, puppeteering others, only resting to recoup their losses between skirmishes and campaigns. I bet we were hated for real by the others… but it also showed that my home country had superior strength to remain standing and not collapse. Good, If it's like this, then I prefer being in the rear and out of harm's way! Thinking about it, I didn't have to worry about being assassinated or some other ploy playing out to get me for another family to rise to prominence and replace us! 

Besides training with Dad, I was anxious to try and cast magic… I was sure I would be unique; well, I was already that, but everyone hopes for more, don't we? This time, I had to be disappointed. I had zero magic. None. Nill. Zilch! It was proven when the local church of the Patheon of Gods, the religion prevalent in the world, tested my compatibility with a strange orb. Saying that I was crestfallen is an understatement. I still asked my parents if I could read some magic books, and they somehow acquired some beginner stuff I memorized at once.

Turns out magic is more complex than I first thought. It is not just waving your hand or a wand, saying the magic words, and poof, a firebolt comes out of it. No… It has multiple, long incantations and formations to adhere to, and the mage may have to hold unique crystals to support the spells and his or her powers. It is used as a kind of conduit and fuel to channel and amplify their mind, which was flowing through it. Reading the introduction showed that casting a strong fireball that could decimate multiple troops required the mage to stand still, mutter the incantation, draw a formation, and do numerous nonsensical things just to cast it.

"This is so bad…" I bit my lips, reading it, "It does have great power… but a mage is fucked if someone surprises him or her!"

Well… they can scribe down their spells on special paper, creating one-time-use scrolls, but I found no books describing the process and things needed for it. But… It did give me an idea. Looking at the beginner magic formations, at first, they looked complicated. After further study, it finally clicked for me. These were similar to blueprints and programs from my time, like how some top-of-the-line, anti-grav, or laser weaponry functioned, mixed with old-age mechanisms! I am not saying this was a one-to-one copy of that, but the principle was very similar. I only had to replace the energy source with mana… and the coding with formations.

"With a bit of… modifications… I think I can replicate stuff…" I murmured, studying the basics, getting a new idea rooted in my brain. I can't cast magic… but that does not mean I can't use the magical formations fueled by the mages' energy source, those conduit thingies. If I can get my hand on it… But… that would be like wanting to buy plutonium. I don't think they are available at the corner store… Wait. Do we even have a corner store here? I don't think so… What I have seen so far of our land is that we only have mud or stone roads, no electricity, no plumbing, and no heating system; honestly speaking, we are living like a barbarian in my eyes… haaah! Even bathing is a pain in the ass! Maybe I should worry about those things first instead of thinking about magic…

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