Casting a spell

Months passed, and Michael continued with his duties as a baby: doing nothing but sleeping all day.

The only thing keeping him sane was mana gathering. Every day, he would pull in as many mana elements as he could from the surroundings and reinforce the elemental 'stones' within his body.

With time, he noticed that as he gathered more elements, his sensitivity to those elements became much finer and improved greatly. He could now distinguish the amount and the type of elemental mana the air was composed of with ease.

But that wasn't the only benefit of constantly gathering mana in his body. Somehow, it had allowed him to strengthen his infant body to the point where he could almost stand up!

Of course, he only practiced this when he was all alone. Which, by the way, wasn't as long as he wanted.

If he wasn't being cradled in his mother's arms, then he would probably be getting teased and coddled by one of the maids. 

Somehow, they had taken quite a liking to him. They carried him around the mansion, showing him everything there was to see, all while gleefully pinching his cheeks.

It seemed that the God had blessed him with both cuteness and handsome traits.

He was, as they say, suffering from success.

And as strange as it sounded, it took a long time, nearly two months, before Michael could learn his mother and father's names.

This was because his mother insisted on him calling her 'mommy'. Meanwhile, his father was rarely home.

From what he understood from their little spats, he realized that his father was busy dealing with a business that took him most nights out of the house. 

His mother didn't like that very much and would always complain about it to him. Something about the Parched Lands or whatever, though he had no idea what that was.

But only after listening intently to the maids' gossip was Michael able to figure out that his mother's name was Lylia, while his father's, Bart.

As for himself, his full name was Michael Von Vanderbilt.

The Vanderbilts were supposedly the richest and most influential family in the world, at least, that's what the God said. 

Since Michael hadn't been out of the house, he couldn't compare how luxurious his current life was compared to the state of the world outside.

But as rich as they were, they didn't even own a single air-conditioning unit.

He was only banking on the fact that he was due some hefty inheritance from his family. He could use that fortune to make his life easier and more comfortable for as long as he could live.

But for now, that would have to wait until he got older.

Right now, he had no choice but to continue living his daily baby life.

_____

Soon, Michael turned one year old, and in the Vanderbilt family, that became a very big deal.

His mother wasted no time and immediately ordered for a 'small' venue to be built near their house where they could celebrate his birthday.

This was perhaps Michael's first clue as to how incredibly wealthy his family was.

That 'little' venue his mother had made for him? It was the size of a football stadium! They had to take a carriage just to go from one end to the next.

And that wasn't the worst part. She was actually dissatisfied with how small it was.

Her exact words were,

"I'm sorry, baby. I'll make sure to build a bigger one next year. It's ridiculous how little we're spending for your first birthday, but we just have so little time. But don't worry, I already had the next venue started early!"

Just the manpower alone needed to construct this so-called 'little' venue was staggering—far beyond what Michael could even count.

Because there were no bulldozers or excavators in this world, everything was done by hand.

He watched as mages cast spells to topple down trees and crush boulders.

There must have been more than ten thousand of them working day and night to construct the venue for his first birthday.

[Magic theory acquired.]

[Magic theory acquired.]

[Magic theory acquired.]

[Magic theory acquired.]

[Magic theory acquired.]

_____

The best part about this whole thing was that he was able to witness firsthand how mages cast spells.

With his natural sensitivity to elemental mana, he was able to see how they absorbed and released mana out of their bodies to shape their spells.

If someone wanted to summon a gust of wind that was strong enough to knock down a tree, then air mana needed to flow from their abdomen to their hands before transforming into magic the moment they released it into the world.

And thanks to ChatJK1, he was able to decipher the theory behind those spells, allowing him to replicate the spell himself.

Of course, he just needed to gather enough mana to try it himself.

As soon as he was back in his cradle, Michael wasted no time and right away began trying out the spells.

[Tornado]

— ★★★

— Air element

— This magic allows the user to summon a huge whirling tornado that pulls everything in its path.

Michael tried to cast this spell… but quickly found that he didn't have nearly enough mana to do it.

Most of the spells he had learned from the workers were two-star spells or above, which were far out of reach for the current him.

Fortunately, he had also found four spells that only had a one-star rating.

[Water Ball]

— ★

— Water element

— This magic allows the user to create a water sphere.

[Ember]

— ★

— Fire element

— This magic allows the user to create a small fire from the tip of a finger

[Rock Throw]

— ★

— Earth element

— This magic allows the user to manipulate small rocks and hurl them outwards.

[Wind blow]

— ★

— Air element

— This magic allows the user to create a gust of wind in the targeted direction.

Closing his eyes, Michael concentrated and allowed the elemental particles to flow out of his abdomen and into the tip of his hands.

First, a small glob of water materialized on top of his left palm. 

It was barely the size of his tiny fists, but it was enough proof that he could indeed cast spells, even as a baby!

He didn't want to stop there.

He cast another spell.

This time, a tiny rock materialized beside the floating glob of water.

Then, he raised his finger, creating a flickering flame that was no larger than a candle's flame.

These three elements floated in the air.

And with the final spell, Michael conjured a gust of wind that threw all the three elemental manifestations towards the wall.

TUK!