Chapter 2: The Orphanage And Adoption
'That's less than ideal.' He reflected on the events of his birth.
Normally, in all the media he had consumed in his previous life, a reincarnator would either be born into a loving family or be orphaned immediately in some violent fashion. He wasn't too far off the mark. He was in an orphanage after all.
'It's just rather anticlimactic.' He mused.
Altogether, his situation could be far worse. With a warm place to sleep and presumably food provided as well, he couldn't really complain.
'On the topic of food,' Gavin inhaled deeply and prepared his new lungs and his vocal chords for their one job as a baby...
"Waaahhh!" And let out a cry to catch the attention of his new caretakers.
Shortly thereafter, a woman around the age of 50 opened the old, blue-painted wooden door to the room his crib was in.
She had grey eyes, and bright blonde hair done up in a bun with an ornate hairpin featuring a light green bird with its wings spread wide and a large, sprouting seed in one talon and the sun in the other. She wore a blue robe with brown accents that had the same green bird displayed.
'A religion? Or a crest of some sort maybe?' Gavin thought as he stopped crying at the sight of the bottle in the lady's hand getting closer to his face.
"Here you go, kid," She spoke softly. "No need to wake the whole wing."
'Shit,' Gavin came to an unfortunate realization. 'I'm really going to have to learn a whole new language.'
His dissatisfaction must have been shown on his face as he suckled on the bottle, as the lady in the bird robe giggled. Gavin returned the giggle with a stink-eye. Unfortunately it didn't have the intended effect.
"Hahahaha, is it too cold?" She laughed and took the bottle, leaving the room for a few minutes before returning and resuming feeding the foul-eyed baby with a warmer bottle of milk.
***
After he had been fed, burped — which was humiliating — and tucked back in. Gavin could finally put his thoughts in order.
He started with his current situation, he was in an orphanage, he was fed, warm, and safe.
His biggest worry at the moment was that he had to learn the language of this world, and that he knew absolutely nothing about it. Gavin wasn't even confident that the laws of physics of his old world could be applied at all with the addition of mana.
'So, do I try to be seen as a genius, or lay low?' He pondered.
A whole new world was before him and he didn't know if he should fear it, or shout for joy at the opportunity to explore it all himself.
Both options had pros and cons.
If he does try to catch attention, whether it be through learning this worlds language as quickly as he could or practicing magic from the womb, both could garner attention that he could use to seek resources and an education.
However, the tallest tree bears the brunt of the wind. He could potentially attract the wrong kind of attention.
If he lays low and attempts to grow in knowledge and power discreetly, he would be much more likely to escape the attention of those that would take advantage of his weakness and ignorance.
However, he would lose out on opportunities to accelerate his growth further than he could manage on his own.
Despite his thoughts, deep down he already knew which decision he would make in the end.
'I don't want to be a nobody again.'
The moment he gained consciousness in this world and felt mana, a spark made its way into the deepest depths of his soul.
'I want to stand at the top, looking down on the world.'
That spark in his soul was ambition. The ambition to be powerful, to be knowledgeable, to be better than he was in his first life.
'Genius route it is.' Gavin immediately got to work.
He couldn't control when he would get the opportunity to learn this worlds language as he needed to hear it to learn it. But he had nothing but the time to practice manipulating the mana in the environment around him.
First was to test himself on what he was already capable of.
With an effort of the mind, he gathered all the mana from as far as he could manage into a sphere around him. 'About three meters, I'm not sure if that's good or bad.'
Next, he compressed the gathered mana from that three meter radius as much as possible, pressing his hands together as though he was holding the sphere as a visual aid.
'About 60 centimeters in diameter, I think. That would mean i can compress mana to about... 0.1% of its original volume without counting that time I formed my mana core.'
With that done, Gavin started doing something he was patiently delaying until he had a safe opportunity to do so. He was going to try to actually do something with the mana he could control.
First, he wanted to try telekinesis. His first attempt to do so was to simply will it to happen. This failed.
'Unsurprising, it couldn't be that easy.'
Next, he tried to run some mana through the blanket in an upward motion in hopes that with enough, the mana would act like wind and push the blanket up with it.
For a second, he thought he saw movement, but soon threw away that thought, believing it to just be the effect of him breathing.
Finally, on his third attempt at telekinesis, Gavin finally saw results.
He willed mana to surround the blanket and compressed it into the blanket, then tried to pull the mana and the blanket up together. When he willed the mana up, the blanket lifted too.
'Success!' Gavin's Excitement caused him to lose focus, letting the little blue blanket fall directly onto his face.
Instead of simply pushing it off — that was too pedestrian — he once more enveloped it, compressed the ambient mana inside, and moved it back to its original place snug around his little body.
'This is fun. I wonder how the weight and size of the object affects the effectiveness of telekinesis? Will it be harder to will the mana I compress into the object up? Or will I need to compress more mana into the object to move it the heavier it is?' He started compressing the mana around him into various small objects around him.
After attempting to use telekinesis on a soother, an empty bottle, and a small cloth, the answer was clear.
'The weight of an object seems to affect the difficulty of willing it in any direction, while its volume and density affect the amount of mana I need to pack into it to have any effect.'
***
Gavin soon fell into a routine.
He would wake up, cry for food and a change if necessary, experiment with magic, sleep, and repeat.
This continued until about two weeks later, when the bird robed lady took him from his crib and, to his great surprise, handed him off to a young-looking couple.
This shouldn't have been too surprising. However, Gavin had been blinded with how his new life seemed to be following the trajectory of a typical sword and magic fantasy story.
He thought he would remain in the orphanage until he was old enough to go off to some magic academy on his own or something similar.
Maybe this was preferable. With a family, his early life would most likely go much more smoothly. Assuming they weren't horrible people of course.
With that thought, Gavin curiously inspected his new parents.
The man, his new father, stood around 6 feet (180cm) tall.
He had shoulder length black hair that he let fall behind his ears, radiant green eyes that seemed to give off a faint light of their own, and the makings of a magnificent beard, should he let it grow to its whims.
He was rather thin. Enough so that it looked as though he would be carried away on a particularly windy day.
He looked to be in his late twenties and wore a black long-sleeve shirt with deep purple accents on the wrist area shaped like scales as well as a pair of simple but higher quality brown pants. On his feet were some comfortable looking leather boots.
The woman, now his mother, had crimson red hair, honey colored eyes, and seemed to be rather tough.
She had various small scars on the little of her arms that weren't covered by her sleeve, as well as a thin, long one going from under her left ear down to the start of her collar bone.
She was lean with the faint outline of her muscle being visible under her shirt, but she wasn't bulky. Clearly, she had dabbled in some form of close combat.
She too seemed to be in her late twenties, and stood at about 5 foot 6 inches (168cm) tall.
She wore a simple, dark grey shirt with sleeves that went just past the elbow, a similar pair of pants as Gavin's new father with a slightly different fit, and a simple pair of sandals.
"Here he is. He is a quieter one. He only ever cries when hungry or he needs a change. He shouldn't give you much trouble." The lady that had been taking care of him for the past two weeks said to the couple as she handed him over to his new father.
"Thank you, Miss Cathe," He spoke while glancing down at his new son with a light smile and looking him over. "When was he born?"
"The early morning of the fifteenth, and don't mention it."
"Does he have a name yet?" Gavin's mother chimed in, an expectant look in her eyes.
"No, that honor goes to the two of you." Miss Cathe smiled.
"How about Aryn?" Gavin's mother looked to his father and suggested.
"After my grandfather?" He thought for a moment. "I'm sure he wouldn't mind, but let's ask him first. I'll send a message when we get back home."
She bobbed her head in assent and turned back to Miss Cathe. "Thank you, we'll raise him well. We'll send someone over to collect the milk he needs every morning."
"Of course. Thank you for your donation. May Mettis guide you." Miss Cathe held a hand over the bird on her robe and spoke.
'Definitely a religion,' Gavin thought.
While he couldn't understand what was being said, he could somewhat read the situation through body language. He was sure this would help immensely in learning this worlds language or languages.
'They look like decent enough people.' He looked up at his new parents from his father's arms. 'They seem to be on the wealthier side of things as well.' Their well-crafted clothes indicating he wouldn't be likely to go hungry in the near future.
"You as well." His father responded before starting to walk away with his mother at his side, who was poking Gavin's cheek and giggling at how squishy it was and his mythical stink-eye technique.
"Stop bothering the poor boy, it's only been a few minutes and you're already bullying him." Gavin's father quipped.
"It's a mother's duty to bully her son." She smirked in return. "Can't have him growing up to be a water boy like his father, can we?"
Gavin watched as his father's jaw dropped and he looked over to the red-head in mock indignation. "Water Boy!? I'll have you know I'm the great Maros Mayer!"
He turned his chin up and struck a pose with Gavin still in his arms. "Otherwise known as 'The Flood of Ilythen' as I'm sure you've heard my great name!"
Perhaps his father could've won this little bout of theirs if his new son didn't choose this moment to start playing his role as a genius by saying his first words.
"Wahwuh Boui!" He worked his underdeveloped vocal chords hard to achieve the desired effect, trying to repeat what he thought should be the easiest words to pronounce of those his mother just spoke.
His parents stopped in their tracks. His mother looked at him in his father's arms with no small amount of surprise. His father looked down at him flabbergasted.
"HAHAHAHA-" His mother burst out laughing before quickly covering her mouth with both hands, tears in her eyes trying to hold in the laughter and not cause a scene in the middle of town.
His father had no words. Only a defeated look on his face and a strange glint in his eye that quickly disappeared.