Looking Around

Wes awoke some time later, mentally yawning. He still had no physical control over his tiny body. His limbs felt like lead, and his muscles were nonexistent. To keep his mind sharp, he cornered off a part of his soul, blocking it from the sluggish influence of his undeveloped form.

He turned his attention to his twin, curiosity nudging him. Boy or girl? It was hard to tell at this stage—everything was a blur of potential. His unique soul perception, however, allowed him to see certain truths about himself. He was a boy. Human, too, as far as he could tell. "Thank god for small mercies," he thought wryly.

But his twin remained a mystery. No clear signs, nothing concrete. It was like trying to see through fog—no matter how much he focused, the answer eluded him. "Guess I'll find out eventually," he mused.

With nothing but time and a slowly budding sense of boredom, Wes decided to look beyond himself, stretching his awareness through the warm, living world of his mother's body.

Heartbeat? Check. The steady, rhythmic thrum surrounded him, a constant reminder of life and safety. It was comforting, but not exactly interesting.

Hmm… not much to see here.

Should he just sleep through this? Drift in and out of consciousness until his body was more than a fragile collection of cells?

His curiosity overruled him. He expanded his awareness further, letting his soul drift through his mother's body. The gentle hum of life pulsed around him, and then—a different rhythm. Mana. Strong, steady, and familiar.

She had a mana core, and not a weak one either. Rank C, roughly what he had been when he died. But as he looked closer, a frown crossed his mental expression. Something was wrong.

Her mana core was constrained, its natural flow choked by a web of foreign mana. He drew closer, observing the delicate strands of mana wound tightly around the core. They were taut, suppressive, and they led… outward. Connected to something external.

"A talisman?" Wes thought. He wasn't sure. His expertise had always been in Essence, not Mana Crafting or Alchemy. He had dabbled in alchemy—everyone did to some extent—but his knowledge was superficial at best. His focus had always been on his body, pushing it to its limits as a Null, honing his Essence to make up for his lack of a Void Crystal.

Still, seeing the constraint from the inside out was like staring at the inner workings of a lock. He could unravel it if he wanted to. It would take time, like untangling a ball of yarn, but the path was clear. What bothered him was the why. Why was her mana being constrained?

"If I were outside, I'd have no clue," he mused. "But in here? It's like standing inside a safe and staring right at the mechanism of the lock."

His control over his soul had grown sharper since his time in the void. He could see details he'd never have noticed before, even as a Rank C Cultivator. Looking at the constraint, he wondered what his mother's core level had been before this. Rank B? Maybe even Pseudo-A? He couldn't be sure.

He mentally shrugged. Nothing he could do about it now. Besides, she was asleep. He could see the gentle flow of ambient mana seeping from her core to him and his twin, nurturing their developing forms.

"Hmm," he thought, a small idea sparking. He used his soul to draw a little more mana—a tiny trace—and guided it into his developing body. He wondered how many people were born while nourished by mana directly. Did it make a difference? Would it give him and his twin an advantage?

Curious, he turned his attention to his twin, letting a sliver of mana drift toward them too. "Why not?" he thought. "Can't hurt."

He was careful, though. There was a reason children didn't cultivate until they were twelve years old. Overexposure to mana could warp a developing body, and he had no intention of turning himself or his twin into malformed cultivators before they even took their first breath. But with careful control, he could use the mana to nourish their bodies as they grew, laying a foundation that might make all the difference when the time came.

"Well," Wes thought, as he let the gentle flow of mana settle into a rhythm, "if I'm stuck in here, I might as well make the most of it."