'It seems that I've received quite the ability.' Clailip had thought as he watched over the sparring spirits. He looked at them with a strange fondness, as if he was looking at his own children or something of the like.

'My mana is apparently normal and to be expected, my intelligence is a bit high… I probably should give my status another lookover.' Clailip knew that if he wanted to save his parents, he had to maximize his current resources. As a former student on honor roll, he knew how to manage and optimize resources she could possibly do. Of course he isn't perfect, his optimizations need to be improved over time, and optimising things need information, a resource he doesn't have much of.

But she wasn't worried much, Gabrielle was able to juggle being an absolute school-nerd and reading the mountains of light novels and mangas she had in her room. Now, Clailip would be using it to save his parents. He should just be careful and watch his feelings as he goes along the way, he can't afford to get emotional, he thought, he didn't want to despair as he had a bad habit of totally giving up everything when he is overwhelmed with negative emotions.

'Anyway, Status.' Clailip thought as he let the mana inside him flow throughout his small body.

NAME:Clailip Diancia

AGE:5

RACE:DIANIAN DIVORAKK

VIT:134/134

MANA:203,190

INT:50

STR:20

AGI:40

SPD:35

DEF:10

CORE ATTRIBUTE(S):Ice | Wind | Water

SKILLS:

Unarmed Arts - 1

Advanced Mana Recovery - 4

Mana Control - 1

UNIQUE SKILLS:

Harmless Sweetie - 2

Spiritual Manipulation - 1

[???]

[???]

[???]

'Low physical stats, defense is the lowest. That can be remedied with a spear of sorts, they don't need much physical prowess to handle and would keep me away from any melee attack… No, wait, I have no one to teach me how to use spears… Focusing on magic right now is the best decision, yes. Advanced Mana Recovery will help me do trial and error with spellcasting and experiment with different magical interactions, thank god for racial skills. Though, I still need to actually learn how to cast spells properly.' Clailip was in deep thought, he made rough plans of what to do and used his current level of magical knowledge to design his own curriculum that would play to strengths that he had.

'Optimising mana cost and quality of spells, that should be what I'm doing right now. After all, my mana pool might be big but it's far from infinite. Keeping the quality of spells high while keeping the cost low would be hard but not impossible, I should keep tweaking my spellcasting…' He thought as he went even deeper and started trying to think of a way to obtain a tutor of sorts, he could just watch the spirits use magic and learn that way, but as it stands none of the spirits around him knew how to fight. He needed someone to teach him how to fight, in the meantime, though, he planned to just mimic the spirits' sparring styles.

And so he continued watching the spirits, letting the gears in his head keep turning. He loved his family, so he wanted to be very distracted to keep any thought of the very-possible scenario where they are all dead away.

He watched and noticed something odd about the two spirits, as they fought, their physical forms stabilised and became more humanoid. He looked interested, he didn't know what was happening but it piqued his curiosity.

He decided to ask the two senior spirits beside him.

"Mmm, we've never seen newborn spirits so we can't say for sure. But elementals taking more refined shapes and forms after getting stronger is something that happens quite often." The wind spirit, Simoy, explained.

"Does that mean you two aren't that strong?" Clailip asked, half teasingly and half genuinely.

"No." Lawod answered.

"Are the spirits I made stronger than you then? Their bodies are more refined."

"No. We're lower ranked spirits, but our experience beats theirs. But soon enough our experience will be overtaken by their power." Lawod said. It was true, Simoy and Lawod were spirits that have lived for thousands of years, they might not specialize in fighting, but they were definitely not so weak as to be defeated with newborn spirits who only have raw power.

After a few minutes of watching and having light small talk, Lawod suddenly looked at the newborns with a curious expression. It was a confused kind of curiosity, it was clear that he could see something. He tapped on Simoy's shoulder, who seemed to see what he was seeing too. Both of them started to have a complicated look on their faces.

"Why’re you looking at them like that?" Clailip asked, he tried doing all sorts of things from his eyes from squinting to stretching his lids thin to try and see what they were seeing. This was all in vain, and he couldn't see anything.

"They hit the wall." Lawod said, his curiosity about why exactly that happened was evident in his voice.

"That was way earlier than expected." Simoy had a complicated look on his face, it was one of shock and fascination combined to make one ugly expression.

"How did you guys even know!?" Clailip asked with a yell, his severe irritation evident in his voice. He didn't like how these elementals kept talking with each other and to himself expecting that he could see or experience the same things they did.

"Their mana flow is in an extremely stable state that would permit little growth." Lawod explained, "The mana flow of a spirit that hasn't reached a wall yet would be stable, but also easily disturbed to permit growth of both the mind and the body."

"Oh." Clailip absorbed the information, though he couldn't really understand why being extremely stable would mess with the development of spirit. Isn't stability good?

'God, having a kid's brain sucks, great thing I won't be a kid in just twenty more years… right?' He seriously hoped he wasn't jinxing himself. He didn't know what he would do if he were to stay in this toddler-like state. Especially with the doting nature of his family, he was dreading the possibility of never being able to live out his life without his mother and father holding his hands through it all.

Well, they weren't here to hold his hands now, though, so if he wanted to savour independence, now would be the perfect time.