This time as Chris awoke he was not looking into the light, but something far more delightful. ‘The chest of my mother… Wait ohhh, the conflicting emotions’ Why was there conflicting emotions, fucked if he knew.

He let out a small noise “ghha” Ow, that seemed to stimulate some response from his head.

“It's okay sweetie, I'm here“ [Minor Restoration] A slightly anxious, quite worried voice came from above him, his mother he realized.

As the light faded and he looked up into his mother's face he noticed the paleness. Even whiter than normal with her golden locks sticking to the side of her face. Where she leaned close over him the gold of her hair mingled with his pitch black. The merging of two opposites, combining together to create a work of art. He had looked at her a thousand times, yet at this moment he felt like he truly saw her. The stress lines on her forehead the hand that held his worn from work. And yet as he looked into her green eyes, they were so clear. Crisp like a window into nature. But at the front, there was the worry that pervaded them. He needed to calm her down. His revelation could be pondered later. Chris tried to push down the pain and smile softly at his mother. He felt her healing magic soften the physical wounds and relaxed.

Now he was looking into the light, oh crap. Wait no. That was his mother casting a healing spell and the green light was softly emanating from her. Well, that was a relief, he’d been looking into far too much light lately and had a well-founded desire to flip the switch firmly off.

“Are you feeling better now?” His mother asked.

As a matter of fact yes he was feeling better is a strange way, quite tingly ‘not in that way heh’. Probably from less pressure on his brain. He must have really taken a blow to the head. Well, he had been playing in the garden tree. Probably hit his head on the way down, ‘i really need to learn some flying magic or Dan is going to overtake me’ But it was getting late and as much as he loved the soft embrace of his mother he wanted to go play in his room.

“I'm okay mom thanks for the healing, make sure you have a spoon of honey” Chris said as energetically as the firm hold and tingling would allow.

“Are you sure you're okay? I had to cast minor restoration 7 times to get you to wake up, what in the hells were you doing?” She said with a token amount of sternness, worry evident on her face.

“I was climbing trees trying to get some nuts for you to make bread with” Chris said innocently ‘Flax seeds would have been better nutritionally… Ehh, whats a flax seed’

He was still a bit mentally fried and would have to sort out how he felt about everything later. He felt emotionally dulled, he remembered in the past frantically jumping at his.. mother ‘it was difficult to think of her like that for some reason’ for all his life.

Chris walked stiffly from the room under the anxious face of his mother, and just as she opened her mouth he gave her a rushed “Thanks mom” and legged it out of the kitchen and up to his bedroom. She would see this as unusual behavior but he couldn’t avoid it.

In the little house at the edge of a town, that was where he lived. Farmland was what started from the outskirts of the city and they were lucky enough to be closer to the fields than most. The little 3 room ‘Not bedroom – just room’ house was simple. It had a kitchen and two bedrooms, a lack of sibling s and father meant that Chris had a room to himself despite being only 8 years old.

Chris was sitting in his room contemplating the facts of his life. He was a small boy, wiry and did not have any friends to speak of. To put it frankly he had been a wus, pathetic and scared. Spending all his time next to his mother following her around. He grimaced, after a simple knock on the head he saw everything so much clearer, he had had a dream. But now he knew he would have had no chance of fulfilling it. He wanted to become a mage, to find glory, and throw fireball around. He knew he would not achieve this because he had never learned even the simplest think about magic.

He had always said, ill do it tomorrow and expected his mother to sort it out for him. His mother had even bought him some books, he had never read them. He balled his fist in rage at himself. Had this event not happened to open his eyes perhaps he would have died a simple farmer. He picked up a book and started reading, ‘wait since when could I read’. He had tried half-heartedly many time under the encouragement of his mother to learn to read but had never become competent. Fucking pathetic, but no more. He would grip this opportunity by the balls and choke someone with it.

From what he discovered he would be able to act sooner than he thought, at the age of eight a child was eligible for a ritual called the blooding. It sounded messy and quite frankly was, it involved blood and dead animals. To cause the jumpstart of mana in the body and allow someone to get a feel of what it was like, hopefully allowing them to manipulate it.

***Hours later

Chris sat on his bed thinking over what had happened at the tree. He knew that had been him, he was Chris, he has always been. For all 21 years of his.... ‘No that's not right, I'm only 8 or 19???... 8 + 19 isn't even 21' he had been considering where his knew knowledge had come from.

The pain resurfaced and he had a moment of clarity as his mind struggled to generate a hypothesis to explain his duality.

‘Assuming reincarnation has been proved possible and this event happened at my birth the brain of my current self may have not been fully capable of supporting an adult intellect and so only pieces of my former self have been passed over.’ He rattled off a quick statement in his head.

He doubled over in pain as a headache manifested itself in his temple. His best guess was so far a botched reincarnation. His two personalities had blended together fucking his emotions and desires, given his knowledge and knew drive…well, perhaps not all bad then.

It was quite possible, considering how he was behaving that little more than bits of knowledge and habits had been passed over. He looked down at his hand and saw it cracking his knuckles in turn.

‘Okay definitely some habits, but why now. Was it the trauma to the head.’ or perhaps when he fell from the tree and his life flashed before his eyes. Could that have triggered the memories? Or perhaps still further Mystra the god of magic and knowledge spoke to him and gave him this gift.

‘Okay his explanations were getting more and more ridiculous, I am a boy of science. Logic shal dictate my path, and knowledge is what I seek.’

He decided to ignore the fact that an 8-year-old boy saying those great words didn't have the great impact of a white-bearded old man standing in front of a crowd of thousands. He looked down, frowning.

‘The only audience I have is 3 cockroaches and a stuffed bear mother has enchanted with a [Soft Sleep] spell. He doesn't even look riveted by my majesty.’

He put that depressing sentence behind because there was something he could do to improve that, get himself some of that sweet sticky magic. Well, at least I’m not going mad, muh muh ahahahahha.

Chris picked up the book on Blooding for the 7th time in about 5 minutes reading the same words again.

“‘To unlock one's magical potential it must be seeded, find the location of greatest mana concentration within the body, and plant a Mana Crystal. Make a small incision with a blade preferably enchanted with [Minor Bleed] to keep blood flowing around the crystal. Once this has been completed you must with haste find a magically augmented creature (MAC). This must then be killed in the near vicinity of the seeded. The life essence of the MAC then flows to the seed causing it to radiate mana into the nexus of the participant making them magically aware of the mana as fire running through them. Should the participant fail to grasp there mana [Greater Restoration] is advised to prevent mageburn. The blooding can then be repeated at a later date. This does not come without other dangers….’”

Chris stopped and went back to the beginning again for the 8th reread of the ritual. Most kids his age could read the basic text and understand basic numbers but he had always been a fast learner for literature and mathematics. Now he knew why they were learned once but forgotten. Well perhaps not truly forgotten just looked over as a small detail.

‘I will attempt the ritual soon, I just need to locate my nexus’ Chris thought as he pulled out a small pot from his bedside drawer. This pot contained a self-made monofluid, the official name for a mana conductive liquid. Although he looked more like a mud pie. He slathered the brown mud paste on his arm and clearly stated “[Minor Restoration]” while thinking about his headache and visualizing the pain fading and himself smiling. The spell did not trigger but it was not meant to, saying a spell chant and visualizing would excite a small amount of mana to leave his skin and seep into the Mud. It was a special mixture of basil honey and mud that would turn green when mana was passed into it.

He was currently in the process of systematically testing each spot on his body for the area which would turn greenest, indicating his nexus as it would leak the highest concentration of mana.

The elders of the town would completely cover him in a better fluid when he went to the trial but he wanted to know sooner. ‘And spare me the shame of smearing myself in honey, ohh Mystra, the bees... there in my eyes… ahhhhh’ He let out a giggle. Not very many but he couldn't restrain himself.

He would continue until he found his nexus, and spare himself the bees.

About 2 hours and 12 jars of Mud, Highly advanced monofluid, he smelled a lot like basil and a bee was tapping on the window. But as he looked down he saw a vibrant green patch of basil paste softly glowing on his right breast. The glowing faded as the mana stopped flowing out.

“[Minor Restoration]” He intoned

The glow reappeared, stayed for a couple of seconds and began to fade. He had found it. It was a rather unusual place to have a nexus and was going to be painful to complete his blooding. His mother had hers in the palm of her dominant hand and still has a small scar from the incision. It may have been true that the hand was a more convenient place to condense magic from but...

“[Minor Restoration]” He said again, just to see the glow. He was doing magic. ‘Not really, but it made stuff glow and that counted in his book’

The palm may have made for easier skin contact close to the nexus but a skilled mage learned how to condense magic from any part of his body so he wasn't worried.

‘Except for the pain, damit’ Yeah, he was not looking forward to having a pea-sized rock pressed against his lung. Well maybe that was slight exaggeration but only slight.

Excerpt From “Graduate William Al-Shinefold’s The Blooding - Magic Ritual And Dangers: 1218 MD”

Chapter 1 (The bit Chris didn't read)

Should the participant fail to grasp there mana [Greater Restoration] is advised to prevent mageburn. The blooding can then be repeated at a later date. This does not come without other dangers, such as the possibility of an impure mana crystal failing and in rare cases exploding. Honey based crystals are ill-advised as they contain many impurities. Beast generated or sugar glass crystals should be used if the nexus is located in a sensitive area.

Do not attempt this at home as MAC’s can be dangerous, even a rabbit could break a bone or crush skulls. Supervision from a Tier 3 Graduate or higher is advised. Make sure they possess the T2 Spell [Greater Restoration] to counteract mageburn.