Becoming a Mage In a New World

Gavin was a simple window cleaner in his early twenties. Just trying to save up for a car so he could stop taking an hour-long round-a-bout bus ride to and from work. He couldn't afford a place any closer to the city center.

Unfortunately, he would not get his new car. Fortunately, he wouldn't need to take the bus anymore.

He was falling, every safety put in place to prevent this very situation had failed, and now he was beginning his plunge from the 49th floor, 215 meters up.

A few drops of blood trailed through the air in front of his eyes. The cable had bit a small chunk of his arm as it snapped, causing the platform he was on to go completely vertical and shattering a window in the process.

The massive spike of adrenaline made him feel as though his mind was being stretched in two directions, one end staying on the platform that was now hanging vertically, and the other following his stomach that had already dropped much faster than the rest of his body.

Gavin had about six and a half seconds to come to terms with his own end from the moment his harness failed him. He spent half a second to pull the two ends of his mind together to form his first thought.

'Shit.'

It was an appropriate one.

'Ohshitohshitohshitohshit' Roughly one full second of Gavin's final six and a half was spent in incoherent panic, his limbs flailing amidst the open air, his face contorting foolishly and his mind in chaos.

Shattered glass glittered in the air, refracting the sun's light like diamonds as they fell alongside him.

If he wasn't falling right now, he might've admired the view.

With five seconds remaining until he became a stain on the sidewalk below, Gavin stopped panicking and truly realized he was doomed. He started thinking about his life so far. He thought of all he's accomplished, or the lack there of.

He had only done average in school, too caught up in escapism to apply his attention elsewhere. Books, anime, games, anything that involved magic or the supernatural he would jump into headfirst. He loved diving into their supernatural aspects, even taking the time to research into the lore of their power systems. Magic especially, never failed to catch his attention.

Four seconds.

The ground was getting closer.

He had found real life too boring, mundane, predictable. He liked the fresh perspective that magic and supernatural powers in general brought to every day thoughts and actions. With magic anything could be possible, it only mattered how you used it; how creative you were when you did so.

Three seconds.

'What am I thinking?' Gavin realized he had just spent two full seconds of his final six and a half thinking about unimportant things.

'What about Barkley?' He realized his poor pooch would go hungry until the police figured out who the corpse on the sidewalk was.

Two.

He realized that this too was not an important thought.

'It shouldn't take too long, I've got my ID in my pocket.'

One.

'At least I don't have to worry about my parents, they're gonna make a killing on insurance. They might even be able to sue for more with all the faulty safety equipment.'

One meter from the sidewalk.

In a situation like his, what was an important thought? He would be dead soon anyway.

A strange calm overcame Gavin's mind. 'I wonder what'll happen after I die, will there be an afterlife? Or will I just cease to exis-'

*SPLAT*

'I suppose that answers that.' Gavin thought, he was surrounded in darkness, it was warm, he couldn't move, but he could think, so clearly there was something after death.

His body felt alien, like all of his bones had been taken out, twisted around and put back in.

He tried to open his eyes, nothing. He tried to move his arms and legs, something?

'What is this?' He felt something soft and stretchy when he tried to extend his limbs. It was as warm as the nothingness he was floating around in, it was almost like-

'Oooh, please be what I think it is!' He had no way of knowing if he was correct. He had been reincarnated and was still in the womb. His consciousness only igniting when his brain was developed enough to hold a thought.

'That doesn't make sense.' He concluded. 'A baby's brain couldn't think like I am now. Not until well after it was born, at least. Unless there is another factor at play.' A hopeful thought, a wish even, came to mind and he immediately started focusing on everything and anything he could feel.

He could feel the vague shape of his body, not yet fully-developed. He could feel the warmth of the fluid around him. He could feel his eyes rolling around, though he couldn't open them fully yet.

As he continued, he finally felt it. A strange, misty, fluid-like energy swam around in the space around him, slowly entering his body and moving towards his head.

'Yes!' Excitement flooded Gavin's mind as he pumped his fist, surely giving his soon-to-be mother a spook with such a movement.

'Okay, think. I can feel fingerprints when I squeeze my fingers together, so I should be at least six months in, but I can't open my eyes all the way yet so I can't be much more than that. That means I've got maybe ten to twelve weeks until I'm born? I wish I paid attention in biology, not that I'm sure it'd help with magic involved.'

***

In a brothel in a town called Heriin, west-northwest of Dawn-Ilyn, a woman with a swollen belly lay in a bed reading when she felt a kick. She ignored it and continued reading her book titled 'Song Of The Deep Mountain's Walls'.

***

One week later: June 20th, 233 CE (Current Era)

Gavin had spent every moment awake trying to manipulate the energy he presumed to be mana. At first nothing happened, but he was making progress. He could now slightly speed up or slow down the speed at which the mana moved from the space around him to his head.

Of course, like anyone in his situation is likely to do, he focused on speeding it up as much as possible in hopes of causing an improvement in his brains development.

***

Two weeks later: July 4th, 233 CE

Gavin was now 90% sure he made the right choice on speeding up the flow of mana. With the flow now nearly three times as fast with his new proficiency in its manipulation, Gavin could tell it was all trying to gather in one spot near the base of his skull, just above his C1 vertebrae.

However once it started to gather and compress, it would disperse. Whatever was causing it to gather wasn't a strong enough force to enact the change it was trying to cause.

With this new observation, Gavin's next step was obvious. He started attempting to speed up the flow of mana to the gathering point, while simultaneously slowing its dispersion and if he can manage to, compress it.

One week later: July 11th, 233 CE

He could feel it, the small mass of mana was nearing a critical point, he just needed to compress it a little more.

Gavin continued to mentally command the mana to squeeze together for what felt like an eternity, but was actually slightly closer to ten minutes when something finally happened.

'Yes!'

The little sphere of mana collapsed in on itself with a strange, echoey-

*POP*

With the pop, a tiny, dust-sized crystal formed in the center of the mana sphere and drew in all the surrounding mana that Gavin could sense, and a lot more that he couldn't.

'HAH, a mana core, classic.' He thought, a big smile forming on his face. It looked hideous on his toothless, not-yet fully-developed face.

'But why does it form there? Is there a reason? Or is it just random? Genetics maybe?' His pondering continued until the crystal stopped sucking in the mana like the drain in a sink. The moment it did, Gavin lost consciousness.

And he would stay that way until the night before his birth.

***

August 14th, 233 CE

When he regained consciousness, Gavin felt entirely different. This was to be expected though, as the last time he was awake, he was half-baked at best. What wasn't to be expected was the difference in his ability to sense and manipulate mana.

'Awesome.' Gavin opened his eyes wide; something he could do now, and tried to visualize the mana in his surroundings. He couldn't actually see anything, but that didn't diminish his excitement too much.

Gavin willed the mana in his surroundings to move to his right, it did. He tried again, to his left this time. Gavin pushed the mana back and forth for a while, giving him a mental feeling akin to moving your hand back and forth in a pool.

'Now I just need to figure out how to actually do anything with mana instead of just moving it back and forth.' Instead of trying anything right away, Gavin wisely decided to wait until after he was born. 'I don't think my mother wood appreciate her unborn son attempting to play with fire inside of her.'

Luckily, he wouldn't have to wait long.

Gavin's mother was already prepared, this wasn't new to her. Over her 28 years she had already given birth 7 times, this one wouldn't be any different. The healer would help her deliver the baby, it would be sent to the orphanage, she would let her body heal, then it was back to work. Such was the life of a whore working in the only brothel in Heriin.

She needed to eat, after all.

The brothel's healer, an old man in a dark green coat and brown pants — kept on payroll for just this purpose — entered the room. He had already been informed by the owner that one of the women had gone into labor.

He walked right over to the bed without saying a word and began his work, a simple wave of his hand dulled the pain, another guided the baby out telekinetically, and one more simple gesture slowed the bleeding.

With his job done, he left the rest to the assistant, not a single word exchanged with the nameless whore on the bed as he left the room mentally complaining that she just had to give birth at two in the morning.

The assistant, a middle aged woman with brown hair and eyes, wearing a simple grey and brown outfit picked up the confused newborn and followed behind the old man. Once on the street outside the brothel, the two exchanged a nod and went their separate ways, the old man went home, and the woman dropped the baby off at the town's orphanage.

'What the fuck was that?' Gavin was flabbergasted.

He sat in a cozy wooden crib, looking at the old oak ceiling wondering what actually just happened. One moment he was waiting patiently to be born, in the next, he was being violently squeezed and then yanked out of his mother by what could only be the usage of magic.

If that wasn't enough, he was then taken straight to what he can only assume was an orphanage before he was even held by his mother.

'What a first impression this world has made.' Gavin could feel his eyelids getting heavy, his new body aching for sleep.

'Sleep first, think later.' He allowed sleep to claim him, knowing his new body would need the rest to grow strong.