Chapter 2: Chapter 2: Starting with a New Character

It was the middle of the night, about a month since she had been reincarnated and Scarlet was laying on her back in her baby crib, moving her limbs about in every which way that they would go as hard as she could muster.

While this might have looked completely ridiculous there was a reason for it. It wasn’t just spastic movement, it was training.

She had been doing something similar every single time she had been alone since the day she had been born, pushing herself until her entire body hurt and she couldn’t continue, trying to build up her strength. Now, after an entire month, that dedication was finally going to pay off.

[General Skill: Strength Training has reached level 1 | Rewards: +2 Strength, + 1 EXP]

[18 EXP to next level]

... Success! Now she had 2 strength instead of 0!

Using her new found physic, she struggled a bit more until she managed to push herself up… only to roll over again.

Okay, with 0 dexterity and finesse, she was still too uncoordinated to do anything. She’d have to change to stretching and coordination exercises.

Sighing to herself, she closed her eyes and relaxed down on the thin mate. That little bit of exercise had already exhausted her tiny stamina pool.

Well, it was time for her to do what she did best.

Slowly and deliberately, Scarlet relaxed every muscle in her body and began to breathe in deeply and with purpose. In for five counts, out for six. In for five counts, out for six. As she continued this pattern for several minutes, her body entered a sleep-like restful state.

She was meditating.

It was something in her previous life that her psychologist suggested she do to help with her insomnia, after over the counter sleeping pills and prescription medicines had failed spectacularly to help her. It was supposed to have made it easier for her to get a good night's sleep, but in the end, it just ended up replacing sleep entirely for her.

While she had been told by just about everyone that it was unhealthy, she had gotten by for 8 long years without a single hour of sleep, by meditating for several hours a day. 

It was great. Restful, dreamless, and she could even do it while doing simple, small and repetitive tasks. Like grinding out minigames.

This baby body wasn’t so great at doing it yet. She didn’t even have control over her bladder, let alone her muscles, but she could still relax well enough to do an okay job of meditating. And as well as resting her body, it was having other benefits. 

[General Skill: Mediation has reached level 13 | Rewards: +1 Mana, +1 Stamina, +13 EXP]

[5 EXP to next level]

Oh, she was getting close to her first level up already.

Just like in the game, there were hundreds, if not more, general skills which could be trained by using them. Each time a general skill leveled up, it would give a small stat bonus as well as some experience. The stat bonuses were always the same at each level, but the experience increased linearly, with you getting 1 EXP at level 1, 2 at 2, 3 at 3, etc.

With 1 level of [Strength Training], 2 levels of [Exhaustion Resistance] and 13 levels of [Meditation], Scarlet had gained a total of 95 EXP.

Obviously, since the EXP requirement per level increased exponentially, you couldn’t rely on this experience for long, but it would be a nice little boost for her starting out, since she was in no position to be going out and hunting monsters while she was still in diapers. The bonus stat points were good too.

With how much she mediated, that skill grew quickly, despite her poor form. 

But she wasn’t just mediating for rest and to get easy EXP. She had another goal in mind. While she was meditating, she searched within herself. Suring for what had not existed in her old world. And after a few hundreds of hours of searching, she finally found it.

[General Skill: Mana Sense has reached level 1 | Rewards: +1 Mana, +1 Intelligence, +1 EXP]

[4 EXP to next level]

When Scarlet received the message, she let out a cheer that sounded like any other baby noise as it left her mouth. 

Mana, the most important thing in any fantasy setting, was now under her control… sort of.

With the skill only at level 1, she could only vaguely sense its existence, and only if she really focused. Not only that, she could only sense the mana inside of her own body. Also, it was only the skill to detect the mana, not a skill that could actually make use of it. But it was still a starting point.

Returning to her meditative state, Scarlet focused inwards at this new, foggy energy within her. It was a feeling like a slight pressure just above her stomach region. So slight that it might have just been her imagination, if it wasn’t for the skill she had gained, she would have written it off as paranoia, but it was most certainly there.

So, with sheer force of will, Scarlet gambled a hold of this new energy within her and tried slushing it around within her body.

An hour or so later, she was rewarded for her efforts once again, with another level of [Mana Sense] and another new skill.

[General Skill: Mana Sense has reached level 2 | Rewards: +1 Mana, +1 Intelligence, +2 EXP]

[2 EXP to next level]

[General Skill: Mana Control has reached level 1 | Rewards: +1 Mana, +1 Magic, +1 EXP]

[1 EXP to next level]

It seemed as though the baby’s poorly coordinated body wasn’t a hindrance to training her Mana skills, unlike with her strength or meditation, which required muscular control in order to do properly.

If that was really the case, she should be able to pump out a few levels of these skills fairly easily. All she’d have to do is continue to try to focus on this feeling inside of her and try to circulate it inside of her body.

If anything, moving the mana around had become easier, now that she had the [Mana Control] general skill. So after another hour of giving the task her almost undivided attention, she pushed out another level of [Mana Control] and with it, her first level.

[General Skill: Mana Control has reached level 2 | Rewards: +1 Mana, +1 Magic, +2 EXP]

[EXP requirement for Level 2 has been reached | Rewards: +10 in all stats]

[119 EXP to next level]

...While now that made all that effort she put into raising her strength before kind of redundant!

10 whole points in all stats was no joke. 

2 points in strength had been just about enough to roll herself over, but 12 points was enough strength to push her up entirely, with a little help from a wall and with her new dexterity and finesse, she even had enough balance to stand, if awkwardly, on her baby legs. 

She was only a month old, and she was almost skipping the crawling stage entirely! That wasn’t normal! She shouldn’t even be crawling properly for another 8 months!

And with the points in her base stats helping her with control over her body, her mind and her magic energy, training started to get even easier.

[General Skill: Mana Sense has reached level 3 | Rewards: +1 Mana, +1 Intelligence, +3 EXP]

[116 EXP to next level]

[General Skill: Mana Control has reached level 3 | Rewards: +1 Mana, +1 Magic, +3 EXP]

[113 EXP to next level]

[General Skill: Mana Sense has reached level 4 | Rewards: +1 Mana, +1 Intelligence, +4 EXP]

[109 EXP to next level]

[General Skill: Mana Control has reached level 4 | Rewards: +1 Mana, +1 Magic, +3 EXP]

[105 EXP to next level]

[General Skill: Mediation has reached level 14 | Rewards: +1 Mana, +1 Stamina, +14 EXP]

[91 EXP to next level]

[General Skill: Mana Sense has reached level 5 | Rewards: +1 Mana, +1 Intelligence, +5 EXP]

[86 EXP to next level]

[General Skill: Mana Control has reached level 5 | Rewards: +1 Mana, +1 Magic, +5 EXP]

[81 EXP to next level]

[General Skill: Strength Training has reached level 2 | Rewards: +2 Strength, + 2 EXP]

[79 EXP to next level]

[General Skill: Exhaustion Resistance has reached level 3 | Rewards: +2 Stamina, + 3 EXP]

[76 EXP to next level]

[General Skill: Mana Sense has reached level 6 | Rewards: +1 Mana, +1 Intelligence, +6 EXP]

[70 EXP to next level]

[General Skill: Mana Control has reached level 6 | Rewards: +1 Mana, +1 Magic, +6 EXP]

[64 EXP to next level]

After four more hours, she had not only leveled up her [Meditation] an second time that night, but had also leveled both [Mana Sense] and [Mana Control] up to level 6, and had even gained an additional level for both [Strength Training] and [Exhaustion Resistance] after using her new found coordination to do a few push ups and sit ups.

Wow! Life was so much easier!

And this was just the first level. As she grew more and more, she was going to get stronger still. She was already halfway to her next level up.

Though as she leveled up her skills more and more, they were going to get harder to improve. She was already starting to feel merely moving the mana around inside of her body having diminishing returns.

...Maybe she just needed to do it in a different way. Just trying to slush the mana about in her body was probably the mana equivalent of what randomly swinging your uncoordinated baby arms about was for strength training. She just needed a more focused and intense exercise in order to get more experience.

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With a new goal in mind, Scarlet stopped just pushing and pulling the mana back and forth and focused her will on trying to make it circulate in a constantly moving circle.

This was… easier said than done. In fact, even after another half hour of practice, it still didn’t feel like she was doing it right. But even if she wasn’t doing it quite right, she was still rewarded for it.

[General Skill: Mana Control has reached level 7 | Rewards: +1 Mana, +1 Magic, +7 EXP]

[57 EXP to next level]

It worked!

Scarlet was proud of herself for correctly deducing that harder training would lead to faster results, even if that was pretty obvious.

However, only [Mana Control] was sped up. It seemed as though [Mana Sense] was lagging behind now. She supposed that this was because she was still only observing the mana inside of her own body.

If she really wanted to train her [Mana Sense] she was going to have to look outward and observe the mana around her.

...Alright, how was she supposed to do that?

Scarlet pondered this for a good long time and… honestly didn’t come up with much. She tried to do it by sheer force of will, focusing as hard as she could, but all that did was disrupt her meditation and cause her [Mana Sense] to suffer even more. Her multitasking wasn’t very good at the moment either, and she had stopped moving the mana in her body too.

This wasn’t working. Did she need a certain base level of [Mana Sense] or Intelligence in order to get started, or was she just not doing it right?

Feeling a little tired, Scarlet focused entirely on her meditation, letting everything else go so that she could rest her mind and body as all other issues faded into the background.

The sun was coming up and soon people would be coming in to check on her, so she couldn’t be doing anything unusual anymore.

She’d probably be able to circulate the mana in her body without anyone noticing, after all, it wasn’t like the mana ever left her body, but doing it while she wasn’t loosened up by meditating would probably make things a lot more difficult to focus on.

The thought gave Scarlet a sudden burst of inspiration.

Maybe she couldn’t sense the mana around her because all of her mana was currently still inside of her own body. Maybe if she projected her own mana out, she could sense the world around her.

Deciding to quickly give it a try before everyone started to wake up, Scarlet held her tiny arms out in front of her and pushed out her mana into the air. The mana flew upwards in a stream of light blue lights painting the air right in front of her with momentary color.

...And then, as the mana faded into the air, so too did Scarlet’s vision fade to black.

As it turns out, while her maximum mana capacity had increased by a lot that night, her current mana was still rather low, since mana regenerates slowly. 

Scarlet had only had 14 units of mana total, and she had accidently pushed all of them out at once. The result being, she fainted from mana deprivation, her consciousness flowing away as she faded into sleep.

---

 

She could feel them.

She could feel the hands grabbing at her. They were twisting her arm, pulling at her hair. They were forcing her face into her mattress as a figure loomed over her, its weight pressing down on her.

She wanted to get out, but the hands were too strong for her.

She wanted to scream, but the pressure on her stopped her from drawing air into her lungs.

Please stop! She… she couldn’t breathe!

---

 

Scarlet woke up with a start, finding herself back in her crib, light peeking through the window and the sounds of the chickens telling her that the morning had come.

She lay there, trembling all over as she struggled to get her proper bearings, looking all around her.

And then, as what had happened slowly started to dawn on her… she started to cry.

The nightmare had felt so real that he had completely overwhelmed her. Stripping her of any sense of maturity or dignity and leaving only a tiny, scared little girl behind.

She cried at the phantom numbness that still rocked her body. She cried at her own feeling of helplessness. She just kept crying.

Then, as she cried, a gentle voice reached out to her. Hands reached down and grabbed onto her. Soft, femine hands, with long delicate fingers. They held her gingerly against the woman’s chest, rocking her back and forth as the voice said words in a language that Scarlet didn’t fully know, but that’s meaning she could still feel in her heart.

‘There there baby. Don’t cry. Mommy is here for you.’

Scarlet looked up into the kind face of her new mother, a young woman, only around 17, with long, bright red hair which framed her soft face and bright green eyes.

As her mother brushed her hand against the small tufts of hair on her baby head, Scarlet stopped crying and her tremblings slowly stopped as well, as if her mother was brushing them away.

The woman continued to whisper soothing words to her as she held Scarlet close, letting the baby breathe in the warm, calming scent of her mother. Scarlet’s baby instincts told her that everything was alright, and that she was safe. And as her mother held her like that, Scarlet’s eyes closed and she finally relaxed.

...She didn’t go back to sleep though.

 

Name: Scarlet Wright	Age: 0	Race: Human
Level: 2	EXP to Next level: 57
Bond: None	Bond level: N/A
Class: None	Class level: N/A
Health: 12	Mana: 38	Stamina: 31
Strength: 12	Fortitude: 10	Dexterity: 10
Finesse: 10	Agility: 10	Reflexes: 10
Intelligence: 16	Wisdom: 10	Charisma: 10
Deception: 10	Artistry: 10	Magic: 17
Hereditary Bonuses:  Tier 2 Business Manager (Father) - provides a small bonus to learning money management based skills. Tier 4 Spirit Weaver (Mother) - provides a moderate bonus to learning cloth based skills.
General Skills: Meditation: lvl 14 (+14 mana, +14 stamina) Exhaustion Resistance: lvl 3 (+6 stamina) Strength Training: lvl 2 (+2 strength) Mana Sense: lvl 6 (+6 mana, +6 intelligence) Mana Control: lvl 7 (+7 mana, +7 magic)

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