NOVEL NEXT 11. Learning From Mother.
After breakfast, Elena stood up to clear the table and took everyone’s plate to the kitchen while Orion sat on Evelyn’s lap.
Seeing that Orion had sat down comfortably, Evelyn asked. “So baby, are you ready to know why you suddenly grew up so fast overnight?”
“Yes, mama,” Orion replied, nodding his head in response, and Evelyn gently bobbed his nose.
“Okay, baby. If you want to know that, then you first have to know that we are high elves, one of the many elf races in the elven kingdom, and as high elves, we’re a bit different from other elves.”
“What do you mean, Mama?”
“For example, we high elves are a lot taller than other elves in the forest and we can easily be identified by our blonde hair which is completely different from the usual platinum-colored hair of all the other elven races in the kingdom, but the most important thing that set us aside from the other elves was the fact that we were born from magic itself.”
“From magic?”
“Yes, sweetie. Mama and Auntie were born from magic itself, just like my cute little pumpkin,” Evelyn playfully nibbled on Orion’s little ear as she said this, causing him to giggle as he felt her tickling him as well.
“Hehe..... Mama stop...... Hehe...”
“Nope, my baby is too cute for me to stop doing this.”
“Hehe...... Mama, I’m serious......hehe..... stop, mama, that tickles.”
“Okay baby, so do you understand everything we’ve discussed so far?”
Still trying to catch his breath, Orion nodded his head in response before inquiring, “But does it mean Mama and Auntie grew up very fast just like me?”
“That’s right honey, but it seems my cute little baby is growing a lot faster than both Auntie and I did.”
“Really?”
“Yes, sweetie.”
“But Mama, Is that bad?” Orion asked, staring at his beautiful mother with a worried look on his face.
“No baby, the reason you’re growing a lot faster is because you’re special,” Orion became even more confused with his mother’s words.
He was confident that he hadn’t revealed the truth about having a system to his mother, so he doubted if that was what she was talking about. So he couldn’t understand why his mother would suddenly say he was special unless she had a tangible reason for her words.
Evelyn smiled at the puzzled look on her cute little baby.
“Listen, baby, let’s use three toys to make things easier for you to understand.”
“Three toys?”
“Yes, let’s say we have three babies, a human, a forest elf, and a high elf baby,” Evelyn waved her hand and three vines sprouted from the ground, morphing into three humanoid babies with one representing a human while the remaining two represented both a forest elf and a high elf.
“Is the baby high elf, me?” Orion asked with stars sparkling in his eyes.
Evelyn giggled at how cute her baby was. “Fufufu....yes, the high elf will be used to represent you.”
“If all three babies were to be born on the same day, they would instantly begin to absorb the impure magical energies surrounding them, the same would occur for other races across the world.”
“The rate at which their bodies absorb the mana around them determines the speed at which their bodies reach maturity.”
“All three bodies will continue to accumulate the impure mana around them into their navel until it reaches a threshold, but this usually takes years,” Evelyn waved her hand again and the humanoid vine toys slowly began to grow with each of them growing at a different speed.”
“It takes the human babies eighteen years for their body to reach a threshold of impure mana while it takes forest elves five years to reach such threshold.”
“How long does it take a high elf to reach a threshold of accumulated impure mana?”
“It takes us weeks to do this.”
“Weeks?”
“Yes baby, it took Mama and Auntie about four to five weeks to accumulate mana into our body until it reached a threshold.”
“Will it be the same for me as well?”
“No baby.”
“It won’t? Then how long do I have before my body reaches a threshold?”
“It has about twenty-four hours left before it reaches its threshold.”
“Huh?! Twenty-four hours?!”
“Yes, baby, this means that by tomorrow, your body should reach a threshold as well.”
“But, what will happen to my body when it reaches a threshold?”
“Once it does, you’ll have to condense all the impure mana in your body to form a mana core.”
“Will anything happen if the impure mana isn’t condensed to form a mana core?”
“Yes, if none of these babies can form a mana core after reaching a threshold, then this will happen,” Evelyn waved her hand once again and the three humanoid vine toys began to slowly expand until every one of them exploded into tiny particles.
Orion’s eyes widened in surprise when he saw this and he instinctively swallowed his saliva.
‘I take that back, I don’t want this baby vine to represent me anymore,’ Orion uttered in his thoughts.
Evelyn noticed the worried look on his face and she kissed his forehead and hugged him gently. “Nothing and no one can ever replace you my baby,” Evelyn assured him.
She stroked his blonde hair and asked. “So, baby, do you understand the difference between us high elves and other races now? From birth, every one of us absorbs the impure mana around us but the rate at which each of us does this extremely differs from the other.
High elves tend to possess a body that’s highly receptive to mana, allowing us to absorb the impure mana around us faster than others and at a vast amount as well.
As a result of this, we experience rapid growth and development, allowing us to skip over several stages of human and elven development.”
Orion nodded his head in understanding as he finally understood what his mother was trying to say to him.
Based on his mother’s explanation, it was easy to conclude that with the bodies of high elves being highly receptive to mana, Orion’s body would experience a rapid growth spurt, enabling him to develop physically and mentally at an incredible pace, allowing him to achieve a mental maturity that was equivalent to an adult elf.
However, with this at the back of his mind, Orion wondered if his body would continue to grow and mature at an alarming rate since his body was highly receptive to mana.
“Mama?”
“Yes, dear?”
“Even after having a mana core, will my body still be absorbing vast amounts of mana?”
“Yes.”
“Huh?” Orion’s eyes widened in fear because he couldn’t see anything good coming out of his body aging fast while absorbing vast amounts of mana.
‘At this rate, doesn’t it mean I’ll be approaching old age in the next couple of months and I might never be able to live for centuries like the other elves in the kingdom?’