Technomancer: Genesis Chapter 15: Life

It had been two months since Ezra had the conversation with his parents. He had started crawling without external aid from magic, which was much earlier than babies on earth who started crawling at around six to ten months after birth. In this world, it seemed that n.o.ble's children had learned to crawl earlier than those on earth did. Crawling at this age was not unheard of but rare.

"It seems that magic aids in rapid bodily development." Ezra a.n.a.lyzed.

Ezra had come to understand many things in this world, he had gotten used to talking with his parents every day so he asked them a lot of questions. Even though his father, Reitz, had many things to do as Lord, he still found time to spend with his son. Aerwyna spent a lot of time caring for Ezra but, after a month, she had to take over the management duties of the domain since Reitz had to deal with bandit raids south of their domain.

In the meantime, they forbade him from talking to anyone else. Ezra had gotten used to the system of things. Over time, Aerwyna's over-protectiveness of her son dwindled a bit and she did let Catalyna handle Ezra sometimes, as Lady of the domain of Fulmen, she also had a lot on her plate.

Upon Ezra's request, he was able to be brought out to the inner castle courtyard, he was never allowed out of the castle as Aerwyna feared for his life. Here he observed a lot of things in his surroundings, the inner courtyard was s.p.a.cious with gardens flowing with vitality. Green shrubbery and a well landscaped central garden with a fountain that was made with a magic core and crystal pair.

Ezra observed that it spewed out water and had a drainage that flooded out of the castle, with five ca.n.a.ls flowing out of this fountain from each of side of its star-shaped form. Life inside the inner courtyard was lively with some women sewing and preparing grain. Ezra noticed that he was in a somewhat medieval culture.

He was not aware of the extent of the likeness to earth's medieval age, but he was pretty sure it was not far off. It was a feudalistic society, which did make sense since might was the most important thing in choosing a leader and all other factors were secondary. Thus it was normal that a society such as this would form.

He was not allowed in the courtyard by nightfall and was escorted back to his room at twilight. The sky very much looked like earth's, with just one sun and one moon. He sighed at this sight, as Ezra thought he would have a mental breakdown if he had seen another thing that was out of his expectations.

He would understand it if there were multiple moons but if there were two suns that would blow his mind since binary star systems would be unable to support life in such a familiar way. He had been observing his surroundings and mostly, gravity was still pretty much identical to back home, if there were two suns it would be unlikely that this world would have a very similar feel to earth. But of course, he had no way yet to test if the gravity in this universe or this world for that matter were exactly the same as Earth's. The night and day cycles were concordant to earth.

He concluded thereafter that this was indeed a spherical world. He had surmised this world was very similar to earth as it seemed that for the most part, gravitational forces in this universe seemed to be the same.

So far, all the fundamental natural laws were still in effect but there was an added mystery, which was magic in this universe. Back on Earth, there were many mysteries in the standard model of quantum physics. It was thought that all observable matter only accounted for five percent of all matter, and the universe was composed mostly of dark matter and dark energy.

Scientists back on earth are still baffled at some phenomena. Such as the postulated strong nuclear force which holds together the nucleus of the atom, the constant expansion of s.p.a.ce itself, the cohesion of galaxies and what made them stay in shape, and most importantly why the universe did not collapse on itself given that gravity should, in theory, pull all matter together. There are unknown forces that prevented this. The normal placeholders for these phenomena were called dark matter and dark energy. Dark because, mostly, scientists are in the dark on these things and it is estimated that sixty-eight percent of the universe is composed of dark energy and twenty-three percent made up of dark matter. They know that these exist because places, where there are large concentrations of dark matter, would bend light pa.s.sing, so there is something that interacts with gravity in the said concentration.

Was this magic a sort of dark energy? He had to find out in the future, for the prospect of exploring this new stranger aroused him. He could not wait to grow, though for the moment he focused on his immediate surroundings.

He discovered that there were around sixty guards posted on the castle at a time and around thirty servants that did various ch.o.r.es. Ezra also found out that it was a tradition that newborn n.o.ble children were not allowed to be near people, except their parents and wet nurse for a fortnight, this was thought of as weaning.

As to the reason why this was this way, it was thought that other people would hinder the growth of the magic power of the child, as most people thought that the magic power of a newborn was decided two weeks after their birth. This was the main reason why Ezra did not see anyone other than his parents and wet nurse two weeks after his birth.

While Ezra spent most of his time alone with his wet nurse, she spoke to him about the mundanities of her life. He did not reply to her jabber, of course, most of his time he was left to himself. During the time he saw his mother he asked her if he could learn the alphabet and learn words. Aerwyna was once again shocked but was happy to oblige her son, though she taught him in private. Ezra wanted to spend time in their study to read books but never got to do so as he was left with his wet nurse, which restricted his movement since he was ordered not to show his abilities.

He wanted very much to study the properties of magic cores and crystals but was restricted for the time being. He longed for his father to come back so that his mother could accompany him and explore the fascinating world around him.