Chapter 4: Chapter 4 Casting a spell

A few more months passed as Michael continued with his duties as a baby: doing nothing but sleeping all day long. The only reason he could stay sane was through mana gathering. Every day, he would gather as many mana elements as he could from the surroundings and reinforce the elemental 'stones' in his body. He noticed that as he gathered more elements, his sensitivity to those elements became much finer. He could now sense how much mana was in the air and which elements they comprised. That wasn't the only benefit from gathering mana in his body. Somehow, it allowed him to strengthen his baby body enough for him to almost stand up! Of course, he only practiced this when he was all alone. Which, by the way, wasn't as long as he wanted. If he wasn't being cradled in the arms of his mother, then he would probably be getting teased by one of the maids. Somehow, they took quite a liking to him, showing him everything there was to see in the mansion, all while pinching his cheeks. It seemed that the God had blessed him with both cute and handsome traits. He was suffering from success, as they say. And as strange as it sounded, it took a long time, about two months, before Michael learned about his mother and father's names. This was because his mother insisted on him calling her 'mommy'. Meanwhile, his father was always out of the house. From what he understood from their little spats, he was busy dealing with a business that took him most nights out of the house. She didn't like that very much and always complained about it to him. Something about the Parched Lands or whatever. But after listening intently to the maid's gossip, he was able to figure out that his mother was called Lylia while his father was called Bart. As for him, his full name was Michael Von Vanderbilt. The Vanderbilts were the richest and most influential family in the world, at least that's what the God said. He hadn't been out of the house, so he couldn't compare his current living to the state of the world outside. But as rich as they were, they couldn't even afford a single air - conditioning unit. He was only banking on the fact that he was due some hefty inheritance from his family. He could use that money to make his life easier and more comfortable for as long as he could live. That would have to wait until he got older. For now, he continued with his daily baby life. Michael soon turned one year old, which became a very big deal in the Vanderbilt family. His mother immediately ordered for a small venue to be made near the house where they could celebrate his birthday. This was perhaps Michael's first clue as to how incredibly wealthy his family was. That 'little' venue his mother had made for him? It was as big as a football stadium! They had to go by carriage just to go from one end to the next. And that wasn't the worst part. She was actually dissatisfied with how small it was. Her exact words were, "I'm sorry, baby. I'll make sure to build a bigger one next year. It's absurd how little we're spending for your first birthday, but we just have so little time for now. Don't worry, I already had the next venue started early!" Just the manpower alone needed to construct this little venue far exceeded what Michael could even count. Because there were no bulldozers or excavators in this world, everything was done by hand. He saw mages casting spells to topple down trees and crush boulders. There must have been more than ten thousand of them working every day to construct the venue for his first birthday.