On the massive wall-mounted screen, Astra, the household AI, began the another video on the history of mages. To keep Kaelen engaged, she rendered the history of their world in a vibrant, 2-D cartoon style.
Kaelen sat back and sipped his juice, genuinely enjoying the bright colors. He had a soft spot for cartoons in his past life, and there are some things that never changes.
"Long ago," Astra's voice chirped, "humanity lived without the magic thread. We were stuck in slow ships and died from simple diseases. But then, a lucky group of space archaeologists found a mysterious, ethereal matter in deep space."
The cartoon showed tiny explorers touching a shimmering cloud.
"Without knowing its true nature, the matter was collected and brought back to Earth. As scientists studied its properties, one scientist accidentally viewed his friend body through a lens made of the same matter. They discovered that every human who come into contact with the matter possesses glowing fibers of different colors within them. Because they looked like long, flowing fiber, they called them magical fibers."
Kaelen leaned in, his dark black eyes wide open. The cartoon then showed that the contamination spread across all human star systems.
"Now every human is born with these fibers. Learning to control them allowed us to live longer, grow stronger, and wipe out the old diseases. And Kaelen," Astra added with a proud pulse of light, "one of the original scientists who mastered these fibers was your own ancestor. He proposed that these fibers were part of the soul, the only part of the human body we still don't fully understand. His research became the very basis for modern mage theory."
The cartoon shifted to a series of rising steps, illustrating the realms of mage recognized by the modern world:
1. Fiber realm 2. Yarn Realm 3. Fabric Realm 4. Garment Realm
Kaelen tilted his head. His intuition told him the ladder didn't end there. All these level are progressing from 1D (line) to 3D (space) so there should be level above to 4D (time) and more.
The cartoon shifted to a darker, more serious scene. A massive, swirling vortex appeared on the screen.
A Space-Time Storm.
"Ten years ago," Astra whispered, "a monster from a another parallel universe was accidentally swapped into our universe by a massive Space-Time Storm. The transition drove it mad. It began swallowing everything in its path. Stars, ships, and entire civilizations."
The cartoon showed two frigates trying to merge their power to stop the beast, but a time delay appeared on the screen, blinking red.
"That's wrong," Kaelen muttered. His voice was high-pitched and cute, but his tone was completely serious. He set his juice down on the rug. "These two frigates trying to merge can have done better."
Arin and Lyra shared a startled look. Arin's grip on Lyra tightened slightly.
"You noticed that, Kaelen? That delay is the 'Dual Resonance' flaw. Even the best Commanders can't calculate the sync fast enough to erase it."
"It's just a geometry problem, Daddy," Kaelen said, pouting his lips slightly. "You can have two half magic cards and then combine them to instantly merge the ships."
Arin and Lyra becomed surprised they have never though of creating half cards then combining them. Altough they have stored the procedure card to dismantle there own frigates they never though of preparing half card which also include the procedure to combine there frigates."
Around Kaelen's small, bear-pajama-clad frame, a faint, deep red shimmer appeared because of deep thinking. His fibers were automatically manifesting and disappearing around him. Inherited from his ancestor, they were already thicker than a normal child's.
He tried to create half cards to "merge" the frigates, but he suddenly felt a wave of crushing exhaustion. His mind was reaching for a high-level solution, but his five-year-old brain was still cannot process it.
He let out a giant, adorable yawn and rubbed his dark abyss like black eyes. The red glow vanished instantly.
"I'm tired," he whispered, leaning back against Arin's legs.
"I bet you are, little mage" Arin said, picking him up. He was stunned by the way of thinking of Kaelen. Kaelen hadn't even started formal training, yet his thoughts were already so advance.
Later that morning, as Kaelen drifted back into a nap on the sofa, Lyra looked at his peaceful face.
"He has our ancestor's habits," she whispered.
"He has more than that," Arin agreed, watching the sun climb higher. "He's going to be a much better mage then us."
The even Arin decide to start Kaelen's training.
The space was a vast, high-tech garden floating near the 100th floor of the Veyron Tower. It was the same garden where grass he smelled every morning at his balcony come form.
The air was crisp, the scent of the lush greenery clinging to the mist from nice weather.
Looking up, Kaelen could see the massive, shimmering defensive garment of the Core's fortress hanging in the sky like a steel halo above core.
Directly below them, at Level 97, his parents personal frigates were docked in a massive station cavity in the building spanning various floors.
From the garden's edge, Kaelen could see the ships' hulls gleaming as Mage engineers performed diagnostics of ships using there tools connected to there different colour fibers coming out from there hands.
Arin Veyron stood at the center of the platform.
As a Master Fabric Realm Mage, he created several fabric layers around the garden so accidentally Kaelen do not fall down.
"What are those, Daddy?" Kaelen asked, his voice high and curious.
"At the Master Fabric Realm Mage, Kaelen, we don't just move fiberfs," Arin explained.
"We create Fabrics. These allow us to secure the area around us for own or over team mates protection."
Kaelen was fascinated.
To him, the fact that the human soul could manifest fibers to create yarn and then fabric from the yarn was a kind of "magic with reason."
He stood there in his white bear pajamas, his abyss like black eyes tracing the weaving of yarn in the fabric his father created.
"Fiber does not respond to desire, Kaelen," Arin said, his voice echoing in the morning air.
"It responds to the structural logic."
Kaelen understood immediately.
To Kaelen, the space was a grid a 3-D coordinate system so going from once place to other is like following certain coordinates to reach the place.
As father and son were training.
At a tea table to the side, Lyra sat elegantly, sipping jasmine tea.
Before her sat a device, sleek, thin, and far more advanced than any laptop.
It projected a real-time, high-definition scan of Kaelen's meridians, tracking the movement of the fiber inside his small body.
"First lesson: Awareness," Arin commanded.
To demonstrate, Arin released a single fiber.
He moved it the traditional way using mana to "pull" and "push" the thread through the air, manually steering its flow.
It was a display of immense power, but to Kaelen, it looked like someone trying to draw a perfect circle by hand when a compass was sitting right there.
Kaelen had a better way.
He overlaid the garden with a mental 3-D Cartesian plane.
Every point in the garden became a coordinate (x, y, z).
Instead of manually steering the fiber which required constant adjustment he simply plotted a fixed trajectory from start to finish.
By defining the entire path as a single Cartesian equation, he bypassed the need for active steering.
His threads didn't "travel" in the traditional sense; they simply travelled a pre-determined curve.
He chose paths that required the absolute minimum amount of energy.
"His brain is not evening working when thread move" Lyra whispered, her eyes glued to the screen.
"He's just letting it follow the most logical coordinates."
"Look at his brin waves it hasn't risen much."
Arin looked at data but suppressed his surprise and moved to the next phase.
"Second lesson: Elasticity. A mage must know the limits of his soul and mana. How far can you stretch your fibers?"
In this world, fiber elasticity was the ultimate measure of a beginner's potential. The ratio of a fiber's natural length to its maximum extended length.
Kaelen closed his eyes and tried to take a single thread out of his body. Which like a metaphysical object come out of his hand.
Instead of pushing it, he applied a formula to its end coordinates to stretch in opposite direction.
Slowly, the crimson fiber began to grow, lengthening in the opposite sides.
1:5... 1:10... 1:20...
The ratio kept climbing.
Because Kaelen's fibers were thicker and his method was flawless it stretched a little more.
"Ratio is 1:30," Lyra reported, her fingers flying across her device.
"Arin, that's unimaginable for a child."
After the elasticity test ended.
Kaelen let out a small, tired huff.
The red fiber retracted instantly into his body.
He rubbed his eyes, the mental and mana drain of holding a stretched fiber finally catching up to his five-year-old body.
Later that night, the family settled into the master bedroom on the 99th floor.
Kaelen was tucked between his parents, already drifting into a deep, peaceful sleep.
"I don't understand how this little guys brain work" Arin whispered into the darkness.
"He's an our little mage, Arin," Lyra replied softly.
"He doesn't see the fiber as a weapon. He sees it as a tool to apply his knowledge."
Then their voices dropped, there mood heavy. They know something's that other do not know.
There are Higher Beings from other galaxies and universes who continuously fought wars with humans that can consumed entire galaxies.
To those entities, their galaxy was merely a small spot.
"If those Higher Beings realize there is a child here who can play with fiber like that ... "
Lyra trailed off, a shiver running through her.
Arin's face also become serious. "They won't just ignore us. They'll come to claim our little mage."
"We have to keep him hidden," Lyra whispered, kissing Kaelen's forehead.
"We let him be a child for as long as the time allows."
In his sleep, Kaelen wasn't dreaming of monsters or wars.
He was looking at a vast, shimmering Cartesian plane that encompassed the stars.
His past life obsession of connecting nature and numbers appearing again but this time this knowledge can be applied immediately and can be used to protect his family.