Chapter 4: Who Said Babies Can’t Cultivate?

In the thick darkness of the sprawling bedroom, a single beam of light spilled through the window. The silver moonlight fell into the room, specifically washing over a tiny face resting inside a grand wooden cradle.

Neo’s eyes snapped open.

His eyes were a striking deep blue, catching the moonlight and practically glowing in the dim space. For a long moment, he just stared up at the ceiling.

He knew one thing for certain: just lying around on this soft mattress, chugging milk, and thinking big thoughts was not going to save his neck. If he wanted to protect this fragile peacefulness, and if he wanted to dodge the massive death flags hanging over his head from the Shattered Crown storyline, he had to start grinding right now. From Day one. Well, technically day two, but who was counting?

His mind naturally drifted toward the one thing that made this world a true fantasy.

Mana.

The life force of the universe itself. It was the primary source of energy that flowed through the earth, the sky, and every single living creature. In the lore of the anime, every person contained at least a little bit of mana. Even the everyday peasants who were incapable of casting a simple spark spell had a baseline trace of it running through their veins.

Just thinking about it made Neo’s heart hammer wildly against his ribs.

’Magic... Real, world-bending magic.’

He wasn’t ashamed to admit that a massive wave of excitement was bubbling in his chest. Back on Earth, this was nothing more than a fantasy dream. He had spent countless hours glued to his screen, watching protagonists casually shatter mountains with a single flick of their fingers. Now, he was sitting right in the middle of a world where that kind of crazy power was actually possible.

’Alright,’ Neo thought, a goofy, toothless grin spreading across his face. ’Let’s see what this brand-new body can do. I’m the son of one of the strongest Duke in the empire. I should be bursting with magical power.’

He squeezed his eyes shut and focused every ounce of his willpower. He tried to visualize a surging current of energy rushing through his veins and pooling right into the palm of his right hand. He imagined a blazing fireball. No, wait, a sphere of crackling blue lightning! He pushed with all the mental might his brain could sustain.

He threw his little chubby hand up toward the ceiling.

*Rustle~*

A soft night breeze from the open window brushed over his skin.

Nothing happened. Not a single spark. Not a glowing aura. Not even a weird spark of mana in the air.

Neo blinked. He slowly lowered his arm, his little fingers awkwardly uncurling. The silence in the room suddenly felt very loud, as if the universe was actively mocking him.

’Right,’ Neo sighed internally, a wave of embarrassment washing over him. ’I’m an idiot.’

The wild exhilaration vanished in an instant. He realized how silly he was being, thinking he could just use magic out of his hands a day after being born. He had binged the anime, hadn’t he? He knew the lore of this world.

Here, having mana in the body was totally useless on its own. To actually draw spells and manipulate the natural elements, a person needed a mana engine. A Mana Core.

Without a Mana Core, you were essentially a sports car with a full tank of gas but no spark plugs. You were just a Non-Awakener. Sure, there were ancient myths of legendary figures who could borrow nature’s mana without a core due to some freak physical constitution, but even those anomalies eventually formed a core just to store that energy for emergencies. Fundamentally, without that crystallized center of power, using magic was strictly off-limits.

And even if you had a mana core, in order to cast a spell and use magic, you had to form a circle around it. It was a ring-like structure surrounding the core, which drove and supplied energy out of your body in a synchronized, controlled form.

But here was the real kicker, the annoying thought that made Neo want to groan in loud frustration: Mana Cores didn’t just exist at birth. They had to form. They condensed naturally over time as a child grew and their young body acclimated to the world’s ambient energy. For almost everyone in the Velkrath Empire, the awakening period happened at an average age of eight years old. Sure, some rare prodigies awakened early, and some late bloomers a year or two after, but eight was the accepted universal standard.

’Eight years,’ Neo thought, a bitter disappointment settling right in his gut. ’I have to wait eight whole years just to awaken my core?!’

Impatience surged inside him like a wild tide. Eight years of sitting around, helpless, just waiting for the original plot to creep closer. He hated the idea. He needed power. He needed a golden finger to achieve greatness, just like the protagonist got. Not the exact same cheating system, of course, but something different and uniquely his own.

Suddenly, he remembered how the protagonists of so many anime shows received a special system right after reincarnating. He loved that trope, and he had always wanted to try it for himself. Now that the golden opportunity had finally arrived, he was definitely going to give it a shot.

’Okay, System interface, open!’

*Rustle~*

The cool breeze of the night air slid in from the open window once again. But no grand voice called out to him. No system window appeared in his vision. No satisfying sound of a ’Ding!’ echoed in his head. Absolutely nothing happened.

’What the heck?! Did I really come here empty-handed?! What is wrong with this world?! I should be the one who deserves the System, way more than the protagonist himself, since I am the actual reincarnated one here. Damn this world, I will destroy it!’

He let out a frustrated snort, which unfortunately only came out sounding like an incredibly adorable baby noise.

Then, a random fragment of memory flashed in his mind. It wasn’t from Shattered Crown. It was from a totally different martial arts anime he had watched years ago. That show featured a very specific breathing technique designed to draw mana directly into the body and forcefully condense a core. It was a plot device in that anime, explicitly explained in great detail just to show off the protagonist’s insane intellect.

’Would something like that even work here?’ Neo wondered. The rules of different fictional universes rarely overlapped with one another. But... mana was mana, right? Energy was energy. He had to at least try it. Failing miserably was still way better than lying here doing nothing.

Neo closed his eyes once again, but this time, he didn’t try to force a fireball. He relaxed his limbs. He let the soft mattress fully support his weight. He focused solely on the steady rhythm of his breathing.

Inhale... Exhale...

He sought to enter his Inner Sanctum.

The ’Inner Sanctum’ wasn’t a physical place you could visit. It was a state of pure mindfulness, a quiet mental void where a person’s consciousness and physical senses severed, allowing them to look purely inward. If this were his Old World, achieving this for most adults would take several grueling hours of guided meditation. Some people could never even do it at all.

If Neo had tried this in his past life, he would have easily quit after thirty seconds. Back then, his mind was a chaotic, tangled mess of work stress, unpaid bills, and annoying thoughts about whether he had remembered to lock the front door.

But right now? It was almost frighteningly easy.

Because of his newborn state, his brain hadn’t accumulated any of that heavy worldly stress. His neural pathways were new and clean. If he really wanted to, he could literally fall asleep in sixty seconds flat. That was the ultimate superpower of a baby.

Within three minutes of rhythmic breathing, the sounds of the wind and the chirping crickets faded away entirely. The physical sensation of the warm blanket vanished from his awareness.

He was there.

He found himself floating in an endless, pitch-black void. It was so quiet and peaceful. This was his Inner Sanctum.

’Okay, Step one is complete. Now, I just need to focus on the Dantian.’

He directed his awareness downward, toward the very center of his spiritual body. He focused all his attention there, holding his breath, and waited patiently.

One minute passed. Then two.

Just when he thought it was a total bust, he felt it.

It was the faintest sensation imaginable, like the gentle brushing of a single strand of silk against bare skin. Suddenly, in the vast, empty darkness of his mindscape, a minuscule speck of pure white light flickered into existence. It hovered a short distance away from his Dantian, glowing with a soft, ethereal hum.

Neo’s jaw dropped in awe. ’It... it actually exists. Mana.’

As he watched, another brilliant speck popped into the darkness. Then another. Like tiny glowing fireflies waking up in the dead of night, a dozen microscopic specks of white light revealed themselves, floating lazily around him in the void.

The excitement returned, burning ten times stronger than before.

’Come here,’ Neo commanded internally.

He stretched his invisible consciousness outward, wrapping it tightly around the nearest speck of light, and pulled. He willed it to dive straight into his Dantian with all the mental strength he had.

The speck didn’t budge an inch. It just sat there, humming happily, ignoring him as if he didn’t even exist.

’Oh, come on,’ Neo grumbled.

He tried again. He visualized giant hands grabbing the light, heavy chains wrapping around it, dragging it towards him by force. He pulled and pulled with every ounce of mental strength he could muster, until a sharp, throbbing ache began to pulse in his mind.

Nothing. The mana was entirely indifferent to his forceful demands.

He tried targeting a different speck. Failed. He tried aggressively grabbing three at once. Failed!

After what felt like twenty exhausting minutes of a grueling mental tug-of-war, Neo hit his absolute limit. His fragile mental energy was shot. He felt spiritually winded, exhausted down to his very roots.

Frustration boiled over. He was right there. The mana was floating mere inches away from his center. It was like staring at a glass of water while dying of thirst, but having his hands securely tied behind his back. The mana refused to come to him, acting as stubborn as a petulant child.

’Calm down,’ Neo told himself, forcing his chaotic emotions to settle. Getting angry wouldn’t solve a single thing. ’Think. Why isn’t it working? The breathing technique worked perfectly to see them. Why can’t I pull them in?’

He hovered quietly in the dark void, watching the little fireflies of mana drift aimlessly.

And then, a bizarre but brilliant thought struck him. It was a distant memory from an old high school physics class. Fluid dynamics. Pressure differentials. The Equilibrium State.

He was treating the mana like a solid object. He was trying to grab it and drag it by force. But mana was a fluid energy of nature. What happens when you try to grab water with a tightly clenched fist? It just slips right through your fingers.

’Nature abhors a vacuum,’ Neo happily recalled.

When there is a zone of high pressure and a zone of low pressure, a fluid doesn’t need to be pulled at all. It naturally, inevitably rushes in to fill the empty space to achieve perfect equilibrium.

He had been condensing his consciousness, making his presence dense and aggressive to pull the specks. He was basically creating a high-pressure zone, which was actively pushing the mana away.

’Let’s try the exact opposite,’ Neo decided, a thrilling wave of anticipation shivering through him.

He closed his eyes within his Inner Sanctum. He stopped reaching. He stopped pulling. He let go of all his desire, all his force, and all his aggression.

Instead of condensing his mind, he let it fully relax. He allowed his consciousness to stretch out, thinning it, expanding it wider and wider, gently encompassing the space where the specks of light peacefully floated. He made his inner self feel hollow. He created a mental void—a perfect vacuum of low pressure.

For a second, the dark void was dead still.

And then... the specks of light stirred.

The glowing specks of light fluttered violently. Suddenly, without meeting any resistance, they shot forward. They didn’t just drift this time; they were enthusiastically sucked toward his center, rushing in to fill the empty void he had created. They flocked to his Dantian like lost children finally spotting their mother in a crowded room.

One by one, the tiny white lights eagerly sank into the center of his being.

The moment the very first speck absorbed into him, a rush of pure warmth exploded in his chest. It wasn’t uncomfortably hot; rather, it was the most comforting, radiant heat he had ever experienced in his life, spreading directly into his veins.

As more specks rushed in, the warmth compounded. His body hummed with a foreign, incredible vitality.

It worked. He had actually just absorbed ambient mana. He had taken his very first successful step toward completely bypassing the eight-year rule.

But his victory was short-lived.

The sheer toll of the mental exertion, combined with the sudden influx of raw, foreign energy entering his newborn’s fragile body, acted like a giant sledgehammer to his brain.

His consciousness instantly began to blur. The dark void of his Inner Sanctum quickly dissolved into a hazy, spinning gray mist.

’Ah... maybe... this was a bit too much for day one...’ Neo thought sluggishly.

The warm sensation in his Dantian spread up to his chest, wrapping around his sleepy mind like a soft blanket. He couldn’t fight it even if he tried. The last thing he felt was a profound sense of achievement before a deep, dreamless sleep happily took him away.