Vol. 1 - Ch. 2 - Abilities Confirmation

One month— the time It took me to confirm my abilities. With this, I had 2 months before the entrance exam, and considering the time it would take to travel to the royal capital, I effectively had around one month left.

In this one month, I had more or less gained an understanding of my abilities that were affected by my awakening.

To summarise all the verification I went through, there weren't any obvious changes anywhere except in my intellect and character.

I mean, yeah, I had more or less intuitively understood that my only cheat was my reincarnation. I didn't receive any deus ex machina-like power.

Depressed? Very. I didn't think this even needed to be asked.

Though unexpectedly, my brain had been strengthened to quite a degree. The sole merit of awakening. Like, it didn't simply enhance my intellect, it essentially made it easier for me to exhibit the best of my brain capability in the field of my interest.

Also, there was the fact that I reincarnated into the fantasy world of sword and magic which I had always yearned for. For 'Allen', it was the normal world that he perceived as 'well, this is what it is' in a corner of his mind. However, the 'awakened me' was different as I was now deeply intrigued by my current world.

I also wanted to try late-night magic practice— one of the standard templates at the beginning of reincarnation stories, though with no knowledge I didn't know where to start.

So I started learning, craving for knowledge about magic theory, information about monsters, and the geography of the kingdom.

There was one more aspect that I found changes in. It was just my hunch, but I think the superimposition of memories had physically enhanced my brain capabilities. 'Allen' originally had a much sharper mind than the 'previous me'.

'Allen' was just lacking when it came to memorization ability, otherwise, the speed and depth of thought were on a different level. Now, after awakening, the same abilities had gone up by one or two notches. Even in my previous life, I knew that the human brain could be trained and improved the more it was used.

For instance, reading a lot directly impacted language skills, logical reasoning, and vocabulary. One could easily filter out the idiots who didn't read books. Another example would be children who had been learning mental maths from a young age could become unbelievably fast in mental calculation.

These cognitive abilities were at their most flexible and developed rapidly during childhood.

In my case, the experience of 36 years from my previous life plus the 12 years in this world was loaded in the young brain of a 12-year-old. It was pretty much like cramming the time forcefully.

Normally, no matter how efficiently you crammed in knowledge, it was impossible. After all, time was impartial.

I was sure my brain right now must be full of creases after undergoing about four times the load at the age of 12. It was still a conjecture at best, and there was no definitive conclusion so I decided to accept it as it was.

Moving on to the athletic abilities, unfortunately, I didn't see any visible changes. In fact, I was slightly worried that my already bad reflexes would be further impaired in the act of averaging them out as well. Honestly, I was glad that it didn't come true.

Apparently, he wasn't fond of studying so he failed to reach the cutoff threshold for theoretical knowledge.

The god of exams has no chill no matter the world, huh?

This incident became the anecdote that symbolized the unwavering stance of the Royal Academy for theoretical knowledge. No matter how much one excelled in the practical exams, they would never compromise on the other aspects.

It was also shaped into a moral tale told to children who made light of theoretical knowledge, and naturally, there wasn't a time when the study-hating 'Allen' before the awakening hadn't been preached about that story.

On the flip side, it was hard to quantify one's ability to manipulate mana. Simple exercises that were easily quantifiable, like the physical fitness tests from my previous life, were heavily influenced by natural body coordination and there were many cases where mana capacity played a vital role here.

However, a trained eye could easily tell the difference between the mana manipulation aptitude of different people. They looked at aspects that were difficult to put into words or numbers such as instantaneous power when utilizing magic, integration of body movement, or chanting.

Of course, if there were significant changes in my magical manipulation ability, I would be able to sense it intuitively.

In conclusion, there were no changes in my existing abilities except for the brain department.

Well, it wasn't like there was really nothing apart from that. I did sense one huge change in me this month. Mainly in my vitality.

It's hard to describe in words, but vitality was like a life force or the driving energy that helped overcome difficulties. It was abundantly present within me, and it was something I never felt in my previous life or even as 'Allen'.

It was just my intuitive feeling, but perhaps it was because my soul was twice as big compared to others.

So this past month, I was verifying something to see if I could make full use of my exceptional vitality. What was it, you ask? It was, of course,

"Go~ Fireball!!!"

Whump!!

......I tried testing if maybe I could do it now.

I mean, I reincarnated into a world with magic. Who wouldn't want to do that? Wasn't that the romance of every man? I was undoubtedly from the sage clique.

......But this test only served to further reinforce the fact that I absolutely sucked at emission magic.