Groaning, John quickly opened his eyes again, surprised. He was 99% sure that the gunshot wound had taken him out. Quickly putting his hands on his forehead John realized two anomalies. First, there was no wound there. Second, his hands were much smaller than usual.
"... There's no way that could've happened" thought John as he looked at his now small and youthful hands. "C'mon, transmigration is just a plot device used to start the protagonist off in a new world while still allowing for readers to immerse themselves in the character."
While an avid fan of exploring knowledge, John never limited his knowledge to just subjects deemed educational, such as math. In his spare time, not going into the depths of advanced theoretical science, John enjoyed a web novel here and there. In his mind, there was no good or bad knowledge, just interesting and more interesting. As a reader of webnovels, the idea of transmigration was of course not foreign to him.
After taking some time to contemplate his situation, John quickly shifted his attention to his surroundings. Upon examining, John found the room he was in to be one of a medieval style, except very fancy and extravagant for the medieval times.
"Hmmm, I appear to be in a well off family in medieval times," mused John as he felt his brand new body. "I better stay low for a period of time," thought John," In medieval times anything that seems strange would probably be mistaken for the devil or witchcraft and burned on the stake."
Thinking for a while John felt a wave of fatigue wash over him, "Ah, I forgot babies naturally need long hours of sleep." Closing his eyes, John sank into slumber with an excited heart, and anticipation for the new knowledge he will learn. Even in medieval times, John believed he could learn new knowledge, or even find it on his own. After all, anything is better than being dead for exploring knowledge.
As John slept, he felt something weird, deep within his consciousness, he felt a burning sensation. It was as if he was feeling his own heart with clarity. Trying to locate this new sensation, John suddenly felt lucid regaining consciousness.
"Huh, where am I," thought John as he observed the endless darkness that surrounded his consciousness. Suddenly something caught his eye, a crystalline gem glowing and pulsing like a heart was in the distance. Looking at the gem, John felt as if he was staring at one of his own limbs.
Just as he was thinking about the gem his consciousness suddenly zoomed toward the crystalline gem. At a closer range, John's feeling of control over the gem intensified. "First transmigration, and possibly magic? This is getting interesting," thought John as he tried to control the crystalline gem.
Suddenly as John attempted to make the crystalline gem pulse, he saw a flow of glowing light suddenly merge into the crystal. Observing the strange phenomena John's thirst for knowledge suddenly emerged. Like a curious child playing with his toy, John tried a multitude of things with the crystal, such as expelling and inhaling the light.
After some time of experimentation John felt something change in his consciousness before realizing that he could now feel and see everything in the crystalline gem. Observing it with his mind's eye, John saw glowing streams of light be absorbed into the gem and settle themselves into tiny little cracks and crevices in the crystalline gem.
Observing some more, John believed that the bright streaming light was most likely magical energy and that the gem was some type of core in his soul that may have merged with him when he occupied the baby's body. Hungry, for more knowledge regarding this new discovery, John observed some small flaws in the crystal.
"Hmmm, it resembles a sphere but has many faces unlike a sphere, in which magical energy runs, pretty inefficient," thought John observing the crystal," There's also many microscopic gaps and cracks where energy flows out, terribly inefficient."
While critiquing this new core he had come to possess John suddenly felt a tug and before he knew it, he was back in his crib. "Well looks like I'm awake again," thought John, as he looked around.
After the new discovery during his sleep, John realized that he could also feel and see the core while awake. "Great, this means that I wasn't just hallucinating," mused John. With confirmation that the core that he felt was real, John tried to feel for the bright streams of light that were converging into his core.
Focusing John felt a presence around him. It was like warmth except different. While he couldn't see it he felt lots of it converging on him entering his body. Feeling the space around him, John realized that his room was almost filled to the brim with the presence all converging on him.
"Hmmm, perhaps due to my noble background, my family is using some sort of method in order to get me to absorb more energy?" thought John. "This explains why I haven't felt hungry or felt the need to get rid of bodily waste."
"Alright, next order of business, let's test what effect my core has on this energy." Controlling John began a series of experiments. He attempted to speed up the absorption of energy and felt the course of the presence speed up before feeling a sharp pain and stopped accelerating it. "Appears there's a limit to the amount of energy the core can handle. Next up wielding this energy." Controlling his core once more John attempted to channel some of the presence outward to no avail. He could feel the presence moving and he even felt a slight breeze but there was no visual indication.
However, while the presence didn't seem to affect the physical world by directly expelling it, John was able to discover that it had nourishing and enhancing qualities to the body. By forcibly drawing energy to converge on his limbs and body he observed a slow down in development but an increase in durability and health. With large amounts of energy forced to converge upon his body John felt better than ever.
Over the next few weeks, John continued his exploration of the core, trying new ways to wield the energy while enhancing his body with some examples being forcing lots of energy into a concentrated mass to see whether it would manifest something in his vision. However little did he know soon the advancement ritual used on him would end and he would discover a whole new world of knowledge.