1 year later
Over the last year, John continued to lay low while trying to collect information regarding his whereabouts and background. However, except for the sounds of maids discussing taking care of him, the only thing he heard was the occasional sound of strong winds.
During the course of the year, after realizing quickly that gathering information would be futile, John's burning thirst for knowledge was quelled by him by investigating how aether affects his body.
After just a few months, John had discovered several dozen veins, 8 being main ones, with the rest being minor veins. By integrating them all, his aether absorption rate by his body had increased by tenfold.
John also continued refining and shaping his core but after an incident when he was 6 months old he quickly changed the direction of shaping his core from increasing its size to making it denser and smaller.
6 months Ago
John rested as he focused on absorbing more aether into his core and growing it larger. Bang, a loud song echoed through the room as the door flew open and a solemn looking middle aged man stepped in.
"Sir Court mage, please the Young Lord is resting." John heard voices from behind the man before seeing several maids rush in. John felt aether begin to gather around the maids, and began frantically observing trying to pry into the secrets of spellcasting.
"Enough," said the man before waving his hand dispersing all the aether. "The King has ordered me to have a thorough examination of the Young Lord in order to ensure his health."
With quick steps the man walked over to John and put his hand on him. John felt a sliver of aether quickly slip into his core.
Alarmed by a sudden feeling of killing intent John opened his eyes and looked at the man. "Shoot, is he thinking about killing me.What should I do?" thought John frantically before the man whispered, "Hmmmmm, barely small enough." John then felt as the killing intent lifted.
"Barely small enough," thought John as he began to fake cry, "What could that possibly mean? Also the killing intent before when he was examining my core."John contemplated regarding the incident as he observed the man be escorted out of the room by the angry looking maids.
After that day, John realized that there was some sort of prohibition on excessive size for a developing core of a baby, possibly some sort of talent suppression used by the Crown, given that the man was called the Court Mage. Judging from the killing intent, if any baby showed signs of it they would most likely be killed off.
Present
Following the incident, the Court Mage visited John 2 more times, but after focusing on density and suppressing the growth of the core, John observed that the killing intent had faded from the Court Mage and he seemed much more relaxed.
Contemplating on how the new aether veins he found were suspiciously similar to known biological circulatory and nervous pathways, John was surprised as he saw an unfamiliar face step into the room along with the maids. It was another frail old man. "Goodness, first that House Mage and now this guy, what's this, a buy one frail old man, get one frail old man for free special sale?" thought John observing the old man step towards his crib.
"Hello, little Young Lord, from today on I'll be your teacher," said the old man, "My name is Wayne and I'll be teaching you basic words as well as sing you some nursery rhymes. Ha who am I kidding you can't even understand me. Alright, today I'll be teaching you the word…"
For the next year, John had to sit through the torture of learning words he already knew while showing the appropriate levels of knowledge. Something disappointing for him was that, unlike in the novels the nursery rhymes sung did not contain anything of particular interest.
The Court Mage still continued to check on him every few months, with his schedule erratic sometimes only taking a month in between checks. However John over the 2 years he had transmigrated into the new world, had successfully condensed his core fully and increased its density by quite a bit.
Observing the changes of his body from long periods of aether channeling by him, John had made several discoveries over the year. Firstly, the durability and strength of his skin and muscles were greatly increased, rivaling that of a 10 year old child. Secondly, he realized that circulating aether through his blood stream also had nourishing effects on his growing organs. Finally, John realized that aether veins mirrored some of the blood veins he had as well as the nervous system.
These discoveries were groundbreaking, as it meant that he could now circulate aether much more effectively through his blood, greatly increasing the efficiency of tempering his organs. He could also nourish his nervous system, increasing his reaction speed and reflexes. These discoveries would greatly benefit his future self and greatly increase his chances of survival in case of conflict.
Hungry, for even more discoveries regarding aether, John continued his experiments with his aether around his body. However, John refrained from attempting to channel aether outside of his body as it would most likely draw attention to his anomaly, and even attract the attention of the Court Mage, which would be extremely dangerous for him as he didn't know how to effectively pretend to be a baby, and who knows what kind of methods his family and the court wielded.
As John slowly inched towards his second birthday, John slowly but surely was making new discoveries regarding the usage of aether. Aether veins, the increasing durability and strength qualities it had, as well as the connection between the veins all were slowly connecting together to form the strongest physical foundation in the entire new world. However little did John know, soon after his second birthday a whole new world of knowledge would open its doors to him.