So, where was I again? Oh right, my brother decided to blow up the house like I did to Mt. Saint Helens. Of course, my explosion was far bigger and shocking, but nows not the time to be measuring explosions.

Now while I'm not exactly sure how it happened, I'll try to describe how I remember it. Basically, there was a really bright flash of light, and then I got swept up off my feet and thrown like a football into a brick wall.

Now there's good news and bad news. Good news is that I apparently did have a demigod body, so I didn't get turned into a pile of mush upon impact. Bad news is that it still hurts like Hades and I'm pretty sure I broke a couple of my bones.

"Godsdamnit, Arthur. I swear upon the Styx I'll pay you back for that."

Now, I'm sure you guys have a lot of questions, and I'll get to those.

First of all, yes, I can talk now. Although its hard for me to pronounce words with more than 3 syllables for some reason. Science I guess. And while I'm absolutely joyous that I can speak now, Arthur can too.

His first words to me on the day that we finally managed to speak was:

"You drool in your sleep."

And of course, since he didn't have any immediate flaws I could point out, I just cursed him in ancient Greek.

Secondly, I was able to confirm that the gods were definitely not present in this world. I tried making some stupid promises on the Styx to see if lightning and thunder would boom across the sky once I did. Alas, no such thing happened, and I wasn't struck by lightning and burned to a crisp upon breaking my promise to not wet the bed.

Thirdly, what exactly was Arthur doing that caused the house to blow up? Well, for that, we'll have to do a bit of a flashback...

I growled in annoyance as I followed Arthur to the study. Despite how irritating my little brother was, I couldn't read any of the books in the study to save my life, and he decided to help me out.

I then learned that Arthur had been using these past 2 years to form a mana core. His meditation pose was actually a way for him to concentrate as he gathered mana spread out within his body, to try and form a core from it.

Think of it like having to pick up scoops of snow until you have enough to create a nice giant snowball, perfect for pelting my brother in the back of the head with. Ahem, I'm getting off track.

"Hey, Perce. Let me ask you something. Do you know King Grey?

Arthur gazed at me with his piercing azure eyes, waiting for my answer to his obviously loaded question. Now, contrary to popular opinion, I'm not dumb. I act dumb sure, and I'm usually clumsy or forgetful, but I'm not stupid. Especially in critical situations. I have also all but erased the memories of the time I raised the Earth Mother from her slumber because I forgot to clog my nose bleed.

Deciding to act dumb, I answered "King Grey? Is that someone you read about in your books?"

I glanced at Arthur from the corner of my sight, and noticed him staring at me intently, before sighing in what seemed to be relief and replying.

"Yeah, I read about him in one of these books."

And while I couldn't read any of these books, I was willing to bet 10 years worth of happy meals that was a straight up lie.

"Come on then, let's keep trying to form a mana core." Arthur said as he got back into a Buddha position.

"Easier said than done." I snorted as I followed suit.

While Art seemed to be progressing quite well with forming a core, I had absolutely zero idea what I was doing. According to him I just had to imagine seeing the points of light and bring them to my chest to form a ball, but no matter how hard I tried all I could see was a vast emptiness.

This brought me to another theory. I didn't have any mana particles, and therefore couldn't form a mana core. Either that or I was just doing everything wrong. Knowing my luck, either option was equally possible.

So I just decided to act like I was meditating and forming a mana core, but actually practicing my demigod powers. Seeing as how Arthur was going out of his way to try and help me form a mana core, I realized he wasn't as bad as I originally thought of him as. Although he was still annoying, but more in a sibling way.

Thanks to that, I didn't make him fall and trip by shaking the ground wherever he walked anymore. Or douse him in water whenever he wasn't looking. At least not as much as before at least.

I sighed, deep in concentration, as I willed myself to feel the water around us. While I couldn't sense water mixed in with other chemicals yet, like blood for example, my powers were still growing at a rapid rate.

One of the things I badly wanted to do though, was have a horse to converse with. If I got into deep conversations with my parents, they'd get suspicious of me and think I was the impo- I mean, had me sent to a research facility or something. If those even existed in this world.

And if you've ever had a sibling, you know that they're not exactly the best people to hold conversations with, no matter how much you love-hate them.

Sadly, as much as I scoured the book Arthur was reading about mana beasts, I couldn't find anything horse-like.

Speaking of mana beasts, they're kind of like animals scattered all across Dicathen. Dicathen being the name of the continent I live on right now. They come in various forms and species, ranked in classes based on how powerful they are. Once killed, they drop mana cores that people or other mana beasts can consume. Some mana beasts can even become companions comparable to a dog or cat.

So, just think bigger pokemon and you've basically got the gist of it.

Now why exactly did Arthur explode? Something that both of us apparently missed, was the vital information that you become a human bomb when you form your mana core. On another note, my brother had formed his mana core years before other people usually did. So much for my plan to lie low...

I groaned in pain as my body ached in ways it hadn't since the last time I had gotten beaten up and bruised after a quest.

Trying to ignore the throbbing pain, I reached out for the nearest source of water I could find and enveloped my body in it like a nice warm futon.

"Ahhh... much better." I said in satisfaction as my bones mended and my bruises disappeared like they were never there.

I looked around at the house, or at least what was left of it. Only 1/4th of the house was still standing, Arthur floating in the center of a crater that was the result of his explosion.

"ART! PERCY! Are you guys okay?"

Upon hearing my worried mother's voice, I let the water disperse, sighing in displeasure as the soothing feeling vanished like a snowflake in July. The last thing I needed was for my parents to learn about my powers.

"Over here..." I coughed out weakly, acting like I had gotten shaken up by the whole event.

My mother rushed towards me while my father checked up on Art, the both of them obviously surprised that he had formed his mana core at such a young age.

"Oh, Percy. Are you hurt anywhere? Did you hit your head?

She lifted me up and squeezed me tightly, and I could feel the pressure on my just recently broken ribs. After trying to heal me, to no avail as I wasn't injured anywhere, for 10 whole minutes, she finally hugged me again, thanking the heavens I was alright.

After the excitement had worn off, we all gathered for a sort of family talk, where I elbowed my baby brother and whispered in his ear "A little warning next time maybe? Being hurled at a pile of bricks isn't enjoyable you know."

Surprisingly, Arthur actually looked embarassed at the situation, and mumbled a barely comprehensible "Sorry."

I was just about to tease him more when our idiot father cut in, way more excited than the other 3 members of our family combined.

"My boy is a genius! Awakened before he even reached the age of three! I knew I was an early bloomer, but this was unprecedented!"

Thankfully, his excitement was cut short when a neighbor seemed to notice that our house was no longer there and screamed "What in the world?!"

"I guess we better clean this mess up" my father said as he chuckled whilst rubbing his head.

A couple of weeks have passed since then, and things started to get much more lively than before. This also meant that it had become much harder for me to train my powers in secret. On the bright side, I was able to train in another aspect that I was eager to work on. Preparing my body physically. We'll get to that in a bit though.

While our house was in shambles, father contacted some of his old party members and asked them for help rebuilding the house. Surprisingly, they were done in almost no time, what with conjurers using their magic to lay foundations, and augmenters doing all the heavy lifting.

Ah, right. Conjurers are mages that are able to perform spells outside their bodies like fireballs or lightning strikes. Compared to augmenters that cast magic on themselves or their weapons.

While the house was being built, my birthday came around. Me and Art were both woken up that day with a present and a black tire that was supposed to be a cake.

Now, as any rational old man stuck in a toddler's body would do, I threw a tantrum demanding blue cake on my next birthday celebration. To which my parents were just flabbergasted and Arthur raised his eyebrows at my antics. That aside, their presents were very nice.

They had gotten both me and Arthur matching wooden swords. And while it definitely felt off and unbalanced in my grip, it would definitely do for now.

'Man, I really miss riptide...'

Another thing I learned, and that definitely made me praise the gods of this world, if any, was that there was no mandatory form of education. This meant that I wouldn't get kicked out of any schools!

Instead, education was provided by the family, and so our mother started giving me and Arthur lessons for a set time, teaching us how to read and write. Not that either of us really needed it anyways.

Playing along with my little brother's plan, we both acted like genius fast learners and pretended to learn everything we were taught quickly. That way our mother was happy, Arthur could read harder books in the study without suspicion, and I could sneak off to practice my powers. It was a win-win-win!

Now, about what I said earlier, our father had started training me and Arthur in terms of mana manipulation and physical training. Although I didn't have a mana core so I wasn't really part of the mana manipulation training.

I still tried my best to listen along though, or at least as much as I could despite my ADHD infested brain wandering off everytime I was starting to understand something.

As far as I can tell, strength is measured by the color of your mana core. The mana core would start off black, due to blood and other impurities within your body mixing with the mana particles when you first form your core. As the mana core becomes purer over time, the impurities get filtered out and the color becomes lighter.

The order goes as follows: black, red, orange, yellow, silver, then white.

From the red core until the yellow mana core, colors are split into three shades; dark, solid, and light. Rule of thumb being the lighter it is the more purer it is, and therefore the more powerful it is.

I'll probably forget everything except for the last bit by the end of the day.

It was at this point in time that my previous guess became truth. Arthur started to explore magic more, and buried himself in books. While I on the other hand, spent more time training with my father.

My body was still too small for sparring, so we usually just ran some laps and did body workouts. Thanks to my enhanced physical capabilities, I was able to ace these no problem. And at the end of the day, it was definitely worth it seeing my "genius" brother struggle to perform a pushup while me and my father held back fits of laughter.

A year passed by like this, taking lessons from our parents and steadily growing stronger. I was also pretty sure I was starting to grow muscles.

'Can a toddler even have abs?'

I shuddered at the thought.

Nothing out of the ordinary happened until one night, where our father spoke up during dinner.

"Honey, I think it's time we get Art and Percy a proper mentor."

A/N: Wooh! Long chapter for you guys today. I'll be trying to make chapters this long from now on. Thank you all for your support, and feel free to ask some questions because I'll be doing a bit of QnA on the next chapter. Do you guys think Percy should eventually form a mana core, or would that make him way too OP? Feel free to voice your thoughts in comments and leave some kudos. See you guys next chapter!