["Well Root & Bone is a stage of advancement in this world. Its the very first step on the road to personal power. As far as it being important? Well..... it is and it isn''t. We HAD to start the advancement process earlier than most would deem possible or safe and it will probobly cause us a few problems in the near future but nothing we can''t handle in the long term. Your brain couldn''t handle the stress that your mind was placing onto it. When you advanced I was able to use a tiny portion of your mind in order to perform a perpetual healing spell using a good amount of your natural mana regen in order to maintain it."]


    A few things from Aether''s explanation stood out to me. The first being that what we did wasn''t safe and shouldn''t have been possible. the next is that there are going to be problems that stem from this and that most of my regen is currently tied up keeping me alive." Well lets talk about the biggest problem I can think of first, was my advancement noticed? If it wasn''t safe or possible and I still did it as a fresh newborn I''m sure thats going to set off all sorts of alarm bells all over the place!" After a few moments of not hearing a response from Aether I mentally proded him."AETHER!!"


    ["Uhh..... Well you see heres the thing, when you advance, wait, do you remember those cultivation light novels you used to read?"]


    "Ugh" I can see where he''s going with that in those books upon their first steps into cultivation they always expelled all of their impurities. "Wait I''m a fresh faced bareley a few hour old baby! There shouldn''t have been any impurities!"


    ["Hehe..... well.. you answered the age old question of, ''Does what the mother consumes during pregnancy impacts the babies level of impurities?'', if it makes you feel any better."]


    I can feel my whole body begin to break out in a cold sweat as I start to panic about who all knows my secret that I have Aether and that I''m a reincarnator.


    ["Hey! Hey! It''s not that bad! It could have been way worse, you only had a slight layer of filth and it was after Gwen laid you back down. Luckily your diaper cloth came off and you rolled over in it and get baby poo all over yourself. I''m pretty sure Gwen thought thats what it was. If she didn''t I have no indication of that"]


    Holy shit I really wish he wouldn''t scare me like that and come out and say that right away. I can deal with that I think. One step at a time right? Right?!? Okay man get ahold of yourself. "Alright so on crisis averted lets move on to the next potential disaster. How bad is the impact of tying up almost all of my mana regen and advancing from what I gather from you was way way to early?" Aether seemed to jump at the chance to change the subject away from what Gwen may or may not know.


    Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    ["Well not nearly as bad as it could have been. You see when you advanced and gained your mana affinity you boosted your natural mana regen by a goodly amount. What I was origanally planning on having you do was nowhere even close to as good long term as what we were able to do. As far as how that will impact us going forward? I don''t think it will be to bad. Your regen is basicly non existant. But for right now thats not to big of a deal with Gwen breastfeeding you every few hours you will get a nice influx of mana. "]


    I paused in thought still staring up at the blurry murral. I really think thats like a cloud scape up there. Eh whatever hopefully I can fix my eyes soon."Oh, speaking of Gwen, when we used {Analyze} on her I thought that her advancement said not applicable. How am I getting so much mana from her during feeding time?" I could practically feel the unease coming from Aether.


    ["Well you see there are a few reasons. The first and simplest is that every single thing in this world has some mana. On top of that she is in charge of feeding a prince of Eldoria. So they are feeding her food high in mana so that mana will naturally infuse your core. One of the perks of being a noble."]


    I could feel that this wasn''t everything there was more to it then that and he was struggling to get it out. I think I was getting the sense of him? It? from the soul bond. He yeah its a he not an it he said he''s sapient so not a thing but a person. He continued


    ["Here''s the thing, you have a life affinity, remember?"]


    A sense of revulsion washed through me as I sensed where he was going with this.


    ["With an {Affinity} for {Life}, When your body is in need of energy you innately latch onto life energy nearby. Life energy is extremly potent no matter what form its in so its not like you''re taking a lot from her but you did take maybe a few months of her life from her."]


    Shock......... disgust........... , and sadness all vied for the number one emotion I was feeling. Before I could get up the nerve to ask any follow up questions about this Aether continued.


    ["Look I knew how you''d feel about this so I didn''t want to say anything yet until we could do something to fix the damage we did."]


    What? What did he mean fix the damage we did? We stole months off her life and would probobly do so again and again as we were fed over the next few months, or however long babies needed to drink milk over solid food.


    ["Michael! Michael! Hey stop spiralling and listen. We can give her those months back. Its just going to take a bit of time and a tiny bit of effort. You can do that right?"]


    My mind stopped. "Wait what did you say?" as my brain caught up with what Aether just said I mentally screamed "OF COURSE I CAN DO THAT!!! JUST TELL ME HOW! HOW?!?!"


    ["Relax man go ahead and try to actively use {Skill Bank}"]