?'Yahoo!' Vivian cheered internally. 'My first quest!'

  ?He was bundled in so many furs he could barely move, but he didn't care. He was out. He was finally out of the hut and the house, out in the real, vast, snowy world. His nine month old heart was pounding with the thrill of adventure.

  ?'Are we going to fight a dragon?' he wondered, his mind racing through every novel he'd ever read. 'Maybe we'll find a princess in danger! Will I have to save her? Will we get married later? What if I don't like her? What if they make me marry her?'

  ?His thoughts took a darker, more convoluted turn. 'What if she is the dragon? Or a shape shifting monster luring us into her cave to eat us?'

  ?He was, in short, extremely disappointed when the quest turned out to be... just walking. The only monsters they encountered were a few scrawny, ice furred wolves, which Oliver dispatched with a boring, professional thwack of his axe before Vivian even got a good look at them.

  ?After an hour, they reached a sheer, icy cliff. Vivian watched, bored, as his parents , began a slow, tedious climb to get a mushroom. 'This quest is a bust.'

  ?He was handed over to Alicia. He settled in, ready for a long, cold nap.

  ?And then Alicia bolted.

  ?Vivian's head snapped back. The world became a white, snowy blur. 'What kind of old woman runs this fast?!' he shrieked internally. The trees were whipping by.

  ?She ran for five minutes straight, her "old lady" persona completely gone, and dived into a small, hidden wooden chapel.

  ?She unwrapped him. He was breathing hard. She was just... looking at him.

  ?'Oh, no,' his mind raced, panic setting in. 'This is it. I'm a sacrifice. She's a witch, and she's going to sacrifice me to an evil creature! Is the devil going to come? Is it going to hurt?'

  ?He looked around for an escape route. 'Is this where my magic talent comes in? Can I stun her using magic or something ? Will a princess on a white horse come save me? Or was it a prince?'

  ?His mind recoiled. 'Oh, no. Please stay in your castle, your highness. I am straight.'

  ?Just as his panic reached its peak, Alicia pulled out a magnificent, leather bound book with beautiful blue crystals on the cover.

  ?'A book?' Vivian blinked, his fear vanishing. 'So She's not going to sacrifice me?'

  ?Alicia then stripped him of his furs, cleaned him up with a disgusted look on her face, and dressed him in... tiny, silk robes.

  ?'I take it back,' he thought, feeling the cool, unfamiliar silk. 'This is a different kind of sacrifice. A sacrifice of my dignity. I look ridiculous , but it is soft and comfortable at least.'

  ?She carried him to the altar. "Alright, Vivian," she said. "This is the Oath of Knowledge..."

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  ?'A baptism?' he realized, his panic replaced with simple, profound annoyance. 'She kidnapped me for a baptism? What the ...!' He prepared to be bored.

  ?But as she began to talk in the Ancient Tongue, a strange thing happened. He understood her. Every. Single. Word.

  ?'...by the Starlight and the First Word, I present this mind to be filled...'

  ?'Gabriel's gift,' Vivian realized, a spark of interest lighting up his boredom. 'The translation skill works on ancient language , too.'

  ?"...So be it," she finished.

  ?The air in the room snapped. The book on the altar vanished.

  ?And so did Vivian.

  ?He blinked.

  ?He was no longer in a small, cold, wooden chapel. He was standing, on his own two feet, in a library.

  ?No, "library" was not the right word. This was an impossible, endless city of books. The shelves were carved from white marble and glowing wood, soaring up into a nebula of swirling starlight. The air smelled of old parchment, dust, and ozone.

  'This...' he thought, 'is bigger than all the libraries on Earth combined.'

  ?"It is," a calm voice said.

  ?Vivian spun around. Standing in the middle of a vast, circular platform was a slender man. He was tall, with hair the color of polished silver, and he wore simple, white robes. He was looking at Vivian with an expression of mild, academic curiosity.

  "Hello, Vivian," the man said. "You are... not what I was expecting."

  ?Vivian, still running on his "abduction" adrenaline, tried to respond. He opened his mouth, and a sound came out.

  ?"Where am I?" he asked.

  ?The slender man raised an eyebrow. "Well, that is new. I was told you were an infant. And you are, but you... are not. How curious."

  ?"Who are you?" Vivian asked, his mind racing.

  ?"I am Sophiel. The Scribe. The Keeper. The one you call the God of Knowledge. And you are in my study."

  ?"Did... did Alicia's baptism work? Am I getting blessed or something??"

  ?"Yes, and no," Sophiel said, tapping his chin. "Alicia, bless her impatient heart, performed the ritual. But I had to bring you here personally. I sensed a... lingering divinity on you. A 'stain' of creation, as it were. You met someone powerful recently, did you not?"

  ?Vivian's mind instantly went to the white void and the kind, smiling face. 'Gabriel,' he thought, and a wave of annoyance hit him. 'He left a stain on me?'

  ?"He's not the point," Sophiel said, waving a hand. "You are. Your mind is... a fascinating anomaly. An adult's structure in an infant's core. Because you are so... clear... I am bound by my own rules to give you a choice. A great honor, really. Most recipients just get a default blessing and go on their way. So, what power of mine do you want?"

  ?Vivian's novel reader heart exploded with joy. A choice! This was it!

  ?"I want infinite mana!" he declared.

  ?Sophiel stared at him for a second , blinking.

  ?Then he threw his head back and roared with laughter, a rich, booming sound that shook the dust from a nearby shelf. He even had to hit the table to steady himself.

  ?"Oh, my word!" he gasped, wiping a tear from his eye. "Infinite mana! That is the best one I've heard this millennium! No, no, no, child. That is not how it works."

  ?He composed himself, still chuckling. "A blessing is a tool, not a battery. It uses your mana. The more mana you put in, the better the tool works. Now, I can offer you [Perfect Recall], [Linguistic Mastery], which you seem to have a bootleg version of already, or [Analysis]."

  ?Vivian didn't hesitate. "Analysis. The isekai life 101. I need that one for sure."

  ?"Ah, I see. You want to see the 'truth' of things. A fine choice. [Analysis] it is. It will cost you mana to use, and the more you spend, the more detail you will receive. A worthy power for a strange little mind."

  ?He raised his hand. "Good luck, Vivian. Do try to be interesting."

  ?A flash of white light,

  ?And he was back.

  ?He was in Alicia's arms, and she was... looking at him with a slightly underwhelmed expression. The whole thing, the library, the god, the choice, had taken less than a second. Alicia had not even noticed he was gone.

  ?'Alicia!' he tried to say, 'It worked! I met him! He laughed at me!'

  ?But all that came out was a high-pitched, frustrated "Agoo! Baa!"

  ?He was a baby again.

  ?He had a blessing. He had [Analysis]. He could not wait to get home and try it on everything he could set his eyes on.