“It being less difficult to obtain forgiveness for it after it was done, than permission for doing it.”
Earl of Peterborough
After a short explanation of what had happened down by the shore and a quick demonstration of my two skills Ignite and Boil, Grandfather was as equally astonished as my sister, but a great deal more furious about it all. We were both soon begging forgiveness for our foolishness down by the lake. Aleera more than as I was still sowhat shielded by my age, assud innocence, and ignorance but it was driven ho fiercely that this was not . . . to ever . . . happen again!
. . .
“And that is precisely why we are all out here!” he admonished ending his rather long lecture on why we were on Ash Island and how we were to keep our magic hidden at all tis from now on. It could be boiled down to three rules.
1. No magic unsupervised
2. No magic unless hidden
3. No magic not vetted by and practiced with an adult first.
No way I was following all of those rules but that wasn’t to be the end of restrictions to my freedom.
Having cald a little after his fairly furious and lengthy outburst he continued, “We wouldn’t normally start this training till you were at least 5 years old but you seem to be far too intelligent not too. In fact, I’ve never seen a pair of smarter fools. There is no point in being sophisticated about your use of mana if you are completely lacking in common sense and wisdom the both of you. Besides having awoken your magic stat and displayed so level of talent in it, it is imperative that we start now.” He wasn’t quite pulling his hair out but still certainly unimpressed with the two of us.
He then went on to detail our itinerary, “Listen up Aleera and Kai, tomorrow we will start to learn you your reading, writing, and arithtic. Aleera can teach you these while I am out with these." He pointed at a small pile of books set off to the side. “Once she has taught you those and you understand them we can move onto other subjects such as geography, history, trade, and languages of the Compass Kingdoms, which I might as well teach you both.”
“Then when I return we can start with a light run, swim, and climb before knife work.” Looking pointedly at Aleera, “Aleera you have been practicing your knife skills, haven’t you?” Grandfather questioned, already unconvinced of what her answer was going to be.
“Um, yes.” Mumbled Aleera, clearly guilty of every child’s mistake. . .
. . . Not doing their howork!
“Right. Well, after that we can look at your magical developnt. Aleera you have been practicing what I have taught you so far at least?” he questioned,
“Yes, Grandfather.” She replied a little more upbeat and honestly for once.
“Now, for Kai to have any skills at all is impressive but your application of mana is heavy-handed at best and what is worst is that it is dangerously obvious to anyone looking. If you are going to use mana in front of others or even near them you have to pretend it is a system-given skill of the world. The only way you can do that, to pretend it is a skill, is for it to be carefully controlled in order for it to be hidden. You have not been careful. You are not controlled. So that is what we will focus on first.”
Not being allowed a word in edgewise I was relegated to listening and nodding my head as the diatribe continued. How he expected to understand all of this I do not know. But he seed to be talking to Aleera as much as going into great detail about how she would have to facilitate my training and supervision. It was difficult to tell if he was proud of my prodigious progress or vexed by it. Clearly, it was unexpected and unplanned. The lack of planning for it seed to be the most frustrating aspect of it to my grandfather and what he was evidently trying to rectify right this second with an overabundance of planning. Even if no plan survives contact with the enemy which he seed to be implying everyone other than family was. Even there, it seed that anyone outside of our imdiate circle was also one risk too many.
“We are all in agreent, then.” He paused here as if expecting us to agree fully when this was clearly a dictatorial relationship.
“Right, off to bed. I only have one spare roll so you will have to share, top and tail. Off you go and sort yourselves out.” Pointing we headed out of the room, tired and overwheld by the events of the day. The food was left cold on the table our first punishnt for failing to follow the three rules.
Hungry we went to bed.
“Sorry,” I whispered as we lay down to go to sleep.
“Not your fault, Kai.” She replied. “Sleep, training tomorrow.” She said as she rolled onto her side.
Lying on my back looking up at another bare ceiling I pondered my mistakes.
Had I pushed too hard to hit the milestones before age 1?
Maybe, but they were clearly worth it.
Ultimately, I would do it again.
Perhaps, not tonight though.
Hungry, I closed my eyes and delved deeper into my body taking a break from my super senses. I opened my eyes to the world I had built in my head, my mind fortress. My false stats shone in the stone wall and sat above my hidden trapdoor entrance. As far as I can tell no one seems to have looked at or comnted on my stats and skills but if they can see them one day it needed another update after today’s explosive developnts and revelations.
Sophistical Status
Level: 5
Na: Kai
Experience: (900/3200)
Health: 300/300 Stamina: 163/163 Mana: 300/300
Vitality: 30
Endurance:12
Strength: 12
Dexterity: 12
Senses: 30
Mind: 30
Clarity: 14
Magic: 30
Free Points: 40
Skills:
Tier 1: Humming (Lv 6) Swimming (Lv 6) Singing (Lv 6) Running (Lv 4) ditation (Lv 1)
Tier 2: Sense Mana (Lv 1)
Tier 3: Ignite (Lv 1) Freeze (Lv 1) Boil (Lv 1)
Even only adding in 1 level of the skills I would need to be able to get to the Tier 3 magic skills still would have pushed up to level 5. This will be okay if they are unable to assign any of my free points which would now possibly plausibly be 40. This is all still sowhat like attempting to nail jelly to the wall. But that is the most I can be without being scarily honest with my family. There are always consequences to the truth and I am still worried about what they might be. If anything, today has reinforced my idea that it is safer to keep things secret even from my closest family. They only know a little of what I can truly do and their first response was to hide away. What would they do if they knew everything?
I enjoy who I am and have learned to love my family. My mother who carried and brought into this world, possibly even saved at birth. My sister spends all of her with , caring for , carrying , and indulging my many whims. She may annoy and stop from so things but all siblings fight over sothing to so degree. My father who does his best for has dreams for and with love and affection drowns . I know they all have my best interests at heart. I was, am, and still will be scared to lose any of that.
. . .
I moved on from my morbid thoughts, pondering that if they can reassign my points again I only have 20 free points to assign anywhere. If 40 were assigned to Vitality, Senses, Mind, or Magic I would be able to cover it with my true stats. Anything else I would be short by up to 10 points. I hoped that the training that they were talking about will help my endurance, strength, and dexterity to grow quicker to cover that imaginary gap of 10.
That or I needed to redo my mind fortress again, to focus on the physical. I did not trust my Ninja baby skills for a nightti practice against Grandfather tonight so refurbishnts it was.
Under my sham status, I ntally lifted up the hidden trapdoor before I went down the spiral staircase through my ntal layers to my hidden Mind Fortress, a bunker to retreat to from the constant buzzing of my heightened senses.
Room 1 My Id (1x1)
The first room of my fortress I have not changed at all. It is still my core, my id, my stats, and my skills. The smallest of the rooms at the center of the Fibonacci spiral that I have built my mind fortress around. My two self-portraits stood on either side of . The middle-aged man that I once was stands on the left. There my painted self is surrounded by the items that made up my life before I was reborn like a modern-day version of The Ambassadors by Holbein. Never so rich as them, the items that surround are more mories of mundane modernity, sothing that in this world would seem simply magical and I miss them. But they are no longer available and there is no point pining over things I will not have for a long, long ti lest I make them myself.
My portrait on the right now reflected who I am now. A small baby almost a toddler. No longer a fetus wrapped in the womb. Ti feels surreal sotis as I have spent so much of my conscious life inside my head. Inside the world, I built in my head, my mind fortress, that I ford to save my sanity in the womb. In the painting, I sit there surrounded by the items they had laid out for for my Zhuazhou day. They represent a variety of futures I could take but selfishly I took them all and do not want to have to make a choice between them, at least I have not wanted to or had to yet. That being said I am no longer alone in this portrait unlike the other. My father, mother, and sister surround , standing by a sailboat, sewing and spinning respectively. They are part of who I am now. The Mariners Windrose Compass is still engraved on the floor and I am sure my father would be keen to see such an important sailors tool embedded in the heart of my mind. My mother would love the ceiling and the constellation I’ve kept from my old world. So of the most intricate of her weaving has been patterns involving the stars above the compass kingdoms. Patterns that she adds by hand to her woven cloth.
My real Stats still stand on the central wall from which it all spirals but I have been able to reorganise them into tiers. I wonder if one day I will be able to put them into trees of abilities but fear that will get far too complicated far too quickly.
Room 2 My ditation room (1x1)
I have kept this the sa simplicity the best policy. My ditation room is where I gained so control after being overwheld by Super Senses. Without it, I would probably still be trembling and shaking overwheld by my Super senses. Relaxed, here I took a mont to appreciate my fortune in my family. It was still sowhere I could zone out, feel at peace, feel zen. I had even added a small bonsai tree to complent the tatami flooring and paper walls I had imagined to decorate the area. I had removed the screens that I used to represent my skills mana sense and echolocation. Purity in the simplicity of the room. Without distractions, I paused to ditate to gain a level of serenity before I moved onto the refurbishnts I wanted to make.
Room 3 My control room (2x2)
This is the first room that I started to change. ntally I boxed up the literature that I had recreated. I then proceeded to pull apart my library imagining stacking it by the door. I planned to rebuild it next door but a little larger. This gave space for sothing else I wished to add to my repertoire. A control room. A cross between Nasa and a Star Trek Bridge, my critical operations control room was a spy room from which I could view the world while my body seemingly slept. I curved the walls giving a circle in which I could sit. The 360 screens gave a panoramic view of the room the image I representation of both my Mana Sense and Echolocation. If I focused on parts of the picture I could now zoom through to see beyond the surface image. The definition was raised higher by my heightened senses and extra screens for my new skills Sight, Scent, Detect and Taste. Facsimiles of sat at each station ready to alert to changes. Quietly waiting, processing without thinking beyond the bounds of the task I had assigned them.
Room 4 My library (3x3)
After constructing my control room I rebuilt my library. But first I had to jump ahead to room 5 draining my imaginary pool to push across my music room. Then I returned to Room 4 where I unpacked the boxed literature I started to fill the larger wall-to-wall shelving that flowed from floor to ceiling in my mind. I had always wanted my own library in my forr life and now I had it of a sort. Admittedly many a row was still empty but they were beginning to fill up. Little wooden carved signs detailing the areas I am trying to rember fiction, non fiction, geography, history, animals, science, etc. Like my core room, I am keeping old world knowledge on the left and hopefully now that I have access to so books I will be able to fill up the right side with the world I now live in. Maybe I can even write my own guides to this world and novels to entertain. Who is there to claim patent or enforce intellectual property rights in a world that might not have ever heard of them?
Room 5 My music room (5x5)
The fifth room I remodeled as my music room. I had already pushed it across from room 4 so I simply pushed out the walls to match the larger space before extending them and wooden flooring. Significantly larger now I set up for a small orchestra to play. I cannot play all of these imaginary instrunts yet and cannot carry the various lines simultaneously yet. But maybe one day.
Room 6 My dojo (8x8)
Faced with the routine my Grandfather has laid out for us. It did not seem like it would be long before he is handing so form of weaponry to practice with. Always be prepared may have been the Scout motto but it is one I will happily follow. A few lessons I once had of Karate, Judo, and Kendo allowed to recreate various areas for them. Plenty of films made recreating a boxing ring easy enough even if I don’t yet have soone to fight against in my head I can practice so of the moves I rember watching. My only concern was a worry about any bad habits I may form. Practice doesn’t guarantee perfection no matter how many tis they say practice makes perfect. In reality, practice makes permanent and if you practice sothing wrong repeatedly all you will do is engrain your bad habits until they beco incredibly difficult if not impossible to correct. Still, I know so of the basics low stable stance, etc. The question is; Will the system of levels help improve my skills as they increase or can bad habits follow you through each level never corrected no matter how high a level you achieve?
Room 7 My swimming pool (13x13)
The seventh room of my mind fortress I reflooded and recreated my swimming pool room but now significantly larger. Here I thought little about the depth of the pool ntally creating it as I had before. This proved to be a problem. Throughout my ti in the womb when in my head and building my mind fortress I had always imagined myself as I was in my old life. An avatar so to speak of a middle-aged man. But now as I stood in my pool I realised that my ntal image of who I now was had shrunk. It seed I had regressed much like Benjamin Button aging backward as he moved forward in ti and the initial pool that I created the sa depth as my original pool was now a little too deep for to stand comfortably in. Freaked out I ford a mirror to see what age I appeared to be but I appeared malleable looking like however, I wished to be a child or an adult. Only my perspective had lowered to be closer to my new reality. The water was now too high I had to add a shallow end to my pool. Toddler or middle-aged man no matter what I looked like on the outside my height remained smaller. Had I resized everything to my perspective? Not noticing the change before reaching room 7. I found the entire situation strange an odd quirk of my ntal landscape, that once noticed, I found difficult to ignore.
Room 8 My running track (21x21)
Still concerned about the physical nature of Grandfather’s training. This room is now a running track for practicing the planned running with a bouldering wall around the edges to practice the planned climbing. While a set of all the athletic events and equipnt I can rember I recreated and filled the middle with. Though I think I will need so skill to get a Skill or rather a lot of luck. The sa concerns over forming poor habits played on my mind.
Room 9 My forest (34 x 34)
I have no previous experience foraging beyond picking blackberries and strawberries but survivalist training seems a necessity for traveling any further afield. So thinking ahead I am growing a ntal forest to help out later on. Maybe I can practice planting?
Finally, Room 10 My sailing sea (55 x 55)
My spiral fortress had gotten significantly larger and this last room was huge. ntally drained from the refurbishnts I had made it was simpler to fill it with water adding a dock and a small boat to sail on it with. Father seems determined to have follow in his footsteps. So the sooner I get my sea legs and learn my port side from my starboard the happier he will be and hopefully more lenient in allowing my foibles. Besides if I am not allowed ho for a few months or god forbid it a few years. Sailing a boat might be the only way to get off Ash island.
ntally exhausted from the ntal remodeling of my mind fortress I returned to my body but not before taking a last look at my status. Surprised at the increase in experience over only a few hours tonight. It seed to break down to the Mind Fortress, Ignite, Freeze, Boil, and Mana Sense skills leveling during the last day.
True Status
Level: 10 Na: Kai
Experience: 54,000/ 204,800
Age: 13 months, 1 weeks, 2 days, 22 hours
Health: 1100/1100 Stamina: 513/513 Mana: 1000/1000 Psi: 1070/1070
Trait: Long Lived, Fast Learner, Super Senses, Source of Mana,
Vitality: 110
Endurance: 22
Strength: 22
Dexterity: 23
Senses: 109
Mind: 107
Clarity: 38
Magic: 100
Free Points: 20
Skills:
Tier 1: Ti sense (LV 22) Listening (LV 26) ditation (LV 31) Swimming (LV 23)
Humming (Lv 20) Sneak (Lv 21) Whistling (Lv 20) Singing (Lv 20) and Drumming (Lv 20)
Running (Lv 10), Acting (15), English (Lv 15), Spanish (Lv 15), Japanese (Lv 15),
German (Lv 10), French (Lv 7) Dodge (Lv 1) Breath Control (Lv 1) Sight (Lv 11)
Scent (Lv 11) Detect (Lv 11) Taste (Lv 11) Bulosa (Lv 1) Draw (Lv 1)
Tier 2: Sense Mana (LV 30) Eavesdrop (LV 22) morisation (LV 20) Composition (Lv 20)
Recall (Lv20) Pain tolerance (Lv 8) Piano (Lv 20) Violin (Lv 20), Trombone (Lv 20),
Saxophone (Lv 20) Linguistics (Lv 15) Translation (Lv 15) Stealth (Lv 10) Quick reflexes (Lv 1)
Tier 3: Echolocation (LV 23) Expel Mana (Lv 29) Absorb Mana (Lv 29)
Mana Manipulation (Lv 12) Ignite (Lv 12) Freeze (Lv 3) Boil (Lv 2)
Tier 4: Mana Drain (Lv 20) Parallel Processing (Lv 11)
Tier 5: Mind fortress (Lv 16)
Skill experience: 4200
Origin experience: 0
Combat experience: 0
Crafting experience: 0
It's been a busy day.
Life is full of surprises,
I just have to accept that I cannot plan for them all.
I wonder what life will be like here with Grandfather and Aleera.
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