Chapter 30: 5 year plan

Chapter 30: 5 year plan

“I don’t always have a 5-year plan. One thing you must always do in life is to keep your learning curve as high as possible.”

Yo-Yo Ma

Aleera took me out down to the shore where we could look back at the town across the lake where home lay while grandfather prepared dinner.

“Well, we’re here for however long.” Aleera sighed. Turning to me, she asked, “So, any more surprises today?”

Stopped for a second by the sudden changes in my life, I decided to return the questions, “You can do magic? You never showed me! What can you do? Can you fly? Can you make me fly?” I kept asking questions trying to find out what else the rest of my family could do that I had never known. Were we all secretly magicians from a faraway kingdom? I’ve always tried to keep my learning curve as high as possible and I might not have a 5-year plan but it has certainly felt like there has been a lot of curveballs today.

“When do you practice? I’ve never seen you do magic?” I pointed out, still a little put out that I could have been watching people perform magic and getting so much better at it. Yet not once had they ever shown me any.

Aleera responded, “That’s because we are supposed to keep it secret!” Before continuing, “The merchants may be few and far between but they do still come here. A secret is best kept by yourself not a 13-month-old baby.” She teased.

“I can secret.”

Aleera smirked, “You can’t even talk properly yet.” Even though she continued to speak to me as if I understood everything and for the most part I could. Still, there were words I missed, hadn’t heard yet, or couldn’t quite get the conjugation correct with. Baby talk was so much simpler sometimes and they understood what I meant even if I didn’t say it correctly 9 times out of 10. Maybe I was just lazy. I’d get there in time especially as I didn’t have a language book to learn from or a dictionary to build my knowledge off of others' studies. Every language has its own words, idioms, slang, and take on the world but at least it is no longer βαρ-βαρ (bar-bar) a completely incomprehensible babble to me.

“Cantu.” I defended obtusely in as dumbed-down baby talk as I could and still be understood.

She ignored my childish behaviour before beginning to teach me. “Okay then. The trick to having Magic while looking like you don’t have it is to use it to do you things that look like skills you already have or support them with it.”

Confused I asked, “Like what? How?”

“Well, when I’m using the drop spindle or spinning thread, I’m also trying to use my magic rather than a skill I’ve learned. Then, if anyone looks in or is watching, it simply looks like I’m just using the skill Spinning. But actually, I am leveling up my magical skills.”

“Can you show me?” I asked excitedly. This would be the first time I would actually see someone else’s magic rather than my own. I wonder what else she can do. I watched as she held a thread she pulled from her pocket and made it spin in the air twisting and curling up on itself then and curling and twisting. Finally, just spinning around and around in the air.

It looked like the string had come alive. Yet, unless you watched the mana within the string itself, there was no visible magic at all!

“The trick is to keep your magic as small and as controlled as possible.” She explained. “Then if anyone does look in it looks like you’re spinning the thread rather than practicing your magic.” She reiterated.

“Is that why you spend so much time spinning.? “I asked. I had always been confused why she didn’t want to leave the house more. It had seemed so boring to sit there spinning and spinning. Washing and carding didn’t look like much fun either.

“Yes. “She replied.

I stand looking out over the water, pausing to consider how many other little things I had watched and assumed were skills that actually might have been being performed through magic. Her magic and mana control was amazing the mana never left the thread. It was completely contained within it. Leaving her fingers where they held one end the mana flowed along the fibers that made the single thread. Where I had just been pushing my mana out of my body, when I looked closely at hers, it was tightly controlled and woven through a single thread.The inaugural upload of this chapter took place via N0v3l-B1n.

“I’ve shown you what I can do. Now, are you going to show me what can you do, you little monster?”

With my new excess of mana, it was no longer challenging to practice beyond my previous limited amounts despite the amulet that was still continuing to drain my mana pool to do whatever it was that it was doing. So I happily showed some of what I could do with my magic enthusiastic to show off a little.

I started with the first skill I had learned how to do.

Borrowing her little thread I asked her to lean forward to watch. “Well I can’t make it spin but I can do this!”

Ignite!

I fell over laughing as she shrieked in surprise and fell over backward, best of all, she landed in a shallow rock pool. My moment of glee was soon cut off as she rose wet from water.

Hmm, uh oh,

Maybe that hadn’t been the best of ideas. I’d expected the shriek but not the trip and fall especially not into the water.

“Wait.” I gestured trying to calm her down as she started towards me. “You asked me. Wasn’t my fault. You fell over.”

“You could have taken my eyebrows off. Set my hair on fire! Magic can be dangerous you little twerp!” She replied as she advanced towards me.

I backed away, a little too scared to turn and make a run for it. She had never hurt me before but then I had never really succeeded in escaping much further than 5 meters before she caught me and lifted me up. I’d certainly never managed to actually upset her more than bumbling physical failings that had been looked on more with amusement than annoyance. But now she looked a little more than annoyed and close to cross.

I continued to back up and away from her up a small rise from the lake.

Level: 10 Name: Kai

Experience: 50,800/ 204,800

Age: 13 months, 1 weeks, 2 days, 16 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: Time sense (LV 22) Listening (LV 26) Meditation (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 29) Eavesdrop (LV 22) Memorisation (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 22) Expel Mana (Lv 29) Absorb Mana (Lv 29)

Mana Manipulation (Lv 12) Ignite (Lv 11) Freeze (Lv 2) Boil (Lv 1)

Tier 4: Mana Drain (Lv 20) Multiple Minds (Lv 10)

Tier 5: Mind fortress (Lv 15)

Skill experience: 200

Origin experience: 0

Combat experience: 0

Crafting experience: 0