Chapter 47: Nothing is set in stone

Chapter 47: Nothing is set in stone

“Everything changes, even stone.”

Claude Monet

Mother, Father, and Aleera finally arrived on the island which put an end to my Grandfather's potentially lethal training. Aleera had spilled the beans about our time on the island and Aliyah had heard enough about the training from Aleera to put her foot down.

“You were to bring him out here to hide him! Not to bury him!” she shouted furious with her father.

“He could take it.” He protested. “Aleera carried him for the most part anyway.” He pointed out.

“And the knife training?” She said raising her eyebrow at him.

“Look the blade doesn’t come out. I wrapped the sheath on it with wire. You can never be too young to pick up a blade and if he picks up a skill with it the sooner the better.” He demonstrated how the blade could not come out of the sheath. “Good practice for his fine motor skills being able to hold on to that.”

“Very well.” She relented on her baby holding a sheathed weapon before she delivered the coup d'etat “But cutting a baby!?” she practically screamed.

“I was attempting to awaken his clarity. I did the same with you.” He explained.

“Yes, but not until I was five!” she remonstrated “Why start so early with him?”

“Because he can take it, my skills are telling me he was not even scared. How was I supposed to awaken his clarity if he never felt in danger?” he shouted back exasperated.

That was a first, had he been using a skill on me the whole time and I hadn’t even noticed. To be fair we had mainly spent those moments focusing on our ability to run away from him.

“You don’t actually put him in danger to do it.” She crossly commented.

“He’s too smart, to fool. The training had to be real to be effective and even then, I doubt that it was.” He muttered to himself.

“He isn’t yet one. He has time to grow. You didn’t need to start now. Why not wait until he is like five like a normal parent? Starting this early is surely pointless and you will do more harm than good.”

“Well, he survived his first assassination attempt so it wasn’t completely pointless.” Argued Grandfather.

“I’m surprised they were still alive to be assassinated. You haven’t even been feeding them properly! I GAVE YOU MY MILK!” She shouted refusing to be placated by him. “What on earth did you do with it if you haven’t been feeding it to Kai.”

It was clear now that my mother hadn’t expected me to be weaned so soon and had still been expressing milk for me to drink even when I had been on the island. His mumbled response was lost. As Grandfather knowing he wasn’t going to win any argument, anywhere or anyhow with my Mother stormed out of the room and his house.

“Now that we have dealt with that. Let’s get some food into you Kai.” She calmly spoke to me now that Grandfather was gone.

“Yes, Mama.” I had come off the milk a while back but who was I to say no to more nutrients. I worried that since gaining the Long-lived trait I had stopped putting on as much weight as I had been initially. I knew the plan was to pretend that I was dead then reintroduce myself at a later date pretending to be a newer younger sibling of Aleera but I had no desire to be 5 years old and still look like I was a 1 year old due to lack of nutrients. I needed to eat as much as I could to support my growth particularly after our last time on the island.

After feeding Mother set about putting the house to rights. Grandfather kept it fairly clean but Mother had made it spotless. Father and Aleera had been set about sorting everything out. Then once it was tidy and everything was squared away they had been sent out on the lake to fish for dinner. They didn’t have me this time so I wasn’t sure how quickly they would be returning or with how much fish. She had moved part of her work out here and was spinning thread again. The rest of her loom would be collected tomorrow. So, I was left to play.

Play!?!

I hadn’t been allowed to play in . . . well I forgot. Not that I minded and not that I was going to play anyway.

Stone, and what I could do with it, would be what I was working on next.

I had grabbed a few stones from the cave and the shore and was seeing what I could do with them.

Ignite had no impact.

Boil made no impression

Freeze allowed me to chip off a small fragment but that was not manipulating the stone as accidentally freezing a small pocket of water within the rock caused a part to pop off much to my surprise and then disappointment when I worked out what I had done.

I didn’t even bother with gale as all that would do would blow up the dust in the house.

The fantastic thing about everyone knowing about my magic meant that I didn’t have to hide it from them any longer. I could play around with it to my heart's content and my Mother would just sit there happing watching. Happily spinning.

I focused my eyes stretching out my mana sense.

She was using magic in her spinning. Then when she appeared to have misplaced her scissors she gave a short whistle and her magic cut quickly and cleanly through the thread she was working on.

What was that? “Mama! How!” I pointed at the thread she had just severed with a whistle. Could I do that somehow? Could I do that with stone?

“Ah you were watching?” she smiled demurely. Perhaps if I’m being honest it was more a smug smile. I guess she was enjoying being out of sight on the island as well.

“Did Grandfather not show you? Hmm, guess not. He did seem rather focused on clarity, didn’t he? Well, this is simple enough to do. But you need to be careful, Kai. Can you do that?” she asked.

Level: 11 Name: Kai

Experience: 249,750/ 409,600

Age: 14 months, 0 weeks, 4 days, 11 hours

Health: 1150/1150 Stamina: 500/546 Mana: 1160/1160 Psi: 1160/1160

Trait: Long Lived, Fast Learner, Super Senses, Source of Mana,

Vitality: 115

Endurance: 26

Strength: 26

Dexterity: 29

Senses: 118

Mind: 116

Clarity: 59

Magic: 116

Charisma: 10

Luck: 2

Free Points: 30

Skills:

Tier 1: Time sense (LV 26) Listening (LV 28) Meditation (LV 35) Swimming (LV 27)

Humming (Lv 23) Sneak (Lv 22) Whistling (Lv 23) Singing (Lv 23) and Drumming (Lv 22)

Running (Lv 17) Acting (20) English (Lv 15) Spanish (Lv 15) Japanese (Lv 15),

German (Lv 10) French (Lv 7) Dodge (Lv 11) Breath Control (Lv 7) Sight (Lv 15)

Scent (Lv 15) Detect (Lv 15) Taste (Lv 15) Bussola (Lv 7) Draw (Lv 4) Climb (Lv 7) Calligraphy (Lv 5) Mathematics (Lv 10) Decoding (Lv 6) Lie (Lv 10) Knife Skills (Lv 5) Trading (Lv 10)

Tier 2: Sense Mana (LV 35) Eavesdrop (LV 27) Memorisation (LV 22) Composition (Lv 22)

Recall (Lv22) Pain tolerance (Lv 13) Piano (Lv 20) Violin (Lv 20), Trombone (Lv 20),

Saxophone (Lv 20) Linguistics (Lv 16) Translation (Lv 16) Stealth (Lv 12) Quick reflexes (Lv 12)

Haggling (Lv 5) Misdirection (Lv 5)

Tier 3: Echolocation (LV 26) Expel Mana (Lv 31) Absorb Mana (Lv 31) Mana Manipulation (Lv 15) Ignite (Lv 15) Freeze (Lv 10) Boil (Lv 11) Bargain (Lv 10) Gale (Lv 5) Deception (Lv 1)

Tier 4: Material Manipulation (Lv 4) Mana Drain (Lv 20) Parallel Processing (Lv 15)

Tier 5: Mind fortress (Lv 17)

Skill experience: 300

Origin experience: 0

Combat experience: 0

Crafting experience: 0

Trading experience: 0

Popular experience: 0