Chapter 61: Identifying the imbalance

Chapter 61: Identifying the imbalance

“If you are unable to understand the cause of a problem it is impossible to solve it.”

Naoto Kan

Stunned silence dripped to the floor, as the beer slowly trickled its way down the wall. They sat for a second absorbing the new information. Needless to say, from the earlier conversation I had already realised that 118 was well beyond what even a 10-year-old would have unless they had assigned their free points to it. Something I had not been able to do. But something my mother had done for me in saving my life the hour it had started. Telling the truth was going to rock the boat, a little, but seeing as my body, or boat, in this metaphor already had a hole in it, and had sunk. It did not seem like I could possibly do any more damage by rocking it when I was already 6 feet under the waves.

“118?” I winced internally at Aleera’s shrill questioning, happy I was safe in my mother’s arms again. Without a facial response to focus on she was left complaining to the table where the numbers were written in wool. “That’s more than me?” she complained. “How does he have more than me?” She turned to Grandfather. “He’s supposed to be my little brother.” She argued with father before she turned back to me again, demanding crossly, “Can you assign your stats?” It appeared that this was what she found unfair the most and to seemed like the only possible explanation for how I had overtaken her.

“Darling, you know you can’t assign your stats till you are 10.” Father played the peacemaker in the family.

“Yes Father! And you can’t access your stats till your 5. We all know the system doesn’t play fair when it comes to Kai!” This was the most childish my sister had ever appeared. A confusing turn of events, but then she had just learned that her baby brother had more vitality than her, despite being over 8 years older. There were bound to be some ruffled feathers among the family dynamics.

“Well . . .” Father was left unable to argue the case seeing as there were already a few unprecedented moments this morning when it came to the system regarding what could and couldn’t be done and by what age.

“Hmph,” he cleared his throat, “How do you have 118 points of Vitality? And like Aleera asked can you assign them?” He asked me repeating Aleera’s question admittedly a lot more calmly than she had practically screamed at me.

“No I can’t”, I wrote defensively on the table. Not that it would have appeared anything other than defensive after my sister’s outburst. “Mother,” I added responded reminding them of Mother’s earlier confession of adding points to my vitality.

There was a moment of quiet contemplation, considering first the fact that I like most other children should not be able to assign my points freely and secondly that mother’s belief in what she had managed to do earlier was actually the truth.

She quietly asked, “How many points did I assign?”

I remembered my frustration at the time. When all the work of my time within the womb was assigned away. It had felt completely unfair at the time whether or not it had saved my life. I had had plans. A build I wanted to aim for and her motherly intervention, although timely and necessary to save my life, had disrupted them.

I straightened out the wool before writing with it again, “80.”

This time, my father wasn’t drinking, so there wasn’t a spray of beer across the table to herald my announcement. Perhaps he had learned from his earlier mistake or was just being cautious this time around.

Aleera though was less forgiving. “Mother can’t have assigned 80 free points to vitality on your birth day. That would mean that you were at least Level 8 before you were even born.” She argued. “You’re lying.”

It was interesting, that my sister, who had always known me for the little monster I was, had the most difficulty with accepting my monstrous stats. If I had been someone else, perhaps she would have had less difficulty accepting them, but I believed it was probably because I was her little brother that she had the difficulty. After today, she would have a harder time thinking of me as her little brother, when for the next year or at least until she turned 10 and was able to assign her stats, I would outweigh her in terms of my status.

“Is it so hard to believe, Aleera?” Grandfather mused thinking out loud. “You know the first levels come the easiest. A single skill can gain you several levels if practiced long enough and within the womb what else would a sentient being have to do other than practice. More importantly though what quirk did you receive for passing 100, Kai?” he questioned moving on to something altogether different.

“Quirk?” Aleera questioned Grandfather before I could respond, perhaps jealous that there would be another level to the absurdity that was my vitality score.

“Yes, for reaching 100 before the age of 10 most noble children who manage to do so receive a quirk to their status. Now seeing as it is vitality that we are talking about the quirk added to his status should be along the lines of hale, tough or robust. There are a variety of quirks named differently but all related to health in one form or another, making them more resistant to disease or poison, less likely to be injured, or helping them to heal quicker. There are a myriad of quirks but they are all worth getting. The question though Kai, is what is yours?”

Again, everyone turned to look at me before focussing once more on the table. “No quirk.” I wrote, disbelief slowly etched itself on my grandfather’s face as his eyebrow rose but before he could respond and before I could be denounced once more by my sister as a liar, I quickly added the words,

“Trait . . .The inaugural upload of this chapter took place via N0v3l-B1n.

before 1 . . .

Long . . .

Lived”

“And what does that mean?” Aleera grumpily asked her family, exasperated by the repeated tangents this conversation was taking. The whole point of the conversation was supposed to be working out a way to balance my stats but all that we seemed to be doing so far was highlighting the problems I had created for myself. And the numerous ways in which I had managed to imbalance myself.

“Well this means that Kai is now officially half-elf as Elves are the only race that is likely to ever hit 100 in vitality before the age of 1, or they are just born automatically with the trait, who knows, I don’t.” Grandfather threw his hands in the air in despair before sarcastically adding, “I am assuming that Kaius was the father and not an Elf or a Troll?” he said pinching the bridge of his nose with his fingers. The whole situation seemed to be becoming increasingly stressful for him. Whether it was the worry over my health, frustration over being completely unaware of the extent of my abilities or anger at being unable so far to affect much I wasn’t sure. Perhaps it was something else altogether entirely.

“There’s no need for that.” Kaius stood to back his wife resting his hand on her shoulder. “He’s our son as you well know.” Defending both my mother and me or perhaps just reassuring himself through repetition as to my parentage.

While Aleera seemed confused by the addition of Elf and Troll to the conversation, “Elf or Troll?”

Grandfather postulated for her benefit and mine, “It isn’t completely accurate to say that a level in a sensory skill can give you a point in senses. But . . . there does seem to be some correlation with improving your sensory skills and your senses stat increasing. Whether that is because you are getting better at your skill and your senses improve or your senses improving which helps you to level your skill is an area up for debate. A bit like the philosophical conundrum of which came first the chicken or the egg. If he has enough sensory skills they could, in theory, allow him to level up his senses stat as he has levelled up their skill levels. But first, he would require gaining the skills, and second he would have had to level them up at the same time.” He explained to Aleera.

“So, what sensory skills do you have?” he asked me.

Looking at my status I started to list my sensory skills. This was going to be a little bit embarrassing. The names of the skills being fairly self-explanatory as to what I had been using them for. It took me a while but I started to lay it out for them. Grandfather had picked up a notebook to write them down between the waves of wool that spelled them out for them.

Tier 1:

Time sense (LV 30)

Listening (LV 30)

Sight (Lv 15)

Scent (Lv 15)

Detect (Lv 15)

Taste (Lv 15)

Tier 2:

Sense Mana (LV 38)

Eavesdrop (LV 28)

Quick reflexes (Lv 27)

Tier 3:

Echolocation (LV 26)

Each family member had a different reaction to the results. Mother and Father both smiled proudly through the listing, with mother raising her eyebrow at eavesdrop. Aleera though seemed to have a little epiphany with the separate senses and shouted, “That’s why you wanted to play the game.” Finally, Grandfather shouted, “Ha echolocation. That’s a new one, I’ve never heard of it before.”

They spent a little while looking at the list and thinking about it. Then Grandfather returned to lecturing mode talking directly to Aleera while showing her his paper list. But we all listened in eagerly, “You can see if you add them all up he has 120 levels worth of tier 1 skills, 93 levels worth of tier 2 skills, and 26 levels worth of Tier 3 skills all directly related to his senses. That is a total of 239 skill levels, which would easily support his senses stat growth from approximately 30, which would be in line with his Strength and Endurance stats, up to 120 which he is claiming he has. Not to say that this isn’t weird too but in theory, the numbers would work out. The oddity here is the wide range of skills and how high he has managed to level them but then perhaps that is just part and parcel of being a catalyst. So little is known about them, more myth and legend than fact and truth.”

“So, does that mean Kai has a second trait or quirk?” Father asked still happily unpacking my stats as if they were a present just for him rather than a measure of my soul. I suppose for a man who had clearly been hoping for a son the stronger my stats, the stronger the family legacy I would be leaving behind one day.

“Hmm, well seeing as he hasn’t turned 1 yet I suppose he should have another trait rather than a quirk. Did you get the trait super senses?” Grandfather mused.

“Yes.” There was no point hiding it especially if he knew of it by name.

“That aligns perfectly with when he appeared to become sick then. He wasn’t sick he was overwhelmed by his senses. I’ve seen recruits throw up when getting sensitive as their quirk. It wasn’t his magic stat causing his initial problems, it was his senses stat.” Grandfather looked happy to have finally worked out something that had been confusing him before. Mother and father were equally relieved to realise that I had never been in any physical danger of being unwell.

While Aleera realised something else entirely, “He has two traits? Does this one come from another race? What race is this one from?” She seemed weirdly fixated on the idea of me being part elf, part troll, part beast. As if that somehow made me more or less of a little monster to her.

“Well, if we were on the compass continent he would either be a Beast elf or an elfkin with those traits. It would all depend on which genetic trait was more dominant in his development.”

Wait just a second was I going to grow up as some sort of mixed breed race due to my traits. Did traits alone determine your genetic makeup? I hoped not. I was quite happy being human one of the more relieving moments of being born was finding out that first I was human and second that I hadn’t switched genders in this weird world that was the stage for my issekai tensei. Yes, I admitted to reading the odd manga or watching the occasional anime. Just a part of my wide and varied collection of media I indulged in from time to time.

Luckily Grandfather disabused Aleera of her hopes, “Seeing as he has achieved this, all on his own. And . . .” he looked pointedly at mother, “he is completely human, you will never be able to tell his traits from looking at him.” Mother and Father seemed relieved to be reassured but Aleera seemed a little sad by the prospect.

Maybe she needed a puppy.

Suddenly tired, I found myself falling asleep.

The conversation carried on around me but I no longer responded.

All the poking in the world wouldn’t wake me, I had finally run out of stamina.