NOVEL NEXT Chapter 16: The very hungry baby
"You, like the little catterpillar, will grow up, unfold your wings and fly off into the future.
Eric Carle
I'm so very hungry! At 1 o'clock, I had one helping. At 2 o'clock, I had two helpings. By 3 o'clock, I had two helpings and went back for seconds. I don't know about eating apples, pears, plums, strawberries and oranges. But I would if I could. Unfortunately I have no teeth yet!
Still nearly constantly swaddled.
My mother seems to be a seamstress of some sort. After feeding and swaddling, I'm bundled up in a box and left at my mother's feet as she spins and weaves the cloth. My sister is busy washing and carding the wool between looking in on me. She appears fascinated with my face, as that is all that she can see of me!
Still wrapped in swaddling left in a box!
This leaves me with a lot of nap time in my little box. I suppose most babies would need all these naps between feedings but probably due to my mother putting all my stats into Vitality and giving me a health of 970 and a stamina of 403, I'm suprisingly not at all that sleepy.
But other than wriggling around like a catterpillar I'm still limited in my mobility.
I always hum along a little with my mother's singing before pretending to fall back to sleep and I am using the levels I am getting in humming to move my decoy status along. Just in case anyone is checking. It might be paranoia but better safe than sorry. Besides it's not paranoia if they are really out to get you and who knows if they are or aren't.
Now that they think I'm asleep it's time to dive back into my mind fortress and reassess where I am and how I'm moving forward figuratively. It won't be long till I'm dragged back into my body by a stomach that requires constant refills.
Name: Kai
Level: 2 Experience: (200/400)
Health: 200/200 Stamina: 133/133 Mana 100/100
Vitality: 20
Endurance: 10
Strength: 10
Dexterity: 10
Senses: 10
Mind: 10
Clarity: 10
Free Points: 10
Skills: Humming (Lv 3)
Skill experience:200
Having checked my visible status I descend down a mental circular stairway through the layers of my mind.
Here's to hoping I won't have my free points stolen away from me again. Not that I actually have the free points to spend anyway. Just like the rest of my fake status. They are made up!
I don't actually have any more free points to spend having not yet gained enough skill, origin or combat experience to level up my true status to gain them.
This could be a problem if my parents can still overide the status lock and allocate points I don't actually have. It won't be a problem if they allocate them to Vitality, Senses, Mind, Clarity or Magic but if they put them towards any of my physical stats there might be a bit of an issue if they add more than 3 to each.
But then, that might have just been an option for mothers when their unborn baby is near death and has any free points to spend. Fingers crossed, they can't see my status and toes crossed they can't overide my status lock again.
Status locked for 159 months
It would be nice to be in charge of my own growth. Even if I have to wait 159 months for it.
Always thought 160 months was an odd number of months. If there are 12 months in a year I will be 13 and a bit. Who knows? Maybe there are 16 months in the year and I will be 10 years old when it arrives. Alternatively it could be 10 and I will be 16 years old.
There is still so much I need to learn and I'm limited by my lack of understanding and lack of mobility.
Might be time to fight my swaddling when I wake back up.
Ending my mental walk I enter the hidden bunker of my mind fortress.
It is wonderful to have my own space to relax and engage my brain away from the monotony of looking at the ceiling for hours on end. It is honestly rather boring staring up at it and everyone else seems a little busy with housework to play with me.
Although I have managed to level up my Mind Fortress skill I haven't built any further rooms. Opting instead to try and deepen the bunker adding another layer between it and the surface of my mind. Hopefully this will be able to hide my status better and prevent my stats being controlled and added to my stats later on without my permission.
I have managed to level up the majority of my skills once in the last month. Although the time to do so has increased exponentially, being able to divide that time by a factor of five (the number of rooms in my mind fortress and having the skills running concurrently in them) has made it manageable for now.
Actually the most success I have had has been with my magical skills which were too dangerous to practice inside the womb.
I wait till they have all fallen asleep, checking the room with sense mana, listening and echolocation so see where they are and that they are really asleep. Then once I am absolutely sure they are asleep their heartbeats slowed and breathing calm.
I carefully and slowly start to practice the skills expel mana followed by absorb mana.
It's only been a month but exercising the skills at night I have managed to make it to Lv 8 with both of them netting me 6,400 skill experience from their growth.
Not quite sure how to practice Mana drain without a willing participent or unwilling victim. Either of which would also require a little more mobility on my part to actually grab hold of them.
Leaving Pain Tolerance well alone for now. I'm sure, it would come in handy one day. But right now, no pain no gain in it, is perfectly fine with me.
Finally the skill Humming I am letting level as slowly as I can or rather letting it level naturally. I'm not practicing it outside of what my family can hear or trying to force it up somehow by practicing it in my mind. They already seemed surprised by my ability to hum so no reason to freak them out quite so soon over it levelling quickly. I'm sure we will surprise one another plenty over time.
Still I need to keep levelling everything else even if only to gain another 10 free points to make my fake status a little more real.
So I spend most of my pretend naps recalling old songs and stories I know and adding them to my mental library. While listening to the world around me pausing whenever something catches my attention to listen a little harder or watch a little closer through my mana sense and echo location.
Only another 37,090 points of experience to go!
Either I need to come up with some new skills I can learn without worrying my parents, find another exploit to level faster or find something a baby can sensibly combat.
Dragged back to the room by my rumbling stomach.
It's 4 o'clock.
Time for breakfast, brunch, elevenses, lunch, tea, supper, dinner who knows.
I'm hungry again.
As I'm raised out of my box for another filling, my eyes alight on a line of ants walking across the corner of the room.
I wonder, would they count as combat experience?
Nom, nom.
True Status
Name: Kai
Level: 8 Experience: 14,310 / 51,200 Age: 1 month 0 week 2 days 16 hr 0 min
Health: 980/980 Stamina: 413/413 Mana: 250/250
Vitality: 98
Endurance: 13
Strength: 13
Dexterity: 13
Senses: 30
Mind: 88
Clarity: 24
Magic: 25
Free Points: 0
Skills: Time sense (LV 12) Listening (LV 11) Meditation (LV 11) Sense Mana (LV 11) Swimming (LV 10) Eavesdrop (LV 11) Memorisation (LV 11) Echolocation (LV 11) Recall (Lv11) Composition (Lv 11) Mind fortress (Lv 11) Expel Mana (Lv 8) Absorb Mana (Lv 8) Mana Drain (Lv 1) Pain tolerance (Lv 1) Humming (Lv 3)
Skill experience: 10,100
Origin experience: 2000
Combat experience: 0