Chapter 99: Chapter 95: Out of the mouths of infants

Even as wisdom often comes from the mouths of babes, so does it often come from the mouths of old people. The golden rule is to test everything in the light of reason and experience, no matter from where it comes.”

Mahatma Gandhi

“That would be me?” she repeated, seemingly fascinated by the fact that I could talk.

“Yes,” I replied simply. I was tempted to repeat, ‘That would be me, not you.’ But I was unsure how she would take my attempt at humour. This whole situation depended on her reactions in more ways than one. How would she respond to the revelation that I was more than I seemed?

“You the infant brother?” she repeated looking at the rest of my family to see if we were pulling her leg. However, their serious faces and nods of confirmation seemed to reassure her that this was the reality of the situation.

“Yes,” I confirmed once more alongside my family’s silent affirmation.

“And you received the other half of the stats?” She reached for clarification confirming her belief that Aleera had not gained all of them. Pushing past the initial shock that she was after all conversing with an infant. Maybe elves matured young?

“Yes.” Again, I answered.

“Yet, you are younger than her. Somehow you can see your stats?” she seemed to be extrapolating possible answers from my responses.

I nodded, tired of repeating myself.

“Do you have skills as well as stats?” She probed.

“Yes, I can see my stats and skills,” I added.

“Since when?” she seemed to be reaching for my limits or finding out how deep my foundations were.

“My stats or my skills?” I asked

“Both, either?” she ignored my flippant response and focused on the details.

“As far back as I can remember, I’ve always seen them.” That might be stretching the truth a little I had after all been able to see them before my eyes had physically developed enough to open.

“Which came first?” she asked. Which seemed a weird question.

“Why does that matter?” Aleera asked.

“It doesn’t really in the end matter but much like the chicken and the egg it is a question often asked. When children normally first gain access to their status, after the age of 5, they always have the common six stats as well as at least one basic skill. It could be singing, sailing, running anything really but they all start at level 1 with the experience of their first level. The question is which comes first their status or the skill? Can you have a skill without a status or a status without a skill? I admit it is not immediately relevant to the matter at hand, but I have always wondered myself which came first.

“Status then skills,” I revealed.

“So did you truly start at Level 0 then without a skill?” happy to have put that conundrum to rest.

“Yes, I did,” I remembered back to the first moment I had awoken. Without something to do, some skill to learn and practice, I thought I might have very well gone mad or at least learned how to hibernate within the womb.

“The paper I could write on this.” She smiled to herself before adding, “Although most would doubt my findings. Even come and inspect you for themselves to verify my claims, which would be quite counter to your family’s request for confidentiality, which I will of course honour.” She turned to my parents to reassure them that she was worthy of the trust we had been forced by circumstance to place in her.

“If you would indulge my curiosity further. What about your stats? Did they grow from 0 as well?” She seemed absorbed by the intellectual theories my existence proved and disproved rather than me as an individual myself. I guessed that opportunities to talk to infants were far and few between. At least those who could remember gaining a status before a skill.

“More or less.” I avoided the fact that I had somehow brought the majority of my mind stats with me from my previous life despite the somehow dubious ability of an infant’s brain to have space for them all. How that was possible I had yet to work out. But all that mattered was that it had.

“Very well, thank you for indulging my curiosity. However, if you have skills then you clearly have levels.” She theorised. “And if you have levels then you have free points. Can you allocate them as well, alongside your ability to have a visible status from birth?” she asked intrigued.

“Not yet.” I smiled still a little disappointed about that. But in retrospect, it had probably prevented me from making a bigger mess of things than I actually had anyway. Although I liked to think that I would have been smarter than that my actions made a mockery of that thought. There was plenty that my ignorance had helped me to trip over. It also sidestepped the fact that my mother had allocated most of my stats for me before I was born.

“So,” she pondered, “Stats, skills, and levels already. This leads me to ask whether you have been able to unlock your perks. Or no, maybe more than that. It has always been hypothesised that the speed of natural growth in children’s stats comes from the natural increase in their vessel’s strength, speed and endurance through puberty. Even children’s ability to think, their clarity of thought and their magic expands rapidly through their teenage years. The system’s acknowledgement of the natural improvement of the vessel’s capabilities is reflected in their naturally growing status alongside their burgeoning levels of skill.

Perks I felt were prying a tad too far. Why I don’t know. I had revealed a lot to her already, one long list of revelations but I still liked to keep some things closer to my chest. “No comment.”

“No comment?” She questioned before waving my evasion aside, “So something for sure. No matter, for now, you are younger than any I have ever taught before. There will be plenty of time to create a cascade.”

“A cascade? What’s a cascade?” Aleera asked my question for me, perhaps reminding Lady Acacia of her presence so used was she to her undivided attention that was now focused solely on me.

“A cascade is the name for a certain sequence of improvements. The method by which you can use a perk for passing 100 in a stat to leverage your next perk in another stat and if you are clever continue to do so across your status.” She explained. “It was what I was planning to do with your training once you received your perk for endurance.”

“So, if I had received the perk for Endurance what would come next?” She asked intrigued.

“There are a couple of different routes, but a perk in endurance can lead to a perk in strength through greater repetition of training enabled by your endurance perk. Then you can use your perk of strength to give you a greater explosion of speed leading to levelling up your dexterity which is more than just speed but it is a significant contributor to it. Through all of the above Vitality itself should have continued to level and be close to completion etc.”

“What about the other stats? Are they not part of the cascade?” she continued to quiz.

“Ideally in a perfect world yes you could lead into the stat and so on however often to continue the cascade and achieve your perks before the time limit, it is necessary to use your free points. Another reason, I hasten to add, is why it is imperative to make the most of your stats in the first year of allocation. The most common cascade is in the order of Vitality, Endurance, Strength then Dexterity creating the warriors with perks for brawn. The second most common cascade would be mind, senses, magic then clarity creating the mages with perks of mind. Of course, there are also the twin pairs such as dexterity leading to clarity or mind leading to charisma but they are hardly cascades only capable of delivering dual perks when compared to four perks or more.” Lady Acacia explained in more detail. When I looked back at my development I saw how I could have worked on a smoother progression. But I also saw how my stats had jumped in twin pairs one perk following the other. I was hardly a normal infant it was no surprise that my progression had not followed the standard format of cascades. It hardly mattered as I had made it there anyway and far sooner than most if not all.

“Can I still achieve a cascade of perks?” Asked Aleera concerned.

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“You certainly should be able to achieve one simply through the remaining free points.” She reassured my sister. “However, with your brother consuming half of the stats offered by your Adals and cousins a second cascade might be challenging to achieve in time.” Seemingly reminded of my existence by her words, she focused on me once more. Forgetting the tangent my sister had led her down with her questions.

“I was under the impression that you were only a year old, are you even human?” she asked.

“As far as I know.” I shrugged.

She turned to my mother and father, “He is a human boy? There were no extra-marital dalliances?” she intruded on their privacy once more to take with the topic to care for their privacy.

“No.” They frowned as they repeated yesterday’s answer together.

But she was not to be discouraged too quickly, continuing with this line of questioning, “Do either of you have any other noble race’s blood in your lineage?”

“No,” they answered. “Why would that even matter?”

“How is this even possible?” she asked herself more than us.

“Why would that matter?” Father asked the question again having been ignored.

“Humanity is the only race that is born without a trait something that many a man has found unfair. A child born from two races can sometimes gain the traits of both.” She explained. “What seems to have been achieved by chance here has been attempted before on purpose in the past. Why only a hundred years past the half-blood kings attempted to create the Compass Empire out of the continent. That was precisely what they were aiming for. The child in question would have been born with the traits of 4 noble races each half-blood king’s offspring carrying the trait of one noble race. Strength from the Half-Giant Prince, Endurance from the Half-Dwarf Princess, Vitality from the Half-Elf Prince and Senses from the Half-Beastkin Princess. It was a dynastic scheme, decades in the making. Ultimately with its failure and the fall of the Half-Blood Kings, such mixing and their offspring has fallen out of favour. Still, half-bloods are still to be found on the edges of society or hidden in the higher ranks. Humans with stronger perks or even sometimes elements of the noble race’s traits.” She answered my father’s questions but it just created more questions of my own.

“How old are you truly?” she asked focussing back on that matter at hand, me.

“Two years and four months.” The fewer years you had made those months all the more important. Two years and four months sounded older than two and a quarter to me at least.

“Not even 3 and you can count, talk and see your stats. Why not head for the capital with him?” she asked the hall the question open to all.

“I’m sure you can imagine why,” Grandfather answered for us all. “I’m sure you can imagine the feeding frenzy fighting over him. Those who could not have him or control him would simply try to kill him. Where would that leave us, his family? The more who know about him the less safe it becomes.”

“Yes, but nearly 3 years lost. Think of what he could have learned in that time with the correct tuition.” She argued, acknowledging Grandfather’s point and then ignoring it.

“I’ve hardly been standing still,” I defended myself.

“Would he have been allowed to learn or would he have been bound to one cause or another? He was and is safer here away from the politics. Besides we have taught him well enough.” He added. I coughed at that. ‘Well enough’ was a subjective rather than objective opinion. Personally, having lived through his version of training, I thought it could have been done better.

Ignoring Grandfather, she excitedly inquired, “What else can you do?”

“I think that is enough for now.” Grandfather intervened.

“Oh, come now. This is the child of the century imagine what he will be capable of given time. You cannot expect me not to be curious when meeting him for the first time. Think of what he could accomplish. Think of what we could achieve.”

“You’ve met him before.” Highlighting the fact that she had not noticed at first, “Given time, I’m sure he will be capable of a lot.” Grandfather as always advocating the position, speak less and frown more.

“Given time, exactly. Give me the time. Callen must join Aleera in her training. We can keep their lessons separate from the cousins if you still wish to keep your wider family and the public unaware of his abilities but to fail to educate the infant, nay boy would be a crime against history.” She seemed passionate about her appeal. I hoped that Lady Acacia’s sudden enthusiasm for tutoring me compared to when she arrived to tutor my sister, did not damage my relationship with my sister.

“Hardly a crime, he is happy as he is.” Grandfather grumpily asserted my opinion for me, not that he was wrong. Life had been good and any change could be for the better or for the worse.

“Are you happy?” she asked me directly ignoring Grandfather.

Looking around at my family, my father, my mother, my sister even my Grandfather, “Yes.” I answered.

“I could make you a hero,” she whispered her words somehow mine alone to hear judging by how my family failed to react to them, her lips never moving.

“I’m happy singing with my mother, sailing with my father and making money with my sister . . .” I paused teasing my Grandfather with my silence before relenting and adding, “even fighting with Grandfather.”

“I could make your son more than a man I could make him a legend.” She instead tried to convince my parents.

“At what cost?” Grandfather objected.

“Fame and fortune favour the bold there is a risk to everything yes. However, every legend started somewhere and those who have achieved it without exceptional circumstances all had exceptional stats. A child who has been able to see his stats since he was born, a child who has been able to gain skills, and a child who has been able to gain levels for ten years before allocation instead of 5 simply must have exceptional stats. Let me give him exceptional circumstances and he will blossom.” She added an impassioned plea.

It was difficult to tell why she was so enthralled by the idea of teaching me. What was the opportunity she saw that I was missing?

“He has learned all the skills you have taught me so far. What more could you teach him?” Aleera asked.

"All the skills?" she queried raising an eyebrow.

"All the skills you've taught me so far." She repeated, proud of her own ability to impart them to me. "What else could you teach him that you haven't taught me?"

“My magic.” She answered.