Normal: Conforming to the standard or the common type; usual, regular, typical or expected. Approximately average in any psychological trait.
As I lie in my box looking up at the ceiling I catch myself contemplating my future on the eve of my first birthday.
I don't think I was ever going to be normal and I am perfectly fine with that. I'm just hoping that my bizarreness isn't immediately obvious. I don't want to be ordinary I want to be extraordinary. But at the same time, I don't want to be thought a complete freak, I still want to fit in somehow. Hypocritical I know.
Traits are clearly not normal.
The fact that I have two possibly double so.
Long-lived hopefully does what it says on the can. I will get to live for a long time. The catch? It looks like I am aging slower from the point of getting it. So even though I'm just about to turn 1 I think I am growing slower than normal children.
Now that I am allowed out on occasion with my sister we have walked around the whole town. Sometimes ran. Depending on whether I have been able to get away or not. It isn't the case of her having a higher dexterity stat. I think my legs can just as quick as hers. It's basic physics. Hers are easily 3 times longer so she covers the ground 3 times quicker. Still, I did manage to pick up the skill Dodge (Lv 1).
Aleera was certainly excited to tell everyone at home that she had managed to level up her running skill when she went home although was a little bit embarrassed to tell them how it had leveled up in the first place. She was even allowed a small cup of wine with the evening meal in celebration.
Even my father Kaius, is starting to notice that I might turn out to be smaller than average at this rate. He still thinks the world of me and is still enjoying, far too much I hasten to add, my weekly drowning in the Lake but he is also beginning to add 'Little' in front of Kai all the time when talking about me.
"Little Kai nearly made it to shore." he laughed about how he has been taken me further and further out into the lake.
"Little Kai sunk like a stone." he smiled. He no longer panics when I sink to the bottom. Happy to leave me down there until I have to come to the surface. About the only joy, I gain from these father-son bonding moments is a new skill called Breath Control (Lv 1) which is necessary requirement for the sessions. Although I am getting closer and closer to being able to control my body the way I remember being able to do it. Without thought.
. . .
The trait Fast Learner though, is without any catches and has had the most immediate effect on all the skills I am learning. Flattening out the exponential curve completely! It still takes me an hour to get a Tier 1 skill, 2 hrs now for a Tier 2 and 3 hrs for Tier 3 skill, etc. But the time taken to improve the skill no longer increases exponentially.
So level 16 - 20 of Time sense took only 4 hours rather than some hideously high amount of time that I am not going to even bother to try and calculate. Even when divided by 5 for the number of rooms in my mind fortress that have the skill running concurrently.
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All in all, I'm ecstatic with the trait.
The best news yet though is in the process of testing all of this. Adding processes to my mind fortress and taking them away. I created mannequins as part of my automatic process. It was fun to watch them playing the instruments I had made. Then letting them act on their own. In turn, the system and I realised that I was already running multiple minds.
Ding! Mutliple Minds (Lv 1)
I wouldn't say that I am having conversations with myself yet. But it's nice to have my other avatars completing the skill practice for me rather than the automatic keyboard creepily playing away. Simply set them up one in each room to an activity and they keep the skill running for me.
Even better it is a Tier 4 skill worth 800 experience per level and now that I have Fast Learner it is going up quickly. Initially slower for the 1st 3 levels but then the quirk that is fast learner improves with every level as the time it takes stays the same rather than increasing exponentially!
I am now up to (Lv 10) earning me 8000 experience in total and I can have another internal avatar for every level of the skill I achieve. So I now have 10 mini me's sitting around my fortress practicing one skill or another.
Fast learner allowed me to focus on my sense skills in particular this last month. Even stopped bugging my mother quite so much to let me out in an effort to raise my senses stat to 100. I wasn't sure what I might get but thought it would clearly be worth it to get it there before I turn 1.
I have focused solely on the skills related to sensing one way or another.
Time Sense, Listening, Eavesdrop, Echolocation, Sense Mana,
Working hard to level them all up to (Lv 20)
I even managed to gain 25 points in my Senses stat. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough to level it to 100.
Maybe I should have focused on my Magic stat but I am out of time now. I will be 1 any minute.
I've seen one or two other babies around town now and none of them seem quite as mobile as me. In terms of toddlers, we seem to be similar speed-wise so thinking my physical stats might be the same as theirs. But then maybe it is just slightly better coordination than theirs that helps me get around.
Name: Kai
Level: 4 Experience: (400/1600)
Health: 240/240 Stamina: 160/160 Mana: 150/150
Vitality: 24
Endurances:12
Strength: 12
Dexterity: 12
Senses: 16
Mind: 18
Clarity: 14
Magic: 15
Free Points: 30
Skills: Humming (Lv 6) Swimming (Lv 5) Singing (Lv 4) Running (Lv 1)
Skill experience: 500
My true success for the last couple of months though as been levelling up my skills enough to reach Level 10!
I was thinking that I would get some sort of Ding! for reaching Level 10 but no such luck yet. Maybe tomorrow, I mean it is my Birthday! I've survived a year outside the womb in what feels to be the middle ages after all surely that deserves a prize.
True Status
Level: 10
Name: Kai
Experience: 10,400/ 204,800
Age: 11 month 3 week 6 days 23 hr 59 min
Health: 1070/1070 Stamina: 470/470 Mana: 400/400 Psi: 1020
Trait: Long lived, Fast Learner,
Vitality: 107
Endurance: 19
Strength: 19
Dexterity: 19
Senses: 70
Mind: 102
Clarity: 35
Magic: 40
Free Points: 20
Skills: Time sense (LV 20) Listening (LV 20) Meditation (LV 20) Sense Mana (LV 20) Swimming (LV 20) Eavesdrop (LV 20) Memorisation (LV 20) Echolocation (LV 20) Recall (Lv20) Composition (Lv 20) Mind fortress (Lv 15) Expel Mana (Lv 20) Absorb Mana (Lv 20) Mana Drain (Lv 6) Pain tolerance (Lv 5) Humming (Lv 20) Sneak (Lv 15) Whistling (Lv 20) Singing (Lv 20) and Drumming (Lv 20) Piano (Lv 20), Violin (Lv 20), Trombone (Lv 20), Saxophone (Lv 20) Running (Lv 10), Acting (15), English (Lv 15), Spanish (Lv 15), Japanese (Lv 15), German (Lv 10), French (Lv 7) Linguistics (Lv 15) Translation (Lv 15) Multiple Minds (Lv 10), Dodge (Lv 1), Breath Control (Lv 1)
Skill experience: 36,100
Origin experience: 10,000
Combat experience: 0
Crafting experience: 0
Wonder what I will be getting for my birthday?
What if they don't celebrate birthdays?
Should I have asked?
I want presents!