“An obstacle is often a stepping stone.”

William Prescott

As we sailed to the island, hidden in a bag I looked once more at my stats. The excitement of the fall, climb, and conniving had kept me too busy to contemplate them. It had only been two days since my fall and my attempt at becoming a super baby. So much had happened in that time, yet at the same time so little. This detour back to the island might seem like an obstacle to my growth but I viewed it as a stepping stone to my future.

I looked at my status surprised by the increase, searching the stats to find the reason why. The increase in vitality could possibly be explained by my body quickly recovering from the damage of the fall. The climb up the endless stairs could explain the increase in Endurance and Strength. Obviously, I had not been particularly dextrous as there was no movement there. Senses possibly levelled from keeping a lookout on my hidden return to home or spying on my own funeral. Which was more important and which had given me the status point I did not know. Mind that had shown such a high start and such quick growth seemed to have stalled for the moment a little perhaps I had reached the ceiling of my former life’s intelligence and any growth I made from now on would be a little harder to earn.

It felt strange to see senses as my highest stat when it had been the third to reach the 100 point milestone. But thinking about it, it kind of made sense. It had not started high like Mind or had points dumped into it like Vitality and it had been the area in which I had gained the most skills and levels as well as spent the most time practising them in and out of the womb when sensing the world around me was the only activity I could do unable as I was to interact with it.

Next, there was Clarity. I finally understood how to increase its level, put myself in mortal danger and use all my physical and mental stats and skills at the same time to save my life somehow. I now understood why Grandfather had been such a tyrant but also realised that my mental age and past life experiences had possibly counted against me in helping improve it.

I had always realised that what we were going through was some form of training, terrible as it might have been. I had avoided the pain but never felt in fear for my life. Was that what had been missing for it to level and increase my own perception of an imminent demise at the hands of an abusive Grandfather? I would never consider myself a military man but I had done my 4 years-service, mainly to get the army to pay for my degree than for any particular desire to be there, and knew I could put up with pretty much anything for a month at a time. It had been ridiculous but not terrifying. Was it possible to level solely through terror alone? Would a normal child have developed some form of Fear tolerance alongside Pain tolerance? Who knew? But maybe I could level up my clarity by throwing myself of some more cliffs. I only had 7 more weeks left before my 1st birthday, 7 skydives might be enough to hit another milestone Clarity-wise.

Magic . . .

MAGIC! How amazing was it that I had magic! It was still the coolest stat by far and the one I was the proudest of increasing so much through effort, skill, and luck. It was also the one that had taken the most effort. But it was an effort well worth it. I had great success I felt so far using the mana within to affect the world without. Stone was next on the list of elements I wanted to try and wrangle. But there had to be some sort of system to how it all worked didn’t there? We really needed an old wizard to teach me the ways of the world but didn’t look like there was one on Wester Island much to my disappointment.

Use the force I would. Bend not only the elements but the energy within myself. Etc etc.

Then there was Charisma, a new stat for a new lord. I felt lucky to have started at 7 already and was not yet sure how to start developing it although I had a few ideas. I guessed it was only fair to have one or two new things to work out seeing as I had finally gotten a handle on how to improve my Clarity.

Finally, luck, the lowest of my attributes and I was not particularly keen on having to survive near-death experiences to develop it further but hopefully, there was a way. Also, how much difference did it actually make? If I took a coin and tossed it 100 times would I even notice a difference? Would there be 50 for head and tails? How about 1000? Or 10,000? How many times would I have to do it to actually get a statistically provable set of results to prove it had any impact at all?

Having worked my way through my stats I looked at my skills to see if the answer to the jump in experience came there. Some small gains in my listening, acting, lying, eavesdropping, stealth, and echolocation could all be explained by the funeral ceremony. I was surprised to see that Sense Mana had not levelled alongside eavesdrop and echolocation but guessed maybe it must be capped by Meditation staying at Lv 35 as I had barely a minute to think about my situation let alone meditate.

There was a surprise with a new skill in Tier 2 called Misdirection and another in Tier 3 called Deception. I guessed it had been a bit of a magic trick and might account for the increase in Charisma and we had been lucky to pull it off. So far so good.

But the big bump in experience did not come from those increases and new skills rather it came from a new type of experience Popular Experience. Perhaps this was related to the public, populace, or simply fame. Working out more would take time and experimentation but it appeared faking your own death and pretending to have a funeral was worthy of some serious experience.

Not as much as buying the island or my title of nobility had been but then again my funeral had been a lot cheaper I doubted the experience was based on the number of coins spent more the number of people convinced and the effect it would have on the town. If I had been older, had a job, and had a larger impact on the town would I have been able to leverage more experience out of my death?

Still had a long way to go to get to Level 12 though.

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 22) Sneak (Lv 22) Whistling (Lv 22) Singing (Lv 22) 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: 3300

Origin experience: 0

Combat experience: 0

Crafting experience: 0

Trading experience: 0

Popular experience: 20,000

I was interrupted from my musing as the boat beached on the island. My island now! Do you think I could rename it? Ash Island was so boring, accurate but boring. What about Obsidian Isle, Wizard’s Island, Atlantis, or Olympus? Too egotistical?

As Des or Sinis stood up with me attached I could feel myself being carried ashore.

“This way boys.” Grandfather pointed after tying up the boat.

Des and Sinis silently followed him as he led the way home. We arrived quickly enough and I was finally let out of the bag. Freedom.

“Caves?” I had been holding that in for so long. Why hadn’t he mentioned them last time? That would have been so cool and exploring them was so much fun.

“This way.” He answered although I could swear I heard, “You little monster,” alongside the words. Although maybe that was just me reading too much into his facial expressions.

Opening the locked door in his house he said, “They are safe enough for you to explore a little with Des and Sinis. Don’t go too far or you might get lost.”

Beyond the door, I could see a tunnel disappearing into the darkness down into the depths of the mountain.

“Light?” I asked.

“Here you go,” he said handing a torch to Sinis.

“Up?” I asked as I turned to Des who, raising an eyebrow, picked me up and we headed on down into the dark. The torch sent flickering shadows along the wall, as we worked our way deeper and deeper. I really needed to work out a way to turn Mana into Light. The Torch was effective in lighting our way making sure we didn’t trip and fall but better lighting would show us so much more.

We kept walking, I say we but really it was Des and Sinis doing the walking one carrying the torch and one carrying me until we reached a fork in the tunnel as well as what looked like either an old cold lava waterfall which dropped the floor of the cave or one of the original vents of lava which dropped deep into the earth. It was not a chasm but we would not be able to get down without climbing or rope to get back up again.

There had not been a lot to see but it was very cool and there was a lot of potential here to build a cool bat cave in my exile. Actually, we hadn’t seen any bats or wildlife at all on our walk but then who knew how far the tunnels went, and obviously, our end of it was blocked off by Grandfather’s house so nothing would be getting in that way. I just needed to work out a way to flatten the floors either with magic or chemistry. How did you make cement again, limestone and clay, then add the sand and aggregate? Did we have that on the island somewhere? Probably? Possibly? Maybe? Then get some more light in here and we could have an underground complex. Recreate my mind fortress in the real world? I had years left to live to play around provided I did not get knocked off by a noble family or two.

First things first though we were going to have to go back home for dinner and I needed to work out what I could do to stone with mana. Hopefully, it would not have such a jump in mana requirements as water had needed to get boil. I seemed to remember some way to use vibrations to cut stone. Could I do that?

It would probably be simpler to ask an uncle, but only if they were allowed to know I was alive.