“Everything changes, even stone.”

Claude Monet

Mother, Father, and Aleera finally arrived on the island which put an end to my Grandfather's potentially lethal training. Aleera had spilled the beans about our time on the island and Aliyah had heard enough about the training from Aleera to put her foot down.

“You were to bring him out here to hide him! Not to bury him!” she shouted furious with her father.

“He could take it.” He protested. “Aleera carried him for the most part anyway.” He pointed out.

“And the knife training?” She said raising her eyebrow at him.

“Look the blade doesn’t come out. I wrapped the sheath on it with wire. You can never be too young to pick up a blade and if he picks up a skill with it the sooner the better.” He demonstrated how the blade could not come out of the sheath. “Good practice for his fine motor skills being able to hold on to that.”

“Very well.” She relented on her baby holding a sheathed weapon before she delivered the coup d'etat “But cutting a baby!?” she practically screamed.

“I was attempting to awaken his clarity. I did the same with you.” He explained.

“Yes, but not until I was five!” she remonstrated “Why start so early with him?”

“Because he can take it, my skills are telling me he was not even scared. How was I supposed to awaken his clarity if he never felt in danger?” he shouted back exasperated.

That was a first, had he been using a skill on me the whole time and I hadn’t even noticed. To be fair we had mainly spent those moments focusing on our ability to run away from him.

“You don’t actually put him in danger to do it.” She crossly commented.

“He’s too smart, to fool. The training had to be real to be effective and even then, I doubt that it was.” He muttered to himself.

“He isn’t yet one. He has time to grow. You didn’t need to start now. Why not wait until he is like five like a normal parent? Starting this early is surely pointless and you will do more harm than good.”

“Well, he survived his first assassination attempt so it wasn’t completely pointless.” Argued Grandfather.

“I’m surprised they were still alive to be assassinated. You haven’t even been feeding them properly! I GAVE YOU MY MILK!” She shouted refusing to be placated by him. “What on earth did you do with it if you haven’t been feeding it to Kai.”

It was clear now that my mother hadn’t expected me to be weaned so soon and had still been expressing milk for me to drink even when I had been on the island. His mumbled response was lost. As Grandfather knowing he wasn’t going to win any argument, anywhere or anyhow with my Mother stormed out of the room and his house.

“Now that we have dealt with that. Let’s get some food into you Kai.” She calmly spoke to me now that Grandfather was gone.

“Yes, Mama.” I had come off the milk a while back but who was I to say no to more nutrients. I worried that since gaining the Long-lived trait I had stopped putting on as much weight as I had been initially. I knew the plan was to pretend that I was dead then reintroduce myself at a later date pretending to be a newer younger sibling of Aleera but I had no desire to be 5 years old and still look like I was a 1 year old due to lack of nutrients. I needed to eat as much as I could to support my growth particularly after our last time on the island.

After feeding Mother set about putting the house to rights. Grandfather kept it fairly clean but Mother had made it spotless. Father and Aleera had been set about sorting everything out. Then once it was tidy and everything was squared away they had been sent out on the lake to fish for dinner. They didn’t have me this time so I wasn’t sure how quickly they would be returning or with how much fish. She had moved part of her work out here and was spinning thread again. The rest of her loom would be collected tomorrow. So, I was left to play.

Play!?!

I hadn’t been allowed to play in . . . well I forgot. Not that I minded and not that I was going to play anyway.

Stone, and what I could do with it, would be what I was working on next.

I had grabbed a few stones from the cave and the shore and was seeing what I could do with them.

Ignite had no impact.

Boil made no impression

Freeze allowed me to chip off a small fragment but that was not manipulating the stone as accidentally freezing a small pocket of water within the rock caused a part to pop off much to my surprise and then disappointment when I worked out what I had done.

I didn’t even bother with gale as all that would do would blow up the dust in the house.

The fantastic thing about everyone knowing about my magic meant that I didn’t have to hide it from them any longer. I could play around with it to my heart's content and my Mother would just sit there happing watching. Happily spinning.

I focused my eyes stretching out my mana sense.

She was using magic in her spinning. Then when she appeared to have misplaced her scissors she gave a short whistle and her magic cut quickly and cleanly through the thread she was working on.

What was that? “Mama! How!” I pointed at the thread she had just severed with a whistle. Could I do that somehow? Could I do that with stone?

“Ah you were watching?” she smiled demurely. Perhaps if I’m being honest it was more a smug smile. I guess she was enjoying being out of sight on the island as well.

“Did Grandfather not show you? Hmm, guess not. He did seem rather focused on clarity, didn’t he? Well, this is simple enough to do. But you need to be careful, Kai. Can you do that?” she asked.

“Yes, I can.” I quickly replied hopeful that she would not realize that giving me a way to cut things was probably just as dangerous for a child of my age as giving them a knife.

“Very well, watch closely.” She held up a thread of string. Then with a sharp little whistle magically sliced through it. That did not explain much. I tilted my head in confusion.

“What you need to do is infuse the sound with your mana then push it out towards the object along with the sound. Let the whistle carry the mana to your target then hold the mana thin and hard when it hits it. At least that is the way I do it. I’m sure you will work out your way in time.” She said smiling at me.

Eager to practice I held up a piece of string and went to whistle.

The whistle came out, the mana was expelled but the sound did not carry it along. An amorphous blob of mana drifted off from my body but I was unable to channel it along with the sound.

Mother who had been watching, “Don’t worry about it now. It will come with practice. Why not try just filling the sound with mana before aiming for an effect.”

She demonstrated once more humming a little tune which although filled with mana did not attempt to affect the world around us. But when looking at with Mana sense you could see a structure to the mana that wasn’t there before as it flowed along with the music.

Humming I joined in with the familiar tune, slowly releasing mana at the same time and attempting to copy my mother.

Gradually, over the morning my mana fell in line with my music following the melody as it rose and fell in pitch as well as swelling and waning with each crescendo and diminuendo. I hadn’t achieved what I had hoped to but my mother was impressed with my progress.

“Well done, that’s fantastic progress.” She said. “The rest will come in time.”

While we had whiled away the morning singing, humming, and whistling, Father and Aleera had been out on the lagoon and caught our lunch, dinner and, breakfast. Which reminded me of my idea. We certainly had a lot of fish straight from the sea so to speak but much of our food came from the market. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could grow some of our own out here on my island?

Turning out my pockets I pulled out all the seeds I had collected from the merchant’s table.

“Mama, can I grow?” I asked holding up the handfuls or random seeds. I had no idea which one was which but it would be exciting to find out.

“Where did you get all of those Kai?” confused by my assorted collection of seeds from around the compass kingdoms.

“Lunch with Merchant,” I replied. Even though it would be wonderful to surprise her with my freshly grown fruit and veg I was going to need some help. First off, I needed to get some better soil out here. Second, I would need to find a spot. Third, I would need permission and time outside of the cave to do it. Unless I could build my own underground hydroponics bay which did not seem particularly likely.

“Yes, I suppose you can try to grow them here along the window to start with although where they will go as they get bigger you will have to work out for yourself.” She seemed amused by my attempt at horticulture. “I’m sure Aleera can pick up some pots and soil to get you started next time she is a town.”

“Thank you.” I smiled, happy to be listened to, happy to have my thoughts taken on board. So much had been decided for me and although I understood it sometimes it grated a little to have to wait on others for permission or help, to actually make any progress outside of myself, my skills, and my inner sanctum.

Lunch was a fun affair. Our first time eating altogether for lunch without the stresses and strains of deciding what to do.

Now that the decision had been made, we were just going to get on with it. Grandfather had not returned yet as Kaius and Aleera had said that they had seen him sailing to town on his own. The only difference other than our location to our old lunchtime meals was Des and Sinis sitting at the table with us.

They hadn’t been given anything particular to do this morning so had wandered off to the shoreline and walked along exploring their surroundings again according to Kaius and Aleera who had seen them from the sailboat.

We all enjoyed the family time before feeling a little down about having to hide away on the island for the foreseeable future. Mother maybe picked up on the mood of the two of us as she started up the conversation again. “Well how do you feel about exploring the caves a little after lunch?” she asked to pick us up. “I can show you all my favorite spots.”

It was a family affair that headed into the mountain that afternoon, Mother leading the way with Aleera, followed by Father carrying me. Des and Sinis seemed happy to stay outside on the shoreline messing around. The brothers were probably happy just to be without being told what to do. Not that we could actually tell them what to do yet only show them. I needed to get to work on learning the Libeccian dialect of Bussola. Some words would follow through much like loan words in English but it seemed that the majority of them were different.

We followed mother along what appeared to be a lava tube to the drop-off where Des, Sinis, and I had stopped before. Fairly boring walk although it had plenty of space to develop. When we arrived mother showed Aleera some handholds that had been carved into the side of the old cold lava waterfall which we had missed when we first came here.

“This way down.” She said as she showed Aleera and Kaius the handholds down. Father put me onto his back before making his way down.

At the bottom from this angle, we could see an exit we had been unable to from the top. Leading us through a small entrance the tunnel gradually grew wider until just before we came to a corner we could hear the gentle sounds of waves lapping up against stone walls.

“This is my favorite way on and off the island.” She said showing us a brilliant blue lake that filled the cave till it exited in a tiny white circle at the edge of the island.

“This is amazing!” Aleera exclaimed. “Why did you never show me this before?”

“I’m happy where I am. I don’t like to come back here too often and whenever we have it has only been to check on you or Grandfather.” She said. “Besides don’t you want to find your own secret places rather than have them shown to you?” she asked.

Kaius though was looking at the water and the cave with different eyes.

“Kai can continue to learn how to swim in here. We won’t be able to get my sailboat in here but I’m sure we could make a little one to practice within here. Aleera could practice using her spell to blow him around.” Father as always was focused on how to improve my swimming and sailing abilities.

Aleera though was looking at the salt. "No need to stop producing salt either, Kai., she said pointedly. I was thinking we would have to review the margins on that. It was my mana making it. All she did was sell it for me which I could get Des and Sinis to do for considerably less and still feel it ethically acceptable.

"This isn't all there is down here. You two will have a fun time exploring it over the next year or so." Mother explained, putting a positive spin on everything that had happened.

"Lots of different stones to discover and maybe if you practice really hard you will be able to shape it too." She hummed as she ran her hand along the stone wall leaving a smooth stretch of stone behind where her hand had passed.

We all stared at her in astonishment.

"We all have our little secrets." she laughed before leading us back to our new home.

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 23) Sneak (Lv 22) Whistling (Lv 23) Singing (Lv 23) 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: 300

Origin experience: 0

Combat experience: 0

Crafting experience: 0

Trading experience: 0

Popular experience: 0