“To dare is to do . . . to fear is to fail.”

John Goddard

As Yoda once wisely said ‘Do or do not. There is no try.’ I would either be succeeding or I wouldn’t. I wondered to myself how I had ended up here again, this time by choice and how much it would hurt if I didn’t succeed. Was chasing those stats and levels really worth it? Was I tempting fate one too many times? I hoped so and I hoped not I thought to myself as I once more looked over the edge of a cliff, this time by choice. My father and sister were waiting at the bottom this time. While my mother and grandfather stood alongside me at the top. One to hold my hand and one to give me a push. How had we ended up here again?

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The meal had dissolved into chaos after my final comment about what grandfather hoped to achieve, as my parents yelled questions or accusations against him, but this time he didn’t back down and he had his arguments ready.

In a moment of quiet he was finally able to get a word in edgewise. “I admit, I went too far with Kai.” He raised his hands placatingly. “But at the same time, we didn’t go far enough.” He both apologised and didn’t in the same breath. Before my mother and father could jump in though, he continued. “Let me finish, please.” He gestured for them to return to their seats from where they had stood to argue. Once they had sat down again he continued talking to the whole table. “We all know Kai is special or will be one day if he lives long enough to see it. The whole point of the initial training was to awaken Clarity, which I would argue he will have done when his system unlocks. But have you not noticed what makes him special is not only his individual stats, levels and skills? Have you not noticed the impact that he has had on you?” he asked the open question to the table.

Aleera looked to our parents now confused by his questions even though she had smiled just as wide as I had when our parents once more launched into him. It was clear that she had not noticed anything from our time together. But then again I was her one and only brother.

Mother and father though looked at one another as if they might have an inkling about what he was talking about even if they had never verbalised it themselves or admitted it to themselves out loud.

“You know what I’m implying don’t you.” He lead them further through the maze of his thoughts.

“I don’t.” Aleera broke the quiet contemplation my parents had as they looked at one another. Having already heard my grandfather postulate and prove, at least to me, his ideas I knew what would be coming next.

Addressing Aleera first, “Aleera you have gained twice as many levels in the skills I have been teaching you in the last 14 months playing with him as you have in all the training you have had with me over your lifetime” he explained. “That’s not normal.”

“I’ve been practicing really hard.” She defended her improvements. “I’ve been getting better and better.”

“Yes you have been getting better and better but it’s not solely down to how hard you have been practicing.” He explained. “It is not normal for it to become suddenly easier to gain levels in skills simply through training without adding extra experience through either life-threatening experiences or some form of combat and death. We haven’t added that to your training the only difference there is to explain you sudden improvement is your brother’s prescence.”

“What do you mean?” she asked still defensive and suspicious of what grandfather might be leading up to.

“Did you know that your mother has also, despite reaching a plateau in some of her skills, levelled her humming, whistling and singing skills, as well as her magical skills of sense mana and mana manipulation?” he questioned

“Well yes, we celebrated her improvements with a bottle of rum, even mother had a glass. What of it?”

“It happened halfway through your brother’s gestation and it has continued ever since. Hasn’t it Aliyah?”

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean what you are implying father.” Mother argued but even to me it sounded as if she was in self-denial.

“One of the reasons masters take on apprentices is not only the money they charge for an apprenticeship or all the menial tasks they can get them to do but the fact that a student can sometimes help their teacher to continue to their levelling when it might have stalled. Through teaching their skills to another you can sometimes get a better understanding of the skill you are teaching and it can help them to get over a plateau in your own levelling. Coming from the continent people used to say we remember 10 percent of what we read, 20 percent of what we hear, 30 percent of what we see, 50 percent of what we see and hear, 70 percent of what we discuss with others, 80 percent of what we personally experience and 95 percent of what we teach.”

I wasn’t going to go into how Dales learning cone had never had any percentages attached to it originally before I rememberd we were in a different world and that meant different rules maybe they had actually quantified this somehow. More likely much like my own world they had added the nice round numbers to make a memorable point about learning back by ‘cold hard’ numbers.

“Have you been actively teaching Kai how to hum, whistle and sing?” he asked mother pointedly.

“Well no not specifically, he is just quick to pick it up.” My speed in learning being used to justify how easily I seemed to pick things up. They still hadn’t realised that it was more relearning how to do things I already knew how to do than actually learning them for the first time.

“Precisely! You haven’t been teaching him. He has just been picking it up. So why would you start to level again if you are not putting the effort into teaching? What new epiphanies are you having from rethinking how to teach him? You aren’t and haven’t because you’re not teaching him.” He paused to let that sink in before he continued with his relentless questioning, “So where are your skill levels coming from? Have you suddenly started practicing more? Performing to an audience? Saving your life with your skills or humming, whistling or singing someone to death?” he waited in silence for my mother to answer, as did we all, but it was clear that she didn’t have an answer to give. As she sat there silently glaring at grandfather.

“Exactly, Kai is a catalyst.” He proved his point with my mother’s silence.

“Come on now, we all acknowledge Kai is special, he’s my son. But a catalyst don’t you think you are exaggerating just a little.” Father rubbed his head as he frowned at his father in law. Mother still silent and unable to rebut his claims.

“The fact that he is a catalyst is probably the only reason your son is alive.” Grandfather laughed at father. “I warned you Aliyah was too strong for another child and you didn’t listen to me. If he wasn’t I seriously doubt that he would have survived his birth or your attempts at teaching him how to swim.” He condescended.

“What do you mean by that?” Kaius crossly demanded.

“With her stats and magic she is as strong as a borderline mage or noble and required a healer to give birth, as I told you when you married her. A proper healer who can heal with magic is someone we don’t have out here on the Wester Isles and requesting one would have just drawn attention. How do you think a noble with high stats in strength or endurance is able to have a child?” Grandfather equally angrily replied.

There was clearly some history here that I was unaware of but whoever really agreed with their in laws about everything.

“Same way anyone does.” Kaius answered still angry at his father in laws condescension.

“No, they cut them out and heal them up afterwards. It is the only way for their children to survive the birth.” He brutally explained. “And as for your swimming lessons, people weren’t watching just to see how well Kai would do, but to jump in if you left him under too long. You teach a child to swim one skill at a time, legs, then arms, then combine along with teaching them how to float. You don’t just dump them into the water and expect them to figure it out.”

“Same way I learnt to swim.” He muttered under his breath although fairly sure most of us here could hear what he was saying.

“So again I ask with your method of teaching why on earth would gain a level in your skill?” he interrogated.

“It was effective, Kai is getting better and better at swimming. System rewarded that.” Grumpily answered.

“Yes! It should reward Kai, why should it reward you with a skill level if you haven’t learned or realised anything new about swimming?” Feeling he had once again proved his point. It had taken a little longer to lockdown his argument with father than mother but they all sat in silence now pondering his point, that I was a catalyst.

Up till this point I had been uninvolved in the discussion I had precipitated with them arguing above our heads for the most part.

“Now as with most rumours and myths I know very little about how catalysts work but it is clear from our experience with Kai that they learn quickly and rapidly gain skills with or without our support and teaching. But even more importantly they help others level. If we are serious about creating a house this is the one fact we have going for us that could make it a strong probability instead of a weak possibility.”

“We need to think of Kai as the cornerstone to our Noble house. If everyone teaches him their skills then they too will level them and raise their own levels in turn. The stronger we make Kai the stronger we all will be. This is why we need to push him and push him now. He is growing too slowly as it is. Almost as if he is a half–elf. If we wait until he is bigger, taller or simply looks older we will be waiting a long time. While this will support the idea that he has only just been born it is great but we simply can’t wait till he is older, we have to act now. Furthermore he is too smart, it is all very well saying that he is quick, but Aleera was quick too and she well without being harsh Kai is on another level. Again it is as if he is half-gnome rather than half-elf. We need to stop pretending he is a baby when he can clearly understand the majority of what we are talking about and has the wit to respond.” Here he turned to glare at me, “Don’t think I didn’t notice what you did earlier Kai.”

Busted. Who me? Nope I didn’t know what he was talking about but I wasn’t going to make the mistake of responding and proving his point. Not that he seemed to be having much difficulty proving them on his own.

“Moreover, somehow he sees, and hears far too much. From the moment his magic stat was unlocked he has been sensitive beyond normal. After testing his senses he is able of noticing noises that within the family only I can sense and that is with decades of practice and what I would hope are significantly higher levels in skills specifically targeting the senses. If you watch him at night it seems as if can see as if it was daylight. Again, it is as if he is a half-beastkin in terms of the levels of his senses. And as for his levels of magic, simply look at the amount of salt that they have been carting off to town and storing in the caves and you can see that once again he clearly has a monstrous level of mana. Now I don’t know the how or the why of how Kai is seemingly slowly unlocking the abilities of the enlightened races but he has and he is. What I mean to ask is what if he can unlock the rest of their abilities?”

My parents sat there in silence as they digested everything that he had unloaded onto them. I sat there in silence too, stunned by the depth to which he had studied me without me noticing him doing so. I had always felt that I had been relatively subtle about my more extreme abilities. But it would appear not subtle enough as he was able to outline each moment I had achieved above and beyond what even a gifted child would have been able to do. I had come to assume that it wasn’t possible to see another’s stats and levels as I would have been revealed the moment I had been born if they could but perhaps with experience you could make a close enough educated guess at where people’s levels and stats actually were anyway. How much of who I was, was hidden at all? I’d like to think Luck at least was still hidden as despite the increased level of knowledge he was now giving us all he had yet to mention that. But other than that he seemed to have the rest of my stats nailed down relatively well. Their effects if not their actual numbers. I’d like to think that he would still be surprised by the numbers. But maybe I was just kidding myself.

Mother and father seemed to have digested everything that grandfather was saying and turned to me questioningly. I was stumped on how to answer any unspoken questions they had. How could I tell them I remembered another life? That this life had felt like a game of numbers and gains until I had nearly died. Yes I remembered another life but I had come to accept that it was a different world a different time. That yes this life was the one I had now. This was the one I had to focus on. That this was my family and that in truth I loved them much like they loved me.

“That is why we need to continue to push Kai. Endurance and Strength will be impossible to raise as an infant. He simply doesn’t have the bone strength or muscles to build and anything greater than his own weight is more likely to break him or harm his growth. However with Dexterity and Clarity, there is no reason we can’t focus on skills using those to help him continue to level them. That is why,” here he paused after holding the conversation and our attention for so long as if hesitant to raise his final point, which considering all the feelings and secrets he had bulldozed his way through seemed to be a little strange, until he finished his final sentence. “I would like Kai to try to fly once more.”

The chaos of the earlier reveal was defused as they sat there now considering what I had told them in a different light. Understanding his reasoning behind, the actions, he no longer seemed quite so mad. Their arguments already dismantled they were left to contemplate and weigh up the possibility that what he was proposing was not insanity but actually a sane plan to push me forward.

Mother held onto Father’s hand before she finally said. “I think it should be up to Kai.”

Surprised, by the option I sat there considering how to respond. Was I an adult now, expected to make my own decisions on how to live. If I answered the question how would that change our family dynamics. I sat paralysed by the possibilities, unable to foresee where this answer would take me next.

“Well Kai?” Father gently asked.

“Why learn to walk before you can run . . . if you can sail the sky instead.” I smiled.

“That’s my boy.” He laughed lifting me up and swinging me round.

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That’s how I ended up at the top of a cliff about to jump again.