《A Life's Journey》Chapter 1.3 - A Day in The Village
Advertisement
After reaching home, Rayssa has gone off to make the food and Aster continued to read through the books that his father left in the table, but before starting he picked all the books and moved then to his room, one by one.Five books in total, the contents are history, geography, mathematics, survival knowledge and biology.
As the times flew, the boy only stopped of read when his mother called him to eat, then continued soon after, even if the father was already at home at that point. Thee boy only stopped when he hear his father's voice, "Liking the books?" Asked the mage, with a amused sm on his face.
Looking up he saw his father, who was gazing at his reading face with a smile, and nodded with the head, "Let's make that questions now?" Inquired the mage, to make sure that the boy was ready, but seeing that Aster nodded, started the questioning, "So, what the difference between a bloodline and a gift?"
"While both, bloodlines and gifts can be passed through the blood, the principal difference is that a gift have a active properties and the bloodlines only increment the affinity for the subject, while both decay with the time, a gift will became a lesser gift, then a minor lesser, after which it will become a pure bloodline, then normal, and lesser, after that they both will be ended, with only a few exceptions." Answered the boy without, skipping a beat, "Who are The Three Human Emperors?" Continued the mage, fast as his son.
"The First Human Emperor, was the man that, four thousand years ago, led the humans into unification and stabilized the human against the other species, The Second Human Emperor, was the one who, two and half thousand years ago, protected the humans from the Dragon Knight of Conquest and the Third Human Emperor was the one who, a thousand years ago, elevated his own racial abilities, somehow, to a level so high that he mutated his racial trait, which made a resonance with all other humans and doubled the power of the trait, elevating the human race as a whole." As the boy ended his speech, the mage get up from his seat and said, "You did good, much better than I expected, I'll leave the other questions for another day." Leaving for the door.
Seeing his that his father leaving, he was going to take another book, but a soft hand covered his own above the book, Aster looked up, only to see the stern eyes of his father, "Look, I know you liked the books, but tomorrow you'll need to get out and play with the other children, is a tradition on the village that the kids away get out alone at the three years."
Advertisement
At beginning of his father speech, Aster was thinking about how sad he'll be without the books, but at end, he was excited about get to know new kids, as the only one he knew is the baby of his mother friend and he was less than one year old, so he can't even be called a kid yet, but from what his father said, there will be kids of his age, and maybe even older!
This is fantastic! New and unknown things are waiting me tomorrow. Seeing the changes on his son's face, Dayno smiled and said, "Tomorrow will be a long day, so sleep well." As he gaves a goodnight kiss on Aster's forehead.
Before going to sleep, Aster picked up the books who are above the bed and placed then in the corner of the room, I can't sleep in the middle of these books, mommy will get mad again. After that he blowed the candle, to turn of the light and got to sleep.
Waking up in the next morning, eating the breakfast with his parents, Aster asked, "When will I be going to meet the other kids?" To his delight, his father answered, "When you end your breakfast, you can go."
Eating faster than ever before, Aster got up from the his seat and, with all the energy that can be contained in his little body, yelled, "I'm going now!" As he passed through the door, leaving behind his amused parents.
When he got out, Aster looked at same old road that he walked with his parents everyday, but today, he was passing alone, as someone who already have the age to go out alone, even if only near the village.
Running through the road looking to the sides, Aster searched the other kids of the village, but no much later he found the first kid, he was a little boy too, half a palm taller than Aster, brown eyes and hair decorated the boy's head, he too, looked like was searching for something.
"Good, I found someone, I was thinking that I'll lose myself and still be alone, at least I have this little girl with me." Said the boy, in a relieved tone.
But these words made Aster frown, " I'm not a girl! I am a boy, can you not see?" Looking especially cute, Aster tried to convince the boy with poor sight that he was a boy, but the boy simply not cared about his protest.
Advertisement
"What are you saying? You clearly is a girl, how can a boy look so much like a girl, enough of this, we have to find more people." Ending the talk just like this, the boy held Aster's hand and started running, to find more kids to play
Aster, was stil unhappy with the misunderstanding, but the boy has given him no choice but to run, as he is stronger, enough to get a good grip on Aster's hand, and faster, enough to make Aster need to shut his mouth to not bite his tongue while being dragged.
Going through the village they found only grownups, which was not what they are searching for and the boy was unhappy with this development, they had runned the village for a few minutes before the boy finally stopped and said, confused, " This is not working, we have found nothing but grownups, aren't this the day where a lot of kids get out of their houses? Why can't we find someone?"
Breathing heavy, Aster cleared the confusion of the boy, "Of course we wouldn't find anyone, we have been running around my house for the past minutes." Shocked the boy said, "That's not possible, I've been paying attention to all the things!"
"Then that's the problem, you need to focus in only on the path that you're going!" Retorted Aster, while calming his breathing, "Now I will take the lead." Continued Aster, going ahead of the lost boy, expecting him to follow the lead.
"Hey, little girl, you still haven't told me your name." Spoke the still unnamed boy, still fully believing that his deduction of Aster's gender, "I already told you that I'm not a girl, but my name is Aster." Answered the unmade question, still with his back to the boy.
Even without Aster asking, the boy still tried to continue the talk, without realizing that he was already making Aster loose his calm, "Cool, my name is Johan, my dad told me to not be mean with girls, so I'll let you go and lead the way." Aster, hearing the spoken words, made a ugly face, well, at least he tried, with his face the best he can make is the face of a cute child throwing a tantrum.
But Aster finally understood that arguing with the boy was a fool's errand, Johan was stubborn as a rock, nothing entered his head, At least he can heard the other things that I say. Though Aster, as he guided the mistaken boy through the village. As they walked,Aster still tried, in a frustrated effort, to make Johan understand that he was a boy, but that simply doesn't enter inside the head of the boy, Aster was almost giving up trying.
When they finally found the other kids, after a good time, where they lost themselves a big number of times, thanks to Johan, the children are all in the same place, a park near the outskirts of the village, almost as if they all agreed beforehand when to reach here.
"What! How can we be the least? I get out of my house even before the first ray of sunlight." Asked a shocked Johan, being the reason of thei delay, as if expecting something different from happening.
"What do you expected?Do you know how many times you made us go through that same road?A lot that's is!" Answered Aster, full of frustration feelings about the negative sense of direction of the bigger boy.
"If I know how many times we got through that road,I wasn't going to go again. It was your job to make sure that we didn't get lost." Said Johan, doing all that he can to shift the blame, it was so shameless of him that even he even has a faint blush on his face, but he was not going to admit his fault.
"I didn't stopped you because I had no chance! You simply got on the first road that happened to be before you, without even giving me the time to say anything!" Retorted Aster, at least this time he could argue with him, it was not so futile as the talk about his gender.
As they neared the group, they could see a older boy speaking to the group, "All right everybody, you know the rules, no going out of the village and no hurting each others." And the children answered, as if in a chorus a loud, "Yes, we know. " As they all dispersed in different locations, the only ones remaining on the park are Aster, Johan and the group of the older boy.
Advertisement
The Humble Life of a Skill Trainer
For Joshua Still, Skills were the lifeblood of his business. He wanted to understand them, collect many of them, and teach a few of them. Which was a problem because while his profession of a Skill Trainer was perfectly legal, it was frowned upon by most of the kingdom. After all, it wouldn't do for a non-tailor to teach Tailoring. Or, so says the Tailors Guild. The same could be said by the Blacksmiths, the Bakers, the Butchers, the Candlestick Makers, the Mages, and every other Guild with enough money and clout to complain. But still, Skill Trainers provide a valuable service, and so he has managed to start his business and keep it under the table. To a degree. With many a bribe. But his quiet anonymous life of research, practice, and training was about to change. When the Baron demands you pay him a visit, you have little choice.
8 300A Virtual Invasion
An invasion from another dimension is shut down by an Empire's traitor and the world has a scant few decades to build the strength to resist a multidimensional Empire. How will the world fair when no one even knows its doom is one barred gate away? Fortunately, the traitor has a plan. Maybe with a bit of luck and planning, he can build a force to defend the world without anyone realizing it. Author's Thoughts: What is litRPG (From wikipedia) - LitRPG, short for Literary Role Playing Game, is a literary genre combining the conventions of MMORPGs with science-fiction fantasy novels.[1] LitRPG is a literary genre where games or game-like challenges form an essential part of the story. A LitRPG work simultaneously narrates the story of characters inside and outside of the game-world. At least some of the characters in a LitRPG novel therefore understand that they are playing a game: they are 'meta-aware'. So, while Tolkien's Lord of the Rings is a fantasy novel, a book about people creating avatars and interacting in a Lord of the Rings MMORPG would be a LitRPG novel.Why do I read them? You know, I am not too sure. I love MMOs. I played them, quit them, joined up and repeated the cycle. They are fun! They are a massive waste of time but so are most games. Do I want to read about someone else playing them? Sort of?The advent of VR and the possibility of VR someday becoming so immersive that you can't tell them from reality sets the imagination on fire. What if this could be life? But most stories fall short. At the end of the day the protagonist hangs up his VR helmet and goes to have dinner with his mom and dad or other family and it becomes meaningless. It's like the story that ends because the main character woke up and nothing you read matters.There have been some books that explore the concept of the intersection of reality and total immersion VR. Enders Game is a classic. There were a few others that escape me but they exist, however, the cross between the game and reality is weak.So what if the game was real? The technology needed for total immersion VR is so advanced that by the time we reach that goal technology should have naturally evolved to include several items. You must have direct neural input. You simply can't have a total immersion (all senses and perfect presence) experience without this basic prerequisite. If you have direct neural access, you can probably do neat things like feed knowledge and skills directly to that person. You can undoubtedly do many horrible things as well. Muscles are controlled by the brain. If you control the brain why would you let the body just sit there and rot? A person that sits unmoving for 24 hours a day will have their body whither away just like a coma patient. However, if you control the brain you could control the muscles. On a basic level, this would be isometric impulses, working muscle group against muscle group to avoid atrophy. Taken to its logical conclusion you would be able to gain muscle mass and program muscle memory. The flip side is that you could remote control their body... but let's not go there. So what would people do if it were real? Well, they would probably limit and regulate it since the drawbacks are very obvious. Even if you look at the basic aspects of this you can see some negative possibilities. Look at the Sword Art Online anime. Personally, I think they missed the boat by putting a bomb in the VR helmet. Do you really need a bomb when you have direct access to the brain?So what kind of events would you need to have a situation where the obvious drawbacks haven't been explored? Maybe a society where the advancement of technology has so far outstripped the explorations of its applications that ignorance was truly bliss? Okay, so I had to put in an alien invasion to kickstart the premise, but that was just one of the possibilities.
8 126Pyramid of Blood
The Pyramid of Blood has existed for longer than any records within the galaxy. It’s viewed upon as a force of nature which no planet can resist or escape from. Its victims, tragic losses to the planets they’re swept from. The Pyramid roams from planet to planet, seemingly at random, each time consuming 5% of the local sapient population. None ever return. Torn from his military life on Earth, Sam is thrust into the Pyramid of Blood. A galactic wide kill or be killed event which sees him battle his way up the floors against other species from across the galaxy to survive. What is at the top? Why does the Pyramid exist? Who made it? AN: First time writing as a bit of fun, I hope you enjoy. No particular release schedule. Please let me know what you think and why, constructive criticism will help me improve. Cover: I do not own the cover image and am unable to find the artist to seek permission. If you are the owner of the image and wish for it to be removed, I will do so immediately.
8 145Adventure Home
Seeking is what defines adventurers. Some seek glory, some treasure and levels, others a place where they belong. When they cannot find it elsewhere, they journey south to the frontier. To the towns that keep the relentless shifting wilderness of the high-magic zone at bay. In one particular destination, an uncannily familiar elf behind the reception counter may greet new arrivals. She’s got a [Reassuring Smile], but will kindly ask you to leave if you misbehave. And the local adventurers will help you outside lest she employ her other Skills. LGBTQ themes in a fantasy-ish low litRPG setting. That means yes levels, classes, and skills; no experience, health, or status screens.
8 100The Rising of The Young Demon Lord
Can anyone imagine a world where a single species has the whole world at its whims and yet worship a being that practically is non-existence? The dominant species who would lie to their brother in arms, hurt their family…... betray their loved ones to gain some kind of blessing from their so-called "Gods". This sickening way of life is what we humans live by, thinking that the gods are the reason we have lived for over millions of years and not the perseverance of we homosapiens who have met many disasters over the years and prevail. What's even worse is that there are extremists who believe that these disasters are a trial for humans to take to reach the sacred ground of the gods…. This is a story of a young 15-year-old Asagami Haruki who faced the truth of the world face first.
8 151The Echo Awards - Poetry Contest
"A voice, not an echo."At the Echo Awards, we want the emotional, the raw, the moving. We want everything you're afraid to share. We want the truest things you know how to say.
8 162