Chapter 013

Joram lay in bed, hands behind his head, enjoying the late-night air as it came through the window to play with the near shear curtains. He watched as they lazily danced about, casting shadows across the floor that mirrored their dance.

He remembered how good it felt to be able to see clearly, but his new and improved vision was much better than it had been, even when he was very young…

Not only that, but his other senses put his old ones- from his previous life- to shame. A human just couldn’t compare. Heck, even his High Elan side wasn’t as good right off the hop, nor even his planar side. That said, he did still miss having darkvision. Sure, his lowlight vision was out of this world right now, but he was pretty sure that he’d still be blind in absolute darkness.

Tier 1 was amazing. Even his little body had some serious power to it now. Sure, it wasn’t anything like an adult’s strength at Tier 1, but he was at least as strong as what he’d been as a human. Which was crazy to think about.

Given his size, his muscle to mass ratio was now insane. How many toddlers out there could lift a couple hundred pounds? He’d have to test it more… Probably the day after tomorrow, as tomorrow was the big shindig after all.

As he lay there watching the shadows, a faint sound caught his attention. Coming back to the here and now, he focussed on his [Touchsight] and noticed that someone had snuck up outside his window.

Well, if that wasn’t enough to alarm him, the fellow- the person didn’t curve in all the right places- was dressed like a ninja. He wasn’t sure on the colour of his garb, as [Touchsight] didn’t allow for colour, but he was willing to bet that it was pretty much all black.

‘Mom, dad?’ He sent, remembering to un-mute his parents.

He blinked as he got a flood of messages that had cued up, all coming in fast enough to make him a bit dizzy. He didn’t know that that was a thing, cueing the chat log.

‘Joram, where are you?’ His mother sent at the same time that his father sent a variation of the same thing.

‘I’m in my room, and there’s a ninja outside the window,’ he sent back, trying to process their worry.

What the clan under attack?

‘That would be one of the clan enforcers,’ his mother sent. ‘Please cooperate with them when they come to get you.’

‘What’s going on?’ He sent back as the figure outside slipped through the window and spotted him on the bed.

‘Grandmother, Grandfather, and the Matriarch know.’

“Joram Aneath,” the figure said in a quiet, but strong voice. “You will come with me.”

I guess that Grammy didn’t take it well, he thought as he slid out of bed and into his slippers.

* * * * *

Matriarch Tatia Aneath watched as one of the enforcers brought Joram in, still in his night robes, blinking up at everyone.

She had to admit, he was a very good actor. If she hadn’t known better, she would have taken him for any child woken in the middle of the night, blearily looking about, curiosity written on his face. But now, now she looked at how he stood, not quite how most two year-olds would stand. No, she noticed that as relaxed and sleepy as he looked, he was actually poised to run, balanced on the balls of his feet.

She took that in and more. The way his shoulders were set, even how he kept glancing around at everyone, not quite smiling.

Am I reading too much into this? She asked herself as the enforcer stopped Joram in the middle of the room where his parents had stood not too long ago.

Tatia spared a glance for her child and grandchild, noticing that they’d locked onto Joram and hardly seemed to breath as they sat to the side of the room.

The men weren’t much different, though Xander seemed to be the more composed of the two sitting there drinking tea…

Where’d he get the tea from? She asked herself, then gave a mental shake of the head. It really didn’t matter, nor did the fact that he retrieved some candied nuts to snack on as he watched.

Is this entertaining for him?!

Tatia suppressed a snide comment, working very hard to keep her face looking calm and serene. After a few breaths, she waved the enforcers out of the room and touched then centre jewel on her necklace.

Once the privacy array had been activated, and the enforcers had vacated the room, she stood up as she kept her eyes on Joram, gauging his reaction.

He was either oblivious to the array being activated or he was indeed a very good actor, as he didn’t react at all, keeping his gaze locked onto his mother, fidgeting in place.

It was very much a two year-old reaction and not that of a more mature mind. Yes, a very good actor indeed.

“Joram, come here and sit with me,” she said, motioning to a plush armchair that was beside her own. It was normally reserved for the exceedingly aged elders of the clan who came to speak with her in private, but she didn’t see any problem with Joram borrowing it for a bit.

Joram gave a sleepy blink, then a smile as he moseyed on over, tilting this way and that until he reached the chair, climbed up, and wiggled about until he got comfortable. Tatia’s heart nearly burst at the cuteness factor as she watched his little face scrunch and then relax as he found the sweet spot. He then smiled up at her with sleepy eyes that even shimmered a bit with overly-tired tears.

She glanced back over to Bezia and Sulia and saw that they’d also been struck by the adorable display, even Ivaryn didn’t seem immune as he leaned forward slightly. Xander, on the other hand, popped a few candied nuts into his mouth and began chewing, a faint grind on his placid face.

That brought her back to the moment. She resumed her study of Joram and found that he seemed to be falling asleep.

With an exasperated sigh, Tatia leaned over and poked Joram. “Hey, now, no sleeping just yet.”

Joram’s eyes popped open and looked about for a moment before settling on her again. If she hadn’t gotten the whole story from Sulia, she’d have thought that maybe he was only a partially Awakened Reincarnator, someone who only retained a smattering of the memories from their previous life.

But since they’d shared that Joram had indeed retained his memories, well, she couldn’t help but admire his poise. Not many people could remain so calm under the scrutiny of a Tier 6 Mage, nevertheless Joram did. Not only that, but he got up, wobble, then climbed over to her chair and wiggled into her lap, his head resting on her chest.

She very nearly blushed when she remembered that he was a Reincarnator. She was about to toss him back to his own seat when he tilted his head up to look at her over her bosom.

“What’s up Grammy?” He asked in a sleepy voice.

She blinked.

That wasn’t how he normally spoke to her.

“You’re a Reincarnator,” she said, not at all a question.

“Yup.”

She blinked again, searching his eyes for any deceit, trickery, or guile, and found none.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” She asked, trying very hard to keep all of her feelings in check.

“I was scared,” he replied with a shrug, then looked back down to his hands.

This was much harder than she thought it would be. Sure, he was the first Reincarnator to show up in their family line in centuries, but the rules surrounding them had been passed down for thousands of years, taught to each Matriarch as they took their position in the Clan.

This, though, was very difficult. She would freely admit that Joram had taken a special place in her heart, nevermind in her hopes for the clan. He was an exceptionally well behaved child, studious, and just plain loveable.

He gave amazingly warm hugs and cuddles too.

So, why had he been scared to share with them. She even asked as much.

“Well,” he started, tilting his head back up so he could look her in the eyes. “It all started when was sitting down to have some delicious chicken cashew stir fry…”

Tatia listened with baited breath, surprised at how well he was able to tell his story and provoke vivid imaged in her mind at his descriptions. The self-training that he’d put himself through once he’d arrived made her think that he was a masochist, and she even noticed that Xander seemed approving of just how grueling his training had been.

The fact that he’d come from another world surprised her though. She’d only ever heard of a few examples of such. To a one, every outworlder she’d read about had brought about new, and sometimes disastrous, changes to their world. The Aneath Clan had had to step in more than once to sequester either the outworlder or their knowledge before it could become too widely spread.

By the time Joram got to the part where he’d been exploring on his own, she began to worry. Unexplored wilderness was exceptionally dangerous. Nevertheless, she enjoyed his retelling of finding various spiritual fruit, herbs, and vegetables. He was an amazingly thorough researcher, and she wholeheartedly approved.

Then he spoke of a massive fight between a dragon and a phoenix, which tickled at her memory, but the thought was swept away when he got to the part where he’d been killed.

“So,” he said. “You can see why I was a bit hesitant to share my personal history with anyone after being killed by the first human I ran across.”

Tatia could not refute that.

After a few moments, she asked. “Do you see us as your new family then?”

Joram blinked at her, but nodded.

“Do you love us?”

Joram blinked at her again, this time to clear his eyes of the welling tears. They came back, and he had to look down once again. Finally, a whisper came.

“Yes.”

Tatia’s throat threatened to close, her heart leaping up to block the way. She took a moment to take a deep breath, then another five. She noticed that even her daughter, the infamously academic and clinical Bezia, had to blink a few times as she turned her head away. Sulia, however, looked like a leaking faucet. Ivaryn had his eyes closed and quivering chin up.

Xander took a sip of tea.

Tatia returned her attention to Joram and took another breath before asking: “Then, why would we love you less?”

She felt his little body quivering against her own as a sob escaped his little body. It took a while before she felt the shudders subside, then she spoke again.

“Take off your aura shroud.” She told him as she held out her left hand.

After a moment he slid the ring off his finger, reached over, and dropped it into her open palm. Nodding to herself as she was now able to clearly read his aura, she asked her next question.

“Do you have any ill intentions towards the Clan?”

She was treated to seeing his tear-soaked face, runny nose and all, as his head whipped up to level a look of pure indignation and outrage at her.

It was very, very, hard not to laugh just then, the look was so previous.

“No!” He said adamantly, face morphing to sheer stubbornness and resolution, which was also mirrored in his aura.

“Will you do everything you can to protect the clan?”

He twisted about in her lap, getting to his knees so he was closer to eye-level with her, hands pressed on her chest for balance.

“You can bet your last crystal I will!” He said, tiny face the model of seriousness. Still ruined somewhat by his runny nose though.

Again, pure confidence, honesty, and certainty showed in his aura. She smiled to herself as her left hand played with the ring.

“So, then, I see no problem at all,” she said with a smile. Joram’s relief was evident, so she regretted what came next only slightly. “Though, for not trusting your family and hiding this from us, you are grounded for a year.”

When she saw his little face fall into incredulity and disbelief, she really did laugh then. Next, she handed Joram back his aura shroud and placed him in his chair, then stood up.

“Sulia,” she began once she was composed. “You and Ivaryn will receive half wages for the next two years for not sharing this important information sooner.”

She rather enjoyed their varied expressions. Sulia seemed about to swallow her tongue, while Ivaryn looked like he had a sudden headache coming on by the way he pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index finger.

* * * * *

Joram lay in bed staring up, watching as the shadows slowly faded from the panels that made up the ceiling.

He was… conflicted.

On the one hand, he was glad that his secret was out. Well, to his immediate family anyway. Grammy had told everyone that his identity as a Reincarnator would remain secret, that only those in the room would know.

On the other hand, the fact that Grammy now knew, and Gran and Gramps, he wouldn’t have the luxury of having as relaxing a time as he’d hoped.

They’d continued talking and going over things until well after midnight, where Grammy had dismissed everyone but him and had had her own talk with him.

She had, while his ring was off, felt that he’d broken through to the First Tier, and had commented on how he’d even reached the Fourth Rank. He’d opted for the truth in saying that the cultivation method he was using seemed tailor-made for him, and that it was easier than he’d anticipated.

What he hadn’t said was that he was using Encompass the Universe rather than the cultivation method his parents had found him.

*Shrug

Well, now he was here, going over the restrictions that Grammy had set in place, frowning.

He wasn’t to go to the Library by himself during his year of being grounded. He also needed to have someone accompany him while he wasn’t in his family’s apartments. That last one was the most annoying restriction. Sure, she’d also slated him in for nine hours per day of classes, with only one day per week for rest. But that wasn’t so bad.

Well, that was a lie.

He really wanted to study on his own, not having to worry about learning things that he wasn’t interested in. Well, he’d see what was on the table after his birthday party.

Yes, he still needed to attend that celebration. He was just glad that he’d been cultivating and was still refreshed from it. Hence the staring at the ceiling.

His parents hadn’t been quiet either. Well, over the Network anyway.

They’d been chatting up a storm, trying to plan and going over many plans with him; most redundant.

They were both relieved and stressed out that his secret was out for obvious, and not-so-obvious, reasons.

Reincarnators had a mixed reputation, as they came in every shape and form. From the saintliest to the vilest. All, however, were recognized for their talents. Be it in cultivation, alchemy, arrays, or other areas, they tended to be at the top of their generation in their field of expertise.

He really hoped that he and his parents had gotten through to his grand parents, and especially Grammy, that he hadn’t been some sort of Old Master, prodigy, or savant. Just a guy who had fallen into their world and hadn’t even survived three years.

That said, with how mature he was, and with his comprehension, they still expected him to be well above average in his studies and accomplishments. Hence the added study.

As he lay there pondering, a servant eventually came in to wake him and get him ready for the Big Day.

He obediently rose, consumed breakfast, albeit distractedly, and got dressed up. He even put up with the extra touches of makeup that the attendant, Tillia, quickly added to emphasize his big green eyes, gushing about how handsome he was the whole time.

And yes, there was a new little circlet for his to wear. Or maybe it was the same, but resized? Meh.

All-in-all he was dressed to the nines, as it were. And now he was sitting on a tall stool-like chair, on display for al to see.

He was sure to greet everyone properly, getting much praise for his manners and poise from the older generation.

From the children of his generation, the reactions were mixed.

The ones closer to his age seemed to be mostly good with him while the older ones, mostly those in their early teens, had faker smiles.

Now, that could have just been explained away by virtue of them been teenagers, but he didn’t get that impression from them all.

It was likely because he was a male descendent of the Matriarch, and one favoured by her too. Petty jealousies were a thing, especially when everyone fought to elevate themselves in the eyes of those in power.

He hated to admit it, but power really trumped all here. Power and ability, that is.

It wasn’t until the greetings were over halfway through that he was finally able to see Xiora. Their family being so far from the main line, it was no wonder that it took so long for them to get through the greeting line. That said, Joram was sure that Xiora’s family would be rising in the ranks as they finally noticed her potential.

‘Jo?’

‘Yes, Xixi?’

‘I missed you!’ Xiora sent, a huge smile on her face.

‘I missed you too,’ he sent back, reciprocating her warmth. It wasn’t hard, for Xiora was one of those lovable children, the kind that everyone gushed over.

So, they sat there, hand-in-hand as he finished his familial duties of greeting the guests who’d come to wish him well on his birthday. Once he was done, they hopped down and made their way to one of the snack tables, as he liked to call them.

Loaded up, they made their way to a section of the Great Hall where they had chairs lined up against the wall where people could sit and chat if they wished. Or in their case, eat!

Shortly after they started eating, Zanth was dropped off by his mother, Selussa. Being the toddlers they were, the trio first focussed on devouring their respective meals, then got to chatting about random things.

Joram felt a little bad that Zanth’s progress was almost non-existent, only having just touched the first level of Tier 0. In his case, the ears. It made sense, as the hearing of a child was much better than their eyesight, so the gains were much more apparent. Joram was also glad that Zanth had started with hearing, as waiting for his eyesight to naturally improve would allow for better improvement of his eyesight once he started to refine his eyes through cultivation.

In other words, it was better to work on your body once it had fully developed naturally.

In Joram’s case, he had elected to suppress his cultivation in order to allow his body to develop more naturally. It was certainly a huge temptation to keep walking around with the strength of an adult, but he knew that suppressing his cultivation was indeed better for his development in the long run.

As for Xixi, she was following his advice, also suppressing her cultivation to allow her body to develop naturally.

This all had been a bit of a surprise to him when he’d come across that tidbit in his research. He’d thought that cultivation and natural growth would have a compounding effect when both occurred at the same time. On the contrary, cultivation would stunt the natural growth of the body if done too soon. So, there he was, cultivation suppressed in order to allow his body to properly grow.

It still sucked.

It was very hard to keep his impatience in check, though, as he very much wanted to just grow up and get on with his life, to get out there and explore this ridiculous new world. To find Altaea, or, at the least, to find out what happened to her.

So, he came to a decision that would lead to him being perpetually exhausted: he would need to constantly run [Schism].

Now, if he’d decided to do this before he’d been killed, it would have been impossible. The energy needed to keep that power up and running would have drained him in under two hours. But now that he had been practicing on expanding his “knowledge sea”- or maybe he could call it his “power star”?- his reserves had greatly increased.

That, however, still wasn’t enough. He would have to rely on the mana-power conversion technique that Altaea had left him to make up the difference.

How would this help? Well, [Schism] allowed him to basically duplicate his mind and have it running in parallel with his primary mind, allowing both to communicate and act separately. Both were him, however, so there was no worry about a rogue personality taking over or anything like that.

Sure, the second mind could only act mentally, as his primary mind would stay in control of his body, but that didn’t matter as his second mind would be set to purely mental tasks anyways; like studying, cultivation, comprehension, etc.. The downside was that he’d be effectively drained of power while doing this. This method wouldn’t be anything but draining on his system until he was able to form and keep up a third mind through [Schism]. However, that was easier said than done.

That would need him to either come up with a viable augmentation to the power, or to create a whole new power to handle it. Hmmm, maybe that should be his first project for his second mind, to create that needed augment.

“Joram, time to go up,” his mother said, interrupting his musings.

Nodding, he hopped down and followed her to the small platform set up at the head of the great hall where his great grandmother stood with his grandparents and his father.

Unsurprisingly, the bit where he was presented to the clan was more or less the same, using another circlet of the same design as the previous two. What was different, however, was what came at the end.

“This also marks the last day where my daughter and her daughter will be on leave,” Tatia announced. “Tomorrow, they shall depart for their next assignments. So, let us also take this time to bid them great success in their endeavours.”

Well, he had known that they’d be leaving after his birthday, but this was a bit sudden. Not that he should have been surprised, though, as he’d been getting the impression that their missions were on the more important side of things. They had, of course, kept the details secret. He really couldn’t blame them after what had happened yesterday, though. At least he’d be able to stay in contact with his parents through the Network.

Once Grammy was done, Joram took the opportunity to escape the incoming well-wishers and congratulators in favour of hanging out with his friends.

He did, however, keep an ear on the conversations going on around him to see if anything interesting would be mentioned.

Well, it was a typically boring gathering- as he’d never been big on attending parties, this life of the last-, people talking about new products on the market, from clothing to various elixirs to a new smith in town who seemed to have great accomplishments and thus more expensive materials were being ordered in to accommodate their growth.

He was, once again, frustrated by this language’s grammatical structure. He very much preferred English’s binary gender pronouns. Sure, there was the whole gender fluidity movement, along with the political correctness that went along with it, but he was used to what he was used to. This language, however, had the gender neutral pronouns that German had, so he guessed that that made things easier overall. He wondered how much English would change as the gender movement progressed….

With a shake of his head, he once again focussed on the gossip.

Fashion was relatively conservative here, closer to that of the ancient East back home, though less flowy. The robes didn’t have those ridiculously huge sleeves but were closer to that of a modern suit jacket. Also, they tended to end just past the hips, flaring slightly. Women tended to wear a skirt along with that type of jacket, while men preferred pants of various cuts. Sure, there were still many people who wore the tradition-style robes, but the new style seemed to appeal to more people.

There was also talk of how the Matriarch was expanding the clan’s medicinal gardens, and he wondered if that had anything to do with him. He wasn’t sure due to the fact that this project seemed to me months old already, but it was always a possibility.

Another topic that caught his ear was the general expectations of the clan that Xiora would rise very high in the clan, possibly inheriting the position of Matriarch in the future, especially with her engagement to Joram. He laughed a bit inside, as he suspected they’d be greatly disappointed if they learned that his parents weren’t actively using contraceptives already.

In his previous life, while growing up, his family hadn’t been what you’d call a model family. It was broken, with many, many issues. So, he was very much looking forward to having a younger sibling arrive, to build that familial bond with them. To be able to be that Big Brother to them.

Then his thoughts turned somber as he remembered how he’d died and had thus been born into the new family.

He needed to get stronger. Strong enough that some random jerk couldn’t just kill him for whatever reason that happened to skitter across their entitled brains.

Yes, tonight he’d start using [Schism] and have his second mind begin working on how to get a third mind going. Only then would he be able to make the kind of progress that would allow him to grow fast enough to be able to protect his family.

* * * * *

Sulia turned to look at Joram as she felt a wave of determination flow across the Network and saw that Look on his face.

She didn’t know what he was thinking, or what caused this abrupt shift, but she hoped that whatever it was wasn’t anything dangerous.