Chapter 018

Joram woke up slowly, enjoying the birdsong and the fresh air coming in through the window as much as he enjoyed the lack of a migraine. He didn’t bother opening his eyes yet, for he already saw everything around him through his sphere of perception provided by [Touchsight].

Grammy was gone, but in her chair was Tillia, sleeping away. The most amazing thing was that she remained upright, head tilted back, mouth open with soft snores coming out. It looked like she’d already prepared for the day, being dressed in her usual smart clothes, hair done up just so. He smiled at that; she really did try to be presentable for her young charge and those he would interact with.

He’d asked her one time why she always spent so much time perfecting her hair and outfit and had received wisdom, instead of a smack to the head that he had more than half expected.

“I don’t spend as much time as others, nor do I use beauty products to try and enhance my appearance. Rather, I dress well and keep myself well presented… for myself. It is a measure of self-respect to dress and present yourself in a dignified manner.”

That had given him much to think about.

Back on Earth, he hadn’t much cared how he dressed. Blue jeans or shorts paired with a t-shirt of some sort or another. That was his staple. He hadn’t been the best at remembering to get a haircut on a regular basis, and due to his face having an extreme dislike of razors, he’d wound up just having a short beard for most of his adult life. Then later, when that whole pandemic scare was at its height, he’d just let his beard grow as many others had; the “pandemic beard”.

Even after he’d arrived in this world, he hadn’t bothered to dress fancy, instead preferring the simple designs and colours of his handmade/[Fabricate]d clothes. Heck, he’d even “cheated” by stopping his hair from growing just so that he wouldn’t have to worry about haircuts or shaving.

He almost laughed then, remembering that he still had his clippers and electric razor- the one with the round foils that helped to reduce razor-burn- sitting in his storage. He’d say that they were gathering dust, but that wouldn’t be true as they, along with the rest of his electronics, were in the stasis part of his storage space.

He smiled, remembering that he wouldn’t ever have to buy a new razor or clippers ever again due to having [Reconstruction] and [Psionic Repair] in his repertoire of powers known. No longer would he have to worry about degenerating battery life, dulling blades, fraying cords, or the many other annoying ways that electronics and their accessories failed. Ah, life was grand…

He idly wondered what his life would be like if he somehow managed to return to Earth one day. Would he arrive when he left, or would the same time have passed over there as it had here? Would he even be able to find his original world amongst the infinite realms of the multiverse?

He sighed then, causing Tillia to stir. He hadn’t meant to do that, but he supposed that it was about time for him to get up anyways.

“Oh, Joram! You’re up!” Tillia exclaimed, leaning over to give him a huge hug. “We were so worried about you! When the Matriarch told us that you’d finally awoken in the night, you wouldn’t believe how relieved I was!”

Now, it was a bit hard to hear someone with one side of your head pressed into someone’s bosom, while the other side was wrapped about with said person’s arms. In the end, he did manage to parse what she’d said and gave her a pat on the shoulder.

When that didn’t work, he started tapping a bit more insistently due to his increasing need to take a breath.

“I’m so sorry!” She said, quickly pushing him away so that he could breathe. “I was just so worried, and so relieved at the good news, I guess I lost my composure,” she finished, looking away for a bit.

But not fast enough for him to catch the extra shimmering in her eyes, or the tears that had already escaped.

Like a gentleman, he silently sat up and turned his head to studiously study the simply stunning view out his window. It was truly a wonderful day, with nary a cloud to be seen, beautiful music provided by the birds and frogs in and around the pond outside his window. Yes, it was truly a wonder to behold…

But that did nothing to prevent his sphere of perception from seeing Tillia wiping her eyes with a handkerchief that had been hidden in her sleeve, nor did he miss the deep, calming, beaths she took in an effort to compose herself for her ward.

Then he finally listened to that little voice that said that you should really do something, and then kept on nagging you to do it.

So, he scooted closer to her, then climbed into her lap, then had a shocking revelation of his own.

He didn’t fit as well as he used to. In fact, it was downright crowded now.

Between both his and her startlement, there was an awkward pause where he was clumsily perched on her lap, and she’d somewhat turned to him to see what was going on. They regarded each other for a moment before his foot slipped off her thigh, causing him to fall forward, causing her in turn to jerk back to avoid getting head-butted in the face… causing her to fall backwards in the chair, bringing him along for the ride.

Fortunately, Joram was cushioned in his fall by some conveniently placed “air bags”. Unfortunately for Tillia, there was no such padding for her head, causing it to bounce once before resting on the floor, where she lay still.

Joram panicked for a moment before he noticed that her chest was still rising and falling as she breathed.

‘Now, that was entertaining,’ Avi sent with a chuckle. ‘But you should probably check to make sure that she doesn’t have a concussion or something.’

With a supreme effort of will, he managed not to cuss-out Avi. This is serious, damn it!

He then sat up, hopped off her belly, and kneeled down next to her head. He reached out, placing a hand on her forehead, then [Delve]d her.

Sure enough, she had a small concussion, some minor subluxation in the cervical and upper thoracic areas of her spine, but was otherwise OK. With another thought, he gave her a shot of healing, repairing the damage while reducing the swelling, shifting things back to where they needed to be, and convincing her body that all was once again well in the world.

With that done, he scooted a bit, lifted her head, then laid it back down on his lap. While he waited for her to regain consciousness, he moved the hair off her face and over to the side. He smiled then as he watched her laying on his lap, slowly breathing in and out again.

He then retrieved a small jade bottle with a dropper as its stopper. It was one of the batches of medicine he’d made as he practiced alchemy. This batch was in liquid form, an experiment to see if its efficacy was affected by not refining it into a solid pill form. He shrugged, then gently opened her mouth, and dripped two drops in.

It was, after all, the best way to explain why she didn’t have an injury when she woke up, even if the healing effects of the medicine weren’t quite as strong as a formed pill.

Gotta cover all the bases!

* * * * *

She was a bit confused. She thought that she’d already gotten up for the day, so why was she waking up again? Then she realized that she wasn’t in her comfortable bed, but was instead laying on a hard surface, though her head was comfortable enough.

Had she fainted? What had happened?

Then she opened her eyes slowly, the light trickling in, but still a bit fuzzy.

She regarded a handsome visage, purple hair framing his face. She closed her eyes again, fighting a blush that threatened to turn her face scarlet.

What the heck is going on? Who is that? She frantically though as the tried her hardest to remember the meditation techniques taught to her in her youth to help her calm her heart and mind for cultivation.

Well, that didn’t work very well, as she’d never been particularly good at finding that calm centre needed for cultivation.

She took a deep, calming breath, released it, then repeated that twice more. After that, she found that she’d at least managed to calm her racing heart down to the level of just beating quickly.

Firming up her resolve, she cracked her eyelids open again, blinking a few times to help things come into focus faster.

Yup, still there, she thought as his image became clearer and the handsome figure morphed into a young face leaning over, staring at her.

“Joram!” She squeaked, instantly losing the battle to keep the blush from her face. “What?! How? When?-“

“You fell and bumped your head,” Joram said, cutting off her frantic rambling with a smile.

Ah, so that explains the hallucination! She thought with relief, bringing her hand up to the back of her head as she turned away from Joram. Once there, her hand failed to find a sore spot, nevermind the expected goose-egg.

She sat up then, barely missing Joram’s head with hers. She turned, swung her legs around and then folded them under her, and regarded her young ward.

“I fell?” She asked, realizing how lame that sounded after the fact.

“Yes,” Joram replied with a nod.

“I hit my head?”

“Yes.”

“Did you give me a healing pill?” She asked, but knew that he had to have done so, as there was a medicinal aftertaste in her mouth.

“Yup.”

She paused there, not quite sure what to ask. Maybe: “where’d you get the medicinal pill from?” or something along those lines. But that really didn’t make much sense, as he’d probably received medicinal pills for emergency use.

She settled with: “Thank you,” trying very hard to forget the handsome visage that had greeted her upon first waking up.

“You’re welcome,” he said with a bright smile. “I’m just glad you’re all right.”

“Well, thank you for making sure that I was all right,” she replied with her own smile.

“For my woman, any time!” He said as he puffed his chest out and placed his hands on his waist, chin raised high.

Between the fading image of that visage, and her own awkward feelings, a laugh finally burst out of her, startling both her and Joram. It continued for a few minutes, Joram eventually joining in.

After a while, she caught her breath, then grabbed him in a headlock.

“Who’s your woman, you womanizer?!”

* * * * *

Ah, he’d messed up.

He was more than strong enough to break free of the headlock and the following noogy, but it was a good test to see just how effective the Adamantium Body’s first stage was.

Well, he felt the knuckles on his head, but there was no pain. To keep up the ruse, he squirmed about in her grasp, protesting all the while.

“You!” He said, “You’re going to be my woman!”

Through the corner of his eye, he caught a blush flooding her cheeks again, and was then flipped onto his back and sat upon. He blinked, then came the tickling.

Now, one should note that tickling is in all actuality a form of torture because the nerves responsible for that response are actually pain nerves. Yes, you can be tickled to death. Please play responsibly.

That said, due to his body tempering, the “tickling” felt more like a gentle massage than anything else. Again, he had to keep up the ruse, so he squirmed about, forcing out laughs and giggles.

That was harder than it seemed. Laughing was something so natural, that when someone faked a laugh, it was easy to tell when it wasn’t genuine. He had, however, spent decades perfecting his laugh. Why? Well, as an introvert and a rather opinionated person, he didn’t find many things funny that the general populace did. Popular sitcoms, slap-schtick, etc., were rather boring for him, as he just viewed them as immature. But to be seen as “fitting in”, he’d felt that he’d needed to “go with the flow”, hence the polished fake laughter.

Well, as proud as he was with that accomplishment, Tillia was too sharp.

“Joram,” Tillia said as she withdrew her hands and sat back on his legs. “What’s going on?”

He continued to pretend at catching his breath for a few more seconds before replying.

“What are you talking about?”

She fixed him with The Stare, telling him that his act had indeed been seen through.

Had he messed up somehow? Or was it just her amazing social skills at work, able to ferret out every detail in any social interaction she witnessed? He realized then that Tillia was a more formidable foe than he’d originally thought.

With a sigh, he sat up, bringing his face uncomfortably close to her bosom, but then reached out and took her by the waist, picked her up, and place her to the side.

Her eyes went wide when he touched her waist, then nearly popped out when he picked her up and moved her.

“You see,” he started, not quite sure what to say as this was such an unexpected development. “I didn’t exactly fail in my cultivation,” he finished lamely.

Joram watched as Tillia’s shock faded away and her eyes went back to a normal size as she processed what he’d just said, then shot open again when it all clicked.

“You’re Tier 2?” She asked, face going deadpan, tone on the flat side of disbelief.

He nodded, not quite sure how to tell her that he’d skipped that Tier and had landed in Tier 3…

She looked down at his hand where the aura shroud ring sat, reached out, and gently slid it off his finger. She then placed the other hand on his chest and closed her eyes. After a few moments, a frown crept onto her delicate face, her brow creasing.

“Why can’t I feel your cultivation?” She asked as she opened her eyes, a look of concern and confusion warring on her face.

He thought for a moment, then came to a decision as he looked out the window.

‘Grammy?’

‘Yes, Joram?’

‘I need to tell Tillia about some stuff,’ he sent, allowing his feelings of certainty to flow across their connection.

There was a pause before she responded. ‘I will make the necessary arrangements on my side,’ she finally sent with a mental nod.

That done, he turned back to Tillia and noticed that the concern written on her face was winning out against the confusion.

“Please accept,” he said, then sent her an invitation to the Network.

He smiled as her eye nearly popped out again, then nodded to himself when her presence appeared in the Network.

‘There’s a bit of a story to tell,’ he began, again smiling when her eyes nearly popped out of her face due to this latest shock.

* * * * *

After about a half-hour of explaining to her what he’d been hiding from her this entire time, Tillia didn’t know what to think.

One: he was a Reincarnator. That alone was enough to boggle the mind. Suddenly, many little things that had piled up in the back of her head over the almost two years she’d spent with Joram clicked into place. The way he spoke, the way he walked. The occasional death glare that someone would get.

His crush on her…

Her brain nearly melted there. He wasn’t even four years old yet! But at the same time, his mind could have been thousands of years old! She would be the child to him! Yet he still wanted her, someone with below-average talent in cultivation, who hadn’t even reached Tier 1 at the age of eighteen!

Then her mind swung back around to his not-quite four-year-old body and felt like a bucket of cold water had been dumped on her.

What am I thinking?! He’s my ward! Well, I’m his Nanny, anyway! I can’t go thinking of him being an adult! What kind of pervert would that make me?!

On and on her mind whirled in circles, slowly descending into the pit of self recrimination and loathing.

‘Oi!’

She blinked at the mental shout that rang inside her head and refocussed on Joram.

That’s right, I can’t let this negatively affect me. I still have my duty to watch, protect, and educate Joram! I am his Nanny!

‘Right, well,’ she began, not sure where to go from there. ‘We’ll need to go over a few things, like boundaries and expectations from here on out,’ she sent, proud of how well she was keeping it together.

She saw a small smile appear on his face, a look of knowing that belied his physical age.

‘Yes, we definitely need to go over a few things,’ Joram sent as his smile grew mischievous. ‘For one, you’ll need to keep this secret more tightly than even the core purpose of the Clan.’

She started at that, not sure what to think of this little person. How had he known about that? Then she shook her head, clearing those useless thoughts. If he was indeed a Reincarnator with a heaven-defying ability like this mental communication, then what else could he do? What else could he already know? Yes, he’d explained to her about his parents, grandparents, and the Matriarch knowing about him. But. Just what had she gotten herself into?

What changes would come to the clan? To their way of life? Would his appearance in the clan herald a new age to come? He’d been vague about when he’d died, not to mention the full extent of his abilities, for she was keen enough to know that he hadn’t told her even a fraction of what he could do and what he knew.

‘Next,’ his voice brought her back to the present. ‘I was quite serious when I told you that I like you. Yes, I know that Xiora and I are engaged, but all things in due time.’

‘But you’re not even four!’ She sent back, panicking again. Her heart was a confused mess, her common sense and morals rebelling against the idea of them becoming a couple.

‘True, but time flies, and we have more than enough of it to work things out,’ his calm voice came through, causing her eyebrow to twitch.

‘What time? I haven’t even reached Tier 1, let alone Tier 2! I’ll be an old woman before you are old enough!’

She hadn’t meant to phrase it like that, with the subtext that there was a possibility of a relationship between them being a possibility.

‘Don’t worry, I’m sure that I can help you along with your cultivation,’ he sent back in a confident tone, bordering on smug.

She didn’t know why, but that tweaked a nerve. She’d laboured diligently for eight years, doing her best to comprehend her family’s cultivation method and make progress. It had been a very long and grueling road to even get where she was today, yet he claimed that he could help her?

Then she remembered that this “child” had already stepped into Tier 2, and a spark of hope ignited in her chest.

Can he really help me break through my limitations?

That thought alone caused her to take this whole affair more seriously. Then her mind blanked at her unconscious use of the word “affair” in that last thought, her face once again filled with a fierce blush.

‘Then I’ll have to rely on you,’ she sent meekly, trying very hard to put a clamp on her confused emotions. It was made all the harder by that vision of the handsome man she’d seen when she’d woken up. Paired with what she’d just said, her brain finally overloaded, bringing sweet, sweet, unconsciousness.

* * * * *

Joram watched as a parade of emotions made their way across Tillia’s face. It was quite the show, ending with a blush so fierce that he worried if she might burst a blood vessel somewhere. He was glad that they were sitting so close to each other, for when she fainted he was able to catch her before she hit the ground again.

He gently laid her down again, this time on his bed. It wasn’t hard to lift her negligible weight, just a tad awkward in balancing a body so much larger than his. After a few slips where his hands went places he’d never admit they’d gone, he got her settled. He then righted the chair beside his bed and hopped on, smacking his shin in the process.

Yes, he had indeed grown. Hmmm…

Anyway, had he been too forward with her? Probably, but he’d make the best of what came. He was more than willing to wait the decade or so before he married Xixi to see if he really did want to marry Tillia as well. He was sure that, in that time, he would be able to properly sort his feelings and determine if this was just a childhood crush, or something that would develop into a more lasting relationship.

But in the meantime, it was all sorts of fun to tease her a bit. At the same time, he also wondered if that was fair. His mind was already in its mid-forties after all. He’d have to ponder on this for a while. More sorting needed.

‘Joram?’

‘Yes, Avi?’

‘Does this mean I’ll have three moms?’ She sent, curiosity coming through.

He blanked for a minute before he realized that she meant Altaea, Xixi, and now Tillia, then he coughed.

‘Only if you wish to view them as such,’ he sent back carefully, not sure how to handle this. Heck, after his divorce, he’d remained single, so he’d never had to have that discussion with his own daughters. That might have actually been part of the reason he’d stayed single. Huh.

‘We’ll see,’ she sent back, a note of haughtiness coming through.

He nearly face-palmed. She was doing this on purpose.

‘Anyway, how are our reserves of mana crystals doing?’ He sent, changing the subject.

‘We’re almost out of the Tier 1 stuff, but we still have plenty of the higher tier stuff on hand. I’m currently investigating another seam in the mountains. Hopefully I’ll find something good.’

‘Thank you, Avi. I really do appreciate all that you’re doing.’

‘Hey, it beats sitting around in a vineyard for a thousand years,’ she sent back with a grin.

He really couldn’t say anything to that, so he just nodded and closed his eyes, withdrawing to his Knowledge Star.

He observed it for a short while, not wanting to lose track of time, to be sure that wall was still stable. Sure enough, everything looked good. It was a wonder, and possibly a miracle, that he’d managed to jump an entire Realm in his cultivation, landing in Tier 3, the Human Realm.

He didn’t know what repercussions were hiding in his body from his rapid ascent, but he’d need a lot of time to investigate. One major change was that he had indeed grown.

He stood up and made his way to the window, where he liked to mark his height every twenty-six weeks, and marked his new height. He turned, then blinked a few times, not quite believing his eyes.

He turned back around, retrieved a large square from storage, then used it to again mark his new height. That done, he turned around as he deposited the square back into storage and blinked again.

Well, this time it was slightly higher, by on a couple of millimetres though. Still, if his eyes weren’t lying to him, then he’d grown a whopping fourteen point eight centimetres. That was almost six inches.

He took a deep breath, then made his way to his little bathroom, climbed up his stool, and looked at himself in the mirror. Now, he could have just gone to his wardrobe and looked at the full-length mirror on the inside of the door, but somehow it felt more appropriate to do this in the bathroom.

Don’t ask him why, he was also confused by the sentiment.

Finally paying attention to his reflection, he noticed that his face had indeed changed, nevermind the longer hair that had noticeably darkened at the roots.

He’d lost a fair amount of baby fat, his face now leaner than before. In fact, he could even see that line of muscle at his jaw very clearly as he clenched and unclenched his jaw.

Then another thought occurred to him, so he hurried over to his wardrobe, stripped his pj’s, and opened the door with the mirror on it. What he saw stunned him more than it probably should have.

Back on Earth, he’d never had a six-pack, though he was solidly built. He’d always had a layer of belly fat, and a bit of a tire. He’d fortunately never developed the dreaded “muffin top”, but he’d not ever been described as lean or skinny. It wasn’t until his transformation by Altaea’s hands, then the subsequent insane training he’d gone through that he’d finally developed muscles on par with an Olympian, toned to near perfection.

Since his rebirth he’d once again, understandably, gotten chubby. Sure, it was a natural process children went through, gaining their baby fat that accumulated between growth spurts, then slowly faded away as the child aged.

Now, however, he saw a sculpted body, muscles showing definition that a three-year-old really shouldn’t have. He wasn’t bulky by any stretch of the imagination, but the definition he saw in the mirror was shocking. He really didn’t know how he felt about that. Coming from a society that placed undue emphasis on having a sculpted body nudged him to the side of gratification. On the other hand, every other bit of learning and understanding he’d gained along the way screamed that it didn’t matter what he looked like, so long as he was healthy.

And that was the thing: was he healthy? Had his extreme rise in cultivation somehow negatively impacted his health? Would he suffer unforeseen issues as he grew?

He did a quick mental check and confirmed that he still had his Ring of Sustenance “equipped”. That was a relief, as it provided everything that the body needed for its day-to-day function; meaning that he shouldn’t be deficient in vitamins or minerals. It also explained why he hadn’t been thirsty when waking up. Also, the lack of pressure to do his morning routine.

He looked in his wardrobe and realized that he needed an entirely new set of clothes made. Which confused him somewhat, as his pj’s had fit properly. Had they just decided to wait until he woke up before having new clothes made for him? Probably.

With a sigh, he reached down to pick up his pj’s when he heard a loud gasp behind him.