Chapter 8

Volume 2

Sister is leaving again.

Mother has prepared a small farewell party for her, with plenty of foods she enjoys - like roasted chicken breasts and thick bone soup.

Not my first choice of food, but I guess sister has a peculiar palate.

That said, younger sister is the sadder one amongst us.

She even cried a bit while holding on Ann’s leather trousers.

…I can’t say I don’t feel just a little bit of satisfaction from seeing the rest of the family looking at the display she’s showing with restrain.

It’s one of those rare times when younger sister’s wishes and cuteness aren’t enough to move anyone’s hearts. Probably because they see it as selfish.

Of course I feel a little bad for her as well, but there’s just a little bit of satisfaction.

She won’t become a spoiled kid, I hope.

Or at least not a very spoiled one.

“Ma, Pa, I will be going.”

“Safe travels honey.”

“Careful on the road.”

“Grandma, Grandpa, goodbye.”

“Travel well darling.”

“I hope you can get there in time.”

“Jacen, goodbye.”

“Goodbye sis.”

Eeh~~ such resolute eyes. It doesn’t even look as if you were about to cry, poop-brother.

“Alvin… goodbye.”

“Bye sis.”

We are keeping the mater of me going to the capital six months from now as a secret.

We can’t have the rest of the village knowing I can get there faster than sister after all.

“Safe travels Ann.”

“Thank you Johson.”

Yeah forehead. Now scram. This is a family moment, and you’re not invited!

Even if it’s impossible not to have it.

We have a script to follow after all.

“It’s a shame you can’t teach my guys any longer.”

“I have given instructions to Jacen to do it in my place. He’s already got it right.”

“I see. So we could expect him to become the next Superior Being on our village.”

“That and a few other things I taught him as well. He can help you in your training by using that.”

“I see. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Goodbye everyone.”

*sigh*

To insert this kind of dialogue into our goodbye conversation…

Being a [Genius] is though.

Well, at least we have an excuse. It’s sure that the windows around have ears, so the others in the village will know soon enough that Ann taught something to Jacen she didn’t to the rest of the militia.

Then Jacen becoming instructor at the militia barracks will come naturally, even if he isn’t an adult yet.

Or as naturally as something like this can be.

Meh.

I shouldn’t worry about such things.

This world should be a world of magic and swords. Why am I worried about my brother instructing people far older than him?

It will work out somehow… right?

“Hey, All, why is everyone sad?”

Oh, Alma is talking to me. I will talk to her using my soul mouth.

“Because we know we will miss sister.”

“Miss her? Can’t you go visit her?”

“I can, but the rest of the family can’t. They probably won’t see her again.”

“Eeeh? Why don’t you take them there? Can’t you just carry them with [Magic Hand] or something?”

“I could, but then the people would notice I’m a [Genius]. That would be bad for us.”

“Really? Can’t you just show people that you’re a good person?”

“Maybe. It will only take time. Maybe more than grandpa has to live.”

“Oh.”

“Don’t worry. I will find the Immortality spell for him.”

“Do you want to go looking for the people at the [Hollow-Point Tavern] again? There were a bunch of human mages there.”

“Nah. They didn’t know about our physical world. None of the spells worked, after all. Let’s try to find an old dungeon with scriptures in it, or maybe a necromancer’s soul which has remained around long enough for knowing this kind of stuff.”

“Okay. I will keep helping then!”

“Thanks.”

Alma has been helping me for quite a while now.

By spreading her soul to as many trees as possible, that is.

For now, she has only covered enough space to encompass the radius I myself have traveled around, but eventually she will start looking at broader distances.

Then I will trust her to tell me in case she finds a dungeon around, or maybe old ruins or something like that.

Seeing sister’s back leaving the village indeed made me apprehensive about the future, didn’t it?

***

Okay, mind training night!

Enough with the 112-dice game!

I have reached grandmother’s maximum potential as well for this game.

Besides, I can see her mind clearly already.

Now, the thing about minds is that…

They just don’t have form.

They look like a blob of light, and will only take a form if the owner so desires, and after a lot of concentration.

Besides, controlling one’s mind is though as balls.

Because it means controlling one’s thoughts, and that has to be done with the use of Willpower.

Willpower.

That’s the thing that makes up a person’s spirit, and also the way to control one’s mind.

Of course, mental magic can be done if you know the right line of thoughts to have.

For instance, if you think on a certain order, certain feelings can be produced.

A [Soul Javelin] can be easily produced by going through a sequence of thoughts consisting of analyzing the environmental information and then imagining a possible enemy hidden within the space-time.

And then an [Aura Javelin] can be made once you let the [Soul Javelin] influence the aura around.

But this is merely non-self-produced emotional magic.

Like chantless soul magic, if we think on “feeling the right feelings in the right succession” as “chanting”.

The REAL challenge is to be able to control one’s thoughts and produce mental magic with them.

I mean, technically this is the fourth tier of magic, “chantless mind magic”, if you think “having the right thoughts in the right succession” as “chanting”, but it’s needed for me to go on [Mind Walk].

Otherwise my mind will naturally start to spawn a number of simultaneous thoughts which will make me jump from place to place in the mental place, without being able to focus on a single one of them.

So that’s why I need to learn Will magic in order to learn [Mind Walk].

And the other stuff…

Well, [Mind Reading] and [Mind Speaking] and so on is just developing my mind’s senses in order to be able to see, hear and talk to other minds - just like I’m doing with grandma now.

While [Mind Hiding] is a spell to make one’s mind hidden from others, making it so [Mind Reading] and the such can’t notice it.

And other, more potent and dangerous mind spells… well, grandma says she doesn’t know any.

I’m amazed at that, since [Mind Reading] allow for someone to look at other people’s beliefs and so on, so I obviously thought we could change people’s beliefs and values with a king of brainwashing magic… but this kind of thing doesn’t seem to exist here.

“That’s a dangerous magic darling. I don’t know any spell capable of doing it, but if you master Will Magic then you may be able to do it.”

Those where grandma’s words for me.

As if it was so easy…

Manipulating one’s own Willpower is more difficult than it looks. Especially since after using it we become so vulnerable - totally feeble and devoid of willpower to resist the desires and will of others around us.

Let’s just keep training [Mind Reading], [Mind Speaking]. [Mind Hidding] and [Chantless Soul Magic].

Even if grandma doesn’t know strong mind magic stuff there’s already plenty of Soul Magic which I can learn how to do without having feelings of my own - by just manipulating the surrounding emotional energy with the correct thoughts and mental power, that is.

Then, once I have learned all of that…

It will be time to head back and try [Mind Walk] again.

***

Time surely fly by once you start doing something new.

For me that would be hearing the thoughts of the people in the village.

I avoid doing it to the family, since it could be too emotionally scaring for me.

Some things like “how your family really thinks and feels” aren’t good to know.

But the rest of the people around have simple and entertaining ideas.

I mean.

Most of them.

I have located a couple dangerous people in the village already.

They are constantly making mental calculations on what would happen if they were to rape or kill the people surrounding them.

I can’t just kill them without making the village panic though, so I have inserted an algorithm onto their souls instead.

Any time they do such a thing as getting involved with thoughts of rape or killing, they will feel pain and nausea.

It’s a simple algorithm, but which requires a complex wiring, since I have been tampering with the connection between their minds and souls in order to do it.

That would be part of the [Magic Flexibility: Soul-Mind Surgery] series of mind magic, but it is actually a lot less glorious than it sounds.

There’s just too many mind threads which can’t be messed with or the mind will detach from the soul.

So it’s pretty standard wiring for everyone.

That said, those two were under grandma’s watch for a while, but she hadn’t thought of messing with their behaviors.

A kind of “that’s normal, don’t mind it” way of thinking.

I don’t like it.

Even if it’s normal to have psychopaths mixed with the general populace, I want to try and at least make it so they don’t have pleasure being what they are.

That they feel like they want to change, due to pain.

Am I being too rough on them?

I mean, they didn’t choose to be like this, and I may not have what it takes to say I’m just completely right and no one should question me.

Why should I have the power to change other’s feelings and sensations regarding their own thoughts?

Am I not brainwashing them?

…

Maybe I am.

Maybe there’s nothing wrong in brainwashing people.

It’s the might of the powerful.

This is this, that is that.

…

Well, I clearly fell into a pit of authoritarian thinking there.

Maybe I should just stop thinking about it…

Or remove the algorithm.

…

*sigh*

Let’s stop thinking on this for now.

“Alma?”

“Hi!”

She just popped by my side.

“Hi. Everything good?”

“Uhum! All trees are going so lively now~~~ I love spring! It’s so good”

…

Spring Alma is the weirdest shit ever.

I mean, I can clearly see signs of multiple sexual encounters on her soul.

The residual feelings of pleasure from sex.

Still, most of them come from herself.

That’s because she has trees for bodies, so in spring she’s having sex with herself and all other trees and stuff which are around.

It’s like tree months of unending sex.

So fucking weird.

Besides, it makes me think of sister.

For some reason I’m feeling relieved now she’s gone.

We were used to making love every three days, but… I guess I didn’t notice that, it just became mechanic.

The joy of discovery, the feeling of freshness, the idea of doing something fun and somewhat weird or forbidden…

We just got used to mash up genitals together.

So now I’m relieved we stopped doing it.

Isn’t this weird?

I mean, sex is supposed to be this big, meaningful, always-pleasurable and always-good thing.

And still, it just became, like… eating together when you’re not hungry.

Eating by habit alone.

But is this the problem, really?

I mean, sister has been gone for a while now.

And even if I feel a little bit of desire, I can just work it off with masturbating myself.

I don’t feel the need for woman now. Or man.

Just don’t feel the need for either pussy or dick.

Am I becoming asexual?

Should I start thinking about cloning myself so I can leave offspring?

Not that I want to have offspring in any way, so it’s a stupid question.

“ALL!”

“Woah, what, what?!”

“I’m talking to you! Meanie!”

Ah, Alma, always cheerful.

Sorry, sorry.

Too many things on my mind at once.

Literally.

[Aura Hiding], [Soul Isolation] and [Mind Hiding] alone should be enough to make a common human’s brain to give up and take a bus ticket to Alasca.

That plus all of the other stuff I’m doing right now, and thinking about life…

I just stopped minding Alma entirely.

“Sorry. I lost myself in thought.”

“Eh~~? Aren’t you a reminder?”

It isn’t like I don’t remember what she said. It’s just that I didn’t mind answering because I was so deeply involved with my own thoughts. Multitasking have this kind of problems. Sometimes you will keep a conversation naturally, but if you’re distracted by your own thoughts then you can just stop minding the information you get from your surroundings and answering to it.

“Ah, I remember what you said… that you have assimilated the big Old Man’s Tree by the mountain’s feet, right?”

“Yes! Where should I go now?”

I’m having aura assimilate the biggest trees around since they probably have the highest concentration of emotional energy, being alive for so long.

Unfortunately, all of that monster ash is gone already, so she’s depending on absorbing emotional energy with her trees.

It’s still quite he amount due to her being well-spread already, but it’s only enough for her to assimilate 100m² of forest a day.

Grandma says this is more than most [Forest Spirits] would assimilate in ten years, but still, she’s helping me with looking for dungeons and ruins, so I would appreciate if she could get faster.

Hence we’re assimilating the emotional hotspots first, and then moving to the less energetic areas.

“I guess the red heart bushes up west?”

Those are truly a wonderful sign.

Strawberries the size of one’s hand flourish there.

People call them red hearts, differentiating from the blue hearts, which are a kind of poisonous berry which kind of reminds one of a mix between strawberry and mushroom, but grows on tree trunks as a parasite.

They also have a lot of emotional energy on them, probably because they are appreciated by many animals as a delicacy.

“Okay!”

And there she goes.

Good girl.

…should I start training my attention as well? Remaining attentive is basically gathering more mental energy in order to increase my mind’s toughness.

I guess the best way to do it is to go back training qigong.

…

Let’s wait until I’m out of the village to do it.

No use making the family afraid of my weird bodly transformations… again.

***

Ah, here we are.

[Mind Walk] training… finally.

With sister already on her way and the day of my tenth birthday arriving soon, there isn’t much more time to finish my training.

So let’s get going with this.

First, I go on [Soul Walk]… there, done.

Now, grandma’s mind is going to help me get into [Mind Walk].

So I need to lay my soul on the ground as if I was going to sleep and forget all about my feelings.

Just my mind should remind, with no feelings attached to it.

How psychopathic.

Still, it’s life.

I’m not going to give up on my soul, but mind walking means to do exactly this - leaving emotion behind and then going to places using just your mind.

Here it comes…

Uhm.

Uhm…

…

***

“You did great.”

“Thanks.”

Grandma is in Soul Form right at my side.

“What is the matter? You seem shaken.”

“It’s just that… I thought it would be different.”

“What do you mean?”

“I… I couldn’t think while I was doing [Mind Walk]. I was my thinking. My body was made of thoughts. The environment around me was made of thoughts. Everything was thoughts and concepts and things like this… I… I’m not used to this. To not think.”

“You will get used to it soon enough darling. Besides, this is good. I guess for the first time you experienced what your Will is. You finally noticed how it is the source of thinking, instead of thinking being the source of it.”

“Y-yeah…”

It was SO weird.

I mean, thinking is…

Thinking is the product of something.

When I think, that’s because something else I have is moving.

Grandma says it’s my spirit but…

What the fuck.

I mean, just…

What the fuck.

If thinking isn’t who I am…

Then who am I?

What am I?

If I’m not who I think I am… if I’m not my memories and emotions and everything else like this…

Why am I this thing, this spirit thing, and not myself?

I mean, the spirit is me, or it should be me, but it doesn’t feel like me.

I am what I am.

I am my memories, my skills, my desires, my emotions.

I am what I think I am, what I remember, what I think. What I question about the world.

Cogito, ergo sun.

There is no way this is just a reflex.

That all of those things… all I think I am… are just reflexes of a lowly “body made of mind”.

Right?

RIGHT?!

Holy fuck…

Shit…

I’m…

I can’t take this.

I can’t understand this.

“All”

“All”

“ALL!”

“AAH! Don’t startle me! Oh, grandma, sorry.”

“It’s okay darling. You just had a very intense experience. This much is to be expected. Why don’t you take the night off to sleep a bit? I guess you need to expend some time being unconscious to sort things out inside of yourself.”

“Yeah… I will… I will do that, thanks.”

Let’s go back to my body.

I’m my body.

I’m my mind.

I’m my soul.

Am I my spirit?

Or is all of that just illusion?

…

***

I don’t care.

I just don’t care what I am or what I am not.

I’m what I am, so whatever. It won’t change anything.

That’s the conclusion I came to while I was sleeping.

I didn’t have any dreams this night… or at least I thought I didn’t.

It seems I actually moaned the whole night, to the point where mother took me to her room and let me sleep between her and father.

That’s why I wake up between them, on their bed.

I’m better now.

I’m just better.

That’s okay.

Whatever I am, it’s okay.

Maybe I’m something greater than I thought I was before, so what, big news.

I had plenty of intense experiences in my previous life.

They were amazing and gave me insight on many things.

Like how my soul and my body where different things, and how my mind was above them.

And now I believe I discovered something which is even greater than my mind.

I mean, I knew it was.

Intellectually speaking, before coming to this world even, I knew it.

That the spirit was greater than the mind, and something which controlled one’s mind.

Just like the soul controls the body.

Of course, the mind affects the spirit.

But I never allowed myself to experience this kind of thing.

The feeling that my mind wasn’t the end of my being, that is.

Discovering that there’s something greater than the body you thought was the limit of yourself is awful.

It makes you see how frail that body is. The idea of immortality just fades away.

After all, it’s just how my physical body is immortal just until someone destroys my soul.

It doesn’t matter if my physical body is immortal. If my soul is destroyed, then “I” won’t be inhabiting it anymore.

It will be like a useless CPU without a processor or O.S.

Or worse, it may even start to degrade and become just atoms again, since it seems my soul is linked to the origin of my immortality.

So, seeing that there’s something greater than my mind.

Means I’m mortal. No matter how immortal I am, there is something which can destroy me.

If someone destroys my mind, then I’m just dead.

And as long as someone has enough control and strength with their spirits, then they can destroy my mind.

My precious memories, all of what I considered to be good and mighty… all of that is in peril of dying.

I’m afraid.

I wasn’t while I was doing [Mind Walk].

Because I didn’t have any feelings while doing that.

But I am now.

Because I’m back in my soul.

And I don’t want to be mortal.

I don’t want to die!

I don’t!

…

Hahahahahahah.

Shouldn’t I be a suicidal person?

Someone who’s willing to die?

To let everything go away just because the world isn’t working like I wanted to?

Oh gods, that’s so weird…

Aaahh~~~

Whatever.

I’m here now.

I’m here now. I’m alive now. I exist now.

If someone destroys me, then that’s that.

I can’t be killed by most things around me, so I should be relatively safe.

Unless I mess with the wrong bacteria and a Titan decides to fuck with me.

Hahahaha.

Yeah.

I don’t have enough Spiritual power to regrow a mind for myself if I lose my current one.

Maybe if I keep doing qigong then I will have it.

Yeah.

Let’s go back practicing qigong seriously.

And stop all of this nonsense about me not wanting to hurt the family’s feelings by staying away.

If I can be killed at any moment, then there isn’t any time for me to do this kind of shit.

I need to be stronger.

I need to be at least strong enough to be able to regain my memories and my mind if someone destroys it.

A titan for example.

I know it is possible.

Intuitively I know.

My spirit can regrow a mind for myself the same way I can create new souls with [Chantless Soul Magic].

It’s just creating a vessel for myself.

But I need to make my spirit stronger, so It can locate all my mind was and put it together.

Maybe that’s the secret.

The secret about why people don’t remember their past lives.

Are people’s minds really just slumbering in the mind world when they die?

Or are them being dissolved to the core, to the point where no memory remains?

I know I can access all memories of my previous lives if I grow my spirit.

Because it can go back in time and find the minds which were connected to itself, from the very moment it started to exist.

From the very moment I got my spirit.

Maybe that’s what I need to do in order to be myself entirely as I am, instead of being myself as just a part, a small piece of all minds I ever had.

Of all memories I ever had.

Of all things.

…

Ain’t I being a little too extremist…?

Yeah.

Do I need this all, do I really need all of this?

I mean, if my spirit can do this…

Then someday, once it grows, I will be able to do it.

Even if my mind is destroyed now, if the spirit can go beyond the barriers of time and space…

Then “I” as “I” am now… my mind…

It will be reintegrated. Regenerated.

And “I” will come to be again, even if “I” won’t be the only thing I am. I will be me, plus all I have already been and all I will be until there.

There’s no hush.

I am immortal.

I just didn’t get there yet.

To the point where my mind will rebuild itself.

Yes.

This applies to everything, doesn’t it?

If there’s something above my spirit… as long as I can go beyond time and space with it, and I can already go beyond time and space with my [Soul Magic Flexibility : Space and Time], then…

Then I just need to gather the pieces of myself.

They are there.

And I can go after them.

At any time.

Now, tomorrow, some other day.

It doesn’t matter.

As long as time and space are open for me, then I can’t die forever. Because some remnant of me will be able to reorganize itself, and then go back to the origins.

To what it was before being what it is.

My physical body was a star someday.

Helium being fused in the hot core.

My soul was something someday.

Emotional particles drifting after being scattered by something.

My mind as well, was something else.

And my spirit.

All of that.

I can know which souls I had by seeing to which point my mind can go back in time, and looking at my souls.

I can know which bodies I had by seeing to which point my soul can go back in time, and looking at my bodies.

And I can know which mind I had by seeing to which my spirit can go back in time, and looking at which minds I already had at the pass.

Yes.

That’s all me.

Amongst the unsurmountable amount of souls, minds and bodies in this universe or in others… amongst all of them, as long as I can breach the time-space barrier, I can know which ones where mine and what I was.

And then I can make myself whole again. By knowing which souls I had, I will be connected to them and become one with them, even if they disappear on a certain point in time, they will still have that connection to me and return to what I am. To the source.

That is.

They won’t.

But the information of what I was will.

And I will know that indeed was what I was… who I was… and not just some random existence I have been incorporating to myself… because I will be able to notice the connection they had to one of my subtle bodies, which didn’t die with them.

They will be like skin shed from a snake.

The skin goes, the snake continues.

Yes.

So “I” am not any of those.

Not my body, mind, soul.

Maybe I’m not even my spirit.

I am the immortal thing which connects all of them… without being other things, of course.

After all, I won’t give up on my individuality so easily.

On my previous life, in occultism it was said that above the spirit humans weren’t individual beings anymore.

They were part of collective things.

Meaning many spirits would belong to a single being at the same time, and this being would be split amongst them.

So I’m this thing. This big thing. Except I’m using many spirits, minds, bodies and etc at the same time.

That’s it. I’m a transcendental thing trying to get buffed.

It got to be that, right?

I mean, if I’m something transcendental developing myself, then… why the hell am I so limited in doing it… why would I…

Oh, fuck it.

I’m just thinking too much!

Too deep, too much, too everything!

Stop thinking, me!

There.

That’s better.

Let’s watch mother eating rice.

It’s wonderfully peaceful and simple.

*sigh*

Yeah.

Peaceful.

***

The family is getting a bit clingy.

I mean, I can understand father and Jacen calling me to stand by their side in the gate, or mother asking me to stay a home once or twice and help her cook and sew.

But to think she would let me go back sleeping on Jacen’s and little sister’s room.

I guess that’s the dread of separation.

They are trying to enjoy my presence, so…

I guess I will enjoy theirs as well.

It’s just a matter of staying home a little bit more, sleeping in the same room, these sort of things.

But it’s nice.

Kind of like eating together and telling how the day went by.

Yeah.

I mean, I don’t need to stay out of home or anything.

I have begun doing qigong again, but stopped just at the right point.

I can feel it boiling inside of me, and I need just a little bit more energy to start the process of transformation.

But I won’t do it by now. Let’s wait until I’m out of home.

Yeah.

Besides this, I only have [Mind Walk] training with grandma.

Which I can do while my physical body sleeps.

So that’s it.

Let’s enjoy these days with the family. They may be the last ones in a long time, after all.

***

The day has come.

It started with grandma patting my soul-head in the soul world after our final session of [Mind Walk].

I can already do it with a certain level of mastery. Also, I have mastered the basic mind techniques as well.

“Congratulations darling. From today onwards you can say you know everything I know in magic and combat.”

“Thanks grandma.”

Maybe I should have asked her WHO she is.

But I’m not so insensitive.

So many years of training, lessons and living together.

If she wanted grandma would have told me.

“Now, there is just one more thing.”

“Yes?”

“There is a level of magic above the ones I taught you. Today its existence isn’t known except by a few. But in the old empire it was used to know who had the Right to Rule as true Royalty. It is called [Will Magic]. It happens when you use your willpower to do “chantless” mind magic. Can you understand what I say?”

Of course.

After all, that’s what [Mind Walking] is all about.

Going to places with your mind by using your willpower to direct it.

Besides, it isn’t so difficult to do.

Again, the qigong techniques I have been doing since ever are based on that. The main force which moves your Qi is your attention. Your conscience and the willpower needed to move it from a point to the other. Concentration.

…

Do that mean I have been doing Royalty-like magic all this time?

It does explain why grandma said I was a [Royal Genius] and able to inherit the [Curse] if I wanted.

Not that I have enough energy for that… ha.

“Uhm. I do.”

“Then, you must have realized you can do it, right?”

“Yes. But it isn’t so hard. You have been doing it to, right grandma? When you move your mind in the mind world, that’s what you’re doing!”

Grandma smiled.

“Yes darling. But that’s just because I have had the luck of training a [Mind Walk Prodigy] in the old days. I can’t do anything besides that. That’s why I can’t teach you, okay?”

Uh.

Training a [Mind Walk Prodigy]… so this isn’t the first time for grandma training a genius, eh.

Thinking well.. if she was alive in the times of the Empire, then she probably have done things like this many times in the past.

She has been living undercover, but will heal people and kill monsters.

On another words, she probably did it.

Eh. Another interesting thing about grandma popped up.

“Okay.”

“Then, as my gift to you, I will remove the [Mind Alarm] I have put on you a long time ago. This is because I trust you. Never tell about your talents or teach anyone if they aren’t worth of it. Do you promise me?”

Of course.

I don’t want to be burnt on a flaming stake.

“Yes.”

“Good.”

Soon a weird thing happened.

It was as if a small piece of something hard was removed from my mind.

I felt a small relief, but also a weird feeling of emptiness.

I guess I got used to having that little “mind bug” into my mind.

It’s a simple mind spell. It uses [Mind Reading] to find the right thought processes hidden within the person’s mind, like, for example, all thoughts which include the “immediate presence of someone other than the allowed people” and “telling the information which shouldn’t be told” and then [Mind Surgery] to insert a small thought in there with a mental command. Once these thoughts become active, a small mental alarm, like a sound or image, is sent to the programmed person with [Mind Speaking].

This is [Mind Alarm], the spell grandma put on both me and Jacen when we first heard the story of our peoples.

And my graduation gift was having it removed. She’s giving me permission to teach those I judge better to teach.

…

I wonder if this is something you should do to a 10-years-old…

Regardless, that was the beginning of my day.

Once I woke up, I had a surprise.

Father, mother, little sister and older brother.

All of them were on our room, waiting for me to wake up.

I got hugs from everyone, and gifts as well.

Mother got me a complete new set of clothes. I hadn’t seen she knitting it at all. I wonder if she made those while I slept or something?

Mom is amazing.

Father and Jacen gave me a set of leather armor. It’s crudely sewed on some parts, and very well sew on others.

They must have done it themselves.

Amazing.

I mean, sister had training leather armor since I remember, but this is an expensive piece of clothing.

She probably got it from her tenth birthday as well.

Little sister gave me a kiss on the cheek and a small medallion with everyone’s initials written on it.

There was father’s, which was a “J”.

Then mother’s, which was an “A”.

Then Ann’s, an “Ann”.

Jacen’s, a “Ja”

Mine’s, an “Al”

And her’s, a “Jo”.

Right.

Her name is Johannah.

Everyone calls her Anna, but the name is Johannah.

Where did she learn letters?

She told me Jacen had taught her, saying I would be happy if she learned letters. That I loved to write and read, so I would be very happy.

Indeed, I am.

I haven’t thought about this at all, but…

This smaller sister of mine.

She loves me, doesn’t she?

As a brother, of course, but…

She really likes me.

What a fool I had been.

Feeling all jealous and childish because of her.

What if she became the center of attention on the house?

I was five already!

Any kid over five would stop receiving as much attention as before.

It’s the age to stop carrying about this kind of things.

Besides, everyone keeps loving me regardless.

I hugged everyone, and we had amazing breakfast.

Hominy in the milk with cinnamon and sugar was the best.

Then, as I finished cutting the wood, someone knocked in the door.

It was the smaller kids. Tila, Tima and Ysim.

They came to congratulate me, and then we went to the center of the village.

Some of the other kids, the ones I knew for a few years, came to congratulate me as well.

Many other people also congratulated me as I took the buckets to fill our barrel back home.

At lunch we had a nice piece of fried ham with rice and sauce.

Afternoon I expended with mother and little sister.

Mother gave me a lot of medicinal herbs and compounds, and helped me preparing my bag.

Winter was close, so I should go out soon.

She had such a pained expression while helping me… but at the same time, resolute.

My throat felt sore for some reason.

I wasn’t crying!

It was just that my eyes became moist.

Maybe because of dust or something.

Once my bag was done, it was time to prepare dinner.

I helped her again, and we cooked for everyone who would come.

I moved the beer barrel to outside of the house, and we prepared many foods.

Some she had been cooking since the last day.

Mother didn’t sleep the previous night. She waited until I was asleep and started cooking everything.

Still, she was happy and had a smile in her face when she looked at me.

The party was huge.

Almost everyone from the village came.

Including Ralpha, Elipha and Maurus.

Grandma seemed satisfied to see Maurus playing with us as if nothing had happened with our families in the past.

Then, it was time for the announcement.

Grandpa was the one who should be giving me the option of becoming a farmer, while father the one the one giving me the option of becoming militia.

They knew what was coming, so they held themselves.

But the others seemed to be excited.

The blacksmith, the head-huntress, forehead… even Uller.

I guess everyone had high hopes of having me as an apprentice.

Yeah.

I might have healed the children once or twice… plus, as much as I used [Last Stand], sometimes I would slip a bit and people would notice I had more strength or speed than I should.

No to mention the times when I would show craftiness by fixing doll heads or getting a beehive, as much as the official story was that I had to dive into the river to avoid being stung to death.

Or maybe that had nothing to do with it.

People had this idea that grandma would favor me… so maybe they just wanted to stay at her good side.

Regardless, at the time of giving me “the talk”, grandma intervened.

She walked up to them and simply said:

“Everyone, please listen to me.”

There was some aura mixed with the words, so it’s no surprise the voice went much farther than it would usually go - without raising the volume.

So, suddenly the whole village was looking at us both.

“As some have seen, Alvin has been a very talented kid from youth. His father has been training him ever since he had enough age to stand on his two feet and I have taught him how to read. This is because, many years ago, we saw how easily he learned the healing spell, and how much he wanted to learn more. Now that his sister is going to the capital and he’s old enough to travel, we have decided to send him after her.”

People are surprised and uncomfortable.

Like when people want to say something, but feel pressured not to say it.

It was the head huntress who finally got enough nerve to talk.

“Teacher, isn’t Alvin too young to travel? Please let him at least get to become an adult first.”

“Nonsense. I have taught him how to hunt already. I even had him expending a few weeks on the forest by himself, and he returned fine. Besides, Alvin has learned his sister’s techniques and is very close to becoming a Superior Being. Look at the cracks on his skin. This journey is exactly what she needs.”

Oh.

Grandma asked me to use a version of the [Shadow] spell enhanced with my Aura Control to create the illusion of having small cracks on my skin.

So that’s why.

The head huntress is without words.

“Here darling. Show them your [Aura Sensing].”

That’s what she said to them.

Then, to me myself she would complement “just a little bit”.

Okay.

Enough to be almost a Superior Being, nothing more, nothing less.

That’s the idea, right?

So I altered my [Aura Hiding] technique and let a little bit of [Aura Sensing] slip.

People are feeling uncomfortable.

“That’s enough darling. Save your strenght.”

I stopped and pretended to pant a bit.

I’m good at this.

“That’s why, this is the last night of Alvin with us. Everyone, please wish him a good farewell.”

The rest of the party was mostly Ralphe, Elipha, Jacen, Maurus, Tila, Tilma and Ysim gathering around me and enjoying the last day together.

Well, at least they decided to enjoy it to the fullest.

Singing, joking, running around.

That’s how my tenth birthday ended.

That’s how my last day at the village ended as well.

================== END OF VOLUME 2 ===================

I have decided to call this Volume “Power-Boosting Stage”, since it marks mostly the more training-intensive part of the training arc.

Also, we finally left the village behind!

I have to say, when I started Ode to Freud I DID NOT plan for the childhood part to be so long.

Besides, human relations and how they change the person are something interesting to explore - even if it became increasingly complex after a while.

For those fearing the Mushoku Tensei phenomenon (the village being destroyed, people dying to artificially advance the MC’s personality, lots of angst and drama built upon losing all he loves, etc), that’s not on my plans for now. I do not appreciate drama or angst.

Please enjoy this week’s Extra Chapter (we have gotten to Extra Chapter 50!) and next week’s Intermission (which will be a single chapter and maybe one or two extra ones).

I hope to start Volume 3 by day 06.

See you guys there!