Will woke up after what seemed like a few hours of sleep. Shaking off a layer of weird black stuff that was on his skin, he sat up in his crib.

Now that he looked closely, it couldn’t really be called a crib, more of a wooden box that had some kind of white-ish cloth as a bed sheet. Luckily, it seemed that it was rather clean, with only a few parts of the cloth seemingly to be covered in the same black colored stuff that was on his skin. Although there was no blanket, Will didn’t mind too much, as the temperature wasn't cold at all. Rather it felt really comfortable, like there was some kind of intelligent air conditioning in the house that knew the exact temperature that was perfect for him.

A quick look around threw the concept out of his head, after all if they don’t even have sinks and a working indoor toilet. Something like an A.C seemed quite out there.

Seriously though, running water really would be good right about now. It then hit him, Will realized a few inconsistencies with his situation. For starters, he sat up. A newborn infant just sat up all by himself, with no help, within hours of his birth.

That didn’t seem normal, along with the black stuff all over his body, something he guessed as the remains of his molting? However it doesn’t even resemble anything close to his skin at all. Babies have really nice skin, well after a few days post-birth anyways, once they got rid of all the red and wrinkly parts.

Of course, there still was the question of what exactly had happened to his body that he needed to figure out, but that answer would likely come from his parents. So then, the next course of action is ignoring everything and finding them!

Pushing on the bed with his strangely new powered up body, Will was able to easily stand up in his crib. From there it was a simple matter of jumping out of the wooden box and - that's not happening.

Will looked down from his crib, the floor seemed as if it was miles down, and he never liked heights. Feeling light-headed, Will sat back down, deciding that it would be better to wait for someone to show up rather than commit suicide and jump down from his crib.

As though she was listening in on his thoughts, someone barged right into the house, slamming the door wide open, allowing the morning sunlight in to warm the dark house.

“Will! Mommy’s here!”, a shrill and happy voice yelled out, as Will’s new “mommy” came bursting into the room from outside. Her hands spread wide apart, ready to hug him.

Before he could even move, his body was being pressed against a board, oh wait, his “mommy”. She had scooped him out of his crib and held him close to her chest, though it might have been better if she had a pillow or something. After all, that flatness could break delicate parts on his little body just by being in contact with it.

'Uh, this is why big breasts are what all men want. It’s instincts that they pick up when they were a baby whenever their mothers held them. It seems men don't want their poor children to suffer what they had to endure as a child.'

Luckily, Will’s “mommy” couldn’t understand his thoughts, as it was in a completely different language, else she might have done something terrible to her new child.

“Will’s awake? Hey, let me hold him too! Look, daddy, he grew bigger!”, Shui-er voice came next, as she came into the room while dragging her father by the hand. “Daddy, didn’t you say Will would be the same size as me? Why does he seem smaller?”

Her father also seemed to look a bit confused, as he walked over to his wife and stared more closely at Will. Then as if he recognized something, turned his gaze over to his wife who continued to happily squish Will to her board of a chest.

“Dear, let Shui-er hold Will for a sec, can we talk for a bit? I think we need to speak about something really important.”, while speaking Will’s father grabbed him from his “mommy” and dropped him into Shui-er’s waiting arms. Who immediately held him in her traditional double neck hold.

“What are you talking about? Did something happen dear?”, her eyes seemed as if they were ready for a fight as “mommy” replied back. “I wander what got into you? Well whatever, I think I know what you’re about to ask, and yes I did it. Happy?” Looking very pleased with herself, “mommy” smiled at her husband, who returned back her look with an expression of “WTF?”

“Dear, you do know that his molting only happens once in his lifetime right? Even then, it’s only because he’s our child! Like Shui-er, they both were able to easily break into the Qi Condensation realm because of the molting! So why did you prematurely stop his molting session? Sure it was by a few hours, so it isn’t a big deal, but he would have been in the third stage by now!”, Will’s father seemed somewhat angry and bewildered as he talked.

To which his wife replied, “Because if he got into the third stage like Shui-er, he wouldn’t be cute and cuddly anymore! Besides, with their abilities, it might be better for them to start from scratch, as they would get the entire experience.” Though her latter part of the argument seemed legit, somehow Will felt that the former part was the real reason for her actions. Of course, he still couldn’t understand what was going on.

'Qi Condensation? Stage? What is that? Can it be eaten? Also, what did his “mommy” do? Something about premature stopping? Did he not get all the DNA from his father or something?'

'Weird, the first thing any reincarnated person gets is a cheat. Meanwhile, I get the crazy family. The F is Qi Condensation? Who cares what she did, where is my super rare magic? Where’s the cheat skill? I’ll even settle for a badass pet or something. Someone just tell me, where the hell is my cheat?!'

Seeming to be bored of the talk between her parents, Shui-er held up Will above her head. Obviously, it was still using the two-hand-hold-neck method, so Will started to feel a bit scared. This felt like the noose around a death row inmate, rather then a big sister holding her precious little baby brother scene. Dangling in the air, Will’s feet was just about the same height as her neck, watching as Shui-er continued to do whatever she was doing.

Until she shook him up and down.

“Look mommy! Will’s eyes got all white and stuff!”, smiling Shui-er continued to shake Will as his head started flopping back and forth with her motions.

“No! Bad Shui-er! Never shake your brother! His body still isn’t as strong as yours yet! Plus, it seems that he got more of my traits, you take more after your father.”, her mother quickly got Shui-er to stop while rescuing Will from another close encounter with death.

“But she picked up all your bad habits.”, her father refuted back to her words.

“What bad habits? Picking up any children, you grab them by the neck! That’s how you do it! Rather it’s because of your traits that she thinks it’s ok to try to get Will to fly! He isn't some bird that hatched and can fly within days!”

“ME? You’re the one teaching her all the moves! My traits have nothing to do with this! Besides, Will takes after your traits! You don’t see him trying to do the same thing back to Shui-er do you?”

“Because I haven’t taught him how to yet!”

“Wait, you were seriously going to? I thought we already agreed that Will is to be brought up correctly! I’m already having trouble with getting Shui-er to act normal!”

“Hell no! What she is doing IS normal! You need to stop your stupid idea about making her “normal”!”

“You just don’t get it! You -”

While this was going on, they seemed to have forgotten that Shui-er and Will was still in the room with them. Not to mention that after rescuing Will from Shui-er’s clutches, “mommy” seemed to have taken Will as some kind of stress ball.

With every sentence, the pressure from her hands was getting tighter and tighter around his body.

So Will cried.

He cried so hard that day, he kind of wondered where all that liquid was coming from.

It was also sad he felt relieved that no one wanted to choke him to stop his crying. At least he could cry his heart out right? Sliver-lining in all this pain.

Yay.