My first month in my new home was rather uneventful.

My father, of course, was nowhere to be seen. I didn't even get a visit from him except when he brought two other babies with his same eye color back home at different times.

All three of us lived in three separate carriages in a light blue room with silver trimmings that seemed to glow with a mystical light while diffusing a wispy smoke into the room.

There was also a large window with dark blue curtains on the wall opposite the entrance.

I was getting the hang of the language quickly.

I theorized that this was either because I was a baby, making me better at absorbing information naturally, or because of my assumedly high Intelligence stat.

One problem which I started to encounter was that even though I was starting to understand some common words and grammar, I still couldn’t speak to save my life.

I thought that this happened because my vocal cords were still underdeveloped or something like that.

At this rate, I was going to end up learning to read and write before I was able to speak which was both annoying and cool at the same time.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t just tell the maids when I was thirsty or hungry so I had to cry and scream like an idiot or struggle while pointing in the direction of what I wanted to get my needs met.

As someone who was mentally a man, this was extremely embarrassing.

Since I didn’t have much to do I decided to take a look at my Skills and Feats tab to get a better idea of what exactly I was dealing with.

Basic Skills;

Crawl level 1

Family Skills;

Minor Spirit Communication Level 1

Minor Spirit Sense Level 1

The only skill I got at birth is Crawl which I haven't figured out how to use yet since the maids kept us in our carriages all the time.

I tried still tried to make use of my family skills to no avail.

I saw small glittering sparkles moving like specks of twilight all over the place but I still couldn’t see the full form of their souls, nor could I communicate with them in any meaningful way.

I had a weak idea of how to do so in my mind from when I first got those skills but applying it was like trying to grab smoke with your bare hands.

Despite my building frustration, It was more than likely something that would become easier as I leveled up my skills so I tried to calm myself down and move on to other matters.

I looked at my Quests tab and Classes tab which were both empty, and then my Family Abilities tab which seemed to be like a typical RPG skill tree with five main options at the top slowly branching out in a limitless cascade of choices.

To my displeasure, however, all of the options were dark and unselectable.

Something I noticed was that at the top of the skill tree wrote;

Family Points: 0

Souls Available: 0

If my years of experience with video games were to be believed I would either have to complete some quest to get this to work or get some family points and souls to unlock some of the options.

Either way neither of those avenues was something that I could currently pursue which again filled me with disappointment.

Eventually, I got tired of just waiting around doing nothing, so as soon as my body and muscles started feeling more natural to me, I started to cry a lot while pointing all of my limbs to the ground.

The caretakers seemed to be in a serious panic for a while until they finally decided to just let me on the ground, an act which immediately made me stop crying.

I began to rock back and forth on my hands and knees almost instinctively.

It was a bit strange how natural it felt but I didn't question why, I could feel my skill subtly pushing me in that direction so I just went with the flow.

The maids looked at me in astonishment while I tried to do the beginning motions of crawling.

Despite my excitement at doing this newfound activity, I got tired extremely quickly from all the exercise until eventually I just sort of laid on the floor until one of the maids picked me up and placed me back in my bed.

This particular maid became very special to me as she was the one put in charge of taking care of the majority of my needs.

She even took extra time to play little games with me that I didn’t see any of the other maids doing with my two siblings.

Stuff like those little logic and memory games you would see very little kids playing except she would always find a way to increase the difficulty when I inevitable aced them with little difficulty.

She was tall but judging height at my current size was difficult.

She had neatly combed long black hair in a simple ponytail, sharp dark eyes, and a smile that just seemed to glow to me. I grew to like her much more than the other maids over time.

After I recovered my stamina, I repeated my crying and pointing to the ground tactic but this time the maids knew what I wanted and placed me on the ground instantly.

Right, when I was about to stop for the day a new notification rang in my head.

[Proficiency threshold reached Crawl level 1 has been upgraded Crawl level 2]

My heart was filled with pride, it was always a nice feeling when you tried something out, worked hard on it then got rewarded for your efforts.

I finally managed to upgrade a skill, the first of what would be many, and It showed me that skills can be upgraded simply with repeated use.

I was now able to crawl backward and forwards a bit without falling, the maids seemed to be in an absolute uproar when they saw me do this which made me feel even prouder.

To think that such a simple and regular task felt like a massive achievement to me now. It really puts life into a new perspective for me. Both my old one and this new one.

I never really felt happy about the things I accomplished in my past life, only focusing on what next or how I could have done it better.

No matter how great the task completed or how perfect the execution deep down I was always dissatisfied.

Here however, with an achievement so small and insignificant in the grand scheme of things I felt a deep sense of fulfillment.

I had no idea what made this different than anything else that I had done in my life so one of my long-term goals become finding that out.

Over the next couple of days, I repeated the cycle of crying to get the maid's attention, crawling on the ground until I ran out of stamina, drinking my dinner, going to sleep, and repeating the process over again.

The constant cheers and smiles of the maids at any minor improvement I made pushed me forward to work even harder than the previous day and I was beginning to build an unstoppable momentum.

Every time I leveled up I felt a cool sensation in my head which felt like being tickled by a goddess.

It was almost addicting, But the rush of new information and the race to grab on to any of it with my mind was stressful.

It was nice then that the small level-ups of this relatively simple Skill was no were near as bad in that regard as it was when I first obtained my family skill.

I wanted to continue feeling that cool sensation which became another motivating factor for me.

All this hard work and effort continued to pile on until I finally achieved level 5 and I noticed that the next level up was taking a lot longer than I had become accustomed to.

Each level up took longer to achieve than the last but it was getting to the point where I was beginning to think that I had already reached the maximum level of Crawl which made it so I couldn’t level up any further.

After another week of hard work with little payoff however.

[Congratulations due to your exaggerated physical exercise you have gained 1 point in Dexterity]

[Congratulations proficiecny threshold has been forcibly exceeded the skill Crawl level 5 has evolved into the skill Walk level 1]

That was interesting, the reason the skill took so long between upgrades was because it was evolving.

I would have to keep that in mind in the future.

The maids were in a complete uproar when I picked myself off the ground and waddled for two steps before falling flat on my face.

I felt extremely embarrassed due to my public failure at trying out my new and improved skill and even guilty about how I probably got the hopes of the maids up for no reason, but seeing how the eyes of the maids sparkled with pride even at my screw up instantly made me feel amazing again.

As much as I didn't like the idea of it, I was beginning to grow very attached to the maids at the mansion.

The black-haired one in particular who was smiling ear to ear and was the first to pick me up off the ground and hold me in her arms.

These people truly felt like my second parents now and I felt like I already liked them more than my original ones.

I wanted to do something for them to show my appreciation but I didn’t know-how yet.

A grown man like me putting in so much effort just for attention made me feel a bit ashamed but I tried not to think about it too much.

“Neither of my siblings have managed to crawl on the ground yet so the fact that I'm even able to stand is quite impressive,” I thought to myself.

“Don’t get too cocky, just because you can move a bit better than them, for all you know both of your siblings have crazy stats or were born with much more skills than you.”

“Not to mention you barely have enough energy to use that skill properly it takes way more energy to stand than simply crawling on the floor,” I retorted to myself.

When I tried to crawl again I truly felt the difference that the point in dexterity made It felt like I was moving twice as fast and my comfortability with my limbs had a massive improvement.

I wondered if my gains in other states would have as much of an impact or even if the same stat would when it already had like 100 points.

Would adding one extra point still make for a substantial gain in effectiveness?

At about six months of age, my siblings finally started wobbling back and forth like I did when I first started using Crawl.

And at almost a year, I was pretty good at understanding what others were saying but my speech was still absolute garbage.

My Walk skill leveled to level 6 after an excruciatingly long time and I was finally able to balance myself so well that I could run properly.

I was now allowed to run laps around the small room we were in but due to my body proportions, it felt really weird to do so.

I hadn’t grown much since birth and neither did my siblings, which was very strange with the large amount of milk we were drinking.

One year into this world.

For the past six months, I continued to level up the one skill I had while doing a bit of exercise and through that I was finally able to evolve my Walk skill turning it into Sprint.

I was hoping that with enough working out I could increase my stats naturally.

My two sisters were already waking at this point which was nice to see.

It was currently Monday, judging by what the maids were talking about while taking care of us we were going to go through some sort of major growth spurt soon on our birthday and our father would come to visit right after it was done.

When this evolution finally occurred It was honestly frightening I got a whole set of notifications at once.

[Congradulations you have survived one year in this world and have met all the requirements to evolve from human (baby) to a human toddler your evolution will begin shortly]

[Due to impressive physical training done before evolution extra stats will be awarded]

[Due to being a part of the Veneficus family extra stats and skills have been Awarded]

[Due to being in the presence of spirits for extended periods of time extra skills and stats have been added]

[Due to being in elevated mana levels for extended periods of time extra states have been added]

…

There was a lot, and I mean a lot more notification, from the skills I learned and evolved, to the physical and mental feats I made this year compared to a normal baby, to even my surprisingly nutritious diet and so much more.

After a bit of panicking my evolution finally began I felt an intense burning sensation coming from my chest which slowly spread across my entire body becoming more and more intense until I passed out.

…..

As I slept my body felt as if it was formed from jello, surrounded by pitch-black darkness.

When I opened my none existent eyes what I saw was a feminine-looking shadow with wings to my left and another feminine figure with what could vaguely be described as a robe to my right.

In front of me was what I could only assume to be a walking corpse and behind was a man with a bright red crown of flames which was the only actual color I could see in this world which made for a striking image.

When I searched underneath me I saw a magnificent black tree whose roots seemed to stretch into infinity with a little girl, a demon, and a beast of some sort all sitting down on its branches all covered in smoky shadow.

On even closer inspection some sort of blade seemed to be stuck inside of the tree.

I looked further into the distance and saw plenty of other shadowy figures all lining my periphery from people to dragons to what looked like robots and machines all revolving around me.

The only things that weren't covered in the shadow were ten enormous gold and white chairs all ordered around a circular marble table, empty and vacant in the far distance.

The light they produced seemed to openly antagonize the shadows and tore through them piece by piece.

The shadows fought back but failed to resist the light overwhelming presence.

Slowly but surely the light reached my body and I felt my body slowly disintegrate into nothingness wherever it touched.

This was not a painful feeling but I doubted I could even feel pain in this form anyway there was nothing I could do as I was slowly dismantled by the light.

…