"Wait." his grandfather said. "I can’t stay like this, my back is acting up again." as his grandfather got up, Rona gave him the stink eye.

"What? It hurts." his grandfather defended himself from the fierce attack, and at the same time sprawled himself on the floor next to them, laying flat on his back, his belly rising and coming down in a uniform manner. Tercius almost chuckled.

"Ah, much better." said the elder with a content sigh.

"Anyway, I have something to tell you." he repeated, and waited a bit to see if more interruptions came up.

"About the skill you never told us about?" his mother supplied quickly, probably thinking that he was having second thoughts.

"About the skills I never told you about." he made a particular emphasis on the S there and watched their reaction.

No one looked surprised, or confused, or made any outright gesture, they all just stood in silence and proceed the new development. He kept his mouth still, as his heart did the opposite, and some part of his being warned him that there was danger here. Too much shared too quickly is a recipe for disaster, the better solution is to let them process things in parts. his mind whispered.

"So how many are we talking about?" his father asked after a minute of silence, while the rest just listened intently.

Don’t do it! his instincts warned. Well if you are then say three. No, say two! they made a small concession after a part of him wanted to come clean. Think about this some more, you are making a mistake. screamed the years behind him. He kept opening his mouth multiple times and then closing them the next moment, probably seeming like a fish on dry land. He certainly felt like one, with all the water that kept coming out of him. When did it get so hot in here? he though.

I have to do this. a part of him that cared for his new family, and wanted to be cared for in return cut through all the other sides with a sword of pure conviction.

He licked his dry lips as he began.

"…You know about Stone Shaping and Stone Sight," he said as he turned to the floor prone form of his grandfather, then he turned towards grandmother and said: "and you know about Gardening."

"You know about Teaching," he said to his mother and finally turned to his father, "and Sword Mastery and Shield Mastery." there he took a breath and slowly continued.

"What you don’t know… is…" he continued.

"Stop. You don’t have to tell us." his mother interrupted the silence that began to stretch. Oh, but I do. At least this. he thought.

"No, I want to. I do. It’s just…" he assured her. "It’s just difficult, you know." He took a deep breath, wetted his lips once more and gathered what balls he had.

"I have ten more, and one of them you saw yesterday. Running." he finally knocked those words out of his mouth as fast as he could. He saw his mother stiffen for a moment her hand tightening around his father's arm. Before he lost the momentum he continued.

"Besides Running I have Mathematics, Precision, Visualization, Language Acquisition, Meditation, Mana Manipulation, Mana Sight, Energy Manipulation, Energy Sight." he went from one to the other, like he was checking things on a shopping list, never stopping until he encountered the blank space at the end. For a brief moment it felt good, a relief from a burden he carried, but then this was just his action. Now came the other part, their reaction.

"I have heard of some of those skills you mentioned, yet those others…Well at least there are none from the Forbidden List. For a moment there when you said you had ten more, my heart stopped at that thought. It’s lucky I was in a horizontal position for this…" his grandfather said from the side.

Tercius then went and explained what each skill did, while leaving out the part of when he got some particular skills. They were surprised that he already had an Adept skill, as that was something people rarely did before their late twenties or early thirties. He explained how he achieved it, the interaction between Meditation and Energy Manipulation and mentioned that it would be theoretically possible for him to also speed up their skill levelling. After all it only required a transfer of Energy, something he was sure was within his grasp.

He never tried it before, only using the skill to group the Energy into a more compact form, and not let it rampage and overload his body. Even now he kept using the skill to make sure it was contained in one place. While he slept the Energy did lose some form, but it was a slow process and he was always able to repair it first thing each morning.

"Anyone want to try now?" he asked the question. While some looked eager to try, his grandfather especially, his mother cut in.

"And why did you keep this from us? From me? I mean I can see why you kept it from everyone else, this is… well… actually I think I see." she said, mumbling near the end.

"That is a part of it." he saw in her eyes that she understood what this could mean for this family and him, if a word of this got out. Absolute ruin. Who knows what kind of plans would be concocted to get to him and use him, by those in places of power. He could be locked in a room and be forced to use Energy to level other peoples skills, just by using his family as a bargaining chip. And he saw that she knew it.

There were a lot of excuses that came to mind, but ultimately there was only one thing he felt. "I am sorry." he apologised. "I thought it was the right thing to do." I still think it was, and yet I am sorry. he added in his mind.

"You did do the right thing." his grandfather said, while getting up. "You did not lie, you merely didn’t tell. And we never asked. So… you did do the right thing. This… could be a gamechanger for you, if used properly. Yet it could also be a swift blade on out throats." he gave him a pat on the back, and sat down right next to him. His parents stood still, neither looking at him and he remembered that voice from before… You took an action, this is the reaction.

"Just remember this for the future, you can omit, but don’t ever lie to us. All of us are entitled to our secrets. It only stung us that the same applied to you, after all you are still our little child, and it seemed too soon for you to have your own secrets to guard." his grandmother snapped him out of that line of thought and with a small smile got up and came to gave him a hug. She took her spot right next to him and her husband, and then turned her attention over the table.

"What are you two idiots doing?! Get over here!" his grandmother commanded to his parents. With some hesitation they both got up, each using the other for support in the vertical move, and almost imperceptibly asked one another on their thoughts. A nod from his father in direction of Tercius, a brief nod in confirmation from his mother and both came over, like two scolded children and joined the hug. It did feel a bit better, now. One good thing is that now I can practise at home without hiding. he thought.

"Me too! Wait for me!" shouted his little sister as she rushed down the stairs, her hair flying in all directions, a giant smile on her little face, and jumped in the middle of the hug.

These were without question the longest minutes of my lives. he thought to himself.

***

While his little sister took her afternoon nap he got questioned over the skills, by now less restrained family members. It got noisy with so many people demanding answers, he had to remind them to keep it down every ten minutes. The discussions got so heated. Every few minutes he would use Mana Sight to check the surroundings for mana signatures, just in case.

Of his skills only Mana Sight and Mana Manipulation took too large a cost, even using Mana Sight for ten seconds every few minutes, he was spent in two hours, his mana almost completely depleted. The capacity for mana was developing at a steady rate, faster when he used Mana Manipulation, so he made a habit to use it daily. From what he could infer from the depth of mana colour in Mana Sight, he had more mana than his age peers, by how much he didn’t know exactly. He only knew his signature was darker in shade, yet it paled in front of the almost dark red of his grandfather. That was after a year of using Mana Manipulation, of course the positive influence that it had on him was noticed much later. Yet not even his grandfather could measure up to that flying monstrosity who had a shade so dark it made him think it black at first glance.

"… and what about Language Acquisition?" his grandmother asked. "As far as I know there is no other language… well other than those barbarians outside the Empire, but how could you learn from them?" she went into though over her own question, her brows furrowed with concentration.

"…there are no other languages, that is true, but it wasn’t always that way. Before the Empire as we know it today, there were many. I found a lot of books in Perdy’s shop. Those that are not for sale, by the way, they are in his private collection. Up until the Empress Fualia, who made the law for one language, there were so many it was mind boggling, I can even see why she did it." he answered. "I can read almost a dozen by now, and that is about a fifth of what Perdy can. From what he told me, there are about two hundred of languages that still have something written in them, and who knows how many lost without a trace."

Most of these languages were variations of a common ancestor, yet every single one was unique in some way, with many scholars claiming that the ancestors took pride in inventing new ones and making theirs different from the ones that existed. A fascinating topic, one on which he spent many hours in discussion with Perdy and even more reading and decoding. His skill Language Acquisition levelled in that way actually, he managed to read a piece all by himself.

Tercius could feel an eagerness in the room, it almost felt palpable, a physical balloon that all moved around. Everyone danced with different subjects and no one wanted to be the one to initiate it. The thing they truly wanted to know about. He chuckled inwardly at them, and continued to play the game, waiting to see who was the one that cracked first.

But it seemed that they were made of tougher steel than he gave them credit. After two hours of back and forth, he was the one at the end of the rope, the slight wicked sensation in his stomach long gone, grown bored with the passage of too much time. Time to end this suffering. he thought.

"Anyone wants to try to level skills with my help?" he asked with a slight tilt in the corner of his lip. The bait is cast…

"--I suppose…","--Yes!","--well if you insist…","--I do!" they all spoke at the same time, drawing a snort from him. And I got all of them. he thought. Even they saw it his way and broke into laughter a moment later, which he joined a tick after. When the laughter carried away the lingering tension they focused on the task at hand.

"I have never done this before, but even in the case of a failure, it should not have any drawbacks." he told them with all the seriousness he could manage at the moment, their faces contorting from a childlike glee for an unexpected present to a contemplative one in a fraction of a second after his reminder.

"I will go first then. Do not hold back Tercius, do your best." his grandfather took a seat right in front of him, brooking no argument whatsoever, his conviction a wall of steel. "Don’t look at me like that, you all know I am not for this world much longer, so if anything goes wrong, I can pay the least price. Tercius pay no heed to my words, they are intended for others. In this, I trust you."

Tercius suddenly had a lot less trust in himself. What if I screw this up? the thought crossed his mind. Maybe do some experiments on animals first?

He shared the thought with them, but his grandfather declined, citing the animals inability to share reliable information as the reason… Truly…

Tercius prepared himself by separating a small part of the Energy ball he weaved with thin strands, much like a real weaver would with a ball of yarn. He moved it all over his body, making sure it obeyed every command, and only then proceeded with the next part.

"I am ready grandfather. Any last words?" he joked with the elder, who enjoyed the attention his wife gave him at the moment.

"Don’t be cheeky Tercius. And if he doesn’t come back to me in one piece I will have you covered in honey and left near that ant hill we found the other day. Lets see if that makes you any more careful, eh?" she patted his grandfather cheek and gave him a blessing sealed with a kiss.

"I will do my best grandmother, if anything to avoid that. I only need to have him come to you in one piece, right? What happens after that it’s no longer my concern. Deal?" he felt a bit more free now. He only got a glare from the kind old lady in return. You better not mess this up. he thought to himself. Otherwise your balls might be ant dessert.

"Grandfather give me your hands." they sat facing each other, a pair of brown eyes staring into his green ones, both calm on the outside, yet plagued by doubt on the inside. It will work, there is no reason for it not to.

He put his smaller hands into the larger pair, and closed his eyes, taking that small strand and moving it to the tip of his left index finger. Once there he willed it forward, near the centre of the palm of his grandfathers palm, and it went out of him leaving his control, disappearing from his mind. He opened his eyes quickly once that happened, only to see his grandfather clutching his hand near his chest.

"Let me see." he came close and the older man turned his palm over. A small reddish spot at the centre of the palm was the only visible sing of entrance. "How do you feel grandfather?" The older man had a slight red tint to his face that was growing more pronounced by the second. His ears were first to go molten red, then the tip of his nose, then the cheeks gained some colour. From his dark caramel skin, the tone shifted quickly and the older man now looked more like a copper statue.

"Like I went to sleep and woke up twenty years ago." he exclaimed as he got up from his sitting position, a spring in his movement that was previously not there.

"I feel...young. I feel my strength... I... " he began explaining with great enthusiasm, and then noticed something that came up with him. Literally. Tercius could just watch with his wide open in disbelief.

"Oh. Oh! Cirin turn around! Turn around now!" his grandmother raised her voice at the man, and he obeyed immediately, doing a pirouette some professional dancers would be proud of.

"Out with you all! Upstairs ! Go! NOW!" his grandmother chased everyone out of the living room, making them go up to the next floor.

"I guess that went well..." his father said, when they ascended glancing at mother. Tercius could see that Septimus could not hold it in much longer, his face warring with itself to stay still. It didn’t last long. He burst out laughing, tears coming to his eyes, and he joined his father in on the howling, with mother soon following after them.

Little Aurelia woke up and came to see what was happening, why everyone was so sad and happy at the same time.

"You are laughing, but look" she raised a finger on which a glistening tear stood, taken a moment before off his face. "what is this?" was her precise wording. Precious little child.

His mother took Aurelia to their room to play, and he and his father went to do some exercise on the roof. It was flat completely with only a few large garden beds made for plants, so it doubled as a balcony, when it was protected it from direct sunlight.

"You know son, I was always proud of what I had, still am for that matter, yet seeing something like that makes a man a bit jealous." was all his father said as they took the practice weapons and began with warm ups. Tercius was a bit confused initially, thinking about what the man was talking about, yet it dawned on him soon enough.

They practised well into the evening, the sun almost ready to fall behind the distant mountains. His grandmother came for them and they went for an awkward dinner that was finished in complete silence.

A thing like that is either made into a joke or put behind, and considering that this was his grandfather that would be implicated, he truly only had one answer. To put it behind. Oh sure some joking around would be nice, but he respected the man too much, and knew enough to know what something like this could do to someone so private like his grandfather was. If the man was of a different sort, then jokes would just keep coming.

Now he only had one more thought on the matter, and it mirrored his father line of thought perfectly.

I hope that grandfathers genes prevail in this case...