“The senses, being the explorers of the world, open the way to knowledge.” Maria Montessori Turns out my internal clock is wrong, not completely but wrong enough. It turns out I am not yet 1 or at least I would be in my old world but not in this one. There was more than one reason why everyone seemed fairly astounded by my Happy Birthday routine. It could have been the baby singing. It could have been the song. But actually, it was probably the date. I was 4 months too early! It was a sheer coincidence that the extended family happened to meet up on that day. The ceremony that I thought was my birthday was actually just a moment of synchronicity between the timetables of my relatives, my family, and my 12 month anniversary of my birth. Think I am still missing something in my translations. Well nobody is perfect. There are in fact 16 months in the year on this planet, not 12. Easy mistake to make seeing as the time is the same. 60 seconds a minute, 60 minutes an hour, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week etc. It is also something I don’t think Aleera is going to let me forget anytime soon judging by the number of times she has brought it up at home to my mother and laughed about it. I’m a baby. I will not get upset at being made fun of. This is harder than it looks so I’m going to pretend to fall asleep and retreat into my mind fortress to do something else. Still, at least I got to keep the presents. Especially the book which Aleera continues to teach me from every day. I have now an understanding of Bussola the written language here. Again it is some sort of a reference to a common language being the key or compass to communication. Both for navigating your conversation and the area within which it takes place. Language is hard sometimes. Hey! Maybe, that means I will get some more on my actual birthday. Anyway, I still have another 4 months to get those stats up to 100 if I can. Practicing the sense skills really helped me level up my senses stat so practicing the magic skills that I have and trying to come up with new ones should hopefully help me there with that stat as well. Still trying to come up with a few more ideas. No longer falling over when I’m walking or running is wonderful. The bumps and bruises might heal quickly but they are still surprisingly painful. It’s time to tackle climbing! Bearing in mind I am still fairly limited in what I am able to climb but making the effort to climb the chair every day and all the shelves I can find. Finally, I am able to climb out of my box at night without rocking it over and waking everybody up. Next step Ninja baby! I still have far more energy and stamina than most children let alone babies, so I have plenty of energy for a little ‘sleep walking’. Step 1 to my nighttime routine is to wait for everyone to fall asleep. Step 2 climb out of my box without knocking it over. Step 3 sneak out of the bedroom Step 4 practice sneaking around the house using echolocation and Mana Sense Step 5 physical exercises Step 6 magic skills Step 7 Back into the box before being noticed and without knocking it over! I have had a few successes with this practice. First, my Sneak has continued to level and I have now developed a Tier 2 skill of stealth. I gained this after a week of sneaking around without being caught. The key point being not being caught which gives me some time to put in some physical activity that would look strange to see a baby doing eg: press-ups and sit-ups. Have to admit that my form is a lot better in my mind fortress and it is going to take a while for my body to fall in line with what I want it to. That and my arms are so much shorter and stubbier in comparison to my torso which is rounder. It is harder than you might think, more of a plank to start off with. Still, I have to start somewhere. So each night I climb out of my box which is getting smaller and smaller to practice a plank and curl or two. It also really helped to level up my Echolocation and Mana Sense as it is completely pitch black in here. No night lights, no electric lights, and the windows are small leaving the house completely unilluminated. I even managed to gain a skill for Sight straining my eyes to see anything when the occasional beam of moonlight managed to somehow get slip under the door. Gaining what felt like at the time such a silly skill led me to wonder if I could get one for touch, taste, and smell as well. Bit of regression in terms of my baby progression during the day but I am now I am putting everything in my mouth to taste it as well as closing my eyes and going back to crawling half the time in order to feel everything as I move around. When we are allowed out of the house I have taken to hiding my head in my tunic and holding onto my sister’s hand for the walk to the market. I have no idea what my sister Aleera thinks about it but I am feeling each cobble or paving stone with my feet. They have yet to buy me any shoes which is understandable seeing how quickly my feet were growing before I got the trait Long-Lived so it is good practice for practicing my sense of touch. Then when we get to market we can usually get a small sample of most everything to practice with and that has become part of my morning games as well. “I want to guess what it is from smelling it first,” I say as I stand there with my hands over my eyes. “Apple?” I ask. “No.” Aleera smugly replies. Then if I can’t guess the food by smell, the next step is to try and guess it from touch. “I can do it by touching.” I doubtfully continue. “Apricot?” I ask questioningly. “No.” She smiles. I can’t see her doing it but I can hear it in her reply. Finally, I try again with tasting, and she places a small amount into my mouth. “Plum?” I quizzically raise my eyebrows even though they can’t be seen beneath my hands as I roll the portion of fruit around in my mouth. “No. It is a Pluot.” She shouts excited to have won. I had been doing quite well this trip to the market. Exasperated I open my eyes to see what on earth a Pluot is. Hah! It is some sort of cross between an Apricot and a Plum! How on earth was I supposed to get that? They haven’t even had that in the market before. Where did it come from? “Not fair! You cheated!” I complain. “It isn’t a Plum, it isn’t an Apricot, it is a Pluot. Now this means no running on the way home.” That had been the agreement I had made on our way to the market. I had been boasting to Aleera about how good I was getting at picking out the different smells, touches and tastes of the different items at the market. She was keen to gamble on the outcome as I always try to persuade her to run home to up my Running Level or if I can’t persuade her attempt to slip away which is a lot easier when she is carrying food home. While she is always keen to keep us to a far more sensible walk. Pride cometh before a fall. Especially when you have an older sister to trip you up or push you over. The people in the market seem to enjoy the game and mother is happy to have us out the house for a moment longer than the time it would normally take us to do the shopping in the morning as well. I think she believes it is well worth the extra coin for some peace and quiet. Small houses are not made for small children or at least not one as energetic as I can be. All this training has resulted in a few more bumps and bruises and some fairly disgusting tastes left in my mouth when Aleera has felt like being mean. Although that hasn’t happened so much since I insisted on doing smell first, touch second and taste last. It is a lot safer in that order. It has also resulted in getting those skills that at first seem incredibly simple but I’m hopeful that these are the start of some good skill trees. Ding! Scent (Lv 1) Ding! Detect (Lv 1) Ding! Taste (Lv 1) Still, they are really helping with increasing my Senses Stat. I’m nearly there. My push forwards of stats has been given a fresh burst of enthusiasm from finding out that I actually had 4 months left. This actually makes a lot more sense what with . . . Status locked for 147 months I will be 10 years old when it unlocks after the full 160 months. Not sure why I didn’t notice it sooner really. Hmm, oh well. Magic stat next. False Status Level: 4 Name: Kai

Experience: (1000/1600)

Health: 250/250 Stamina: 163/163 Mana: 160/160 Vitality: 25

Endurance:12

Strength: 12

Dexterity: 12

Senses: 17

Mind: 19

Clarity: 14

Magic: 16

Free Points: 30 Skills: Humming (Lv 6) Swimming (Lv 6) Singing (Lv 6) Running (Lv 4)

Skill experience: 600

With all of my nighttime activities and practices, I haven't really had any time this fortnight to add anything to my mental library. True Status

Level: 10 Name: Kai

Experience: 23,800/ 204,800

Age: 12 months, 2 weeks, 2 days, 10 hours

Health: 1080/1080 Stamina: 493/493 Mana: 440/440 Psi: 1020

Trait: Long lived, Fast Learner,

Vitality: 108

Endurance: 20

Strength: 20

Dexterity: 20

Senses: 94

Mind: 105

Clarity: 36

Magic: 44

Free Points: 20

Skills:

Tier 1: Time sense (LV 20) Listening (LV 20) Meditation (LV 20) Swimming (LV 20) Humming (Lv 20) Sneak (Lv 15) Whistling (Lv 20) Singing (Lv 20) and Drumming (Lv 20) Running (Lv 10), Acting (15), English (Lv 15), Spanish (Lv 15), Japanese (Lv 15), German (Lv 10), French (Lv 7) Dodge (Lv 1) Breath Control (Lv 1) Runnning (Lv 4) Sight (Lv 5) Scent (Lv 5) Detect (Lv 5) Taste (Lv 5)

Tier 2: Sense Mana (LV 25) Eavesdrop (LV 20) Memorisation (LV 20) Composition (Lv 20) Recall (Lv20) Pain tolerance (Lv 5) Piano (Lv 20) Violin (Lv 20), Trombone (Lv 20), Saxophone (Lv 20) Linguistics (Lv 15) Translation (Lv 15) Stealth (Lv 5)

Tier 3: Echolocation (LV 20) Expel Mana (Lv 25) Absorb Mana (Lv 25)

Tier 4: Mana Drain (Lv 11) Multiple Minds (Lv 10)

Tier 5: Mind fortress (Lv 15)

Skill experience: 12900

Origin experience: 0

Combat experience: 0

Crafting experience: 0