Several days pass

Not much has happened besides some sparring with Haru and Shimada within the white space. Considering the bodyguard wetnurse I assume that this world is not exactly safe. Though I’m hesitant to dedicate one of my skill slots to martial arts. Mostly because I can learn most of what I need from Shimada as a constant trainer inside my head. I might choose the skill later, but the slots are precious and if this life is spent mostly on my ass it may be less efficient to have the skill than learn it myself without it.

It’s also slightly annoying since my body in my mind doesn’t match my real one so everything feels awkward in my real one since I can’t move like my other body… It will probably feel like this until I grow a bit more and identify as the body outside. While my mental self is fighting, my outside mind is trying it’s hardest to figure out how to use Chi. I’ve tried meditation, searching in my body with my senses to see if there is a core or something. I tried visualizing filling myself with stuff from the air but nothings happening. So I’ll just have to keep on trying or wait until I’m old enough that they explain.

Heck they could have told me the secrets to learning it already and I wouldn’t even know. They hardly speak around me and since I’m isolated with this silent wetnurse I can’t hear enough words to understand the language yet… Honestly there is no real reason not to just take disease resistance again this life, it’s probably saved me multiple times across my lives, I might have treatment now but ignoring infection is better than attempting to treat myself for an infection. I should just save it at the end of this life because otherwise I’ll just need to take it again almost every life. It’s probably for the best anyways considering the world seems less modern than I’m used to. They might have Chi or whatever, but they haven’t attempted to use it on me yet so it’s obviously not omnipotent.

Now with disease resistance and maintaining a proper diet I am able to quickly recover enough that another person wearing white and a face covering came in to check me over. After some prodding and checking over my skin they give a nod to my bodyguard before leaving. That was a pretty pathetic checkup. Regardless my guard seems satisfied and picks me up delicately before bringing me out of the room for the first time in several days.

Outside I see long corridors and people rushing around busy at work all wearing servant clothes. I’m carried to a door that is decorated with gold and flower designs that my guard knocks what I assume to be a code on before it is opened. Inside are several guards. They are all defensively positioned around my mother… She’s quite beautiful now that shes not freshly out of labor. She has long black hair tied back shes in a regal looking in a long tunic that stretches into a dress. It’s a long dark blue accented with yellow gold accents. As I enter, she looks up from a book and smiles seeing me. She takes me into her arms and showers me with kisses. They begin talking inside for a while and one of the guards starts attending to mom changing her outfit from blue and yellow to a red with yellow and gold headdress. While I am wrapped up in a Blue and gold silk cloth.

We move out of the room to a large dining area where many other people are currently. Up at the head of the dining area is a large throne like seat surrounded by 50 other seats of various elevations but none sit as high as the one for the man in the golden dragon tunic in the middle. Most of the side seats are occupied by woman but there are several that are currently empty.

My mother moves up to a seat and keeps me within her arms as they begin to eat. I get to finally start hearing people chatter in hushed whispers and scant looks towards me and my mother. Within the arms of many of the other woman other children of various ages are held or are kneeling nearby. Most of the children are between 0 and 2 years old.

I think… I think I threw up on the current emperor who is my father… Oops. Probably not a good first impression but I’m sure I can find out something to help out mom when I’m older. Nothing much happens besides some gossip. There are various people eating down below that are carrying around large jugs of various substances, but they all have a five pointed star marking the side. The people carrying those jugs seem to be of a higher social standing than many of the other people considering their sitting placement and clothes style.

Before long the dinner is over. I’m brought to a room that is connected to my mothers and I’m fed by her directly instead of the wetnurse. I can still feel the eyes of my bodyguard in my new room. I also feel several other pairs the flicker to me every once in a while. If not for Unseen I wouldn’t have even noticed the other people in the corners of the room that are all watching over me and mother.

6 months later

I’m finally starting to get a handle of everything going on. I learned the language pretty quickly after being taken to larger gatherings and hearing a lot more people speak. Mother mostly stays in her room reading but will sometimes be gone for the night to attend to father.

Each day mother would read her stories out loud to me and just speak to me. That’s how I learned my name is Jiang Du from the Du clan. My mother was very scared that I might not make it but after I recovered the clan is doing well again. At 6 months I start responding to her as mama and some other basic words. Of course, she welled up with pride and started gloating about it to the other parents to show off my genius.

I have a lot of half mothers, when the emporer was crowned he took 50 wives, one from each major clan and his heir will be chosen from one of them. Some are still yet to have a child despite having tried for two years. At this point their standing has progressively lowered as they are not even allowed to sit with the emperor until they bear one of his children which results in their clan suffering.

To help mom out I progressively start showing my ability to out do the other children, first I speak a little bit more than normal then I push myself to walk as quickly as I can. Haru mentions that I may not want to make a spectacle of myself, but I can’t help it after seeing how much my mom smiles with each small accomplishment.

It’s not long before I’m being given some small lessons about basic things at the early age of 1.5 years old. Calling them lessons may be a bit of an exaggeration but my guard began telling me the history of our clan and the Xing empire through various childrens stories. The only real information I gathered is we help in the creation of medicines and poisons and that many years ago a man from the west came through and helped revolutionize our society. They never explained how he helped our society just that he braught about a change that sparked the current age. Despite being slightly younger than some of my siblings I’m already speaking at a higher level then some of the older ones but it's still difficult to pretend to be younger since I can't ask any difficult questions yet. Even then I felt like I was doing an okay job but I suppose my behavior was noticed by the other clans who's children were... less successful then I am.

I was so tied up in the praise and joy of seeing my mother’s face I completely forgot about the politics that go into everything. Which can be pretty deadly when you are a child that can't defend themselves and neither of my other two lives had to deal with political intriuge much. While I was attending my morning meal, I noticed that the person serving the meal is different than usual. Not a big deal considering the staff sometimes changes out sometimes. But as I begin to eat, I feel a slight numbness on my lips as I finish swallowing. Panicked I drop my utensils to the floor and open my status to confirm what happened.

Name: Jiang Du

Titles: Prodigy, (empty)

Age: 1 year 320 days

Carried over skills: Rebirth, Mindscape, Unseen Eye, Treatment+

Health status 85/100

Afflictions: Poisoned, Chronic ear infection

Inventory: Empty, Empty, Empty

Current skills

Reading lvl 2 (Inborn skill) Chi manipulation lvl 2 Disease resistance lvl 55 Empty Empty Empty Empty

Clutching at my throat I reach down and start to try to force myself to throw up to use treatment on it. I manage to get most of it out but not enough I still feel dizzy. Seeing my odd behavior some of the guards are quickly by my side.

“Jiang Du what is wrong?” My personal attendant that has watched over me since I was born asks with concern in her voice.

My throat feels numb as I rasp out the words “Poison.” being careful to not bite my own tongue. Her eyes go wide then a hard glint as she turns towards the server that has begun to quickly run away. She makes some gestures with her hands as two guards chase after him. She turns her attention back to me quickly picking me up and rushing out of the room.

While we move through the hallways at an incredible speed, I click on the skills option I have and quickly scroll through them looking for one I know is there. Finally finding it I select Poison resistance…

Poison resistance level 1

Description: You are 1% less effected by harmful poisons per level.

It’s not much but besides throwing up it’s all I can do for now. I’m rushed into a room that I’d never been to before. Various people are working around jugs and are wearing masks.

After crashing through the doors my guard calls out snapping them out of their stunned silence. “Fix him! He says he was poisoned.” Several of them begin scrambling about searching for something that’s likely harder to find because of their haste.

Finally, someone comes up to me with a piece of charcoal in their hands. “Eat this… this will purify him of his impurities while we work on something to combat the other symptoms. What type of poison was it?” He looks to my guard. He begins asking about various symptoms I'm feeling and asking questions about where it's spreading and how fast.

After a few moments another guard arrives holding the meal out to the man. After recieving the recipe for the dish he pokes through it giving it a few sniffs before placing the meal on a counter. Then he does something I couldn’t explain. The symbols under the plate light up and the substances inside the food seem to separate into different things. Finally, a small amount of a thin green substance comes out into a thin beaker that they have on the side.

“Excellent… it’s a fairly common poison we can make up a batch of the cure now.” I’m stunned by seeing this blatant use of what’s obviously some kind of magic or something.

“Young master? Are you feeling well? Stay with us young master.” My guard starts frantically looking over me as I’m lost in thought staring at the diagrams on the counters. They are circles with five pointed stars with various other symbols on them that I haven’t seen yet. I haven’t been taught how to read yet so I can’t identify what they mean but it’s fascinating.

“Better” I manage to croak out with some difficulty, I need to avoid accidently biting my tongue. I can feel the numbness spreading but I also feel a mental chime as poison resistance is leveling up and the numbness lessons ever so slightly each time it chimes in my mind. I think… if I was a normal kid this would have probably killed me. Even with treatment removing most of it this is still spreading fairly fast and poison resistance is doing enough of a job to level up a few times.

Eventually the same man walks up to me with a small vial and presents it to my attendant. She looks him over. “Just so you are aware, If this does not work you will all lose your heads.” The man looks a lot more nervous now as she is about to feed me the contents of the vial but I stop her and feed myself. I need to be the one doing it if I want to benefit from treatment. As soon as I feel it in my mouth, I can already feel the numbness start to drain away. I smile and give a thumbs up to my guard who gives a pleased sound. The man that had handed over the vial sags in relief.

With the excitement done I’m taken back to my room with a much larger number of guards then usual. Mother quickly rushes over to me asking about how I feel. If I’m hurt. I decline all with a shake of my head and gesture towards my throat. I… If I could talk I’d ask what that was that the man did with those symbols… was that Chi? I’d gained one level randomly while attempting meditation repeatedly over the last nearly two years but one level in all that time means I’m obviously doing something wrong. Much like reading since most people can’t read anyways most places are marked with symbols rather than names and books are scarce. With my bodyguard constantly looking over me I can’t get close to the books without her carrying me away as to not harm them.

I need to know… I want to know what that man did and how. The next night is almost torturous as my throat slowly heals. They give me some honeyed tea to sooth my throat and various other small medicines, but it’ll take a little bit before I can speak without hurting myself. Which means no one is willing to listen to me besides gestures for more tea since they don’t want me to talk.