“I’m so bored, of being bored, because being bored, is really boring.”

Anon

Another boring month with little to do. I was left mainly in my mind now that the elixir had run out. I carefully and slowly explored the world I could perceive from outside of my mind fortress. It was slow going by nature and design. I could not believe it had taken me so long to notice the new method of perception. But I was hesitant to add too many new skills to my burgeoning list that would support any further growth of my mind stat. Especially, before I had managed to balance myself out. However, I had a list of abilities I would like to one day achieve, telekinesis, telepathy, teleportation. Telepathy was an interesting word and the etymology behind its Greek roots meant far or distant feeling or perception. Anyway, I spent some time imagining how I might achieve a variety of psychic powers. Having unlocked the ability, it seemed silly not to develop it to its utmost potential. I just had to wait a little while until my body was more in balance. Furthermore, if it was as unusual as I suspected it would be another hidden string to my bow. I had told my family practically everything one way or another. Wouldn’t it be okay to keep a couple of secrets to myself? Probably not, if you considered where my current unbalanced stats had led me. I might have to let them know sooner rather than later. But technically they had never asked me about other resources or stats so it was not as if I had lied to them, technically speaking.

That wasn’t the only thing occupying my mind though. There were a few other activities I had been up to within my mind fortress. Long ago I had created a command room with screens displaying the physical world around me and outside my body. This is how I had managed to view the world from within my mind fortress. Kept my body in contact with my mind even if I had managed to hide my mental senses from my consciousness within my mind. I felt like I was being a little convoluted in thinking that out. But I guessed we all were onions, in that regard. There were always a lot of layers to each and every one of us. It just so happened, that there were more layers to my mind than most.

Anyway, I was bored of being bored. While I was still hesitant to try out my new psychic powers, in fear of acerbating my situation and having already remodelled my mind fortress more than once, I decided to try something else. Something that would hopefully have me thinking in a different manner without adding any new skills or increasing my mental stats too much.

You see every time I wanted to look at my stats I had to pull them up or delve into my mind fortress to do so. The time that it took me to delve within simply took too long. One day it was likely to be a liability. Especially, if I ever needed to quickly know how much gas I had left in the tank at a glance. For example, if I was ever in the middle of combat, or a life and death situation, it could end up being the death of me. So seeing as I had nothing else to do I decided to see I could not create my own unique type of status screen. One through which I could view the world rather than one that hid it behind itself.

First, I called up my status to cover my vision rather than diving into my mind fortress. I had it expand out until it took up the entirety of my vision. The next step was attempting to make it as transparent as possible. I was not sure if this was possible because of my super senses or mental prowess, but eventually, this allowed me to see the world through my screen. It did give the world a little bit of a blue tint to it but it was possible to eventually see the world through it without too much of an obstruction.

Second, I then pushed my Health, Stamina, Mana, and Psi information into bar shapes coloured by the percentage of resources remaining. Removing the numbers for values so that I would be able to tell from a quick glance, rather than having it completely blocking my view and then having to read the numbers off. Once I had managed to do that then I coloured them, Green for 100 to 50 percent of the resource, Amber for 50 to 20 percent and Red for 10 percent and under. It was a quick, clear, and concise way to keep up to date on my status without having to see my whole status at a time.

Third, I gradually managed to remove all the see-through stats from this cover screen as I had no need to know this. Or at least not to see it constantly updated second by second especially when there was no change. But the main reason was to clear up my visual window to the world. I had equally hidden away my skill list and likewise, I had hidden my name, level, and experience not needing to know this instantly. Particularly as unless something went drastically wrong then by day, hour, minute and seconds I rarely forgot my own name. I had however left the time stamp my time sense skill had given me finding it useful to have a clock within my vision. It seemed strange after having always had access to a clock, watch or phone to tell the time in my old world, here I just left the skill running constantly. The only problem with my clock was that it was based on my birth rather than the Compass calendar and the clock that this world ran off. I would have to learn how to recalibrate that one day.

Fourth, I added to my view panel some of the other stations that my super senses had allowed me to build within my mind fortress. A compass and minimap were easily added based on what my skills allowed me to see. In fact, I was also able to switch my vision to add the details provided by mana sense and echolocation. One added colours to the world based on the type and strength of the mana present. The other was a black world built with lines formed by the information echolocation returned. Either way, it was a cool effect and well worth the time I had been forced to endure wrapped up in my head. It was strange to see the world this way but no stranger than when I had first discovered the skill and still just as cool.

I had effectively turned my status into a gaming console screen that I could keep up at will. I did worry a little that this might make me view the world a little more like a game to be played but I also thought that my crippled nature and the occasional crippling pain I had experienced so far would be quick to wake me up to the fact that ultimately this was not game it was my life. Still, there was one thing missing from my heads-up display.

If I was going all the way, then I might as well add this as well.

Fifth and finally, I added my music. A separate scroll bar of actual scrolls that I had written out, the music of my former world. The trick here was to again utilise multiple skills at the same time. While parallel process would play the music within my mind fortress, my waking mind viewing the world would be able to listen in and enjoy a soundtrack to my life. I had built myself my own mental gaming station through which I viewed the world and once I could actually move again, I could only imagine how cool it would be, to finally move to music once again.

The best bit about all the mental exercises was that it was utilising skills I already had rather than discovering new ones. So while my levels ticked up a little and added a little to my stats it hopefully would not be too big a boost to them like I feared my psi skills might be should I play around with them too much and discover new skills.

Better still, even though I was still lying there crippled, I was no longer bored!

. . .

At the end of the month, we were finally graced with Mercurio and Cadmus’s presence. Luckily it appeared that the royal interest in our family had been positive. The situation or our petition was summarised as a ‘yes’ to the children, Aleera and I would be becoming nobles once more. But it was a ‘no’ to the adult part of our family becoming nobles unless the prince received further remuneration for future patents of nobility. While Grandfather was reluctantly willing to pay for his daughter’s ennoblement he was not willing to pay for the son-in-law’s title so we would be waiting on Grandpa Smit and Father to make enough money before that happened. Besides that, there were possible benefits to this situation if we, as children, had been put off the board of the game nobility appeared to play with our lives, by the Royal family. According to them, we had over 10 Compass Kingdom years until Aleera reached the age of inheritance and had to be presented to the court. 10 Compass Kingdom years, during which, in theory at least, our family should be free from physical threats to our well-being. This was all in theory though. Both Mercurio and Cadmus emphasised the fact that our distance from the capital as well as our obscurity to the nobles playing such dangerous games was of equal protection as a Royal edict that we should attend his court healthy and whole. They further pointed out that being healthy and whole did not preclude entrapping our family fiscally, legally or in any other manner or method the nobles could think of.

That did not mean to say that they were not impressed with how productive our family had continued to be over the last 6 months and they attempted to reassure the family that there was profit and safety to be had as well.

While they had been away, mother continued to slowly add to the palace she was slowly carving into the side of the mountain. So we were able to meet the two of them on a small balcony overlooking the salt flats. They had been flooded once more this morning, when we realised they were coming, to create the correct aesthetic. The view of the mountain as they arrived and the caldera reflected in the salt flats as they looked back across the azure blue lagoon they had sailed across was surely majestic. Particularly lit as it was, in the light of the midday sun, beneath a cerulean sky.

Surprisingly, I was even reintroduced to Mercurio and introduced to Cadmus for the first official time, as their new son Callen. There was some question as to whether this was a wise idea or not. Particularly with the difficulties of a 1 and a half-year-old pretending to be a newly born baby. I might be growing slowly but there was still a size discrepancy. However, to aid in the disguise and deception, they had my new cot built. It was specially constructed, with hidden space for my legs to drop down below my body. Added to this my mother, had sewn fake feet onto my knees. I found the whole effect comical as I now looked significantly shorter than my true height, probably around half my height seeing as I was lying down. My ability to lie comatose as if sleeping was no challenge for me at all, crippled as I still was.

Luckily, Mercurio had returned with several bottles of dexterity elixir which meant that as soon as they had left I would be able to move again. Still, while I lay there listening they explained their return journey to our family. Aleera was able to ask the questions that interested me the most. I heard about the circular route they had taken through the archipelago. They happily told her of the island’s names Favon, Corus, Circe, Septen, Aquil, Caecia, Solan, Apelio, Vulturn, Euron, Notos, Auster and Libon as well as what could be purchased on each beyond the usual coastal city products of fish, shells, pearls and salt. Clearly encouraging her in her mercantile dreams. I attempted to build a mental map of the world they were describing in my mind but looked forward to getting hold of a proper map myself to see how far we were from the ‘modern’ center of civilisation that Cadmus described.

Aleera hardly needed the encouragement to engage in further trade. Indeed, we had been hard at work producing more salt over the last six months and we had finally harvested our first set of pearls that were ready for sale. But their information had certainly given me a few ideas on how we could build our empire and I was sure that she would be only too happy to help me realise them for a price of course.

Once he realised that we had more assets for sale, Mercurio was ecstatic to receive them, although he bargained hard over their price. While it was still clear that he was allowing Aleera some success at the bargaining table, he appeared to be less willing, after his agreement to sell all our salt for us, to pay the top price for them. Nevertheless, he didn’t try to keep the price down too hard. Her success at selling the items would translate into his own success, as he transferred her profit into buying land across Little Wester and Wester Levante. Then more so when he took a part of the commission on the sales from the Prince.

Over the last couple of months, Grandfather had emphasised the importance of owning outright our locality simply to prevent others from establishing a foothold when our family was eventually discovered. Father had been happy to hear that we were under the Prince’s protection for the next two decades. But Cadmus was quick caution to him, that while it was a royal decree it did not assure us our safety merely increased the possible cost of our death and demise and reinforced our Grandfather’s point about the importance of owning our own or nearby land.

Cadmus went on to explain that he did not doubt that within the decade our name and location would be leaked either through the nobles' diligence in searching for us or a leak from either the Swift or the Palace and not to put too much faith in the Prince to protect them. Especially as far from the center of Ponente as we were. It was with this final word of warning that their meeting was adjourned.

They left Mercurio never suspecting that I was not the original child he sold the patent of nobility to. I wondered if I had two patents of nobility would that make me a lord squared? Was a double baron a viscount? The system rewarded me with nothing new so I assumed it made no difference at all.