Chapter 13 - Changes (Part 2)

It took Alan five days to regain the ability to move freely. Even after his stamina recovered, the frequent eruptions of pain forced him to stay in bed. In the two months since the reincarnation, he spent more than half of the time resting.

Bored of lying still, he wanted to assess the changes happening to him and asked the maids to get a mirror. To his surprise, they refused his request. He scanned the room and didn’t see anything close to resembling a mirror. It didn’t take a genius to guess what happened. Alaya must’ve ordered them to strip the room bare.

If she went to such great lengths, whatever happened to him shouldn’t be simple. Rather than being afraid, he felt curious. Her measures couldn’t stop him forever, and she should know it too. All it took to find out the truth was some patience.

In the meantime, he found another way to occupy himself. Gazing at the head maid passing by, he thought, Identify.

Name: Hylda

Class 1: Head Maid [100%]

Perks:

Type

Description

Battle

None

Other

Authority: Gains the ability to manage other maids and manage a small portion of the estate’s funds

Attributes:

Strength: 8 Agility: 7 Constitution: 7 Intelligence: 10 Wisdom: 5 Energy: 0

Unique Attributes:

??? ???

Type

Skills

Passive

Professionalism Inventory management Delegation Communication Basic accounting

Increase the skill level or understand more about Hylda to gather more information

Alan mulled over the information. After repeated experiments with the system, he understood a few things. It was highly dependant on him. If it could be considered a computer, then Alan acted as its input. It didn’t have some mysterious way to gather data and learned from the things he knew.

The system derived Hylda’s skills from his knowledge of what a usual head maid did. It gave levels to professionalism, delegation, and communication as he had seen her at work. They were on full display when she ordered the other maids. If he ever saw her manage an account, the skill level of basic accounting would get updated.

Abilities like [Identify] acted as tools for the system to gather more information. The higher the level, the more complex the tool became, and the data it gathered increased. In a way, the system didn’t act any different from a computer.

One thing he had an issue with was the way the overseer system assigned levels to other people’s skills. The value fluctuated whenever he learned more information about the world, making the reading unreliable. It would take time for him to fill the gaps in his knowledge, and the level was a useless decoration before that point.

He snickered when he noticed the system turn head maid into a class. Ignoring the perks, he moved his eyes to the attributes. Even the head maid outclassed him in strength, agility, and constitution. At five years, his body was a long way from being fully developed, but knowing it didn’t remove the sting.

He surpassed Hylda in intelligence and wisdom. In recent days, he figured out what wisdom represented. It dealt with the five normal senses and extra-sensory perception. Hylda’s low stat made sense as she was a maid, not a warrior. She didn’t go through any life-and-death battles for her to have enhanced perception.

Curious about how his wisdom compared to others, he tried [Identify] on guards and got a lot of question marks in response. The soldiers stationed inside the castle were the cream of the crop, so it made sense.

Alan believed he got [Danger Sense] and [Precognition] due to his high wisdom stat.

He commanded the system to display the skills. Over the past five days, he lost track of the number of times he read the descriptions. He knew word by word what it said but never tired of reading it again.

Skill: [Danger Sense]

Description: Sense potential mortal danger. Within a range of 3 meters, or one second before lethal danger, you can sense it. When activated, it increases the effectiveness of every skill, especially wisdom-based ones.

Cost: Zero (Passive)

It can be leveled up by experiencing more battles or [Function Locked].

The skill wasn’t unique or special, but it was crucial for soldiers. Many of them surely had a higher level of [Danger Sense] than he did, but increasing its effectiveness was fraught with danger. No one in the world could be sure of winning every battle. They needed innumerable wins and one loss to lose everything. On the other hand, Alan had another way of increasing the skill level. While the system temporarily locked the function, one of the two missions should open it.

Skill: [Precognition]

Description: Analyze opponent’s body language and gain the ability to read their moves. Notice the enemy’s movements with increased detail.

Cost: Zero (Passive)

It can be leveled up through constant usage or [Function Locked].

From the moment he read the description, he constantly practiced [Precognition] by using it on the maids. The skill barely improved as their actions were pretty basic. Even those who couldn’t read body language understood the maid’s movements, but he took what he got. Seeking rapid improvement was a fool’s pursuit. Growth involved consistency and dedication.

The skill had one major drawback. It caused him to tunnel vision and ignore the surroundings. He tried to overcome the limitation by focusing on a large number of people at once, but he missed too many details. Without getting disheartened, he persisted in his actions and noticed a large improvement in skill effectiveness. While it didn’t advance to the next level, it wouldn’t be long if he practiced using the same method. [Precognition] was the one ability he could improve without doing anything dangerous.

“Bored?” Lily’s childish voice interrupted his thoughts and brought a forced smile to his face. Her presence never failed to improve his mood, but he couldn’t say the same at that instant. During her first visit, she didn’t jump at him like always but stood still and gaped at him. It was the same reaction the maids displayed when they thought he wasn’t looking. The most common expressions were disgust and fear. Their attitude didn’t bother him, but Lily’s expression hurt him more than he wanted to admit.

Whenever she visited, she repeatedly peeked at his face. Alan lacked the courage to ask if his looks bothered her. His family’s presence, care, and love were like a drug to him, and he didn’t want to lose it no matter the cost. As long as they didn’t hate him, he would do anything to stay with them.

“Did you sneak in again?”

“No,” she said. “Mom didn’t forbid me from visiting.”

He turned towards her and started after getting a glimpse of her face. There were brown streaks present on her eyelids and forehead. “Why’s your face smeared in chocolate?”

She perked up. “What do you think?”

What do I think? Either you dunked your head in chocolate, or your messy stat evolved. Not knowing how to respond, he stayed silent.

Her face fell. “It doesn’t look good?”

It was supposed to? Clearing his throat, he said, “It does! I was wondering why you ….. decorated yourself to visit me.”

“After you got those purple marks, you look so cool. I wanted to be the same.”

What? It took him a while to understand what she meant. A lump formed in his throat when he saw the five-year-olds clumsy attempts to cheer him up.

“You don’t have to try so hard. You’re always cool!” His attempts at holding back emotions made him sound unnatural, but he didn’t care.

The biggest grin he ever saw appeared on her face. She got down from the bed and tugged his sleeve. “Come on. Let’s go.”

Alan allowed himself to be led. “Where to?”

Thankfully, he wasn’t under room arrest, so no one stopped him.

"We need to hide from dad. Otherwise, he’s going to start another lecture."

They rushed through the corridor weaving between the clumps of people. The maids yelped when Lily pushed their legs.

“Be careful!” a maid shouted when Lily tripped.

“Lord Alan, please go back and change your clothes. You are still wearing your nightgown!” another one shouted.

Laughing unconcernedly, they rushed towards the open ground.

“What lecture did father give you?” Alan curiously asked. Kayden spent most of his time with Lily and seldom said no to anything she asked. Lily used him as a shield against Alaya, who wasn’t just a caring mother but also a strict and disciplined one.

Lily had an annoyed expression on her face. "Dad started some stupid speech about ki, knights, swords, and training. I didn’t get to play for more than 15 times."

Alan laughed. How is half of the month, not enough playtime?

Unlike Iris who was always well mannered and patient, Lily was quite naughty. She didn't like lessons and tried to skip them whenever she could.

Suddenly, they saw an exasperated Kayden standing in front of them.

Lily yelped in surprise and tried to change direction, but Kayden caught her. A chuckling Alaya stood beside him.”Now you know what I go through everyday.”

“Why are you trying to escape from me?” Kayden asked. “Didn’t you always want me to teach you?”

“I changed my mind. Mom’s much better,” Lily muttered, causing everyone to stare at her.

“Why?”

“Mom takes me outside and makes me do exercises. I don’t like it, but it’s better than your lessons. You made me sit in front of a table and listen to lectures the entire time.” She struggled against his grip, trying to get free. “I hate your lessons!”

Alan burst into laughter while Alaya stared at Kayden incredulously. “That’s what you made her do?”

“Of course not! I gave her sword practicing sessions!”

"All you made me do was swing the sword in a single motion! It was nothing like sister Iris' beautiful swordplay. I won't be able to beat her if you don’t teach me actual swordplay."

Alaya joined Alan’s laughter causing Kayden to scowl. "I know you hate lessons, but they’re important. You need to get a grip on the basics before learning fancy moves. Iris didn’t get stronger in a day. She trained hard for many years.“

He might as well lecture a wall for all the attention Lily paid.

Alan stopped laughing and decided to help Kayden. “Lily, training is important. Let me show my improvements in the past month. If you train like me, you’ll get strong enough to beat Iris.”

The reaction he received from the others was completely unexpected. Kayden and Alaya frantically shook their heads. “Why don’t you both go out and play?”

Much to their consternation, Lily agreed. “Okay!”

Alaya sighed and walked up to Alan. “Just try your hardest and don’t feel bad if you lose.”

Her words annoyed Alan. He was a variant who went through one month of rigorous training, had a lot of abilities, and ki at his disposal. Being older than Lily, he was also better suited for battle. Maybe his recent accidents caused them to consider him weak. After the fight, they were going to change their mind.

Alaya kneeled in front of him and stared at him with a solemn expression. “Before we go, do you want to see what happened to you?”

Her question surprised him. Wasn’t she the one who ordered the mirrors to be removed? Did I misunderstand something? Were the mirrors removed for a different reason?

“My order to remove the mirrors was a bad decision. After discussing with your father, we decided to leave the choice to you. Do you want to see the changes you underwent?

“I can’t keep you away from mirrors forever, and people will gossip about you, but remember we’ll always be there to support you. Before saying yes, know that you may not like what you see.”

Alan acted as any five-year-old would. “Yes!”

A mirror appeared in front of him, displaying the purple cracks present on his eyelids. They appeared similar to fractured glass. He touched one of them, but it didn’t feel any different from his skin. One strange aspect was the way they pointed towards the center of the forehead as if they planned to merge there. His eyes also underwent a minor change. A tinge of purple ringed his pupil. The overall changes gave him an eerie appearance.

Noticing Alaya’s and Kayden’s tense faces, Alan wanted to laugh. He never thought they made the fuss over some marks. Sure, people would ridicule him, but it wasn’t even worth noting. He had been through so much in his previous life, a little mockery meant nothing.

Thinking of it another way, it was a blessing in disguise. Those who got close to him because of his appearance or background weren’t worth befriending. He wanted friends who stuck with him because of who he was.

He couldn’t explain the reasons to his parents, so he put up a childish act. “It’s so cool! Why did you hide it from me?”

Alaya and Kayden glanced at each other, and he knew exactly what passed between them.

Hiding her real thoughts, she hugged him with a smile on her face. “Let’s go. I can’t wait to see how strong you’ve gotten.”