ding

Skill [Soul Sense] advanced to level 5

And there was another one. It was the middle of winter, and after getting a couple of levels I found the range had increased enough for me to be able to do a spot of soul-searching without having to invade people's personal space. Souls were still nebulous grey things, but I was starting to get hints of non-uniformity. A slightly whiter patch here, a darker patch there. Nevertheless, everyone looked pretty much the same. What this would ever be useful for, I had no idea, but being able to literally peer into someone's soul had some amount of coolness value, and skill levels were skill levels. It wasn't as if I'd needed to spend soul points on the skill, so there wasn't any downside.

It was coming up to Cluma's birthday, and not too long after that it would be Darren's. If the weather was good enough, I'd try to get Cluma back to Dawnhold for her birthday, but it wasn't looking promising. I'd have expected farmers to have some sort of weather forecast skill, but apparently not. Then again, we couldn't accurately predict the weather on Earth, even with our massive supercomputers, so maybe it was something the System simply couldn't do. Too chaotic for it to make accurate predictions or something.

The day came, and we were indeed snowed in. There was no way we would be able to get to Dawnhold, so we had a little party in our shack instead. Cluma helped make her own cake, her [Basic Cooking] long since maxed out, and it was an enjoyable day all around. Cluma ended up flopped forwards onto the table in a blissful food coma, tail hanging limply off the back of her chair, while I was sitting with Darren on my lap, Mum and Dad washing up behind me.

"Tickle, tickle," I said to Darren, running mana across his forehead. He giggled and rubbed his cute little hand where I'd brushed him with my magic. I pulled the flow of mana away from him a little and then giggled myself as he reached out and tried to grab the stream as it passed.

Then I realised what it was that I was giggling at and stopped. Darren had just grabbed at a flow of mana that wasn't touching him. I wasn't using the full force of [Greater Mana Control] here; I was playing with a baby! The amounts of mana involved were tiny. Without using [Mana Perception], I could sense that something was there, but certainly not with enough acuity to grab at it. How had he just done that?

Had playing with mana around Darren all the time had some sort of weird side effect? Did he have some sort of mana related trait? He couldn't have been unconsciously buying skills; I knew from experience that the System didn't allow it before the age of one. Was it just luck? I ran a few more streamers of mana around him, and now that I was paying attention, I could see him tracking one of them with his eyes. Then he reached out and grabbed at it, again with perfect accuracy, giggling as the mana ran through his hand.

"Umm... Mum?" I called nervously. "Darren is doing a thing he shouldn't be able to do."

"And what's that?" she asked, looking around.

I ran another streamer of mana in front of him, by way of demonstration, and sure enough he reached out and grabbed it. Only this time was worse, because it didn't run through his hand. He actually caught it. He was holding a chunk of raw mana in his hand! How did that even work?! I boggled in utter disbelief; I could 'catch' mana like that even with a low level of [Mana Control], but not with my bare hands, with no skills.

"Well?" asked Mum, completely blind to what had just happened.

"Turn on your [Mana Sense], and look at what he's holding in his hand."

Mum squinted, presumably activating her long-disused skill, while Dad also turned around to see what was going on. Even Cluma looked up groggily from her spot at the table. "Is that... mana?" asked Mum. "Well, of course it is, given that you told me to use [Mana Sense], but how is he holding mana in his hand?"

"I have absolutely no idea," I admitted. "He seems to be able to see and manipulate mana."

"And there I was thinking that we'd managed to have a normal child this time," said Dad. "From the shock on your face, I assume this isn't normal?"

"Not in the slightest. I've been making occasional attempts to learn to sense mana without skills for well over a year, but I can't do it anywhere near well enough to track it like he just did, and I can't manipulate mana without skills at all."

"Is it dangerous?" Mum asked pragmatically. "Is it possible that he could burn the house down or something?"

That was a legitimate concern. If he managed to convert raw mana to an affinity, goodness knows what would happen to himself or any people or property around him. Completely oblivious to our worries, Darren opened his hand, releasing the held mana upwards, smiling happily as it diffused back into the ambient mana.

"I honestly have no idea," I answered. "That's the sort of question I'd normally ask Kari, but she's entrenched in Dawnhold. We can try Richard, but I doubt he'll be able to say much. I guess I'll just have to stay near him at all times and hope my mana control skills can stop him if he tries anything."

"You kids are ridiculous," said Dad. "All three of you."

I found it hard to disagree, but despite keeping my [Mana Perception] active all day, I didn't spot Darren making any more suspicious moves. No more playing with mana around him, then. Maybe I should stop with the [Soul Sense] too, in case we suddenly ended up with a soul manipulating baby. Unlikely, given that it was only a passive sense, but oh so much worse if he picked up something weird from it.

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Unfortunately, Darren had other ideas. Over the next few days, every time he saw me he would reach out and babble at me, obviously wanting me to play with him, and then he'd start crying when I didn't. So... I had a choice between a loud, wailing baby, or a potentially lethal mana wielding baby. A choice it turned out that I didn't get to make, because while I could avoid using magic around him myself, I couldn't do anything about the ambient mana, and it didn't take him long to work out he could play with that too.

And yes, it turned out he was attuned to fire affinity.

It took almost a week before the weather had cleared up enough for the five of us to head to Dawnhold, seeking professional help, or at least a marginally less flammable place to stay. I was shattered, having only been able to sleep when I was certain Darren was out already, and even then someone else had to watch him and rouse me the moment he woke up. I'd been spending every waking moment watching for him trying to set things on fire and doing my best to stop him with my own mana control skills.

Four of us trudged through the thin layer of snow still on the ground, while I carried Darren. For the third time of the day, I felt a clump of mana forming up in front of him. For the third time of the day, I disrupted it, causing Darren to once again start wailing. I really had awful luck when it came to brothers, although I'd at least acknowledge that this one didn't know what he was doing.

Richard had alas not been able to offer any advice, having never seen anything like this before. On top of that, Darren's abilities seemed to be getting gradually stronger, or else it was taking him time to work out what he could do. Thankfully, he was still far off from being able to compete with my System-granted skills, so I could render him safe for now, but I didn't know how long that would last. I didn't know how long I would last. If not for [Meditation] allowing me to fall asleep quickly, I'd likely have already reached my limit.

When he'd first twisted mana into fire affinity, it had caught me completely by surprise, and by the time I'd disrupted it his bed had already been alight. Unsurprisingly, hay burns fast. Thankfully, between our bathroom water crystal and the ones I had in my [Item Box] for delving or experimental purposes, we were able to put it out, albeit at the cost of a lot of water damage. Since then he'd repeatedly targeted our shack, other people, even himself, although I'd thankfully stopped him doing any more damage or causing any injuries.

It wasn't just fire I was afraid of, either. Having been on the receiving end of a burst of unstructured soul affinity, I was terrified he'd work out how to do something similar, hence why I was disrupting everything he did, long before he tried to twist it into any sort of affinity. I was hoping he'd get the message sooner rather than later, but no matter how many times I stopped him and told him 'no', he still kept trying.

As to what we'd actually do once we got to Dawnhold, I had no idea. There was a general plan of 'beg Kari for help', but no actual guarantee she'd be able to do anything. Nor was there any guarantee of accommodation. We were desperate here, and it showed.

We made it to Dawnhold with only two more incidents of attempted ecological arson and started off by heading straight to the research institute. Hoping they wouldn't have so many visitors in the middle of winter as they did at milder times of the year, we headed into the reception area and asked around for Kari. Her workroom not being large enough to fit her five visitors, she came out to the reception area instead.

"Wow, it really is you guys. Did you miss me so much you had to come and visit? Wait, Cluma? When did you get back, and why are you with these guys?"

Hang on, Cluma was in the room with us for the last couple of days of the tournament. Surely Kari saw her there? Although she did have her armour and helmet on the whole time, so I guess she wasn't that recognisable. Not to mention spending as much time as she could with [Stealth] active. Well, whatever. That wasn't important right now. Mum and Dad had stepped back, the topic of magic being outside of their expertise, leaving it up to me to explain things.

"We have another magic-obsessed baby we need your help with," I begged, showing her Darren.

"What? Don't tell me you have another hyper-intelligent kid? But why bring him all the way out here in the middle of winter? You should be able to teach him yourself."

"He's not any more intelligent than a usual baby. We wouldn't be having such a problem if he was. He seems to be able to... Never mind, he's doing it again. Just look at him with [Mana Perception]."

Kari stared as Darren gathered another clump of mana in front of himself, then twisted it into fire affinity, giggling and reaching into the flames. Of course, sticking fleshy hands into fires didn't work too well, and a short scream later he released his hold on the mana, leaving streams of flames falling to the floor. I disrupted them before they landed, having already weakened them to the point of harmlessness before he stuck his hand in. I probably should have stopped him doing something so stupid as sticking his hand into a magical fire at all, but I was still hopeful he would eventually learn that fire was dangerous and stop trying to make it.

"And there you have it. You'd have thought he'd have learnt that fire is hot by now, but nope. The first time he tried it, he almost burnt our shack down."

Kari continued to stare. "He has mana control skills? No, that's impossible; he hadn't even been born when I left the village. He can't possibly be old enough."

"Yup, still a few more weeks to go before his first birthday. [Analysis] doesn't work on him yet, so he shouldn't have any skills."

"A unique trait that gives natural magic ability?"

"Maybe, and if so, we'll be able to find out soon enough. But figuring out the why isn't so important as finding a way to stop him trying to set everything on fire. I can't hang around him all day every day using my skills to keep a lid on him."

Our curious little party ended up in a dungeon stone room, normally used for containing magical experiments, but which also had the useful effect of blocking the external ambient mana. With no ambient mana, Darren couldn't torch himself or others. Unfortunately, by the same logic, the room was free of heat and light crystals, either of which would have required ambient mana to function. The room was still warm, because with its location in the middle of the institute it didn't need an internal heat source, but it was left in utter darkness; no-one had candles, and there was insufficient airflow here for any sort of larger fire. I kinda regretted saying that light bulbs were pointless last year now; we could have done with one here. Assuming we had some way to power it that wasn't a lightning crystal, of course. There was no way I'd be putting Darren anywhere near a lightning crystal right now.

The darkness mattered little to me; with my pyromaniac brother neutralised, I took the opportunity to finally get a decent amount of sleep. A more permanent solution could wait till tomorrow.