He noticed that there were several pillars of misty water falling from the sky and looked up, only to see the ceiling of a cave, along with a blinding gargantuan object in the stone, with what looked to be spiderwebs of the same incredibly bright material branching out from it. He couldn't look for long before it started to hurt, so he turned back to the forest and blinked the splotches from his eyes.

The deep red trees gave way to a vibrant dark red grass. Every plant he could see held a slightly different shade, but all of them were the same color. His family came out at a level above the canopy of the forest and, as he looked around, he noticed how the cavern formed into a sort of perfectly disk-like shape, where the edges were higher yet it sloped downwards the further into the middle you moved.

His vision blurred in the distance so he still wasn’t able to see the other side, but it had to be several miles long. Thinking about his blurred vision, it dawned on him that the fact he could see at all was surprising. ‘Yesterday, I could barely see my moms face from three feet away. Now I can definitely see for at least a mile, when I know babies shouldn't be able to do so. My eyes shouldn't be developed.’

He couldn't be sure, but he suspected that [Growing Pains] was to blame for his rapid development.

Even after his eyes adjusted to the light, he noticed that his family still wasn't moving just yet. Instead, his parents’ heads were moving on a swivel, looking at some of the walls adjacent to us, and Dei noticed that there were many other entrances to the underground cavern.

From one of these entrances, Dei watched as two people wearing similar red cloaks to his family walked out of. When they spotted Dei and his family, Dei watched his dad raise his hand in a closed fist, while the people he was signaling made some gesture back that Dei couldn't decipher.

This happened a second time slightly later, but when his dad signaled him this time, he held up a single finger.

After that, the next group to move in received two fingers, and so on, until his father finally held up a full five fingers to each group around the forest, receiving a signal back at each one.

‘They’re keeping record of how many groups are coming in. Chances are, there is a sort of schedule to who gets to go where, and they want to keep track if someone was hurt or lost in the caverns, so they know exactly when a particular group ran into trouble.’ While he couldn’t be sure, it would be a smart way to ensure nobody was left behind. Following this logic, when they left, chances were that they would again check to make sure everyone was leaving the forest at the same time, before heading back into their respective tunnels.

To him, it seemed a bit silly that they weren’t all moving as a group, but he guessed they had their reasons. After all, a larger group would probably attract more attention, not to mention that the tight passageways wouldn't allow everyone to move freely if it was cramped by so many people. ‘Safety in numbers isn’t absolute, especially in tight spaces.’

After signaling with all of his fingers, his family waited for around a minute, before Dei saw how all the groups moved in at the same time ‘seriously, how do these people get this timing down perfectly?’

As his group moved through the knee high grass, his mom pulled out a bow, while he saw his father pull out a sturdy machete-like blade. Both parents crouched into the grass, while the kids had to walk full height to be able to move at all.

The grass became shorter as they got closer to the forest, but it became harder to see far away as the rust colored trunks surrounded them. The faraway animal noises became closer for a time, before becoming muffled among the breeze flowing through the leaves. ‘Breeze? Why is there a breeze when we’re underground? Magic probably.’

He was both excited and terrified, because it looked to him that his parents had taken a literal baby out into a dangerous forest to go hunting, but he would reserve his judgment until he was proven right or wrong.

The underbrush became thicker at parts, but they always moved through lightly cleared game trails, saving Dei from having to get slapped in the face with low hanging branches frequently.

After a few minutes of walking, his oldest sibling, the sister, made a humming noise and pointed at something on a branch. Everyone looked where she had indicated, and his parents’ faces both lit up as all five of them left the trail to go see something.

When they approached a tree, Dei saw how there was a long string of moss that hung down, almost all the way to the forest floor.

His father quickly cut the parts of it that draped from the tree branch, while leaving the main body intact, and stored them in his satchel.

When that was done, they moved back to the trail and continued on.

This same sequence repeated several times over the course of a few hours, with his parents intimately knowing the forest, with multiple clearly memorized spots where various herbs grew. As the packs became more full, he also noticed his parents section off parts of their satchels to prevent intermingling.

While they had some empty pockets on their belts, Dei never saw them open or use them. From what he could tell, a few had some things stored in them based on how they bulged slightly, but he estimated that each parent had perhaps four or five empty pockets that went unused. ‘Perhaps it's for things that are particularly valuable? Like each pocket is made specially to better store or preserve something, and they don’t want to cross contaminate if they get something unique?’

He waited and watched, hoping to find answers to all of his questions. The longer it went on though, the more boring it got. There were a few times when his family spotted a few strange looking wild animals, but it never ended violently.

The first was with a reddish-black komodo dragon shaped lizard the size of a horse that was sunbathing- err, bright material bathing- next to a pond that their path wrapped around. His family left the path to avoid getting close to it, and it made no motions to pursue them.

Another time was when there was a group of some weird six-legged starfish looking thing covered in beige fur that swung by on branches. While they looked horrifying and had toothy mouths in their central mass, his parents didn't show much worry. They moved a bit closer to the two kids between them and kept a vigilant eye on the pack as it moved by around them, but neither parent tensed or raised their weapon. Their movements were less a preparation for a fight, more as a guarantee to be in the correct position, just in case there was one. Despite his expectations though, the starfish looking things moved by them without stopping.

The third animal Dei never actually saw, but heard. As his family moved down a trail, a loud humanoid-sounding female scream resounded ahead of them, and from the acoustics of it, the creature was facing their direction too.

His parents froze at that, but didn’t panic. Instead, they just reversed and moved back down the path the way they came, walking backwards while still facing the unseen creature that let out some snarls from the underbrush for a distance. Eventually though, he heard it skitter away back up the path, and his parents simply took another route to keep going.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

He also noticed that they only ever moved so deep into the forest. While they could have moved deeper, they chose instead to move in a set distance, then back out in another section. The entire time they moved through, his parents collected many herbs and plants, sometimes leaving the plants alone that they deemed were not ready yet. There were a few times where a new, unexpected plant of note would be seen, and his parents would perk up significantly as the undiscovered ones always held a large batch to be plucked.

They stopped for lunch in a small clearing covered by some palm-like plants and quietly ate. His mother had been slipping him some small mushed up food here and there throughout the trip to keep him happy, from where she drew it he couldn't see, but now the entire group settled in to have something more complete, with a few whispers shared here and there. Dei noticed that there wasn't much talking going on throughout the trip, and he completely approved. It was a dangerous situation and they did not want to be discovered by something that would mean them harm.

After their lunch, their father also led them to a small creek close by, where they took alternating turns drinking some fresh, cold water while refilling their water skins and keeping watch.

Over time, Dei realized that they had made a sort of circuit around a small section of the forest as he recognized a path they were taking that led back out into the mouth of the cave from where they had come.

As he suspected, when they finally stepped up to the cave entrance, they stopped as his father looked around to search for the other groups. The same process repeated, with him holding a hand signal up until he reached all five fingers, then they turned towards the darkness and began their trek back to the village.

It was equally as boring as when they were moving towards the forest, and eventually they stopped at the mouth of the cave where they had diverged from the larger group.

Again, he saw a few people waiting further up and down the cave system, and again, the entire group moved as one on some hidden, undetectable signal to him.

In seconds they were moving back the way they had come, surrounded by ten or so people, then by twenty, thirty, and so on until everyone was back as a group.

When he saw them nearing what should be the entrance to the village, a wall sat before him until the leading person closed in on it, and it disappeared to let them through.

Everyone congregated again right after entering the village, and he got to see as the wall appeared again just as quickly as it had disappeared.

When everyone was in, Dei felt some sort of scan move over the group. It paused for a second on him, before judging something not noteworthy and moving on. ‘Weird.’

After the scan, he heard a sound similar to when the old wizard woman had tapped her staff on the ground as they left, and a second signal reverberated across his soul.

‘Safe.’

Immediately after the signal, the crowd of people brightened up and began moving deeper into their little underground village. The further they went, the louder the chatter around him became, until everyone was talking happily, laughing, and occasionally showing off some things they had found.

His family joined the conversation too, and he was guessing they bragged about some of the plants. When they got to the village proper, people began to either split up or move towards the village square, where all the shops were.

Dei watched as his parents alternatingly haggled about the things they had retrieved from the red forest, before handing them over to the people who could better put them to use. He saw a general store with camping equipment and the like, what looked like an alchemist, even a butcher who argued for a specific plant his parents had.

In some instances, his parents walked away with specific items, at other times though, it looked like they simply handed the plant over while still holding a satisfied expression. He didn't understand it, until they moved towards a shop where they didn't sell anything at all, but still received a new set of the small knives they used to harvest plants.

‘It's both a bartering system and a trust system. If they hold the plants in their house, they will probably wilt or decay, so they need to get them to the particular people as fast as possible. If they don't want anything right at the moment though, they still get a promise of something later.’

It was truly a feat that was completely unrepeatable in his previous world, at least in his section of the world.

They went home after that and cooked another full meal, before doing their nightly routines and heading off to bed. While in his crib, Dei realized that he still needed to fix his [Kindness] affinity skills, but definitely not right now. He wanted to have a better mental capacity, as well as be older. Right now when he entered his soul space, he appeared there as a baby. He could still float around and move, but it was really weird and awkward.

He didn't think that his actual size mattered during the trials he faced as a soul, just losing his cool as a baby would have probably been enough to succeed in the trial Wrath had given him, but he still felt underprepared.

In a similar yet weird vein, he struggled to use his [Astral Projection] skill when he tried. Despite having the skill, it took a significant amount of effort to actually use it. When he tried, he felt the skill drain something, until eventually it failed completely and he felt weak all over. He checked his Interface for some sort of indication of what was happening after that.

[Name: Dei Grrata

Race: Human (Gem Dweller Variant)

Class: N/A

Profession: N/A

Achievements: Void Walker, Soulspeak, Beyond Understanding, No Rulers Above All

HP: 16/16

MP: 0/16

SP: 16/16

Stats:

Physical: 8

Mental: 9

Spiritual: 12

Magical: 11

Affinities:

Kindness: Mid-Rare, 27%

Wrath: Low-Uncommon: 77%

Soul: High-Common: 15%

Inner Skills:

Kindness: Pandora’s Box (Contained) (50) (40/2000), Call for Help (9)

Wrath: Pandora’s Box (Unleashed) (2), Growing Pains (17)

Soul: Astral Projection (1)

Outer Skills:

How About a Demonstration?]

‘Its consuming MP?’ he thought confusedly. It hadn’t cost anything before? Perhaps that was because his soul shape wasn't fit to the body he was in though, making it much easier to actually escape it. He did notice that his [Soul] affinity had gone up at some point though. Ignoring that for a moment, he opened [Astral Projection]’s description

[Astral Projection - Level 1 - Soul Affinity

A confluence of Mind, Body, and Magic, the Soul is made of the cracks between all three. It is both the divider that separates components, and the glue that makes them greater than the sum of their parts. While identity and a sense of self is not required for survival, what is life without a witness? Who you are gives purpose to your survival, but what if your identity could reach beyond the base components of life, and experience a second life of its own?

Allows for the physical manifestation of one's identity into the realm of spirits while still maintaining a link to the main body of the soul. The vanquishing of one's identity will lead to irreparable soul damage, and inevitable death. Identity of the soul can move away from the body at a distance of 7 meters per level. ??? Initial MP Cost.]

He mentally sighed at the clause near the end of the description. ‘Yep, it costs mana now, and I don’t even know how much.’

He was still going to train with it, and potentially even level it up, but his visions of floating around as a ghost baby were delayed until his Physicality stat grew so his mana pool became larger.

Dei spent the next few weeks in a sort of half-stupor, letting his body and mind grow stronger and his family’s visits to the forest wash over him. His family didn't go every day, but perhaps four or five days out of the week they did. When they were at home, they had a few card games or board games that they played, or they went to some local version of a park with some narrow caves decorated with bright lights and plants.

Around two months into his new waking consciousness though, something unusual happened. On their way out of the red forest, his father was doing the usual hand signals. When he got to four fingers, there was a long pause. After a few minutes of no response, his face tensed. He held up four fingers again and received another response.

He quickly turned to his mom and said something to her, she gave a terse response back and his father signed something different using both hands in the air to each group. After which, he picked up both of Dei’s other siblings, and turned into a full-tilt sprint towards a section of the forest that the other four groups were heading to as well. ‘One group is missing,’ Dei thought with a panic.