He played with some random blocks and stuffed animal toys, sometimes joined by his mother when she wasn’t painting, until much later in the day. After a good few hours, she looked up at the flap of the door leading outside, before moving into the kitchen. Dei could hear some running water, which confused him because they clearly didn't have electricity, before she came back out with all the red paint washed off of her hands. She picked him up and they moved outside together again, this time just a few feet away from the door, where she showed him one of the quarter sized crystals in the wall, this one being fiery red.
He reached out to touch it, but she grabbed his hand and moved it back to his side, waggling her finger at him and saying some words he interpreted as ‘no no.’
Dei was confused at what she wanted him to see, but quickly realized with fascination as he saw the gem begin to rapidly grow darker, before the light it was emitting was gone entirely.
Looking around, he noticed a sort of wave pass over the cave system, from one end to the other, as all the gems grew darker. A few of them still let out a slight glow, but most looked closer to normal gems than the lights he saw before
What surprised him was that he could still see perfectly clearly, no trouble at all. He knew that it was significantly darker than before, but Dei found himself easily able to see the other side of the cave.
‘My racial bonuses! I forgot to check those!’ blast his baby attention span, blast it!!! He kept remembering things he forgot to look into more. He couldn’t check it right now either, because his mom was paying attention to him, and he didn't want her to be suspicious of him doing something with his Interface.
Instead, they stood there and looked out at the cavern as people returned home. He imagined that this was their version of night, and now the day was over.
There was one group of people he recognized after a little bit, and he pointed at them as his dad and siblings came up the zig-zagging path to their house.
His mom squealed in delight as he pointed them out, and made what sounded like congratulatory words to him, making him smile.
When the rest of his family made it to the ledge in front of their home, his mom bent down to hug the other two of her children, being mindful of Dei. His siblings were just as excited to see their mom as the last time he saw them through the astral projection.
For some reason though, he felt like they were throwing dirty looks at him. It wasn’t anything specific, just a glance or two his direction, but he just had a feeling that they were unhappy with him.
‘Man I just met you two, how can you already not like me?’ he thought, before realizing that they might be jealous of their moms attention on him. That didn't exactly feel right though, because both of them disliked him, rather than just the five year old brother, who’s spot as the youngest child was being taken from him. He didn’t know, but he also didn’t have a way to figure it out, so he dropped it.
His family moved their conversation into the kitchen where mom put him in a stone high chair around a table. He got to watch where the running water came from as his mom grabbed a small handle above the sink and dragged it to the side, opening a small hole where water spilled out and into the drain. She then held the two other children up while they washed the mud and dirt away, before washing her own. ‘Well, no soap. That's to be expected.’
After everyone had washed their hands, his mother got to cooking another meal using the stone tools and wood burning stove they had. He called them ‘stone tools’ but frankly, everything was stone, and most of it was just as good as any other tool he had seen. It was potentially even magically enhanced, if his own magic had anything to go off of.
She cooked some well seasoned steamed vegetables over some sort of hearty root that had been mushed down into a potato-like consistency, all soaked in some sort of broth. He wasn't sure it looked very appetizing, but it smelled delicious. She mushed up his portion of everything, probably because he wouldn't really be able to chew, and fed him most of his meal. Although about halfway through, he tried to take the spoon in order to feed himself.
She raised her eyebrow at that, but let him, and watched as he completely fumbled with his cutlery.
As he fumbled around, she started focusing more on her own meal while he did his own thing.
The spoon wasn’t overly heavy, despite looking like stone, so really it was his own dexterity that messed with him.
Eventually she insisted on feeding him, probably because of the huge mess he made, and their meal was quickly done.
They all went to the living room and talked for a bit longer, before the two younger ones were sent to go take a bath, shortly before he was given one too.
When it was his turn, he was fascinated by the slots the water came out of. One gave hot, the other gave cold, but he couldn't imagine where the hot water came from. Maybe this world wasn't as primitive as he thought it to be?
After the bath, his mother rocked him in her arms until he fell asleep, then put him in the crib before going to bed herself
Dei woke up in the middle of the night with a start. He was having some weird dream about shapes and colors, when he felt a sudden falling sensation forced him out of it. ‘Well, the body IS that of a baby, shapes and colors are probably what I should be dreaming about’
He looked around, seeing as his parents were currently asleep in the bed next to him. In his own crib, there were a few scattered toys around, made of either fur stuffed with some thing soft, or stone objects that had no sharp edges.
A baby would normally start crying right about now, but he was glad to finally have some time to finish checking up his Interface. At least, he was pretty sure he was done, but for all he knew there might be yet another thing he had forgotten. ‘Baby memories, am I right?’
He pulled the Interface up
Name: Dei Grrata
Race: Human (Gem Dweller Variant)
Class: N/A
Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.
Profession: N/A
Achievements: Void Walker, Soulspeak, Beyond Understanding, No Rulers Above All
HP: 16/16
MP: 16/16
SP: 16/16
Stats:
Physical: 8
Mental: 8
Spiritual: 12
Magical: 11
Affinities:
Kindness: Mid-Rare, 27%
Wrath: Low-Uncommon: 77%
Soul: High-Common: 12%
Inner Skills:
Kindness: Pandora’s Box (Contained) (50) (36/2000), Call for Help (9)
Wrath: Pandora’s Box (Unleashed) (2), Growing Pains (17)
Soul: Astral Projection (1)
Outer Skills:
How About a Demonstration?
Looking at his (Contained) Skill, he saw that it had actually gone up by a single point. It was weird, because he hadn’t been angry at all, but perhaps even the slightest bit of irritation caused some Wrath mana to build up slowly.
At the rate it was building though, he didn't have to worry for a very long time. ‘Agh, baby attention!’
He stopped pondering his Wrath mana production, and instead mentally selected the window under [Human (Gem Dweller Variant)]
[Racial Bonuses:
Tremor Sense (Major)
Darkvision
Camouflage (Major)
Digging (Major)
Weakness to Light
Greater Weakness to Vibration]
More Skills! He really liked looking at all the magical things he could do now, and so many of these looked so cool!
He started with [Tremor Sense (Major)]
[Tremor Sense (Major) - Passive
Gain a highly sensitive detection system that can estimate the size and shape of any creature or object through the vibrations of the earth. Detection system channeled through feet, disabled when feet are not connected to the ground. Partially intact if only one foot is on the ground]
A simple but useful Skill when underground. He didn't think he had ever stood on his own two feet before, so this had never been activated. He would test it out in a bit.
[Darkvision - Passive
Eyes become highly sensitive to both visible and infrared light, giving incredible vision through the dark. Gain the ability to send out infrared light through the eyes at a negligible mana cost, allowing for sight in even the darkest of caves.]
That was incredible! He remembered having a pair of night vision goggles in his previous life that worked off of infrared light; the images they showed were grayed out, but still very detailed. The only thing he had to be careful of was the fact that the infrared lights on the goggles sent out a distinct dim red glow when he used them. If he was hiding from something, emitting infrared light would be a terrible idea, because it might be a beacon to his location.
[Camouflage (Major)
Skin takes on the unique ability to change color, shape, texture, density, heat signature, and mana signature.
Altering skin must be done manually, reference material for mimicry must be in contact with skin when altering skin]
He knew he was going to get tons of uses out of this. It reminded him a lot of the cuttlefish from his previous life, but taken to the extreme. He was also curious to see if he could form a sort of ‘natural armor’ by changing his skin to that of stone or metal, because it didn't say that he needed to stay in contact with the material in order to keep the camouflage.
[Digging (Major) - Passive
Slight in-born hyper-specialized earth affinity gives +600% digging speed]
Short and sweet, he supposed. There was a distinct lack of any flavor text on the racial bonuses that he was seriously getting bothered by. He really enjoyed seeing what interesting thing the System cooked up for him, but he supposed it wasn’t required.
[Weakness to Light - Passive - Debuff
Becoming specialized into living in the dark, your body has developed an extreme sensitivity to light. Well-lit areas temporarily blind you, and Light mana deals more damage to you]
Agh, he knew there was a catch. Everything about him was specialized into making him a perfect predator of the darkness, apparently at the cost of everything that has to do with light.
He was even more worried now about the next thing on his list that he had glanced at…
[Greater Weakness to Vibration - Passive - Debuff
Becoming hyper-specialized into detecting vibrations, your body has developed a hyper-extreme sensitivity to vibrations. Large crowd of people temporarily blind you, extreme changes in vibrations deal internal damage to you, and Vibration mana deals significantly more damage to you]
Well, Fuck. He was going to need to be careful around everything. Vibrations were everywhere, so there was no way he was just going to avoid extreme vibrations. He knew that if he carefully managed everything, his [Tremor Sense] would be amazing, but if he slipped up it might cripple him.
Even so, he couldn't stop himself from being excited at the prospect of getting to sense everything around him. Who wouldn’t be? It sounded like an incredible super power! While he knew he’d already been using magic in the form of Soul magic, none of it had been tangible until this point.
Once he used [Tremor Sense], he would be using a superhuman ability, and it was only the beginning.
He couldn't move his body as well as he wanted to, but while he was laying on his back, he put both feet flat onto the floor of his crib.
Immediately, the world opened up to his senses. Through the four legs of the crib, he could sense everything.
All around the cave system, for thousands, potentially tens of thousands of meters, he could get a sort of grainy, muffled mental picture of it all.
He knew that it was muffled from the fact that he wasn't in direct contact with the ground, but he could also tell that it became more indistinct the further out his mental image went.
After only a second or two of watching it though, his head started to hurt. He tried parsing out specific vibrations and focusing on them, but he couldn't tell anything.
The slight headache rapidly formed into an agonizing pounding in his skull. He tried to move his feet but he struggled to make his muscles respond.
He felt fear overtake him as he thought he might die because he couldn’t wait patiently to test out his Tremor Sense, despite the fact that it had warned him that it would be dangerous. His fear turned to absolute terror as his emotions flared up to the most extreme sense of dread he had ever felt.
Suddenly, he felt himself lifted off of his crib as a familiar scent calmed him down.
“Shhh shhhh” he heard his mom sleepily quiet him as the pain receded just as quickly as it had come.
He realized that when he thought the experience could be lethal, his body had naturally spiked his fear to make him cry. It's a good thing it did, too, because he probably would have simply been paralyzed without it.
‘There is a very, very fucking good reason why the System keeps calling my rebirth an irregularity that should never have happened.’
He was understanding it more as time went on. But there were so many issues with the entire situation he had found himself in. He was trying to fix the issues as they came, but there were so many things to watch out for. Babies cried for a reason, and it wasn't just to say that they wanted something. He was going to need to release some of the control that he had held on his mind, and start letting things pass him by as nature took its course until he was older.
That didn't mean that he would allow everything to pass him by, he could still use these early years to train, but perhaps he didn't need to maximize every single moment.
He had quieted down by now, and he felt himself slipping away into sleep again as his mother continued to gently pat and rock him, until he was finally back into a restful sleep.