‘There we go!’ Alex thought when he found himself floating back in the dark space again. The blissful feeling was a pleasant change compared to the pain from stabbing he experienced just a moment ago, ‘Could this be what people actually mean when they say ‘you’ll go to heaven after you die’? Right … to heaven only to be born in the hell again.’

‘Alright, let’s see …’ Alex tried to move and this time around he could.

Even bigger surprise was that he heard voices of humans! While he didn’t understand what they said, he was positive those were humans talking. He was going to be born as a human once again!

‘Great. Now then … the main objective of this incarnation is – to not mess it up!’ He thought and fell in a deep sleep.

Similar to the time before his third birth, the periods Alex was awake seemed shorter than the time he spend sleeping. The big change was that this time he was not bored at all.

Even though he couldn’t understand the language, he immediately disregarded the idea of learning it while in the womb. It was an obvious waste of time since it would be so much easier to learn to speak after his birth. Thus he spent his time concentrating on the flow of the force of nature while performing the beginner’s meditation technique elder Fata taught Reino.

There was a downside of not being a spiritbeast – Alex couldn’t feel the force of nature naturally and the fact that his mother kept constantly talking was incredibly distracting. Every time she said a word he felt it reverberating through his body and mind and no kicking or playing dead could make her stop.

The worst thing was that there seemed to be some kind of repeating pattern to her speech – Alex even began to think she was a teacher or something similar. He began to miss his mom with the terrible singing talent from his third life, but thinking about her tragic fate made him only sad.

Luckily he soon found a way to deal with the situation. Obviously every person had to sleep at some point, including his current mother, thus during the short periods she was asleep, Alex forced himself to stay awake as long as he could only to pass out when she began talking. It took a bit of practice, but he had time – humans had nine months of pregnancy after all. Of course, he had no way of knowing how far his mother currently was.

Time flew by and it didn’t take long for Alex to find himself being washed again and getting wrapped in an uncomfortable cloth. The disparity between the mother’s warm womb and the rough fabric couldn’t be explained in words, but he was kind of looking forward to this life so he didn’t mind.

The worst part was the unpleasant squeezing he experienced during the past hour or so and the bright lighting that assaulted him after coming to the world, but it was still bearable compared to the shock he experienced after the cesarean section.

Alex found that compared to that time it was almost painless to take the first breath as well, but was not certain if his body was in a better state or maybe had different anatomy than humans on Earth. Indeed, after being born in the world with spiritbeasts and having discussion with the headmaster, Alex realized that the Earth was not the only place in the world where living beings resided. What he found surprising was his indifference towards this fact, although it might had something to do with him being a wolf last time around.

“Congratulations, Elsa! You gave birth to a healthy boy!” Henrietta, who was fulfilling duties of the midwife, gently put the newborn Alex in his mother’s hands, “Do you want me to call Bill in?”

Elsa, out of breath, tired and covered in perspiration looked at her youngest son and automatically nodded.

“Thank you, Lord!” She whispered, “I promise to raise him to meet your expectations!”

Alex curiously observed the surroundings. While initially he was almost blinded by the sunlight that shone through the window directly in his face when he was born, he quickly got used to the lighting that, in fact, was not that strong in the room he was currently in.

Even though Alex’s vision was blurry, people seemed similar to the ones he was used to and after realizing that he finally could enjoy the care of his mother who, for a change, was not talking non-stop anymore, but held him tightly and only whispered from time to time. Afterwards Alex was introduced to another person who, judging by the stature and voice should be his father, but then he lost interest and fell asleep with a thought, ‘Looks like a normal family. Finally.’

During the upcoming weeks Alex only slept, ate and meditated. Of course, he did attempt to learn the local language, but for now his vision was still blurry and after few attempts of understanding his mother’s blabbing he decided to postpone it.

Mostly for two reasons: first – he finally began to feel a bits of power of nature within himself and that was enough for the cultivation to became the top priority and second – he realized his mother was not actually talking, at least not to anyone in particular. She was praying!

She spent most of her time kneeling in front of his bed with her eyes closed and palms put together in front of her chest, repeating something over and over, and only after seeing it in person Alex finally understood his mother was a total religious nut. Of course, it was still better than having a bitch for a mother or someone who intended to kill him, thus he didn’t care much – the milk was tasty and everyone was leaving him alone. He couldn’t really ask for anything more.

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Although amount of questions about this world Alex urgently needed answers to increased, he decided to pace himself appropriately or rather – according to the plan he made. Obviously the main goal was to get to the largest library or educational facility as soon as possible and look for more information on the concepts of reincarnation. Just like during the last life Alex met headmaster, he hoped to meet more experienced people in this one.

Thus for starters, he chose to not try and be a ‘normal’ child since he had no clue what it actually meant. Not only did he not remember from his first life, he had no idea how children in this world behaved. Thus his best option was to become some kind of a prodigy or someone who had good prospects so that the grownups would notice him early and groom properly.

In the previous life the headmaster speculated that every world, even Alex’s technologically advanced Earth, had some kind of ‘force of nature’. While the old man was not certain if the cultivation techniques they used would work anywhere else, Alex already knew they would, or at least to some extent. Thus when he didn’t sleep, he pretended to do so while silently meditating and ignoring his praying mother.

As far as Alex could tell, his new family resided in a relatively large house built of stone, or it was his room that felt big because it had only the small bed in it. Unfortunately either the local or the world’s civilization was not advanced very far technologically and the electricity hasn’t been invented yet. But the hygiene of the people was decent and the water was clean – Alex couldn’t ask for much more.

Judging from the pelts on the floors and walls, people around here were mostly hunters, but from the food they had on the table it looked like the agriculture was also an important part of the economy.

The last part Alex could deduct only twenty or so days later when mother finally carried him out of the room. For the first time he saw his whole family gathered in one place: mother, a young woman around the age of twenty five, father – a bearded guy who’s face and age Alex could not really discern, an older lady, probably the one who helped during the birth, most likely his grandmother, and older brother, a boy around the age of seven or so, whom he already met a couple of times.

While Alex still didn’t understand a thing of what people were talking about, he clearly felt glances full of hate his brother was throwing at him during the prayer before the meal. Either the parents were stupid or ignorant, but neither noticed anything. To their defense they had their eyes closed while praying, but it didn’t make Alex feel better one bit.

‘This is far beyond normal sibling rivalry! That boy want’s to kill me! What the hell are my parents doing?’ Alex almost despaired.

Obviously it was not easy to march in his room and slit his throat, but there were many possibilities for accidents to happen. From what it looked like in this life it’ll be even harder to reach adolescence than in any of the others he had up until now. In that case – he had to speed up his plans.

A couple of weeks later when his mother finished her usual prayer at his bedside and opened her eyes, she saw her little boy sitting in front of her, eyes closed, with adorable smile on his face, his tiny palms put together.

Feeling his mother staring at him, Alex grinned to himself, ‘Alright, showtime!’

But out loud he said as seriously as he could, “Lord, guide us!”

Unfortunately that was followed only by a loud thud. He already suspected his mother might faint, but didn’t care – it was a success!

The long days of him practicing sitting up were mostly tiring, but he recovered relatively quickly during the sleep and meditation. But the repetition of the first words he had to speak in this world was incredibly annoying, especially since he had no clue what they meant. Of course, Alex chose that particular phrase since his mother always finished her prayer by whispering it, thus he figured it should mean something significant and his gamble payed off.

Hearing the noise Alex’s father ran into the room and froze from the shock seeing his wife lying on the floor and his son sitting like a tiny Buddha.

“Elsa! Elsa! What happened?” After a moment of blanking out he pulled himself together and rushed over to his wife.

After a bit of shaking and slapping she came to her senses, but it took her a minute to recover the ability to speak.

“Alfons … Alfons … he … he … spoke!” She stuttered.

“What?!” Father was obviously confused.

“Bill! I’m telling you, our son spoke!” She almost shouted, but then recovered her demeanor, knelt in front of the small bed and whispered, “Alfons, could you please say it again?”

While Bill stared at her in disbelief, through the corner of his eye Alex noticed his mother addressing him, so he repeated, “Lord, guide us!”

“Oh, God!” Both parents shouted in unison and Bill dropped on his knees side by side to his wife.

Even though he had a bit of trouble pronouncing ‘r’, Alex was satisfied with his own performance. But to his surprise both his parents immediately began to pray loudly and completely ignored him.

‘What the hell is wrong with you people? Shouldn’t you go and call a priest or the local shaman over? Aren’t I some kind of a God’s sent genius?’ Alex was completely confused.

When the situation didn’t change after few minutes, he said to himself, ‘F*ck this! I’m too tired – wake me up when you make up your minds.’

Alex slept for a long time, or at least it felt like it and when he woke up in his mother’s arms, he was in an unfamiliar room or rather, since he couldn’t see the ceiling and walls clearly, he realized they were in a hall.

‘Looks like my parents aren’t completely incompetent.’ Alex grinned to himself noticing ten or so people gathered around him, most of which were dressed in whitish robes.

Him opening eyes caused a small commotion after which everyone felt silent, obviously in expectation of something special. Alex, still in his mother’s arms, repeated his earlier theatrics, but to his big surprise the surrounding people didn’t fall to their knees and didn’t start to worship him.

‘Oh, well. This is also fine.’ Alex though when he noticed one of the present saying something to another in a commanding tone and the second person immediately running off, on the way tripping over their robe.