Alex was put in a room together with another five infants. That fact alone would’ve been fine since he could meditate and ignore everyone, but few of those kids were teething and as a result – crying almost non stop.

He never had any kids, but not because he didn’t like them. He was generally neutral to those little humans and in his previous life he even somewhat enjoyed hanging out with Reino running together around the woods.

But from this day Alex began to hate little children from the bottom of his heart. The terrifying sound those few little mouths were capable of making could drive anyone crazy. Maybe if he was their parent it would’ve been different, but for the next days he mostly had to fight off suicidal and violent thoughts that came to mind.

It would’ve been fine if he could crawl out and sit at the door, but the snowy winter outside made it impossible.

The only good parts of the day were when they got fed. At first he was curious how people in this world would deal with the situation, but the solution surprised even him.

Three women of large size in nun outfits were tasked to take care of them – cleaning, washing and, yes, feeding. Since they had to feed over ten mouths – six in his room and around the same number on the other side of the wall, Alex couldn’t understand how it was possible for them to produce the required amounts of milk even with the ‘humongous jugs’ they had, thus he could only admire these ladies.

Alex was the only one who had the ‘decency’ of thanking them and not only that – he controlled his physiological needs instead of shitting all over the place like the other infants did, thus unsurprisingly he soon became everyone’s favorite.

Vera, Alina and Luda, the three wet nurses the age of which Alex could not determine, almost fought the moment they realized someone around here was civilized, but soon came to agreement and each ‘served’ Alex once every three days. Few weeks later when they found out that Alex also began teething and not only didn’t cry, but did his best to not bite them. From then on they allowed him to eat his fullest ruthlessly cutting the portions of others.

At first Alex found it a bit cruel and, even if the little shits were annoying, they were still only infants, but soon realized that the current world was even more dog-eats-dog than the previous one and decided to not care.

While the three wet nurses were loving and caring, at least to him, they were dumb as a wood. Not only they had no clue of what was going on outside the convent’s walls, they had no interest as well. All they spoke about was which sister said what and whom which bishop has lately ‘blessed’.

The only useful information Alex got in months was that the most important person in the world was his holiness pope Adolfs followed by the five cardinals one of which, Francis, he already met. Ladies had no idea how many bishops there were, but could guess that around dozen resided in Serenity and many more were sent around the world to ‘spread the Lord’s name.’

Alex, along with the other children, were considered the candidates to become ‘chosen’, but not only the wet nurses didn’t know what that meant, they didn’t know what he had to do in order to become one. The whole system seemed idiotic, but since he could not change it, he let it be for now.

When the spring came and he was allowed to go for a walk, or rather – to crawl out in the yard, he immediately escaped the ‘torture chamber’ he was put in and could finally cultivate the force of nature in peace.

Soon he learned the necessity to walk or rather – run. The other infants were soon also allowed to crawl in the sunshine outside and, of course, were curious about one of their kin sitting there not doing anything. Obviously they had their reasons for pestering Alex, but he didn’t care. Within a week he learned how to walk in more or less stable manner and could escape the rest.

Either his advancement was too inspirational or it was just a coincidence when couple of days later one of the infants whom the wet nurses called Dimon, was crawling after Alex when he suddenly shone in a golden light and leaped several meters forward instantly catching up.

While Alex was frozen on the spot from shock, Luda, who was looking after the kids at that moment, darted over, picked Dimon up and began to jump around the yard shouting, “Dimon awakened! Dimon awakened!”

It was quite the sight – Luda, with her humongous knockers bouncing around, holding high above her head an infant, who was shining like a light bulb, both screaming uncontrollably. One from excitement, the other, of course, from panic.

Other nuns and guards who arrived a moment later didn’t find that funny at all. Part dropped to their knees and began to pray, others ran to inform their higher-ups.

Finally Alex understood what was required from him even though he had no clue how to achieve that. Somehow he also had to ‘light himself up’ just like Dimon did and that would prove his ability to wield the Holy power.

He already had a hunch that ‘the Holy power’ was what in previous world people called ‘the force of nature’, but none of the techniques headmaster taught could produce such results. In fact, he never saw or heard anyone in the ‘beastworld’ doing something similar to what Dimon just demonstrated.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

The scary part of this all was that the grownups, or rather – the higher clergy, most likely knew how to manipulate the so called ‘Holy power’. And that was the reason they tried to control the children who displayed their talents early.

Apparently Dimon jumping like a grasshopper on fire or Alex talking after birth were only fraction of ways the Holy power could manifest thus the kids with potential were gathered up and brought to nurseries like this one. The problem was – what happened after they reached the age of three that cardinal mentioned? And why exactly three and not five or ten?

Alex had more questions than answers and to his desperation there was no one whom he could ask. Even cardinal Francis who personally came to pick up Dimon completely ignored him, thus the only thing he could do was to continue his cultivation and intensify the physical exercises.

The problem was – he was really angry! He came to this world with such an incredible handicap, but, instead of reading and learning, all he could do was to suck a tit and meditate while others kept lighting up one after another! Of course, it was exaggerated, because during the next year ‘only’ two children awakened while several new were brought in and those who were old enough to eat solid food were transferred.

Alex considered the option to leave as well, but after carefully thinking it over he figured that the mother’s milk had to be the best food available in this world. It was incredibly unlikely the current society had the science of medicine advanced enough to figure out the proper nutrition for children.

Turned out that the three wet nurses – Vera, Alinda and Luda were the ones who decided when and who had to leave, thus, after Alex had a serious discussion with them, he was allowed to stay. The only downside was that he had to take care of the other infants for a few hours every day, meaning – he had to ‘play’ with them. On the other hand he managed to bargain from them as much milk as he wanted, thus Alex still considered himself a winner.

Be as it may, this situation continued for over two years, until during the third spring of Alex being here another kid awakened and when bishop named Roy Gregory, in already familiar red robes, came to pick the chosen up he noticed Alex who was two times bigger than the rest.

While the bishop himself didn’t say anything it was enough for him to furrow his brows when Vera, ignoring all Alex’s pleas, sent him away.

The place Alex was brought to was not what he expected it to be. While it was located in another convent nearby, from outside it looked more like a kindergarten than nursery.

In a building resembling barn that had only one room in a size a bit larger than a volleyball field there were living thirty to forty children most of which were dressed in rags. The largest part of the room was filled with small beds, but at one of the walls was a narrow and long table with a similarly long benches on each side.

While at first it could seem the place was something like a cheery and fun zoo filled with laughter and joy, it was anything but that. And not only because it stank of urine and feces.

Alex quickly learned that the jungle rules here were almost similar to those they had in prisons back in his first life and the tragic part was that the inmates were toddlers mostly between age of two and three! Nuns, who looked after them, cleaned the place up and washed the children as if they were livestock once a day, in the morning, and afterwards brought food – some kind of a porridge. Kids got the same porridge two more times per day and that was it.

While it was already horrible, Alex could live with it. The problem was that these toddlers already managed to form two groups, basically two gangs, that were not only fighting between themselves, they had few leaders who were definitely older than five and where ‘schooling’ anyone they wanted, except each other, of course.

While it might sound cute, it was anything but that. The smaller ones who didn’t have the ability to walk stably yet, crawled behind the eldest like a herd while the bigger children kicked and punched anyone they didn’t like. The little ones were not that physically capable yet, thus they mostly screamed and bit each other.

The main problem was that children in general don’t have the ability to judge their actions and understand what does it mean to behave cruelly. These little guys instinctively ‘fought’ for their survival in a place where no one posed any threat.

Except for the oldest. They turned out to be a real menace. Besides the physical abuse they forcefully took the food from others and the strange part was that the overseeing nurses for some reason didn’t mind. They were deaf to the pitiful cries and even cursed the younger and weaker ones for being ‘failures’ and ‘fake chosen’.

It didn’t take long for Alex to figure out what exactly went on here. The larger kids were obviously children of some local nuns who got ‘blessed’ by someone and hid their offsprings in the plain sight – basically the safest possible spot where they would be taken care of and never starve. And the nuns who fed and washed these beasts clearly knew whom to take better care of.

For the first couple of hours after Alex was brought here, he was mostly left alone and could observe everything. But when the children, obediently sitting at the long table, received their meals, the closest ‘leader’ ran over and unceremoniously grabbed Alex’s bowl.

While shocked at first, Alex reacted fast and a second later the bully was on the ground, face down while Alex already wolfed down his own porridge. None of the kids understood what happened, but the sight of someone awkwardly falling was funny enough for them to let out few cruel giggles. Probably because of that the bully got embarrassed and quickly left holding back the tears.

Unfortunately Alex could not enjoy his little victory for too long. He felt the world spinning around him while a terrible pain assaulted his stomach. After dropping on his knees he continued to vomit for almost half an hour even after the gastric juices stopped coming out.

While cursing the church, his own mother and the world, he realized how smart his decision back then was to stay with the three clueless nuns. Be as it may, he had to figure out how to survive in this place where children got basically fed poison in form of a porridge.

During the next meal he was left alone and ate according to the plan he made – he kept chewing small mouthfuls of the disgusting porridge mass while continuously performing one of the cultivation techniques until it disappeared by itself only leaving a terrible aftertaste. Even though he had barely eaten half of the bowl when the nun took it away, he was feeling better, albeit still nauseated.