A few months passed and I was now able to speak properly. My parents were surprised by the way I spoke, apparently it was more fluent and much more mature than it should be for my little over a year old but I didn’t care. It was not like I revealed something dangerous, just that I was more intelligent than other babies. I was currently fourteen months and I will be able to begin my cultivation when I will be two years old. So I had time before I could do anything and I had things to do. Firstly I needed to learn to read, secondly I needed to learn more about this world. To know the dangers, what was appropriate or not, to what extend I was able to act. Could I just kill someone annoying like I did ? Probably not, this world didn’t appear so brutal and bloodthirsty but maybe on special case ? I needed to know the common sense here but it was pretty difficult when you couldn’t even leave your house. But then again, I knew for a fact that I would have to to school. Pretty strange that everyone has to go, not just the rich and noble but I didn’t really care. I was on the contrary a little excited. Maybe I could learn something new ? Or explore more about this world ? Even maybe could I make friend !? How good would it be if I had friend ?

Aside for that I already setup my mind in making my mother proud and by what I understood of this world, I would have to go to something called University to do that. I’m not too sure about what it is but I think it’s something like a martial academy or a magic school, maybe ?

But before all that I needed to read!

I asked a few times ago to have some stories read by my mother. She began to tell me different stories but I interrupted her one time and asked specifically to read it on a book so I could see it. She though that I wanted to look at the pictures so she agreed and I made no effort in correcting her. So we would often read stories and I tried my best to associate which symbols and words were told. I would occasionally ask my mother to follow her reading with her finger but I couldn’t do that too often because I didn’t want her to suspect something. Not because I didn’t trust her, but because I didn’t trust my father. The more times pass and the more I distance myself from him. I still can’t put my finger on it but my uneasy feeling around him is growing stronger with each passing day. Sadly my mother is overly gentle and love him dearly so she trusts him with everything.

I tried to understand his behavior and all but the more I watched and the more I began to doubt that he loved my mother and me. I had the feeling that he just used us for himself. I didn’t saw him work really often but I was probably mistaken and my mother would often complain to him that he didn’t make enough money and that she had to provide most of it. They though that I couldn’t understand what they were talking about or that I would forget it while aging but it was not the case. So I watched silently, trying to understand that strange relationship so different from those I read in my books. I knew that my books were mostly fiction and by so were idealized but even so something was wrong here.

Today would probably be the last time I would need my mother to read to me. I would enjoy the next times but I wouldn’t need to focus on learning to read anymore. I will not be able to perfectly read of course, but I will got all the base I need to learn by myself. I will have to find a way to get my hands on books without mother suspecting that I could already read. I was not sure if a new born of less than two years who could read was common or at least heard of but I will not try the devil.

Mother was reading a strange story about a little girl going in the woods and being attacked by a wolf who had already eat her grandmother. I was pretty chocked the first time I heard it. Not because it was something gore or even remotely horrific. No just because I couldn’t wrap my mind to why they would put this story as a good night story to a baby and a kid. We were talking about a giant wolf eating human after all while playing trap INSIDE the bed in the house. Even so I was pretty interested by all these seemingly absurd situation, not that I care enough to ask, I just wanted to learn to read and spend some quality time with my mother when she was not at work. I didn’t know what she did, something to do with something called « hospital ». I had not yet learn what it was. I had a pretty good idea but no certainties.

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My mother was hugging me while reading, both of us lied on my bed in my own room. I loved the warm produced by the body of mother. It nearly intoxicated me in an almost frightening way. Well it was understandable, I lived centuries with nothing close to a friend, couldn’t feel warm or cold at all and now I had a caring and loving mother with a warm and tender body. It was refreshing and blissful.

I was asleep without even remarking, which was not so rare around my mother. I just couldn’t help it, it felt so good and so safe around her that my body just surrender. Not that I was against it, strangely enough I liked sleep. Most time I had no dreams but when I had them it was so strange. Sometimes I would be able to tell that it was a dream and sometimes not, leaving me having some very strange interaction, especially when I was trying to make sense in all the weirdness and madness of the current dream. I still had my perfect memory, so I remembered all of them which was fun, I liked to replay my dreams, especially to weirdest ones. I had some nightmare too but getting me scared was not an easy thing. The worst was when I dreamed of my mother leaving me either forced or by herself. I finally comprehended why so many humans wrote about how you had to protect loved ones and not loose them. I pledged to myself to do everything possible to do just that but I was going to need strength !

The next morning my mother didn’t had to work which was perfect. We didn’t have a lot of books in the house. We did have a ton of them if compared with people of the same status as my family but comparatively within the world, we were more on the low side. Not really because they didn’t love to read but because they read on so strange box editing emitting light. My next step was to learn how to use it and I was gonna need time. My current life was so simple it was a little disturbing. I tried to read, I enjoyed my mother, I slept eat and other biologicals new needs I had. And that was it. I had to have a more resistant and powerful body to practice magic again and I couldn’t manage qi before around two years, I don’t exactly know the reason. Maybe the stability of the body didn’t reach a high enough level ? Or the heavenly circuit was not strong enough to root in the body ? And finally the soul was already to the maximum of it’s capacity. I will probably be able to skip all soul related training until I divin soul. So I just asked :

— Mommy, computer ?

— You want to watch the computer honey ?

I nodded vigorously and just like that we moved to the computer. We would mostly watch some videos. I was stunned the first I saw the television, I mean we didn’t have something like illusion magic expect for the soul magic so seeing thing not existing in your own living room like it was nothing was a big shock. Technology sure is amazing and useful. No more need to understand or imagine some strange expression or description wrote by and author, you could just watch everything as the author wanted it to be seen, even if it didn’t exist in reality like the cartoons. I don’t really know why but I was fascinated by them and spend a bit too much time in front of them. Maybe because I was a child ? I surprised myself acting childish and it was not a normal thing to me so the body probably had a big impact on the personality ? More than I would have though at least.

Times passed by slowly, I was improving my reading with everything I could get my tiny hands on, watched the tv pretty often but I just couldn’t resist ! And the rest of the time was spent with my mother while avoiding my father, except maybe my mother who discovered a new passion for tickling leaving me running around the house trying to escape her malefic fingers, even if couldn’t stop laughing at the same time. Nothing was really interesting but at the same time so different from everything I knew and experienced so I enjoyed it. Days became weeks, weeks became months and soon it was the day of my second birthday.