"Mistress, did you…"

"Not a word, and go get something sweet." Jori rebutted.

Sebastian, lowering his head, heaved a heavy sigh towards the lonely floor. He abandoned any thoughts of saying anything further and left for the pantry. Seeing Sebastian leave the main hall, Jori loosened her previously knitted brows and started tapping her right index finger on the chair’s armrest pad. Then, she moved her phlegmatic gaze towards the upper south-west wing of the mansion, where the nursery was located.

* * *

“My god…”

Beth looked down at the unconscious baby in her hands, who had just exhausted himself by spending all of his energy on manifesting his status. In her short yet longer than an average human’s life, she had never been more surprised than she was right now. Impetuously, she snapped out her surprise, and now with a concerned look on her face, she uttered while utilizing her magical energy.

“[Scan: Magical Energy]”

She felt Jack's feeble body had completely adapted to magical energy, and was now regenerating the spent magical energy. For but a moment, she thought of bringing in someone with an observational skill specialised in decrypting other's status. Though the accuracy wouldn't even be close to eighty percent, it would still be worth it for her. Breaking out of her thoughts, she chose not to do that, since Jori had done the same when she was young and had just learned to manifest her status. Though, later when Jori confessed, Beth felt really disturbed because someone looked at her status without her permission. She didn't converse with Jori for an entire year over that affair.

Beth exhaled heavily and put Jack back in his cradle. She simply just stood there looking at Jack and listening to Jack's relaxed act of breathing for a while. Umpteen things came about in her mind, how to tell her family what had transpired just now, why her mother didn't just barge in to check in on Jack even though she could feel the strange energy from downstairs, and how her husband would react to it. Would he be just as surprised as her, or would he simply just accept it, claiming Jack a highly intuitive genius? Though, Beth could hardly disagree even if he were to claim Jack being a highly intuitive genius.

Shaking her head from right to left, she stopped thinking through those things and relaxed her tightened shoulders. She looked around the nursery, moving her warm gaze from the cradle to the window opposite the cradle, to the hazy and greyish clouds in the sky, to the carpeted floor, and finally to the earthen door leading outside the nursery. It took a while for her to gaze at that earthen door, but she had finally calmed down a little. Now it was time for her to head downstairs.

* * *

"Thought you'd need more time to calm down. I am a bit surprised you didn't make a big fuss."

Jori said, noticing a distracted Beth coming back to the main hall on the ground floor of the mansion. Beth's gaze moved from her mother to the table in the centre.

"Well..."

Beth said as much, and just took the raspberry flavoured candy from the table. After munching on the candy for a while, she muttered,

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

"You felt that too, right?"

"Of course, I did. Even the barrier covering this mansion fluctuated for a bit."

"What, really?"

"Yeah, Sebastian is checking on it right now. Have your nerves calmed down now?"

"A little, yeah."

"Good, now, tell me what transpired?"

"Okay, so..."

* * *

The region where the mansion was in left the sun's gaze, putting rest to day, and welcomed the chilly yet oddly congruous night. The former, hot and scintillating sky, was now littered with nitid stars, accompanying the three gaudy moons. Yjetaria, the largest and the farthest from the world, glowed with an orange hue. Oromoria, the second closest to the planet, emitted a silver blue light. Finally, Spataria, the closest, reflected a violet ray back at the world. Violet, silver blue and orange, tinged the darkness of the night sky.

Dark, was the nursery, and no noise except a low-pitched sound of breathing could escape the room. The stained darkness of the night sky was seeping through the window in the nursery. Jack was atop the cradle, surrounded by wooden bars larger than his infant body from all sides, sleeping a dreamless sleep. Breaking out, deep furrows formed in his brow. He clenched and unclenched his fists, again and again, evaluating his two small hands. Thought about the last thing he had seen before blanking out. Wished to suppress the agonizing memory of receiving the sour-tasting stream of data directly into the brain, he did. Though the wish would remain unanswered, he could not resist bringing upon the content of the injected data. The sensation of doing so was one that did not seem unfamiliar.

His age, physical prowess, intellect, luck and various other unknown attributes, all of them, injected directly into his brain in quantifiable numerical values. He understood what had happened, but still could not identify the source, on how he came to understand all of that. The murky sensation inside his mind kept tugging his consciousness, away and away, from the source. Yet, he focused on the skills section. He had three of them; he knew two of them, but the last one was just incomprehensible. All he got were three question marks. Back to the two skills he could comprehend, from what he understood before, he focused intensely on the first skill [Comprehension];

[https://i.imgur.com/sXB9MVV.png]

Again, the sour-tasting stream of data flowed into his brain, informing him the details of the skill he was focusing on, [Comprehension]. From reading the skill's description, he understood that the skill was pretty straightforward and was one of passive nature. Meaning the skill's effect would be maintained all the time, voiding the need to activate or deactivate the skill. He also got to know that the grade of the skill was, ranked last among the basic hierarchy of the skills. Though he could not care less about that, since the effect of the skill mattered much more than that of the grade, to him.

Now, he brought his attention to the second skill, and focused intensely again, to recreate the event that happened before when he focused on his first skill;

[https://i.imgur.com/bFI5kS2.png]

This time, the sour taste resulting from injecting data into his brain was almost non-existent. His body was adapting to that agonizing process. Setting aside the adapting body of his, he got back to evaluating the information about his second skill. Somehow, an A.I was inhibiting a skill, which to him sounded absurd for reasons unknown. The skill's effect was ambiguous about being helpful, which made the skill no different from a gamble to him. What made the matter even more confusing was the fact that this skill was a highly ranked one, yet the usefulness of the skill remained doubtful. He could not help but think to never use the skill unless he wanted to gamble.

Onto the third skill, he wanted to try doing the same thing and uncover the secret behind the unknown skill. However, all he got back was a stinging sensation on his brow when he tried focusing on the skill. He focused once more, increasing the intensity, yet all he got was another stinging sensation back. Deciding on any more attempts at uncovering the secret futile, he gave up on it and moved his attention towards the titles section. Wondered if he could get the same result as he did previously with the skills if he focused on the titles he had.

"Hey... are you sleeping?"

A gut-wrenching silence enveloped the room.