I wish I could say that time flowed quickly, but it actually moved excruciatingly slow.
I’ll gloss over the embarrassing moment of being fed for the first time as a baby, even though, let me tell you, it was quite the experience.
Not for the reasons you’d believe either, I mean, yeah, Cinyah is hot, but that’s my Mom now.
No, It wasn’t as simple as just drinking milk. It was more like a transfer of energy. Cinyahs body seemed to be radiating energy of some type that caused her to have a faint hazy violet aura of energy that not only covered her but me as well.
Instead of simply drinking milk, it’s easier to say Cinyah was transferring part of her XP to me through her own body, this, of course, was only my conjecture, but as the feeding went on, I noticed the minute changes that she seemed to be going through.
It’s a commonly excepted fact on Earth that matter and energy must come from somewhere, and while I may be in a new world, it appeared to be the same here.
If I had seen her System Panel, I’m sure It would have shown her Xp slowly dropping with each gulp of milk I drank. So from a logical standpoint, I could only conclude that she had already prepared for this scenario.
Once my little belly was filled to the brim, the embarrassment continued as Cinyah spent the next 15 minutes lightly patting my back, trying to force a burp from me. Which eventually came surging up, much to my surprise.
“Urp”
“AH! Little Cynrik’s first burp EEEEK, How cute!”
I tried my absolute damnest not to show just how mortified I was at her words. But, never being great with having attention directed towards me or receiving praise, the babbling baby talk that Cinyah kept throwing my way made my face darker and darker.
Mind you to Mommy Dearest, all she saw was her adorable and fully content newborn son looking at her with an indecipherable expression.
And So time moved on slowly while I spent my days being utterly useless to the family, between using my Mana Breathing skill, completing my Occular exercise, eating, pooping, and lastly, sleeping. There wasn’t exactly much for me to do.
While all par for the course, it was extremely aggravating how easily and quickly my new body was tired out. In my previous life, I was lucky to get 3 hours of sleep a night, but now my former habit had been completely obliterated, it wasn’t surprising for me to be unconscious for 10-13 hours a day.
However, my regular activities weren’t entirely wasteful; my parents were very lax with their tongues due to my being a baby. Thus I extracted quite a bit of information by listening to their casual conversations and observing things from my narrow perspective.
My father, Rikard, was hardly home. From what I gathered, his job is similar to what you’d expect from, say a hunter, or member of some guild. He would leave early in the morning and could be gone for days on end.
‘Well, what can I say? From my perspective, The world of Vinestra falls under the category of “fantasy world” thanks to my filters in the Hall of Gods, I know there are monsters and dungeons. However, logically based on all the novels and such I’ve read, there’s always Hunters or Adventurers.’
Every time he came home, it wasn’t hard to tell how many new injuries he had received from the raid he was on. While he had bathed and changed his clothes before coming home, it wasn’t enough to hide the fresh wounds and bruises he had collected as spoils of battle.
It wasn’t just Rikard who had this job, from what I had gathered, before getting pregnant with me, Cinyah was also in the same profession, but apparently, she had retired after receiving news that she was with child.
From their conversations, I Detective Ty…I mean, Detective Cynrik learned several key phrases and names.
For starters, while the area we live in is relatively safe. For the last several hundred years, portals have been opening all over the planet. These portals, or as I would like to refer to them as “Spatial Tears,” were officially dubbed “Spatial Egresses” or simply Egresses.
They would randomly appear all over the place without any logical directionality, and each Egress would have its particular classification.
If they just opened and had no effect on the surrounding area, I suppose it wouldn’t be much of an issue. Still, these Spatial Egresses would do one of several things based on their classification, represented by both the size of the portal and the glow emitted by it.
Depending on what category it fell under, it could represent many different things. For example, it could simply dump a cluster of powerful creatures on the spot it opened, which in itself was extremely dangerous but in a way more manageable than the other types.
The Second type of Egress was essentially a dungeon. From what I could tell, these types would break down further into permanent or temporary dungeons, the former being the most difficult ones to handle.
While the temporary dungeons could be cleared and eventually dissolved, the Permanent ones were precise; just as the name stated, the monsters would respawn no matter how many times they were removed.
Thus it was a constant source of micromanagement; each Permanent Egress had to be routinely cleared to prevent the creatures or beings living in them from breaking free of their confined space and entering ours.
While the Temporary ones would disappear once cleared for the first time.
Alpha Egresses, are the permenant dungeons,
Beta Egresses are the temporary dungeons,
Lastly, the Gamma Egresses are the ones that dump a cluster of creatures on their spawn point and then seal themselves back up.
These three categories broke down further into five different color codes. In order of danger are, Green, Blue, Orange, Purple, and Red. In addition, there is a rumored Black Egress, but from what I can tell, its existence is unconfirmed. Lastly, these colors are prone to change. If the Egress, for one reason or another, has a sudden shift in what Rikard called “Ambient Mana,” a chain reaction occurs, causing the Egress to evolve.
This little fact I found out because it had just happened to Rikard today, the Green Egrees, his team, was tackling suddenly erupted with power, and every creature natural to that plane grew in size and strength.
As for what kind of creatures or monsters exist in them, I can only speculate since neither Rikard nor Cinyah would mention them.
Life continued to drag on slowly, and on the Tenth day after my birth, I finally leveled up for the first time. It was a hell of an experience.
At first, I couldn’t contain my excitement, but my body seemed to go completely haywire the second I finished my feeding.
It felt like a fire was burning deep inside me and screaming to be let out. Every passing second was excruciating. But, heat aside, it felt like every fiber of my being was breaking simultaneously.
I wasn’t raised like some fragile doll in my previous life, I had broken bones and gotten hurt quite a bit, but nothing compared to this.
To put it in understandable terms, It felt like I had been hit by a bus, which threw me off a cliff, and after impacting the ground, a bomb was dropped on my already broken and mangled body.
Meanwhile, while I was both being Roasted and ripped apart, all the while still in my mother’s arms, she had both a concerned and knowledgeable look on her face.
” I know it hurts my baby, but this is something you must fight through. It’s ok, shh, it’s ok, my love.” Tears dripped from her beautiful eyes as she kissed my screaming and freaking out visage.
It was clear to her what I was going through. Even though I was only an infant and she was utterly helpless, she kept whispering me sweet nothings as the seconds dragged on.
Eventually, Cinyah began humming gently and rocking me.
“It’s ok, my love, everyone has to go through their Awakening.”
Little did she know that it wasn’t simply just the first level up. After the system told me all my stats would increase compared to ordinary people, I was suspicious that some shit would be different.
Fighting through the pain and screams both internally and externally, I angrily glared at my System Panel as I watched each one of my stats increase by one.
‘I SWEAR TO THE ALLFATHER IF THIS SHIT HURTS LIKE THIS EVERY TIME I LEVEL UP, IMA HAVE SOME FUCKING WORDS FOR THAT GOD IF I SEE HIM AGAIN.’
Sweat began rapidly accumulating all over my body as my breathing strained and became labored. My heart rate accelerated; it was like not only was I being thrown in a blender, but I had done a bunch of drugs before jumping in to become a smoothie.