Being a Baby is Difficult

A dark void stretched out in front of me. I saw a prompt appear in front of me

[aptitude test complete. Area of death, ERROR, not found in database. Position, First place.]

I carefully read the message, committing it to memory and barely noticing the game like interface that appeared at the corner of my vision.

I glanced at the three bars that had formed in my eyesight. The top bar was light blue, when I focused on it I discovered that it was spirit power

The middle bar was a bright white, it was clearly my aether. The third bar was yellow and was my stamina, if it got too low than everything else would suffer.

Once I had checked out the bars, they suddenly emptied. 'I guess they were full so I could have a tutorial on what they look like' I thought.

The aether bar, instead of being white and glowing, had a fraction, 0/1000, on it. "One thousand!" I exclaimed, full of surprise.

Every human had aether shards in their body, it formed in all living beings. The more aether shards, the more aether storage once they were collected into a core. The maximum number of aether shards that was found in a human was nine hundred.

'In my last life I only had six hundred and twenty two aether shards and was still in the top twenty strongest people in the alliance, what can I do with one thousand?' I thought.

I was about to ask how to leave this place when a bright light appear, creating a clear horizon for the black void.

It was like a sunrise, except instead of dying the sky in fiery reds and oranges, it made the area pure white.

I once again felt tired and allowed myself to sleep before suddenly awakening in a dark void once again.

I was confused about why I didn't appear in a new place like the previous time I felt that artificial drowsiness, but then I herd a heart beat.

'I'm in a womb?' I thought, before laughing at myself. The answer to that question was so simple that I didn't even need to ask it.

I tried to move a little to test how close I was to birth, the easier it was for me to move the closer I was to being born. 'Eh? I can't move?' I wondered before I saw my system open for the first time.

A thin white line appeared in my vision before expanding into a semi see-through light grey square with white boarders.

[name:

Title:

Soul connection: 3%

Spirit power: 0

spirit energy: 0/0

Aether: 0/1000 shards gathered

Stamina: 1/1

External spirit bone:

Spirit bone:

Spirit essence:

Status: dead weight]

The system was harsh with its rating of me, but it was true so I didn't try to defend myself. Even if the system did give an unfair rating, I would not fight back, after all, only a fool would fight against what was rightfully theirs, unless that thing was disadvantageous to themselves.

I looked at the soul connection before some information about it appeared.

[soul connection: the connectedness of the soul to the body, low soul connection will interfere with movement but greatly improve senses.]

With such a low soul connection, it was no wonder I couldn't control my body. But the increases to senses were no joke, if I focused, I could easily hear outside sounds as if I was not in a large water sack.

I decided to listen to what was happening for a little while, but I quickly regretted it as I realized what was happening.

'Come on woman, I'm right here you know' I thought, mentally blushing as loud thumping sounds entered my ears.

I tried to cut off my sense of sound and quickly returned to the calm and peaceful quiet.

I dismissed my status window and calmed myself from all of the exciting possibilities of the system.

I had many things that I needed to complete while in here. The first was to gather my ether shards, there were one thousand of the shards and the younger I was, the faster I could collect them.

I would hold an insurmountable advantage over everyone else. Before I could gather aether shards, I had to test if low soul connection would affect my gathering speed.

I used my mind to try and coax the aether shards to form a core in the middle of my chest. The small shard slowly began to move I internally breathed a sigh of relief as it easily glided to my chest and formed part of a small core.

Many days passed and I had managed to gather an ether shard every three days. My soul connection was almost at 50% meaning I could now guess how much longer it was until I was born.

After moving my body around and checking out many different signs for my age, I found that I was only half a month away from being born.

A week passed and my soul connection was almost complete, but suddenly I was shaken.

It seemed that my mother was quickly running, I tried to use the few percentage left on my soul connection to boost my senses.

There was the sounds of fighting, I tried to figure out the people that were fighting because my mother was not one of them.

There were a few men in white, they were fighting an almost middle aged man who was covering my mothers escape.

He was aided by several wooden animals that were almost as strong as him.

I continued to pay attention to the fight for a few minutes until the almost middle aged man won and quickly escaped.

I was curious as to who the attackers were but there was no way to find out so I put the event to the back of my mind as continued to collect aether.

Four days before I guessed I would be born, I felt something push me. I tried to look around but my eyes didn't function, my soul connection was also too high to sense objects anymore.

I grabbed out with my tiny hands and felt something, it was like an arm. It took a few seconds before I realized that I was not an only child.

I had either a brother or sister, I didn't know which one it was. I was slightly excited to be their big brother and teach them everything they wanted to know.

My slight excitement didn't last for long as a status sheet with a blue background and red outline appeared in front of my sibling.

I could read their status sheet and it was the same as mine, except the aether bar was missing.

I was slightly confused as to why it was so easy to see status boards while looking at anything else was almost impossible.

I dismissed the thought as I brought up my own status board, not much had changed on it except for the fact that I now had ten aether shards.

Half a week passed and I suddenly felt a pushing force sending me down.

It was a tight fit but I had managed to free myself. I was quickly spanked, it was incredibly painful but I resisted.

I was wondering why I was spanked for a second before realizing that most babies would cry when they were naturally born. I was too used to the organic printing chambers in the alliance.

I swallowed the my pride and, with a slightly blushing face, began to cry.

The doctors heard my wails and were satisfied that I was breathing, they quickly wrapped me in a blanket and gave me to, a lioness?

I stared for a while, my vision become clear and I blinked, the lioness disappeared and in her place was a fierce looking woman.

She had a scar on her chin and over her sharp and angular eyes. Her porcupine like hair was a scarlet red and looked dangerous to touch.

She exuded the aura of a predator that seemed to affect everyone except me. Her fierce aura stayed far away from me and she showed me a loving smile.

I had realized it before, but now I accepted it, this woman was my mother. The presence of parental figures had never been something I had known.

I was raised in a lab, trained to become a warrior until my mentor swept me away from that place.

He trained me in the art of aether revolution and showed me the joy of knowledge, but he was not a parent to me. My master was my master, and that was all there was to it.

While I was reminiscing on the past, my mother put me in a small bed, I noticed my mother angrily, yet lovingly glare at a man in the corner of the room, as if to say "thank you for the child but that hurt."

He was a little shorter than her 182cm (6ft) height but his light blue and green hair was a nice contrast to hers. He seemed far more submissive compared to my mother.

It was not hard to guess that he was my father.

While I was glancing around the wooden room, I heard some cries and looked up to find that my sibling, no, he was my brother, not just a sibling, was being wrapped in a soft blanket like me.

It was not long until I found myself sleeping. I dreamed of a silhouette completing a series of moves, and moving a purple energy around their body. I stared attentively at every move the silhouette made, slowly learning the techniques.

The dream faded and I abruptly woke up. I felt extremely uncomfortable and my legs felt wet.

I looked down and noticed that I had wet myself. 'What the hell?' I thought, I had never experienced that level of powerlessness.

All the power I had in my last life was gone, I had to accept that.

Things from here on would be more difficult than I could possibly imagine.

I glanced over at my younger brother and saw that he was going though a similar event. My brother quickly woke up and had the same reaction to me.

I began to wonder what place he got in the aptitude test but quickly removed the thought. His placement didn't matter, he was my brother and I would always support him.

Our mess would have to be cleaned up soon, so I did the only thing I could think of and yelled as loud as I could.

A few bumping and crashing sounds came from outside the room. My father rushed in, looking worried.

He seemed to calm down once he saw we weren't hurt and quickly began cleaning us and put a leathery diaper on me and my brother.

Once he had completed the task, he slowly left but not before putting us back to sleep.

The next day, my mother came into the room and pulled down her shirt. I knew what was about to happen and I tried to get away. I was not good at adapting to new situations and experiences so something like this was too much for me.

Despite my futile struggle, I was picked up and breastfed. I tried to calm myself and slowly backed away into my mind.

When I was finally set down in my bed, I quickly slept. I looked exhausted and felt exhausted. That was an experience that I never wanted to have again.

The next few weeks were a hell that I would not subject even my worst enemies to.

Every day was worse than the last and I was mentally drained.

Being a baby is difficult.