6 Developing

Author's notes: I decided to set a specific schedule for the release of new chapters. It's going to be every Saturday at 5:00 PM (+00:00 GTM).

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Austria, September 15th 1788

3:12 PM

Lukas was sitting on one of the couches of the mansion while staring at a sheet of paper. He had drawn two squares and one triangle. They were quite shaky and their lines almost didn't even meet for real, but that was a beginning.

Lukas placed down the sheet of paper and sighed. He had started drawing these geometric shapes only one week ago, however, it seemed like his progress was much faster than it was when he just used to doodle.

Even Lukas could see that his progress was quite frightening, his left hand had recently stopped shaking completely as he drew and his right one was going through the same path. Of course, he would only draw with his left hand when nobody was looking, which made it even more difficult to him.

However, despite that fact, Lukas was not intimidated by that, it actually motivated him even more. He felt like he could do anything. The harder the challenge, the better.

A smile appeared on Lukas's face, after that, he confidently took his quill and went back to drawing. He had no time to waste, after all, he slept more than eighty percent of the day.

While Lukas was trying to draw a circle, he heard some steps, when he looked at the door, Elias was there. Although Lukas's sight was improving, it wasn't still good enough, so it took him a while to recognize him.

Elias noticed the baby staring at him, so he looked at him as well. Although Lukas felt uncomfortable with the sudden eyes focused on him, he decided not to look away from him.

"Hey, there. How is it going?"

'Very well. You?'

Lukas liked the idea of answering people's sentences in his mind. Although nobody would hear it, he thought it would still make him get used to answering people even before he starts speaking when he gets older, so his progress in that subject wouldn't be hindered that much.

Now that he already had almost perfect domain over his language, he decided to just play around with it to see how it would turn out.

Elias sighed and approached Lukas. He sat beside him on the sofa while on Lukas's other side was his sheets of paper, with a lot of shapes drawn.

Elias glanced at the sheets of paper full of shaky and badly drawn geometric shapes and gave a slight chuckle.

"You truly are a weird child, huh? I have never heard about an one-month-old infant who knew how to draw."

'And I never heard about an adult who talked to an one-month-old infant. See? We're similar, daddy.'

Lukas didn't really have a well-formed opinion about his father yet. He was still rather mysterious to him. He seemed happy when he saw Lukas, but at the same time, he seemed... sad and angry?

Not to mention that his blood would almost literally boil when he saw anyone and specially Frida saying good things about the Von Neumann house, the same goes for Karl, but that one was just creepy.

Lukas just decided to ignore his father's comment and proceeded to keep drawing, making sure he would use his right hand to draw, otherwise, he would be burned alive by the church.

And yes, he did confirm that was one of the reasons that Olivia didn't want him to doodle with his left hand, precisely the church. He had overheard Olivia talking to a man about that.

'This church truly is starting to piss me off.'

As Elias watched, he couldn't believe a newborn baby truly was doing something like that. He was holding a quill and drawing geometric shapes! And he was born less than one month ago!

When Olivia saw him drawing things like that, about one week ago, she almost ran to call Frida to see what Lukas was doing. Elias even got a bit startled, he thought Lukas was doing something bad.

Not to mention that, when Frida saw what Lukas was drawing, she almost cried out of happiness, which Elias found an overkill. Okay, it's quite an impressive deed, but there's no need to cry.

Elias sighed.

"Lukas, do you want a tip? Try to hold the quill with your index finger and with your thumb."

Elias tried to make Lukas hold the quill like that, however, it was useless. Lukas insisted in doing it with his five fingers.

Elias sighed.

'What was I thinking? He is a newborn after all.'

Lukas was trying to figure out what Elias meant.

'What did he say? I don't know what an index finger is... oh well, I guess I still need some practice in my language after all.'

After speculating a bit, he figured out that the index finger was the one beside the thumb, the easiest one to move.

After Lukas figured it out and with a bit of Elias's help, he managed to hold the quill like that. Lukas was surprised, it actually was much easier to move it like that than with his whole hand.

Apparently, Lukas was playing in the hardcore mode while trying to draw, since drawing with your whole hand is a much more difficult task than only with your index and thumb.

Now Lukas's drawings were almost not shaky at all. He just needed a bit more of practice. Then, he would go to the next step which Lukas still needs to think about because he had no idea he would get this far so quick.

When Elias saw that Lukas had learned it, he widened his eyes. Did a newborn baby just learn to use a quill properly with just a few words which he couldn't even understand and somed demonstrations?

Elias couldn't help but chuckle at that.

"Well, I see you are a fast learner."

'Well, that's something I would say about me. Indeed.'

Elias at first hesitated a bit, but then patted Lukas's head.

'Come on, father, that's awkward.'

Lukas didn't really know why he felt awkward when Elias patted his head. Many people had already done it to him. He figured that was just because it was the first time that Elias was doing it to him, so he just had to get used to it.

After a while, Lukas just shrugged it off and started drawing again.

Anyone could see that Lukas was very engaged to his drawings. Elias didn't know exactly why, but it didn't look like something Lukas was doing just out of fun.

Elias sighed.

'Who cares? It's just a child after all, if he's doing it for any other reason, which I'm pretty sure he isn't, then good for him.'

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Austria, September 17th 1788

3:45 PM

Frida sat on a rocking chair with Lukas on her lap as she lulled him. Lukas couldn't deny it, despite not being drawing or anything like that, he was enjoying his time with his mother.

'Sometimes it's good to take some rest. I believe I'm much more advanced than any baby my age anyway, so, no problem... actually, this is just a lame excuse for me to keep slacking off.

It's not because I'm more advanced than other people that myself should stop advancing, that's senseless. Anyway, I don't give a damn, I'll keep feeling good.'

Lukas let himself stay on Frida's lap as he closed his eyes and relaxed. He wasn't sleepy at all, but he still wanted to rest his body a bit. Despite relaxing, drawing could be rather exhausting as well, huh?

It seemed rather contradictory, however, Lukas figured that it happened because since you were developing yourself with that effort, your body would make you feel good since it's something useful so it would want you to keep doing it but, obviously, the effort would eventually backfire.

Lukas didn't know whether or not it was normal for him to deduct all these reasons of why everything that happens in your life actually happens, probably not, but he didn't mind it at all. Most excuses that he hears people giving about his health states are: "God's punishing you" or something like that, so he was happy to have a different point of view.

Everytime Lukas heard it, he could only roll his eyes at the person who said it, however, he really wasn't one to talk since he was different from everyone else. Since he was already born with the skill of reasoning and making decisions by himself, he would naturally not believe in everything people say.

If he was born with the same unreasoning mind that people usually are born with, he would naturally be "brainwashed" into believing in what the adults said as well since he, as a normal child, would think of adults as knowing about anything they're talking about and wouldn't even consider it to be wrong.

And naturally, if that piece of information is something that had been inserted into the depths of your mind ever since childhood, it would be very hard to change your mindset, even as an adult.

Lukas sighed.

'Well, anyway, that's just a theory of mine. It looks rather reasonable to me though.'

Despite Lukas having taken a free day on his work today, he was still feeling rather satisfied about it. Ever since Elias taught him that "two fingers technic", his drawings had significantly improved.

Now the drawings he made were much less shaky and their lines actually met, it was still not perfect, but that was quite an advancement.

Also, a while ago, he started figuring out that adults had an eyesight which was significantly better than his, they could take apart stuff from distances that Lukas would never be able to, they could see his drawings from much farther than Lukas himself could see, etc..

His poor eyesight was something that actually would hamper his performance at drawing since he couldn't see properly how they actually looked as he drew, he could only see it once he had finished and approached the sheet of paper to his face.

Still, it didn't bother Lukas because, if his guess was right and his eyesight really was going to enhance, not only his drawing skills would probably improve a lot with it since he wouldn't just depend on his sight, but also all the other things that people depend too much on their eyesight to would be easier for Lukas to do with, literally, his eyes closed.

'Well, sight sure is a sense that people depend too much on since it's a pretty practical one, most of the time you use it without even noticing. However, since nothing is perfect, it may sometimes trick you.'

Lukas still couldn't forget the time where some random dots on the floor looked like an actual face, that was truly terrifying.

Just by remembering it, Lukas even felt a shiver going down his spine.

While Lukas was still enjoying his mother's cuddles, two servants walked through a corridor nearby. A masculine voice could be heard:

"It's perfectly fine that young master hasn't cried yet! He'll be an outstanding, man, after all, men don't cry!"

That sentence was followed by a deep laughter.

The woman who was walking beside the man couldn't help but roll her eyes.

"Young master is still just a baby, Morgan! It's not fine that he doesn't cry! It a baby's way of communication."

The man shrugged.

"Well, he seems pretty fine to me."

Frida overheard the conversation but she just ignored, after all, it was a mansion full of people, it was pretty natural that some conversations were overheard sometimes.

The mansion being full of different people was another thing that supported Lukas in his language learning as many of them had completely different ways of speaking, so he could get a lot of language experience just from his household, which was a huge lucky break and Lukas, naturally, was aware of it.

Lukas, who had also overheard the conversation also rolled his eyes.

The first times that Lukas had heard the word "crying", he couldn't figure out what it was at all, he just knew it was something that he was supposed to be doing, that babies usually do a lot as a way of communication and that men shouldn't do?

What?

Lukas couldn't find out what it was until he had the possibility of watching that phenomenon on first hand. One of the servants of the mansion had hurt herself and she had started crying, there was a lot blood on her hand, which, by the way, Lukas found rather interesting, he always wondered what was inside of people, he never thought that there would a red liquid.

Anyway, after he had experienced it, all pieces had fit inside his head: Crying was an impulse caused by an unpleasant feeling, Lukas still wasn't sure whether or not it could be triggered by mental displeasure, but he believed so. Besides, crying was also a way that babies had to ask their mother/caretaker for their basic needs, like eating, etc..

Lukas found it much more logic once he had seen the servant crying since she really looked helpless, which is how newborns should feel when they had a necessity that couldn't be fulfilled by themselves. Lukas didn't even ask for food or to have his diaper changed, he knew that he had routines to be fed and cleaned, so he didn't even bother worrying about it.

Also, the first time Lukas had heard the idea of "men don't cry", he almost facepalmed in front of all the servants in the room and his family, because he instantly figured out why it was a popular belief: It was something that babies usually did, so it's just normal that people, as they learn to fulfill their needs, they stop crying, however, that spiel of "people shouldn't cry", which would already be preposterous was attributed to men only since they were all "big and strong".

However, Lukas found it really stupid that men would stop themselves from crying just because of that sort of talk, they were probably told that ever since childhood by their parents.

Furthermore, Lukas thought that there should be another reason for crying, since he didn't believe it was something that vital for babies to survive. Lukas himself could survive without it so far. He figured it was because the effort that you exert from crying numbs the pain or something like that, he had to experience it on first hand before taking any definitive conclusions though.

'There's no need to hurry about that though, I'll eventually cry. I'm pretty sure about it.'