Maternity

Three months after that fiasco with Fafnir people are still talking about it. My father now refers to me as scary child at times while my mother looks at me proudly.

The Aesir and the Dwarves have seen that I am not someone to be messed with. Any attempt on the pharmacy was met with fierce backlash. Someone even tried to steal the formula for soap only for them to be pinned down by Aesir warriors before they can enter. Its not like I have it written down anyway.

I've kept my promise to the dwarf king and made medicine slightly effective for dwarves.

I started branching into home remedies as well. Antihistamines used for mucus and allergies, and cortical steroids for inflammation. I branched out and even started making lotions using sulfates and natural ingredients. Along with shampoo and conditioner, this has made showering a normal thing around here. Showering outside in the cold is suicide but in the mountain, it's a luxury.

The dwarves even suggested building bath houses using volcanic vents. I might even invest in building one. I've always been a fan of taking a bath.

I've had a thought of starting a Forest Conglomerate that holds Clinics, Pharmacies, Beauty Salons, Spas, and my soon to come Workshop.

Now that some of my medicines can be bought over the counter, they have been selling like hot cakes. Currently, we only have a set surplus we sell and keep some in house at anytime for emergency treatment. What we sell is already enough to pay for maintenance.

Sif has become a pro at making some medicines with me and is rather good at alchemy. She has an affinity called Plant. It's a combination of water and earth. She has a talent for healing people with mend. All in all she's has really helped me.

Nix has become a qualified guard and will be doing his first trial around the time of my birthday. He's opened up a bit from his silent streak and talks more.

These two are very well regarded as my workers at the clinic.

Speaking of which my druid and warrior training has very much stabilized itself at rank 2. I've already had all my skills in each school level up while acquiring more. My soul which was shaped like a seed didn't necessarily grow but it seems brighter. It's going to take a while to get to Rank 3 since my Intelligence advantage won't hold me up for so long.

Silent accumulation is all I have.

The only thing I lack is study into lightning skills. I have a proto-Druid lightning skill in the works but the warrior one is blank which is fine. It's a complicated process anyway.

My forgemastering is deep into the last stages of blacksmithing. Though I'm not a particularly good blacksmith, my purification level is around 80%. So I guess I can say I can still hold my own.

Nordri is of course at close to 100%. He said most masters are at 90% and apprentices fall between 1-70%. Direct apprentices fall in between which is pretty good for me.

Blacksmiths measure their strength with how well they can refine with mana. Rune Smithing and Soul Smithing has something similar as well.

This is what mana refinement is all about. I use my hammer with that liquid mana I did the first day to refine a piece of metal until I'm satisfied. Then I forge it into shape

I have also learned how to create my own alloys which means I know how to combine two different types of metals by melting them down. Merging them in their liquid state. Cast them into hot ingots. Use the heated ingot to forge into my desired shape, and then heat treat in oil.

The only thing I am left with is spirit imbuing. Magical metals are something Nordri told me I can't handle until I'm stronger. I would require extreme control of mana and knowing how to battle with the Hammer of Will efficiently which I don't know how to do.

Nordri said I will cover this in the last three months. He has discussed spirit imbuing which in essence is putting my own spirit into a metal using mana. This is where my personality and defining characteristics define the metal as well.

Nordri showed me an example in which he spirit imbued an ingot by filling the ingot with enough of his mana that the mana stayed in the ingot. The ingot began to form snow around it, it also seemed to be jumping with joy and warmth though. It was strange like it had Nordri's personality.

He explained that not all spirit refinements are useful for a task. He says his is as useful as refrigerators.

In any case, I will be learning that over this week. It should be easy since it looks like I'm just slamming the ingot lightly with the hammer.

I've also become extremely strong. I'm a lot more lean and my biceps, back, and thighs are looking slightly chiseled. 3 months of body recomposition plus hammer training really does wonders.

Now as for the my mother's pregnancy and the promise I made, well I am currently walking to my parents room to explain it to them. This time I was invited so I won't get thrown out.

Walking in, I'm greeted by my lovely mother whose sitting on the bed and father sitting next to her. As I'm about to speak to them my father cuts me off.

"Even if you haven't found a solution we understand. You won't have to return the store. You have made more profits in the first year than most elders did with their stores. You've paid me back for all the construction as well", he said smiling.

How charitable he is for a big bear. I might consider him a teddy bear.

[Remember when he threw you out the room]

Scratch that, he's definitely a Grizzly.

"I'm happy to tell you dad that I have figured out a solution and can help make our family bigger", I said smiling.

Even I'm excited. I've never had a sibling. I've never thought of being a big brother role model.

[And what a great role model you would be]

Was that sarcasm?

[No I actually think you'd be a great role model. Hard working, driven, slightly psychotic, humor. These are all good traits. Maybe you can be lazy at times so you relegate your tasks or go to sleep early so you can sleep more but hey that's good management skills]

That's very kind of you. Now when's the sky falling?

[man I can never be kind]

It would be out of character but if your being serious I'll thank you.

I looked to my excited parents and said, "Okay this is gonna be a long explanation so listen closely.....

"What? How can we let you do that!" My fathers roar sounded in the hall.

"I've found no other solution except that. It was a huge fluke that I even survived the first few moments. The only way for my younger sibling to even get through those first few moments is for me to be present. I'm not happy with this either, but I know you want another child to take the pressure off me. It's the reason why I explained it to you."

Even my mother chimed in at this point, "but Loki, doing this would seem extremely inappropriate even for you."

To give you some context let's explain what is actually happening in the womb.

When my dad's sperm (ew) fertilizes mom's egg (double ew) a zygote is formed. Most people understand how this works already so I won't go into specifics.

The zygote is still not considered a fetus yet at this point. After formation, the zygote is the first cell your body has and starts to divide while traveling through the Fallopian tubes into the womb.

In a normal pregnancy, the zygote would implant itself into the womb and then complete the rest of its gestation there as a fetus. It is also at the point of implantation, something I call a proto-soul forms. This is what I was trying to confirm earlier. At which point does a soul shell form? After the shell forms which is extremely tiny, either soul essence forms in it or another soul essence is delivered into the shell.

I have not witness the delivery mechanism so I can't tell. Whatever the case, in a normal pregnancy, the fetus fully matures with souls taking on characteristics of the parents.

Here's the problem.

When we get two magical bloodlines something different happens. When they clash, they aren't clashing over genes. That battle was over the moment the zygote formed. They were fighting over the identity of the soul.

These bloodlines end up giving the body and soul certain characteristics.

Although the Vanir-Frost giants never called it a soul trait like the Aesir called their soul trait valor. The soul trait the tribe is known for is being closer to nature and being peaceful.

I am just naturally like that so I got lucky. Ironically enough, my devious actions the other day made people think my valor is a fusion of the Aesir's and the Forest Giants Trait. Their calling it a justice type of trait, where it makes me calculative and wise.

Regardless of how lucky I am. I need to be able to replicate my birth because in actuality, the fight of the magical bloodlines over the soul is what caused the previous occupant's soul essence to be extinguished. Making a successful birth happen again will give me a sibling, take the assassins off my back, and prove I have gotten both soul traits.

[It will also give your parents a child to make up for you robbing that body. You can't lie to me. I know you still feel bad taking their kindness]

I don't really want to discuss that.

So because of all that I've decided there is only one solution. Remove the soul essence before it's consumed by the bloodline, allow the magical bloodline traits to imprint itself onto the shell and then place back the essence after the fighting subsides so the essence can acclimate slowly and not all at once.

There's several permutations of that order of operations that I can try as well like protecting the essence with mana. Unfortunately, last time I tried that, I used it to test an ectopic pregnancy and ended up terminating it.

Unfortunately, having foreign mana that long in the shell of a fetus is poisonous for it.

Therefore the only solution I came up with was to quickly siphon the essence out, store it safely for the 2 days it takes for the bloodlines to calm down and then place it back.

There's a lot of ifs here I had to hash out over the last three months. How to safely store a soul and the shelf life of a soul without a shell were the more important parts. The last one would be whether the essence ended up with the soul traits or would it end up like me with only the soul traits I brought from earth.

Well... Through tests I discovered using the warrior technique that condenses my soul as a cage and opening thin hole in the shell using the druids procedure, I can safely move the essence in and out. Even better the hole will heal during the pregnancy.

The problem, the soul essence can only lasts an hour Max without the shell.

The solution, place the essence back in every hour. Let sit for 5 minutes and remove.

New problem, five minutes is enough time for the bloodlines to mutilate the soul.

The solution, the druids came up with remedies that strengthen the soul earlier in the hopes of letting a zygote get to full blown fetus.

Yea the druids noticed this problem already. They didn't understand why they were ending up with still-borns other than the fact their bloodlines were incompatible. They likely thought removing the soul would be of no use since the body would end up mutilating the soul. They were correct that even after removing and reinserting the soul would mutilate the body.

What they didn't know was that at some point that conflict of soul traits dies down. I am proof of this since I was a new essence and didn't get mutilated. Who in their bright mind would keep a growing soul away from their body for so long. Especially while the body is gestating. I am expecting at least a whole day of dealing with this process of soul removal and implantation.

Therefore, having a baby will require me, from the moment of zygote formation, to pay attention to my mothers womb for Implantation which can happen either in minutes or days.

This means a few moments after my parents get it on, I have to be close enough for them to find me and I have to examine my mother after.

[What I find amazing is that you've completely ignored a crucial fact. How many still borns do you think your mother reabsorbed in trying to have kids]

Not a pleasant thought, but yea the druids likely had her reabsorb the cells of the unborn fetus. Their are certainly druid spells that can accomplish that.

[on that topic, even though you have all this data from a months worth of testing in that lab, how do you know the treatment will work.

To be honest I don't. Its one thing to theorize it, its another to see it through. If my general thought process of souls based on all I have experienced and learned so far is correct, It should work. But i won't leave out the possibility of failure because quite frankly I still have a lot to learn.

[Well at least your parents won't hold you responsible]

Yes, they can tell I am trying my best here and knowing how this has likely become a icky and weird turn of events, they should give me a break.

Luckily I am going to have Sif act as my hand and feet with Muninn there to avoid me being so hands on in the beginning.

I have had Sif next to me while I do these experiments and treating expectant mothers. Besides soul removal she knows how to recognize zygote, implantation and such. She can just ring me and I can be over there in less than a minute. I intend to wear ear plugs though.

Plus I even called on council from a person who is an expert on souls. My lovely master Nordri was lovely to give me some pointers on this.

When i let my parents know about Nordri's involvement they got a bit mad. I am a makeshift doctor so that means I can't show any emotion toward this but my patients didn't feel the same way about a Dwarves involvement. Understandably so considering the history.

Which is the reason for my dad's yell and how he just threw me across the room again after I mentioned Sif as a useful tool to complete the icky task. Something about poisoning that little girls mind.

[This is ridiculous]