Lucius Basil

"Lucius, Lucius my sweet little light, mommy has to go now but don't worry, you'll be fine"

She stared at his tiny face, reluctance and hesitation in her eyes. She knew she had to leave him but she couldn't bring herself to let go. She knew he would be safer here but she couldn't stomach leaving him alone. She knew it was right but what did right matter to her if she couldn't watch him grow up, if she couldn't hold his hand as he took his first steps, if she wasn't there when he said his first words. A tear slid down her face and dropped onto his face, waking him up. Joy overcame her as she saw him stare at her with a pure hazel gaze but sorrow overwhelmed her the next instant as she let go and stepped back. She waved and called to him and he reached out with a tiny hand but she was already gone.

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It had been 5 months since she had left and Lucius had began to crawl. He would play with his hands and swipe at objects in his way, sometimes grabbing and smashing them down. He liked to play a game where he attempted to catch the weird thing that fed him, maybe because he wanted more food or maybe he found its shape interesting or maybe he liked how it didn't touch the ground. I doubt there is anyone who can explain why a baby does what he does but we can always guess, right?

By 8 months he was able to stand. He would attempt a waddle forward but he collapsed comically. He began to notice more things, like the weird shapes and objects littered around him and he would play with them occasionally but they were mostly boring to him. Instead he concentrated his efforts on catching the floaty feeding thing, after all he could now see how shiny it was compared to all the shapes around him. It is inherent in all things to be intrigued by the bedazzling, be it a cat with a laser or humans with jewels. For Lucius it was the first and only shiny thing he had seen and he didn't have much else to do anyway.

By 11 months he was able to walk around the room, albeit slowly. He had already lost interest in catching the shiny thing, mostly because he failed so many times but also because he could now explore which he now spent most of his time doing. He didn't really make it that far but he took note of the similarly pristine white walls and the towering ceiling outside of the room. It wasn't long before he found a wall different from the others, it had a black outline in the long shape that he had seen before. He walked up and did what he could only think of, slap it silly. As he put his hand to it a voice echoed through his mind.

"Arena: age requirement 5 years"

Although he couldn't explain why he somehow understood what the voice was communicating and he thought about it and came to the conclusion that there would be a weird wall that he did meet the requirements of and he so he spent his days searching the halls and he found three different weird walls and he heard the voice again 3 times.

"Arts of Creation: age requirement 7 years"

"School of generality: age requirement 1 years"

"Cultivation : age requirement 4 years "

Again he couldn't explain how but he felt he was closest to being able to open the school of generality but he still wasn't there old enough so he instead tried to say the things he had heard in his head from the door. He waited around the School of Generality door and pressed his hand against it every now and then but he couldn't quite say the words. He was only able to make single syllable noises like 'ah' or 'da' and 'ss' .

This continued on until one day the voice didn't appear in his head and he instead fell flat on his face as the wall had swung open. He raised his head and saw a woman in a pure white dress the same colour as the walls. She looked at him and waved a hand saying. "Hi" .

Lucius stared at her in a daze, he had never seen another human before, he hadn't even seen his reflection. He observed the aura of life and vitality she radiated as opposed to the dead walls and inanimate objects he was used to. Her voice echoed through his mind as he realised she had the voice he had heard from the weird walls. As he was trying to stand up again the woman walked over and picked him up and took him over to a weird object that stood on four lines and held up a long shape. She sat him down and began speaking straight into his mind.

" I'm Acacia Basil, your mother. Or, well a soul aspect of your mother that she left behind to guide you in your youth and cultivation. This is the school of generality, in other words a place to learn general knowledge. We shall begin with teaching you how to speak, read and write and then move on from there. Ok?"

Lucius stared at her not knowing how to answer, he was able to understand what she was saying since it merged into his mind. He thought for a while before waving both his arms up and saying "Bah".

She smiled and affirmed with a energetic "good" and then pointed to herself and asked him "Can you say Mama?"

Lucius tried for a while and Acacia showed the movements with her mouth and soon enough he was able to say mama, and when he did Acacia smiled so widely it made Lucius happy for some reason so he repeated it again and again while waving his arms.

After that Acacia started teaching him the alphabet letter by letter helping him word it out and then taught him simple words to remember like mama, papa, ball etc. After a month of teaching him he was able to name most things in his nursery, the room he was born in and stayed for the most part, he had also been taught the concept of food and he gained the answer to what the weird floaty thing was, an automated feeding bot. Although he couldn't quite say automated and didn't know what it meant he did understand it was meant to give him food from the bottle . As he continued learning Acacia realised that he had a complete memory, which was a memory where you retain all memories so he was able to learn the names of things instantly but he wasn't able to mouth out the words as fast as that. After 3 months he had been taught how to draw out the alphabet and simple words.

8 months after he turned 1 he had learnt how to read and write to the level of a primary school child and could hold an actual conversation. Acacia had started teaching him more things like what clothes where and why we wear them and about food and drink and why it was important. The feeding bot had changed to baby food instead of milk as he grew and Lucius was able to jog around the room now .

By the time he was 2 years and 6 months he already had a full set of baby teeth and had reached the height of a 5 year old and by the time he turned 3 he was tall enough to look 7. On his third birthday Acacia called him over and began to teach him about cultivation.