Babies First Level Up! Ch. 5
-John POV-
"I'm sorry Miranda, this is just something beyond my capabilities, here…I'll give you one gold coin to tide you over till the child is born." Heh… this should convince her.
I stood in the doorway of my clinic with a remorseful look on my face.
"Yes… well thanks for trying and thank you for helping me through this.." Miranda was standing outside the door looking sad, but that couldn't hide the greedy glimmer in her eyes.
"No problem when the time comes I'll help with the delivery and everything…I'll even take the child off your hands." Come on… take the bait!
"Oh! You would do that for me?! Thank you John… if you ever need to relieve some stress I'll get you a good discount." And punctuating that statement with a wink Miranda walked off into the evening crowd.
I walked back into the clinic and locked the door.
"Hahaha!! A mana blessed child for one gold coin!! The Mana Gods must be watching over me!!" The moment the door was locked I broke down into hysterical laughter.
"That stupid woman was actually thanking me!! She has no idea what she is giving up. A mana blessed child, and one of death attribute mana as well could easily go for up to 100 gold in a slave auction!" I was going to be rich and the person giving me that wealth believed that she had scammed me…hah!
"I need to start making preparations… the child will need to be exposed to a large source of raw mana at birth. I also need to read up more on mana blessed children.." So much work to do.. well at least I have nine months of preparation time, most of the time the blessing is found after the birth or mere weeks before.
"Although I do wonder what unique capabilities the child will awaken… all mana blessed children introduced to large quantities of pure mana after birth awaken something…how exciting!"
-Mc POV-
After that fateful day when I learned my…carrier was trying to kill me, I spent every day using [Soul Sense] and, when able, [Soul Appraisal].
After about 5 months Miranda stopped taking clients as she began to show physical signs of pregnancy. Naturally a lack of intimate interaction with people caused my training with [Soul Appraisal] to stagnate. Even [Soul Sense] leveling up and expanding my 'vision' range to 3 meters in diameter didn't help much. It would appear Miranda wanted to keep me low key, she mostly stays inside and when she does go out to get food and consumables she goes cloaked and avoids people.
The whole experience has been rather boring and while I did get some decent gains from the constant draining of my mana, a lack of XP has caused my level to stagnate completely. On the bright side my stats are looking slightly better, it's looking like my physical status should average out at around 1 point by my birth. Another milestone is my hearing finally starting to come in, right now I can only hear my carriers heartbeat but I remain hopeful.
'….'
'Oh shut up, my stats are fine and besides its not like you could do any better!'
Speaking of my status 'Status'
==================================
Name: N/A Dawn
Titles: Reincarnated, Guest of the Void, Gods Witness, High-Functioning Madman, Soul Bastion, Creator of Memes, Unique.
Age: 132 days
Level: 1
Xp: 290/1000
Energy: 324/600
STR: 0.10
VIT: 0.40
AGI: 0.10
INT: 11
WIS: 6
WIL: 37
NRG: 6
-Elemental Affinities- (Collapse)
<Tier 1>
•Earth: 15%
•Fire: 15%
•Wind: 15%
•Water: 15%
•Light: 10%
•Dark: 25%
<Tier 2> (Locked) (Class Override)
•Soul: 75%
<Tier 3> (Locked)
<Tier 4> (Locked)
<Concepts> (Locked)
-Skills- (Collapse)
[Gamers Mind] <MAX> (E/C)
[Voids Blessing] <MAX> (E/C)
[Soul Projection] <lvl. 1> (E/C)
[Soul Manipulation] <lvl. 1> (E/C)
[Soul Resistance] <lvl. 1> (E/C)
[Soul Illusion] <lvl. 1> (E/C)
[Soul Sense] <lvl. 2> (E/C)
[Soul Defense Network] <MAX> (E/C)
[Memetic Drawings] <lvl. 1> (E/C)
[Self Appraisal] <MAX> (E/C)
[Soul Appraisal] <lvl. 1> (E/C)
==================================
'See I told you it looks good'
'….'
'Well I think it's fine' And coming along nicely if I do say so myself. According to my system it's currently the 7th of Hemapratir, 1246 ASI so basically 2/7/1246.
That means according to this worlds standard pregnancy period of 11 months and a few weeks I'm about halfway there. Yeah everything was great… and then came a break in the monotonous schedule.
Miranda, likely bored out of her mind with nothing to do, had gotten a cat. Now this in its self was fine, but when I first saw the soul enter my range I had another thought along with my instinctive use of soul sense. And quite frankly that thought caused me to get in an argument with him… I said the cat was the perfect chance to finally test out [Soul Manipulation]. Meanwhile, he said that if the cat died he and Miranda would be sad… naturally I won that argument but the fact that it happened bothered me. After all he was silent for so long and then he comes back all confrontational… my only idea is that maybe wherever he went through drove him mad?
And this leads us to today… or more like tonight. You see the cat sleeps on top of Miranda at night, making what I'm about to do even more risky if it backfires. After all while I don't particularly care about my current host I need her to stay alive at least until I'm born.
Now moving back to the cat, I was worried due to my earth knowledge telling me that magics involving death, soul, and all things related to it, even in magic worlds, are usually seen as evil. Luckily, John using death magic as a simple abortion tool made that very unlikely. My worries were that using [Soul Manipulation] would create some kind of cat ghost abomination which would likely cause some problems. That's why I comprised with him on using [Soul Illusions] despite not knowing the minimum intelligence level required for it to work… assuming there is one anyway.
'….'
'Oh shut up will you, the cat will be fine. Worst case it's a little traumatized…'
'…'
'Yeah, yeah whatever. Here we go, [Soul Illusions]'
-Cat POV- (A/N the cat isn't sentient this is purely comedic, in the future use on non-sentient things will likely just be food related.)
"Where am I nya~!" Last thing I remember was using that food slave as a bed…
"Hello master nya~" As I turned to look at the voice I saw the most beautiful being I ever saw. She was like a cat angle on cat earth… she was perfect.
"Master? Why are you looking at me like that nya~?" Damn I got distracted.
"W-what… n-no I'm fine… who are you pretty lady nya~?" Great Mana Gods above thank you for blessing me this day!
-Mc POV-
'…..'
'Don't look at me! How was I supposed to know this cats greatest desire was that!!! I assumed it would be fish or something!'
'...'
'On the bright side Miranda has to clean up that… mess.'
'…..'
'Yeah, well at least we know the skill works. It even gives us a nice little TLDR about what's happening… this could be good for playing mind games, maybe even blackmail.'
After that I would train my soul Illusions every day. The cat had the same recurring desire much to Miranda's displeasure. I won't deny that I enjoyed seeing her suffer from the multiple sets of sheets and high quality night gowns being ruined by the cats little mess after my training sessions. It's been three more months since I first used [Soul Illusions] on the cat and I was progressing quite nicely. [Soul Sense] had leveled up once more giving me 4.5 meters of range to work with.
I only had around 3 more months till I was due and boy was I excited! Being a baby in the womb always seemed rather OP in my novels I mean an extra nine months of training… but in reality being a baby limited me from doing what I truly wanted to do, learn. Back on Earth my favorite pastime had been trying to apply logic to fantasy magic systems… rather redundant but it was something I enjoyed. It was one of the reasons I preferred Harry Potter fanfics as opposed to the canon, fanfics usually tried to develop or explain the Harry Potter magic system.
And so with only around 90 days left, that being the worst case scenario, I was beginning to get impatient on finally using what was my first true magic skill. Many of my skills were related to magic, primarily soul magic, but none of them came close to [Soul Manipulation]. The name as well as the description had me thinking of the many things that could be done. First off manipulation skills are usually the best, giving a large amount of freedom and control in using that element. Second the description made me think of a rather commonly seen branch of necromancy in the fantasy circle; Soul based necromancy, basically necromancy involving ghosts and specters instead of zombies and skeletons.
Of course it specifically mentioned that this was only at higher levels. At lower levels my best guess was soul energy being a kind of telekinesis… the part about interacting with souls using attributes was also interesting. My best guess for that was either imbuing elemental attacks with soul energy allowing it to do soul damage, or affecting the soul and body with attributes directly like making them hot or cold using fire and ice energies directed at the soul.
In short, with three months and maybe a week left in my prison I was ready for a training montage of the one active skill I still hadn't used yet. And that training started tonight… his opinion wouldn't save that cat this time.
Night came around quickly… well everything feels fast when you have no sense of time besides watching another person do different activities corresponding to different times of day. The cat climbed into the bed and I was ready to start… just one small issue.
'…..'
'No, I will not be swayed by you again. Tonight I test the skill on that fucking cat and you can't stop me!'
'….'
'Oh please! Why do you care so much for a cat who doesn't even know we exist!'
'….'
'You know I can't promise that! I don't know what the skill is going to do exactly, much less if I can give the cat as little stress as possible!'
'….'
'Yeah, yeah cry about it. It won't change my mind.'
'….'
'Hmph! Should have just led with that.'
I started to focus my soul sense on the cat with as much intent as I could muster. '[Soul Manipulation]'
I-I felt it… it was like an instinct. I didn't know how it would work but I could feel my options. I could drain the cats soul for energy rapidly aging and likely killing the thing. I could also free hand it, using its energy how I pleased. But most importantly I felt my own soul energy, thrumming and ready to go. It would appear I was right, personal soul energy on its own seems to be a telekinetic force.
With the sensing and subsequent rudimentary controlling of soul energy, including moving the bed sheets a little, out of the way I moved onto attributes. I first tried to make my energy gain attributes of fire by focusing of ideas of fire, heat, and the sun. And it worked, my soul energy gained a fire-like quality to it. After testing it on the cat… I knew I was gonna need a lot of practice. The fire like qualities caused my soul energy to jump on and consume the cats soul, burning it into pure energy that was returned back to me.
*Ding*
{lvl. 7 Cat killed + 1400 XP gained}
{Title [Soul Killer] gained}
{Level up}
{+10 WIL +5 NRG +5 WIS +5 SP}
Hallelujah! I should have killed that cat months ago! Maybe Miranda would get a new one…
'…'
'Not the time! I'm to excited to argue with you over an Xp ba- I mean cat.'
'Status: stats!'
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Age: 1 year & 32 days
Level: 2
Xp: 690/3000
Energy: 7/1100
STR: 0.30
VIT: 0.70
AGI: 0.30
INT: 11
WIS: 11
WIL: 47
NRG: 11
Stat Points: 5
==================================
'Wow I almost passed out to energy deficiency!' That would have been rather unfortunate as it would take me around 50 hours to recover my energy reserves to half. I don't know if energy recovery in this world is just god awful or if me being a baby in the womb caused it but I only regenerate my WIS stat worth of energy an hour. Wait were did all the pure energy from the cats soul go?
*Ding*
{Pure soul energy was directly added onto the hosts soul making it denser, stronger, and more resistant to external invasion}
'Oh, well that's fine.' Although my soul being something controllable, like a stat, was preferred any method of growth is still growth.
And speaking of stats I have stat points to distribute. I really don't want to mess with my physical stats, who knows what that could cause. So that leaves me magic stats…. First let's round off my WIL stat to 48. As for the rest… NRG….I can never have enough energy.
'Status: stats'
==================================
Age: 1 year & 32 days
Level: 2
Xp: 690/3000
Energy: 7/1500
STR: 0.30
VIT: 0.70
AGI: 0.30
INT: 11
WIS: 11
WIL: 48
NRG: 15
Stat Points: 0
==================================
Ahh…spent just as fast as I earned it… reminds me off Earth.