Chương 1: Ceiling Studies

Ren was late for work. The kettle screamed from the kitchen. His phone buzzed beside a mug with old coffee dried along the rim. Rain made silver bars on the apartment window. The ceiling light flickered once, weak and yellow, a thing that had also failed to sleep enough. Ren grabbed the mug first. Tomorrow. He would fix it tomorrow. Then his tired brain registered something weird, and he stopped with his hand around the cold ceramic. … The air smelled wrong.

It wasn't the smell of burnt toast, old coffee, nor even the metallic heat from the kettle. The smell came from the kitchen, or from beyond it, or from a distance his tired brain insisted was both farther away and already inside the room. Ren turned toward it. The kitchen doorway stretched thin. White light flashed behind the kettle steam. His knees emptied. The mug slipped. His phone buzzed again, loud as a pulse behind his eyes. The floor tilted up before he could decide whether he was falling or being lifted.

Rain became heat. The kettle shrieked into crying. His phone buzzed into a heartbeat too close to his own. The apartment wall stretched upward, pale and wooden, crossed by thick beams that did not belong in any room he had rented. His body burned. Ren tried to sit up. Nothing obeyed properly. His arms moved, but not as arms. Soft weight dragged through cloth. Fingers opened too slowly, tiny and blunt, nails like pale seeds. His legs kicked without asking him. His spine curled instead of rising.

His head lolled sideways with appalling confidence, his neck apparently resigned from all meaningful duties. His mouth opened to demand an explanation. A raw infant wail tore out instead. Panic swelled within his confused mind. The ceiling tilted. The room smelled of milk, smoke, herbs, wool, fever-sour skin, and the cool bead-bright charm near his face. Light came from a shutter gap and a blue charm hanging near the bedpost. The charm swayed on its cord, clicking softly against carved wood.

A woman leaned over him. Red-brown hair had escaped its braid. Her face was tired, round with fear. Her hand touched his forehead. Cool fingers. Callused palm.

"Bren," she said.

"He's awake." Ren knew that voice. The voice belonged here, not the apartment. The knowledge came with milk-warm mornings, lullabies in a language he had never studied and yet half knew, a face bending over a cradle, a sleeve smelling of smoke and flour, hands lifting him when his body had known only hunger and dark. Elna Marric. His Mother. No. His mother here. The thought cracked a dam open, and too many years poured through. A dead father in the old life. A hospital hallway. Rent. Passwords. Books beside a bed.

Cheap noodles. Exams. Paychecks. Winter gloves with a hole in the thumb. Rain on a window. Coffee gone cold because he had meant to drink it and had not. Then the kitchen doorway, the wrong smell, the flash. That was his life. And now it was gone. His chest hitched. The wail broke into choking sobs. No. That was before. A man entered in a rush, nearly striking his shoulder on the low doorframe. Broad hands, dark beard, sawdust caught in one sleeve. Bren Marric smelled of rain, horse leather, and chopped wood.

His boots thudded once, then stopped as if he were afraid the sound might hurt Ren.

"Still hot?"

"Less," Elna said.

"I think less." Bren's hand hovered above Ren and did not land. That restraint struck Ren strangely. The man wanted to touch him. Wanted to check on him. Wanted to use those broad, capable hands for some useful work. But the fever had made Ren fragile enough that even love needed permission to land.

"Ren," Bren said. His voice lowered.

"Little spark. Look at me." Ren tried. The effort became unfocused blinking. He was here now. His eyes slid from Bren to the ceiling beams. Six beams. No, seven. One half-hidden by the hanging cloth. The nearest had a dark knot shaped like a curled thumb. Smoke stain near the corner. Blue charm. Cracked plaster line. Elna's hand. Bren's breath. The shutter gap. The smell of herbs drying above a shelf. His breath came in hot, broken pulls.

Ren's body wanted to scream, the fever having left every nerve too close to the surface. He forced the next inhale through his nose. It clogged halfway. He snorted milk-snot and humiliation. … Just great. His first disciplined act in a fantasy world was failing to breathe through a baby nose. Elna made a sound that was half laugh and half sob.

"There. There, love. Breathe." Love. The word hit him harder than fever, the sudden clarity overwhelming. This body was his. He was himself, always was. Ren simply had– Recalled his life from before. That made things both worse and better. His meant trapped and alive. It meant this weak little chest, these twitching hands, this skull too small for the weight of another life. It meant the woman's thumb trembling against his cheek belonged to him by blood and breath.

It meant the man in the doorway looked ready to fight the fever with his bare hands and had not slept enough to know that was impossible. He had to start with something he could control. Ren stared at the thumb-knot in the beam. One. He blinked. Two. The room blurred. Sleep dragged at him like deep water. He tried to fight it. Closing his eyes meant the apartment might return, or the hospital, or the kitchen light, or the ugly moment he could not yet look at directly.

His tiny hand jerked against the blanket, too small, too hot, and far too slow to hold on to anything. A soft knock of wood drew his eyes toward the doorway. Tessa – his older sister – stood there with a wooden horse clutched against her chest. She was perhaps six, narrow-faced and dark-haired like Bren, with one braid tied badly at the end. Her face had drawn tight as she watched Elna touch his forehead.

"Is he still sick?" she asked.

"Not as hot as before," Elna said. Tessa stayed near the doorway. Her thumb rubbed over the horse's carved back while Bren leaned closer and Ren struggled to keep his eyes open. He looked at her. Tessa noticed and stopped rubbing the horse. For a moment, neither of them moved. Ren's gaze should have slipped away with everything else, but the worry pinching her face held his attention. She shifted the horse from one hand to the other. His eyes followed it. Tessa lowered the toy, then lifted it again.

Ren followed the movement before he understood what she was doing. Her worried expression changed to one of childish curiosity.

"Mama." Elna turned.

"What is it?"

"He keeps looking." Bren exhaled.

"That is a good thing." Tessa looked at Ren again.

"I know." Ren would have defended himself, except his tongue was a damp betrayal and his mouth had three settings: cry, drool, and threaten sleep. Tessa took one small step closer and raised the horse slightly. Ren caught himself before following it again. … Which somehow made her suspicion worse. Her eyes narrowed as she tried to decide whether she had imagined the first two times. Ren let his gaze slide away from her. The blue charm clicked. Text opened in the air. [Status: Full] Ren stopped breathing.

His body objected with a cough and a wet hiccup, but his mind went still. The letters hung above him, bright and clean, unsupported by any surface. Elna did not react. Bren did not react. Tessa's attention returned to his face, her earlier worry rising again at the sudden stillness. Ren forced his eyes toward the stuffed rabbit beside him. He was just an ordinary baby staring at his ordinary rabbit. The rabbit was wool, gray, and lopsided, with one ear chewed flatter than the other.

Ren stared at it with what he hoped was infant confusion rather than the expression of a man watching reality produce user-interface elements. The window told him things anyway. [Status: Full] Name: Ren Marric Level: 1 [0. 0/100 EXP] Resources HP: 20/20 Stamina: 17/17 Mana: 31/31 Stats Strength: 1. 0 [0. 0/100. 0 EXP] Dexterity: 2. 0 [0. 0/100. 0 EXP] Vitality: 2. 0 [0. 0/100. 0 EXP] Intelligence: 7. 0 [0. 0/100. 0 EXP] Willpower: 3. 0 [0. 0/100. 0 EXP] A System. Of course he had a System.

Death had apparently looked at reincarnation, infant dependency, fever, and family trauma, then decided the situation required user interface support. Ren wanted to laugh, but his body prepared to cough instead. He swallowed the sound badly and made a wet little gurgle into the blanket. Elna leaned close again.

"Easy. Easy, love." Tessa remained beside the doorway, scowling at him over the wooden horse. She had seen him follow it. Now she watched every change in his face as though waiting for him to do something strange again. Ren flopped one hand toward the rabbit. It landed short, fingers splayed in heroic failure. He let his gaze unfocus, allowed his eyelids to droop, and opened his mouth until a thread of drool escaped down his cheek. A flawless performance! … Though mostly involuntary. Tessa's scowl deepened.

She looked from his outstretched hand to the rabbit, then back to his face. He had not convinced her that nothing strange had happened, but exhaustion gave her another explanation to consider.

"He's tired," Elna murmured. Bren's shoulders lowered a fraction.

"Fever broke him hard." No, Ren thought as the System faded with his slipping focus. The fever had not broken him. It had merely hidden the break. Sleep took him in pieces.

Ren woke up with his mouth searching before his thoughts caught up. A hollow ache pulled through his belly. He turned toward warmth, made a strained sound, and rooted against the blanket until Elna lifted him. He could feel her sleeve brushing his cheek. Her hand supported the back of his head, and her heartbeat settled against his ear. He knew what was happening. That did not stop his body from latching the moment food touched his mouth.

Ren endured the indignity until warmth spread through his belly and the ache loosened its grip. … Survival sure had terrible manners. Elna returned him to the crib afterward, wrapped, fed, and too heavy to object. To maintain even a shred of dignity, he focused on the only thing he could: His prison, his bed, his grand– His first grand cultivation chamber had carved ducks on it. The left rail bore tooth marks, probably his sister's. He was too toothless to have left them.

The mattress smelled of washed linen and old milk. A wool rabbit lay near his shoulder. Ren looked past it, and past the rails of his crib. Beams crossed the ceiling above shelves, hanging herbs, folded cloth, a low stool, and a wooden cup. The blue charm hung over the bedpost, clicking softly whenever the air moved. His eyes closed. When they opened again, Elna was pressing a warm cloth across his chest. Boiled water and crushed leaves filled his nose.

He tried to follow her hand, but his gaze slipped before she reached his shoulder. Later, Bren stood over the crib with his jaw tight. He said something quietly to Elna, then watched Ren breathe until his eyelids dragged shut again. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. The next time Ren woke, Tessa was beside the crib. She placed the wooden horse on the stool within his sight.

"For when you stop being hot," she said. Ren blinked slowly at her. Too slowly, he hoped. Tessa narrowed her eyes and nudged the wooden horse closer. Ren meant to let his gaze drift past it. Instead, he caught the black bead eye, the scratch along its carved flank, and the red string tied twice around its neck. The uneven knot made him wonder whether Bren had tied it. Tessa moved the horse to one side. Ren's eyes followed before he stopped them.

"See?" she whispered. Elna looked over from the cloth she was wringing out.

"See what?"

"He keeps looking at it."

"It is right beside him."

"Not like before the fever!" Tessa shifted the horse back.

"He looks when I move it." Ren let his eyes slide past the toy and crossed them slightly. The room doubled, leaving him with two blurred horses and a stomach that immediately objected to the experiment. He hiccupped. Tessa scowled at him. She moved the horse once more, but Ren kept his gaze fixed somewhere beyond it. Elna smiled tiredly.

"He is awake and curious. That is a good thing after such a fever." Ren could not have asked for a better explanation. Tessa looked at the horse, then back at him. Her scowl remained. That night, Ren dreamt of rain, the screaming kettle, white light, the blue charm, and the hospital hallway. He woke crying before dawn with the old light still burning behind his eyes. Elna lifted him before he could stop.

"Hush, love. Hush. I have you." Ren shook against her chest and held on to the words. And then he was out like a light again.

By morning, the fever had broken cleanly. Ren still felt weak, but there was energy in his body again. Enough to move. Enough to learn. Enough to begin testing things. He could work with that! … Or so he thought. His first attempt at being a functional baby began with an insult. Ren tried to lift his right hand. It trembled three inches above his chest, fingers splayed in heroic confusion, then flopped back down. He stared at it in utter disbelief before trying again. Lift, hold, lower.

His shoulder wobbled before the hand reached the proper height. His elbow drifted outward, and his fingers curled halfway around the blanket as though the cloth had somehow become more important than following instructions. Ren released it and tried again. Lift, hold, lower. The seventh repetition made his arm burn. By the twelfth, the burn had become shaking. He pushed on until he could no longer remember whether he had counted thirteen twice. Then he let the arm fall and waited. Nothing happened.

Ren tried calling for Skills. Training. Help. Tutorial. Instructions. He tried several other commands that sounded increasingly reasonable to a man trapped inside a baby. Only Status answered. … His disappointment was immeasurable. Fine! If the System would not help him control his body, he needed to begin with something his body could not sabotage quite so easily. Ren fixed his gaze on the thumb-shaped knot in the ceiling beam. Dust floated through the light.

Elna spoke with Bren downstairs, while Tessa dragged a stool across the floor. A crow called outside. Beneath the blanket, his toes discovered air and celebrated with pointless motion. Ren kept looking at the knot. He blinked and lost it, then found it again. The smoke stain near the corner pulled his gaze away, but he dragged it back. His cheek began to itch. A draft touched the damp skin below his ear. Every distraction pulled him loose, and every time Ren returned to the same dark knot.

His stomach rolled, announcing that food would soon become an urgent political issue. His eyes watered, and his tiny body trembled with the effort of doing almost nothing at all. Still, he held on. [Skill Unlocked: Discipline] Wonder rose so sharply it nearly became another cry. Ren swallowed it and produced a wet gurgle instead. The rabbit beside him received the sound with sewn indifference. His effort counted! The System had recognized what he was doing and given him a skill for it. A skill he could train.

A skill he could grow! His grand dream of cultivation was possible after all. Ren wouldn't remain helpless forever! Yes! But also– He stared at the message until it faded. Nobody reacted or pointed at it. Elna kept folding cloth, Bren did not rush upstairs, and Tessa, thankfully, stayed away from the doorway. So it was visible only to him. Probably was a terrible word on which to build a life. So when Elna leaned over him later, Ren called Status and flicked his eyes toward the empty air where the window appeared.

She only wiped milk from his chin.

"My strange little boy," she murmured. Ren blinked at her with great innocence. His cheek was sticky, so the performance had limits. … That was enough testing for now. He returned his attention back to the thumb-knot. The next hours became ugly, glorious work. Ren held his gaze on the knot until tears gathered, shifted to the crack and smoke stain, then returned in sequence. His weakened body tired quickly, and sleep kept dragging him away before he was ready, but every time he woke, he began again.

First came the check. Seven beams crossed the ceiling, with one half-hidden by cloth. The thumb-knot sat nearest. The smoke stain marked the left corner. The charm hung above the bedpost, and the crack ran down from the third beam like a crooked river. Once everything was where he remembered it, Ren chose one detail and held it against every distraction the room produced. The practice grew easier by degrees. He found the knot faster after blinking.

His gaze wandered less often, and when it did, he returned without having to rebuild the whole room first. [Skill Level Increased: Discipline Lv. 1 → Lv. 2] This time, Ren laughed. It came out as a burp. Et tu, baby body? No matter! He fixed his eyes back on the thumb-knot and continued.

That evening, Ren had learned three limits. The System did not seem to reward vague wishing. Instead, it liked deliberate repetition, and clear aim. It also did not care that its only available trainee required naps, milk, cleaning, and occasional rescue from his own sleeve. And since it rewarded deliberate effort, then deliberate effort was what it would get. Elna lifted him after feeding, and the ceiling slid away. Ren found himself against her shoulder, looking past her braid toward the shelf.

Three bundles of herbs hung above it. No, four. One was partly hidden behind the clay jar. He fixed the arrangement in his mind before Elna turned. The shelf vanished from view, replaced by Bren's boots near the door, but Ren held on to what he had seen and tried to fit the new angle into the room he already knew. [Skill Unlocked: Observation] The message appeared as Elna patted his back, and Ren went still against her shoulder.

"Ren, baby? Is everything alright there?" she asked. He answered by burping into her sleeve. Elna laughed softly.

"There." Observation, Ren thought, watching the fading message with as much dignity as a milk-drunk infant could manage. A skill for noticing things? …He supposed he could notice things even harder now! Though before he could try to observe anything any harder, he was put in timeout. Meaning his crib. And as he stared up the ceiling, evaluating the virtues and evils of baby cribs, Tessa interrupted his charming thoughts by bringing the wooden horse again. She set it beside the rabbit.

"He can have it now."

"He cannot play with it yet," Bren said from the doorway.

"He can look!" Ren looked at the rabbit first out of habit, and Tessa immediately frowned.

"Not that one." He shifted his gaze to the horse, slower this time, since Tessa was beginning to notice when he reacted too neatly. To cover himself, Ren flailed one hand toward the blanket and missed everything of value. His fingers caught the cloth by accident. When he pulled, the blanket bunched toward him by half an inch. It was a pathetic achievement by any sane standard, yet his arm shook from it anyway. Tessa gasped.

"Mama!" Elna came quickly, Bren just behind her after losing his usual brief battle with the doorframe.

"What happened?" Elna asked.

"He pulled the blanket," Tessa said.

"On purpose." Elna looked at the fold gathered against Ren's chest.

"He caught it."

"No, he pulled it!"

"Babies pull things," Bren said. Tessa scowled at both of them.

"I know! But he looked first!" Ren lay there exhausted, trapped under a fold of his own making. Tessa kept staring as if she had found a crack in the world and could not understand why nobody else wanted to look through it.

"But he wanted to!" she insisted. Ren's mouth wobbled. This time, the cry was hardly strategy. His shoulder hurt, his pride hurt worse, and his body apparently had very strong opinions about effort. Elna lifted him at once.

"Too much, little spark?" Yes, Ren thought into her shoulder. Being an infant felt horrible!

As the fever weakness eased, Ren began testing what he could repeat. He could not control much. His hand opened whenever it pleased, closed when it remembered, and wandered whenever his elbow decided to sabotage the mission. Still, he watched the blanket knot, waited until his fingers brushed the raised cloth, and tried to curl them before the chance passed. Most attempts failed, but a few caught.

Once, after a long rest and an embarrassingly serious amount of concentration, he managed to pull the same fold twice in a row. The message arrived just then. [Skill Level Increased: Observation Lv. 1 → Lv. 2] Ren stared at it, breathless and offended. Apparently, the System did not reward miracles. It rewarded miracles and effort. Worse! … It meant practice. He looked down at his baby body. … Lots and lots of practice.

And while his arm had already gone warm and heavy from the effort, it did not mean the rest of him had to stop. But first– His baby body demanded food. Minutes later, and with the shreds of his dignity shredded again, as his body lay warm and heavy against Elna, Ren listened to the house. At first, it was only noise. Bren worked below in uneven bursts, Elna moved near the stove, and Tessa crept from room to room with the subtlety of a dropped spoon.

The longer Ren paid attention, however, the less chaotic it became. Bren's steps favored one side after long work. Elna hummed before she lifted him. Tessa paused near doorways when she thought she was sneaking. The house had patterns, and patterns could become warnings. So he observed, listened, and learned. … Because for a baby there really wasn't much else to do! Anything was better than just staring blankly at things. And here the System rewarded effort. So he kept at it.

And as he listened, words slowly separated from the rest of the noise, and Ren learned how his body reacted to them. Milk meant warmth and fullness, while sleep meant surrender. His own name came from three mouths in three different shapes: Elna softened it, Bren grounded it, and Tessa tested it as if she were checking whether the same baby answered every time.

"Ren," she said again. Ren answered by turning his head. [Skill Unlocked: Listening] The message appeared, and Ren froze for half a breath before he realized Tessa had noticed. He corrected too quickly, turned too far, and bonked his cheek gently against the mattress. Tessa burst out laughing.

"Mama, Ren fell on his face!"

"I heard," Elna said, with amusement she did not quite manage to hide. Ren remained face-down in the linen and accepted the tactical sacrifice. He could endure a lot in the face of progress!

Training continued, although everyone else insisted on calling it infancy. Ren learned to hide intention inside ordinary baby failure. A badly aimed grab became curiosity, a ruined sound became babbling, and a collapse after too much focus became tiredness – he didn't even need to pretend for that one either! Tessa watched him too closely, so he gave her mistakes to believe in. Bren noticed strength, Elna noticed exhaustion, and both of them mistook the pattern for normal baby growth and were happy for him.

They were not wrong. … And it felt nice to be cared for. His baby body loved his parents to bits, and even his adult mind was starting to appreciate them for the lovely and caring people they were. He also didn't know how they would react to learning their baby son had the memories of an adult. So Ren focused on the things he could do instead. Aside from sleeping – and all the inconvenient baby things – practice consumed his every waking moment.

Whenever his body became too tired for more pulling, rolling, or head lifting, Ren studied the household instead. Sound became movement, movement became habit, and habit became warning. He learned the difference between Bren coming from work and Bren coming from outside. He learned the difference between Elna cooking, worrying, and pretending not to worry. He learned that Tessa's silence was usually more dangerous than her questions.

The System did not reward every attempt, and the experience points seemed to trickle in unevenly whenever he checked. Not a straightforward 'do one, get one' thing then. And then, after one long sleep, Ren woke to find the world subtly rearranged. The light had shifted. The blanket smelled fresh. Bren's work below had changed from saw to hammer, and Tessa was no longer near the doorway but beside the crib, whispering to the wooden horse. Before sleep, one world had existed. After sleep, another had replaced it.

Yet Ren remembered the first. [Skill Unlocked: Memory] Ren stared at the fading message, then at his blanket. He remembered where the light had touched it before. Now that edge was dark, which meant evening had come while he was helpless to witness it. The comparison pulled at older memories too. The apartment. The hospital hallway. Books beside his bed. Things he had thought were forgotten forever. Ren got lost in them for hours. [Skill Level Increased: Memory Lv. 1 → Lv. 2] … Yeah, that one made sense.

Memory let him hold one attempt against the next, which meant he could finally stop relying on vague impressions and start recounting things properly. And as he did, Ren counted breaths before exhaustion, attempts before failure, and sounds before interruption. He learned that gripping before pulling worked better than twisting first. He learned that crying too hard wasted stamina. He learned that Tessa could be distracted if he let her think she had solved the mystery herself.

[Skill Unlocked: Calculate] Measurement, comparison, and cost settled together in his mind. Now he could use those comparisons to adjust his physical training. He rested before his arms became completely useless. He planted his hands differently. He repeated the movements that had brought him closer to rolling instead of simply throwing effort at gravity and hoping it became charitable. Another skill arrived after much pain, effort, and baby naps taken whenever his body decided enough was enough.

Ren considered its name deeply insulting. [Skill Unlocked: Athletics] He was not running, climbing, or fighting. Instead, Ren was repeatedly losing wars against cloth, gravity, and his own neck. Still, his body learned to respond better. His hands closed when he wanted them to. A fold moved because he pulled it. His head lifted for a breath before dropping. One attempt carried him farther than the rest.

His hand held, his shoulder turned, and his weight followed until Elna found him halfway onto his side, red-faced and furious from the effort.

"Oh," she said, startled.

"Look at you." Bren appeared behind her.

"Did he turn?"

"Almost." Tessa pushed between them.

"I told you he does things when we aren't looking!" Ren began to pretend-cry to shake off the suspicion. …Though mostly because it hurt, and because being discovered by a six-year-old investigator was far too humiliating. Elna rescued him at once, and Bren laughed softly with pride.

"Stubborn little spark." Ren had no way to tell him that stubborn did not begin to cover it. The next attempt waited until they left. Feeding, sleeping, being changed, waking sore, and trying again blurred together. Discipline kept him returning to the work. Observation showed him what changed. Memory held the successful attempts. Calculate helped him compare them, and Athletics made the next failure slightly less terrible than the last. The System eventually rewarded his work.

[Skill Level Increased: Discipline Lv. 2 → Lv. 3] [Skill Level Increased: Observation Lv. 2 → Lv. 4] [Skill Level Increased: Memory Lv. 2 → Lv. 3] [Skill Level Increased: Athletics Lv. 1 → Lv. 2] And Ren was happy with his growth. He lay milk-heavy in the crib and let triumph pass through him quietly. The quiet was nice.

Tessa was asleep nearby with one arm thrown over her wooden horse, Elna mended by the stove with her head dipping from tiredness, and Bren sat on the floor sharpening a small household knife with slow, steady strokes. They were ordinary people making ordinary sounds in an ordinary room, and none of them knew who slept in the crib with them. The old life waited behind Ren's eyes. The new life breathed around him. He did not get to choose which one counted, as apparently both did.

Elna set her mending aside and leaned over the crib. She touched his nose.

"Ren." He knew the sound of his mother's voice now. And how the rest of his family called him too. He could pick their words out from the room, remember how each of them shaped it, and turn toward whoever said it. But recognizing his name was not the same as answering. Ren gathered tongue, lips, breath, and humiliation into one effort.

"Eh." Elna's face lit as if he had recited poetry. Again, she said, "Ren." So she had understood the attempt! Ren tried to copy the beginning more carefully.

"Rr." The sound scraped wrong and ended in drool. Tessa leaned over the crib rail.

"He's trying." Bren smiled.

"All babies try." Tessa did not look away from Ren.

"But he's choosing when!" Ren liked her. Tessa was clearly smart for her age, even if her noticing was inconvenient. More importantly, Elna had reacted to the sound he wanted her to react to. That meant he could train this too! Ren listened whenever they spoke and tried to catch the shape of the sounds before they vanished. Then he pushed air through his throat, moved his tongue, and discovered a great many ways to produce nothing useful. Milk, sleep, noise, and small failures carried the practice onward.

He learned which sounds brought Elna closer, which made Bren look up, and which made Tessa laugh too loudly and accuse him of hating the rabbit. He did not hate the rabbit. The rabbit simply didn't help him get better! He kept trying anyway. Listening let him catch the sounds more clearly. Memory held them long enough for another attempt. Calculate helped him compare how much breath he had used and where the effort had gone wrong.

Even when his mouth failed completely, a look, twitch, or flailing hand still made his family understand something. More results of his efforts followed. [Skill Unlocked: Language] [Skill Unlocked: Expression] [Skill Level Increased: Language Lv. 1 → Lv. 3] [Skill Level Increased: Listening Lv. 1 → Lv. 4] [Skill Level Increased: Expression Lv. 1 → Lv. 4] [Skill Level Increased: Calculate Lv. 1 → Lv. 2] [Intelligence +1] Ren saw the Intelligence gain and went quiet. Stats could increase from effort too.

He felt himself smile. Operation Baby Cultivation Genius seemed inevitable! He could feel himself splitting seas and– His body responded to awe with a hiccup. Right, ehem. … One crawl at a time. And crawling required a body that could survive more than several determined wiggles, which remained a serious flaw in the plan. Ren curled his fingers into the blanket and pulled. The fold moved more cleanly than before.

When he tried again, his grip lasted long enough for him to drag his elbow closer instead of losing the cloth immediately. Better! He rested when his arm began to shake, then tried again after feeding. He lifted his head, held it until his neck trembled, and lowered it before it dropped on its own. He pushed against the mattress, adjusted the hand that slipped, and repeated every movement that worked. His body was still terrible equipment. But it was quickly becoming usable terrible equipment!

[Skill Level Increased: Athletics Lv. 2 → Lv. 4] [Skill Level Increased: Discipline Lv. 3 → Lv. 5] [Dexterity +1] [Strength +1] Strength was two now, which was still a little insulting but also double what it had been before. Below, Bren barred the door for the night. Elna banked the stove. Tessa murmured to the wooden horse before climbing into bed. Ren lay in his crib, exhausted, milk-heavy, and fiercely awake. The old life waited behind his eyes. The new life breathed around him.

Elna, Bren, and Tessa moved through it with the easy trust of people who thought he was only a baby. They were wrong. They were also his beloved family. Ren stared up at the crib rail, high as a fortress wall, and curled his fingers slowly into the blanket. A sensible baby would just sleep. Ren considered the rail, his stronger grip, and everything he still could not reach. Tomorrow was going to be busy.