The Harukian Chronicler 13 Becoming Slightly Beastly Chapter 13

With the speed of a broken snail riding a dead tortoise; six months have pa.s.sed on by, and my oh my… am I wishing that I didn't take the abilities that allow me to be conscious of this moment. For G.o.d sakes, it's so dull with this day to day, but at least now I have something that all babies have at this age… MOBILITY! I can now crawl upon the ground, and boy my mother has her hands full with me crawling around outside, as I am just going everywhere. Though I don't go too far… she always seems like she's about to cry if I go too far away.

Yehai and Nihlis are also crawling around; Yehai seems to be the type that will crawl a bit closer to mom, but still further than Nihlis, who is a straight mama's boy and stays right next to her. Let me tell you, those two are actually quite cute; Nihlis is going to be babied by me… and Yehai always has such a serious look on his face. I swear I will always protect these two for my entire life; just because they're my little brothers, and I love them.

Now that I am mobile; I am putting aside the regen training as the next point to open is in the soles of my feet… and I am currently crawling on my hands and knees. From what I understand, besides the mouth and horns and my feet, the other points I can open for mana regen are along my spine and my own forge. These need to be opened in turn; but there is no rush as of this moment for me to open them all, I'll just figure something else to train… though what…

["Holder, there are a few traits you can train amongst the Stamina Regen variety now that you are mobile; and there's also some magical awakenings you can try to work on."] Mala appears to be thinking this through as well; though there really doesn't seem to be much an infant can do. It's really not like I am trying to keep a low profile… cause I'm not. I demonized hours after birth, had my Patron awakening… not like I can fly too low under people's radars now. Speaking of demonizing; I haven't been able to get the ichor to spread over my hands as of yet, so we're still only stick with my chitin plated legs.

Considering that all I need to do to get the trait for Stamina Regen is to basically work myself hard, that's mostly why I am cruising around at full speed around the gra.s.s… with Jihara or my Father in tow. When I get tired, I stop or crawl slower as I continue to explore the area, let my stamina come back to me; then crawl some more. I can hear my father laughing from behind me, as he keeps up with my baby waddle without difficulty.

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From my exploring of the main grounds for the clan, I am able to find that we have way too much land for the few people that actually live here… it's quite surprising how much wasted land that the forebears took for themselves. My Grandfather is trying his best to make with what he can with the land he can't use; allowing the cook to grow their own herbs, loaning some land to less fortunate folks who need a job. I feel like later on I might be able to do something with this land, but not at the moment; though my father is also trying some experiments here to make the farmer's lives easier.

I would like to go outside the boundaries of the clan's land, and explore the town a bit; but that is going to be a while before I can do that alone. Mother has said that she would like to take us out and about town, but she'd have to figure out good ways to swaddle us into slings for the transport. She constantly states that she wants to show us off around town, and let us get to know most of the people in town now that we have our eyes open and should be able to see people. Don't know if my brothers will even remember the people though… considering that babies have certain memory features; out of sight, out of mind.

She and dad talk it over to themselves at night; all while mom sits in his lap and hugs him… mostly while he is trying to research a book from within her cleavage. Seriously; let me blank all of this out… I don't want to see, hear, imagine, or so much as has the wiff of notion that my parents are getting busy. The people in my head just stay silent or laugh to themselves though while I suffer; I am talking to you Baalish.

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While those two are doing… whatever it is they're doing… I just close my eyes and keep my mind to myself, working on one of the magical awakenings that Mala was talking about. The first step for this was of course to get an element to grasp on to around me; though from what Mala and Hann tell me, due to my balanced potentials then I should be able to use any element I choose. Considering this then I might as well use the most abundant element from around me, which would of course be the Aero mana that is floating through the air.

However, for me to do this; I need to train my mana perception… which has three ranks from what Hann states, and that it should be easy due to his influence. Might as well start there, just depends on my own abilities how I will be perceiving the mana itself; so Mala has to do a scan on me to see…

["From what I can see… you're more of a wild beast in your soul. So if anything, your sensing would be scent and instinct based, meaning you must concentrate around your nose and heart to awaken the ability to perceive the mana around you."] Or as Mala says, though I feel like something about that doesn't fit well. I can't argue against it, but still it's bad to think that my soul is that of a wild beast.

Doing what I am told, and as how I woke up my drawing points, I fluctuate the mana within my forge to begin circulating around my heart and around my nostrils. Then as I breathe through my nose, I try to pick up hints of something different than what I was smelling before. I can say that I am smelling a bit more than I was before… though it all seems to be the same stuff as before; mother's perfume, father's demon musk, dirty diapers… okay some downsides here.

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It takes a few hours of recirculating the mana, and making sure everything is going the way that Mala is telling me, that I can begin to detect something different with my nose. It's faint as first, but the longer that I keep at it, the more I can make out a subtle scent coming from the air itself. It smells like the strong sense of ozone within the air; something circulating around as the wind from outside blowing around inside the room. What's more, is the ozone is overpowering a crisp smell, it's clean and faintly that of a thunderstorm.

From the ground below I am getting distinct hints of clay and wet dirt, which isn't something new… but from what I can feel otherwise not smell, is that the mana channels below the earth are quite deep and a bit out of my reach for the moment. The air feels charged with three different types of mana; that of Electro, Aqua, and Aero. This is an odd feeling that my brain is slowly processing, and things begin to come flowing in to be a.n.a.lyzed by me.

Part of me now realizes that the perfume and musk of my parents is filled with mana itself; probably acting as pheromones to those two and other creatures. I can even feel a great deal of Holy from Nihlis, and a mixture of Pyro and Crysto from Yehai… those appear to be their strong suits at this moment. Taking in a long breath, I can feel the differing types of mana mix in the air and enter my nose; I can feel the mana in my blood stream… a pure mana that is my own, a mixture of all types… something that Hann states is what one would call the Chaos Mana…

["Do de doo da dee. Holder has learned the Mana Perception trait; allowing him to perceive different manas within a thirty foot area. Due to the special nature of the Holder's trait, then he is able to smell them as well as feel with his instincts."] Mala smiles and updates my trait list, I think. She then continues; ["Holder has also earned the special ability of Beast Scent, which allows him to use his nose and sense of smell like that of a beast. For the low rank it's within a thirty foot radius, but it can be trained easily. Sadly, none of the patrons have that within their purviews, so no bonus speed will be granted."]

That was actually quite tiring to my forge… but now that I have the trait, I don't need to supply the mana to my nose and heart as they will just naturally allow it. Lucky for me, it's a pa.s.sive ability… I seem to have quite a fair few of them; which is good as pa.s.sives will lead to a much better life on the long road.

I'll just rest for a while and wait to do an awakening for an element. Don't want to rush everything.

End of Chapter 13