The Harukian Chronicler - Chapter 17

And with that, a year had come and pa.s.sed on by; making us three brothers a year old this day… we had just skirted the snow season when we were born, but now there was plenty of snow on the ground. The North does not play games when it comes down to its winter months. Though now we were in the main Long Hall; made from wood, stone, and clay. It was well insulated from the cold, keeping the heat inside without much worry. In this building, Grandfather would hold meetings and allow the people to come in to tell him their feelings on the town on days he doesn’t just go around to ask personally. There were a few servants who choose to serve the clan, they get paid with money, housing, and protection.

The two girls who were there on our birth, they were servants for the clan; staying here in the longhouse without much to do besides cooking and cleaning for themselves and grandfather. Now that mother was back in the main house, she would take over most of the cooking details, and help around the place. For the winter, the servants won’t be doing too much save for going out shopping and doing the laundry. They’ll also help keep us babies company.

Though, I just started to explore the longhouse without regard for anything else; wanting to see what was here and there, and of course everywhere. I wondered what was for dinner though, feeling myself grow a bit hungrier with every waddled step around the hall; which is good, means my stamina is getting low. I was starting to get a bit closer to getting the Stamina Regen trait, and at the same time I was working on increasing my Mana Regen by opening the points on my feet. With this, I’d be able to draw in mana directly from the ground that I walked upon, at the same time as ambiently from my horns and with every breath.

I guess the next thing for me work on however would be some way to actually perceive normally… I did notice I had a hard time seeing in the dark; so maybe train a way to do that. Though according to Mala, that should come naturally due to my father having a darkvision type trait; hence why his eyes glow in the dark. The only thing I needed to do was feed mana to my eyes to activate the genetic trait, which since I have already done that it shouldn’t be too hard. Might be a bit hard to write off though if I did it right now… as it was a pa.s.sive trait, would become activated automatically whenever the light level dipped too low.

Though I would worry about that later… as I am currently sitting on my Grandfather’s knee, with Yehai on the other, and Nihlis held in a hand; the old man regaling us with tales of his youth and adventuring days. Yehai and Nihlis were hanging on his words; and so was I… I swear… but I had many other thoughts going on in my head. It was riveting to hear a story about how he had killed an evolved bear that was twice his size… wait; that would be a frichen huge bear… Was that the actual rug that could nearly fill the full main hall here? The orange fur rug, was probably that b.l.o.o.d.y bear that my grandfather had killed.

I can say, that stories like this did light a fire in one’s forge, wanting to go out and become an adventurer when they come of age… though I would prefer to read some books on the matter before anything else. I wouldn’t have to wait long before reading though… since the day I looked at the runic alphabet book, father has been slowly teaching us the alphabet and numerical system. Considering I could understand the common language; thank you Life’s Guide, it was rather easy for me to understand the alphabet and written language… and since I was an accountant in my past life, numbers came easy to me. When it came to writing things down… I blamed my poor manual dexterity as I was a baby; though I helped Nihlis out when he was close to a break down whenever he didn’t get something. Yehai, he preferred to do things on his own, pretty much rejecting any of my help… I still offered it and gave it, in a roundabout way.

This was how we sort of spent our winter months, just learning and hearing stories from grandfather and mother… father had some adventuring stories too; but they usually were more along the lines of exploring and not battles. I kind of wanted to be like him in that case; just explore the world, and worry less about fighting… but I know better.

…

…

It took another month before I was able to break through to stage one of Stamina Regen… basically I was able to recover from fatigue at a rate equal to my const.i.tution plus willpower, divided by eight per minute. So with everything as they were right now… it was double as before; looking at myself with my Keeper’s Eye, I was surprised…

…

…

[Name: Zeriq Tigrerious Haruk. The Mysterious Watcher of the Graveyard.]

[Age: 01yr, 04mh, 05dy, 22hr, 03mt] [Gender: Male] [Race: Half-Demon – Wrath Variety]

[t.i.tle: None]

[Level: 0] [Cla.s.s: None] [EP: 3]

[STR: 6] [DEX: 9] [CON: 9] [PER: 7]

[INT: 14] [WIS: 11] [MND: 9] [WLL: 10]

[LCK: 10] [Life: 19] [Mana: 80] [Fatigue: 19]

[Regen: Life(0) Mana(3) Fatigue(2)]

{Skills}

None

{Techniques}

None

{Elements}

Aero (0 Spells)

{Traits}

(Birth Traits) (Mana Traits) (Physical Traits)

[Eidetic Memory] {MAX} [Circuit Capacity] {2 / 5} {046 / 500} [Fatigue Regen] {1 / 5} {001 / 250}

[Cieri’s Blessing] {MAX} [Mana Regen] {1 / 5} {022 / 250}

[Mana Sense] {1 / 3} {004 / 250}

{Abilities}

[Grave’s Patience] {MAX}

[Life’s Guidance] {MAX}

[Keeper’s Eyes] {MAX}

[Consumption] {MAX}

[Beast Scent] {1 / 5} {024 / 250}

…

…

From the looks of it; my evolution points actually went up by one… wonder how that happened. Alongside that; const.i.tution, dexterity, intelligence, and willpower went up by a bit as well. This was actually quite nice to see, that actually doing things other than leveling up will raise my stats by a little bit of something. At this rate, I should be okay to do some things when I reach a respectable age… at least when I become five years of age.

I can tell there won’t be too much going on in my life until that age… when I will be able to go out exploring on my own; and according to some of the books that father has allowed me to look through, I can sign up for the Guild. I’d be on a probationary tag, the lowest rank of [Wood / 5] until I was at least eight years old, but at least I’d be able to do something. Lord I keep complaining to myself about how boring this is, but honestly; it really is quite boring… I can find myself doing nothing but reading and writing practice for hours of my day. I never sleep, and my body itself never gets bored… but my brain is constantly feeling the suppression of being within a baby’s body.

Sighing to myself, I turn my attention back to the rune book in front of me; once more looking at these runes to try and comprehend their meaning. With my Eidetic Memory, I can remember the runes fully; but comprehension was a completely different matter entirely. It would be surprising if it didn’t take me a while to get the meaning of at least the first one. In total, there were twenty-eight Futhark runes that I would have to learn… and comprehend… that is if I wanted to gain the full strength of any seal that I would create. Once could see the power of these seals by looking at the ones that littered the furniture my Grandfather sat on; they had seals that made it so they never broke.

Why did it have to be Futhark Runes? Well, something in my soul was telling me that these runes themselves held a great power within them… luckily dad had a book on them. They’re not commonly used these days, most looking to use a more modernized rune alphabet. Though, it was also because the new one is easier to comprehend; but I’m a m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.t, so I have to go the hard route.

Yeah; it’s because I’m a b.l.o.o.d.y m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.t that I am also bored out of my f.u.c.king mind!

End of Chapter 17