Surprise! I Can Understand You

My aunt, Aileen, places my hand on the crystal ball and everyone focuses on the see-through ball. I took a deep breath and focused on my hand, a small whirlwind appears in the crystal ball. It grew larger and larger as colors started flashing before me. The different color lights were fighting each other for space until they settled, the room is silent with the results. In the ball, I see three large balls of light and three small balls of light bouncing around the crystal. “This is unbelievable, she can use any element, but she has the strongest affinity to light, dark and water magic. Vivian, your daughter has the possibility to become a powerful mage or even the Saintess. With this power, she also has the possibility to take over the Mortem Duchy. This is crazy, what’s going through your heads?”

My aunt asks my parents as they are still focused on the small red, brown, and green balls in the crystal. My father is the first to respond, “With great power comes many dangers, we knew she was going to have an affinity to light, dark and water because of us, but to be able to use all elements. Even the Empress and the Mortem Duchy can use only five elements, if people find out about this she will be in the eye of the political storm and maybe even at the center of the civil war in the future.”

My aunt quickly states, “The main concern is if the Empress sees her potential as a threat, she will make her swear allegiance to the Crown Princess through a blood pact. If Duke Mortem finds her, he will try to make a blood pact to force her into marriage with his son, but who knows, he was so obsessed with his sister and her violet eyes he might marry her himself.”

My mother snaps back, “This is no time for jokes, the Duke is 23! I was almost forced into marriage with that bastard because of his obsession for power and his sister. If it wasn’t for the Empress, I don’t know what would have happened.”

My mother holds herself, while my father holds her hand and looks at my aunt. “Aileen, our daughter, will not have anything to do with the Mortem Duchy. They are enemies of the Empress, we swore allegiance to and our enemies. May I remind you everything they put Vivian and I through.”

My father’s eyes were sharp, it was the first time I realized his eyes were a deep blue. He always wore glasses, so I just assumed his eyes were dark brown like his last life. My aunt apologized and asked what they were going to do. My mother looks at me and smiles, “She’s only six months old, and she already has to deal with the dangers of this world. I was resolved in protecting her for as long as I could, but now I have to teach her whatever I can before she is thrown into a war. Is this my fault for selfishly wanting a child?”

Tears fall from my mother’s eyes and my father holds her hand, “Vivian, this was both of our choice. I know you don’t regret having a child. You just wish the circumstances were better, and I wish for that as well, but we already agreed to prepare her for everything and that’s what we will do. Aileen, can you please do the magic potential test and a stats check.”

My aunt nods and stands up, while still holding me, to grab a clear cube with a mana stone in the middle of it. Did he just say a stats check? I didn’t think they had those, I’m screwed! My aunt places my hand on the stone slab with many mana stones and a bright light shined around the room. The stone tablet splits in two and everyone just stops and looks at me. My aunt breaks the silence, “This device was made by the strongest mage thousands of years ago. What kind of potential do your genes have? At least we know she has the potential to effectively use every element, but she should probably focus on the ones she has the largest affinity to first. Once she gains a greater understanding of those elements, she should learn the rest. She will have a harder time learning earth, fire and wind because it’s a low affinity, but with her high potential she will be able to manage it.”

My parents are still dumbstruck watching me, and I watch their expressions after listening to what my aunt said. They snapped out of the trance, my father still baffled, “Can you do the stats check? At this point, I don’t think we could be surprised by anything.”

My mother nods in agreement, my aunt tries to grab my hand again and put my hand on the cube. I take my hand away before she could grab it, and I fold my arms and look away. Everyone is just confused, wondering if that just happened. I’ve always complied with my parents wishes, I’ve never disagreed with what they told me to do. This is the first time I’ve done anything remotely close to disobeying their wishes. My mother walks over to me and crotches down, “This day is full of surprises, but Violet, why don’t you want to put your hand on the cube?”

My mother holds out her hand and I grab her finger, looking at her in the eyes, I shake my head. Looking shocked again, my aunt stammers, “She can understand you? Vivian, you know this isn’t normal for a six-month-old baby to understand what you are saying.”

My mother looks at my aunt confused, “What do you mean? I thought it was normal, she always does what she’s told. She is a calm baby, she never fusses and only cries when she needs to be changed or fed badly. That’s what most babies do.”

My aunt looks at her and snatches my hand to put it on the cube. I’m fighting back as much as I can, but I can’t do anything against her strength. My stats flash above the cube, just like it would if I called my status page. It read my level and the rest of my stats, luckily it doesn’t read my skills and their levels. Right before I can breathe a sigh of relief, I hear my aunt’s voice, “OH MY GODDESS! HER STATS ARE NOT NORMAL!”

My stats read: Level 1, Strength 3, Defense 2, Dexterity 3, Agility 3, Stamina 4, Intelligence 23, Luck 20. Children don’t start to level up or get a job until five, so their stats grow with them. All babies usually have stats in the one or two points, but I have elevated stats from training daily for two months, especially in magic. My mother stands up and grabs me from my aunt, who is panicking about my stats. She hugs me and sits back down with me on her lap facing my aunt, she holds my father’s hand. My aunt continues, “Vivian, I don’t know how to tell you this without offending you, but your daughter is not normal. She has the intelligence of AT LEAST a 13-year-old. She can understand everything we say and interact within her capabilities. Your daughter can start training as soon as she learns to talk and walk. This could lead to her base stats being higher and as she levels up she will be stronger than the average level. If I were to give an example, imagine her strength is at 20 by the time she reaches five. The average five-year-old's strength is around 6, when they both level up to level two she could have 23 points in strength, while an average child would have 9. This will continue on, and there are only two ways to bridge the gap between her and her competitors, one will be for them to gain unused free points and adding them to their stats. The second is training themselves through whatever work they do, for their corresponding job. The average adult has stats around 20-36 and adult age for girls is 16 in the empire, while for men it’s 18. The average level for a regular person is five to ten. This is insane-”

My father cuts in, “Please do not say that about my daughter, we understand what you're saying, but she is a normal girl with special abilities due to her genes from both of us. Her level of understanding is probably high because of her high magic capabilities being tied together. Vivian and I, both knew our daughter was special, but she’s still a normal little girl, we will not treat her differently after finding this information out.”

My mother nodded and looked down at me and smiled, “She’s my child, I love her no matter what, like Edwin said. I will still raise her the same way I planned to in the beginning.”

Staring at my parents with wide eyes, and I felt tears from my eyes streaming down on my cheeks. I tried to wipe them away, but they kept coming. I knew that I would be treated as abnormal for having the memories of my past life and utilizing them to become stronger, but I didn’t know how much it meant to me to be treated as a human being and like a normal daughter by my parents.

My aunt sighed as my parents notice me crying and try to comfort me by holding my hand and giving me a kiss on the forehead. My aunt continued speaking, “I understand where you both are coming from, I’m sorry I was just in disbelief. Now we need to focus on precautions to make sure people don’t find out about her potential, until she is trained and strong enough to fight back. Luckily, there isn’t many places that own a stats check cube. There are ways around these tests, but she will need to learn illusion magic using dark magic and become so proficient that she can fool the Empress. Things discussed here will never leave here. As for her elemental magic training, I’m proficient in fire and light magic. I know an assassin who is proficient at wind and earth magic, he’s someone who helped during the war, and he is someone you know. The only thing is if the four of us are together it might raise flags to the Empress and Mortem Duchy. I don’t think they know I have been transferred to this location yet. Everyone knows you became nobility and taken over this territory, by the Empress’ will, so no one will mess with you for a while. The Mortem Duchy is busy preparing for the civil war, so they aren’t coming to look for you until the civil war begins. Once Violet has become proficient at light and water magic, I will call my friend to teacher her wind and earth magic. Fire magic should be done last because it’ll be tricky for her to learn as it is the opposite of water. Dark magic is a big concern, to get books about it, you will have to go through the Mortem Duchy or the Empress. In my opinion, the Empress probably has a better collection because of the many years of the royal family confiscating powerful spell books from the Mortem family to keep them in line.”

“Thank you so much, Aileen! You have no idea how grateful Edwin and I are to have you on our side. We will make a plan according to your information and move forward with her training and education.” Everyone is smiling and motivated to move forward, it was a milestone for me to say the least, but just knowing my parents still loved me no matter what. It was the reassurance I needed to become stronger. I will protect my parents from the Mortem Duchy and any enemies they have.