Free Web NovelChapter 12: Monstrous Strength (2)
Clavor frowned.
He stepped closer to the crib and ran his fingers over the cracks. The wood was splintered, crushed, and completely ruined at one point, exactly where Lukas’s hands had rested.
His eyes turned to Lukas, who was looking at his parents with an expression of innocent curiosity. Lukas was not afraid. He was not crying. He was simply watching them, his calm and attentive violet eyes taking everything in.
"Clavor..." Aurora grabbed her husband’s arm, her voice low and worried.
"Have you ever seen anything like this? Do you think it was magic?"
Clavor slowly shook his head, his eyes still fixed on the wrecked wood.
"It doesn’t look like magic."
He picked up one of the splintered pieces and examined the fracture. Solid wood. Oak, judging by the smell. Strong. An adult man would need several seconds to break it like this, using both hands and all his strength.
He looked at Lukas.
"He did this with one hand. By squeezing. By accident."
Aurora covered her mouth with her hand.
"By the Gods..."
"As you know," Clavor continued.
"It’s extremely rare for a child to use any kind of mana before the age of five, when the Awakening occurs. I’ve never heard of a confirmed case. Only rumors, legends, and stories told by drunkards in taverns."
He touched the ruined wood again, his fingers tracing the marks left by Lukas’s tiny hands.
"This..." He paused.
"I think this is pure strength. Physical strength. Raw. Monstrous."
A slow, proud, almost dangerous smile spread across Clavor’s face.
"We need to test this."
His voice now carried a new energy, a restrained excitement Lukas had never seen before.
"We need to understand how far it goes. We need to know the limits."
Aurora hesitated.
"Clavor... he’s a baby..."
"Exactly."
Clavor was already heading toward the door.
"A baby with apparently more strength than a grown adult. If we don’t understand this now, he could hurt himself later. By accident. Squeezing someone’s hand. Hugging his sister."
Aurora turned pale.
"Wait. Are you saying he could... hurt someone?"
"I’m saying he will hurt someone if we don’t learn how to control this."
Clavor was already returning, carrying something in his arms.
"Which is why we need to test him."
...
Clavor disappeared for several minutes.
When he returned, he was carrying five different objects, balanced in his arms as casually as firewood.
Aurora frowned, trying to identify them, but Clavor merely smiled, that enigmatic half-smile he always wore when he was about to do something she would not approve of.
"What is all that?" she asked, crossing her arms.
"Testing materials."
"What materials?"
"Wait and see."
Aurora sighed but did not insist. She knew her husband well enough to understand that when he entered that state of restrained excitement, arguing was pointless.
Clavor placed the objects on the floor, arranging them neatly in a row.
Then, without ceremony, he took Lukas from Aurora’s arms, with a gentleness that contrasted sharply with his rugged appearance, and sat him down on the wooden floor of the room.
The sensation was surprising.
The floorboards were cold, colder than Lukas had expected, and rough, with tiny imperfections that scratched against his sensitive skin through his cloth diapers.
He blinked in surprise, his eyes wandering around from a completely new perspective.
It was the first time he had touched the floor in this life.
The first time, he was not being held.
Not in a crib.
Not in a bed.
Just sitting on the floor.
’I’m on the floor.’
’Alone.’
He tilted his head and looked at his parents with genuine confusion.
His violet eyes seemed to ask:
’What do you want me to do?’
Aurora nearly melted on the spot.
’No, no, no... I can’t...’
She pressed her hands against her knees and held her breath.
’I won’t pick him up. He needs the test. Clavor is right. We need to understand this.’
But he was so adorable.
Lukas, sitting helplessly on the floor, staring up at them with those enormous eyes...
Aurora physically had to restrain herself from pouncing on her son and scooping him into her arms.
Clavor, completely oblivious to his wife’s internal struggle, sat down on the floor as well, crossing his legs like a warrior at rest.
His knees were almost level with Lukas’s face, a reminder of how tiny he was compared to the adults around him.
He arranged the five objects in front of Lukas in a semicircle.
Lukas examined them curiously.
The first was a small wooden container. Simple, without paint or decoration, but well-crafted, with smooth sides, a flat base, and rounded edges.
It looked sturdy, the sort of thing used in a kitchen to store spices or herbs.
The second was a spoon made of some unfamiliar material. Not an ordinary eating spoon, but a larger, thicker one used to stir large pots over a fire. The handle was long and straight, and the bowl was slightly bent from years of use.
The third was a piece of thick leather.
Lukas recognized it immediately. It was the same type of leather used in the light armor Asmon sometimes wore during training sessions. Thick, durable, difficult to cut even with sharp knives.
The fourth was a solid wooden ball.
About the size of an orange, perfectly round, without seams or joints. It looked as though it had been carved from a single block of wood.
The fifth and final object was a small iron bar.
Thick. Heavy. The type used for horseshoes or reinforcing gates. Lukas had seen similar bars hanging on the wall of the blacksmith workshop behind the mansion.
’They’re objects made from different materials with different levels of durability,’ he realized.
’He wants to test my strength against each one.’
Clavor pointed at the first object.
"Let’s see," he said calmly, like a teacher explaining a lesson.
"I want to understand his strength."
Aurora watched nervously but curiously, her fingers intertwined in her lap.
Clavor picked up the wooden container with one hand and handed it to Lukas.
Lukas looked at the container.
Then at Clavor.
Then back at the container.
He extended both tiny hands, still clumsy but far more controlled than before, and grabbed it.
His fingertips barely reached the opposite sides. The container was large compared to his small hands, almost the size of his head.
He lifted it.
It was easy. freёwebnovel.com
Extremely easy.
The container felt light in his hands, so light that Lukas had the impression he could lift it with a single finger if he wanted.
Its weight was insignificant, almost nonexistent, as though he were holding a dry leaf instead of a solid wooden object.
’This is... strange.’
Aurora and Clavor exchanged surprised glances.
They had expected him to struggle just to lift it. After all, it was a heavy object for a two-and-a-half-month-old baby, even if it was only made of wood.
Lukas lifted it effortlessly.
His little arms remained steady.
His hands did not tremble.
Then he squeezed a little harder.
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’Crack! Crack!’
The wooden container split apart completely in his hands.
There was no gradual process.
No groaning wood bending under pressure.
No warning creaks announcing what was about to happen.
It simply... crushed.
As though it were made of eggshell instead of wood.
The sides collapsed beneath the pressure of his tiny fingers, and the object broke into four large pieces and several smaller fragments that fell to the floor with dry clattering sounds.
Lukas stared at the wreckage in his hands, his eyes wide.
’I... I only squeezed a little.’
