Free Web NovelChapter 51: Two Months
Two months had passed quickly since Judite’s Awakening and the journey to Great Rock City.
Almost sixty days. Time had flown like a fleeing bird, and Lukas had barely noticed the passage of days.
What had once seemed like an eternity, those first months of cradle, boredom, and helplessness, was now only a distant memory, a blur of sensations that belonged to a Lukas who no longer existed.
For Lukas, those sixty days had been a silent whirlwind of routine, discoveries, and adaptation.
Now nearly one year old, with tomorrow being the big day, his body continued growing at a pace that surprised even Clavor and Aurora.
It was not abnormal growth, nothing that would attract the attention of occasional visitors, but his parents noticed. Clavor would comment to Aurora at night when they thought Lukas was asleep.
"He’s bigger than Asmon was at this age. Not by much, but... a few centimeters. And stronger. Much stronger."
Aurora would only sigh.
"He’s different, Clavor. I’ve already accepted that."
Lukas could already walk steadily.
No longer those hesitant steps of someone who had only recently learned to walk. He ran through the mansion’s corridors without stumbling, climbed up and down stairs safely, and even jumped over small obstacles, a fallen log in the garden, a higher step, and a puddle of water. He had the agility of a three- or four-year-old child.
He controlled his abnormal strength with increasing precision.
He still had not had many opportunities to use it intensely, the mansion was a controlled environment, full of fragile objects and unsuspecting servants, but he tested it little by little.
In the mornings, before breakfast, he would take small pieces of wood from the firewood pile behind the mansion. He squeezed them with different levels of strength. Enough to feel the resistance, but not enough to break them. When he managed to maintain the pressure without splintering the piece, he memorized the sensation. ƒrēewebnoѵёl.cσm
He also carried heavy objects for the servants, disguising the effort.
Helga, the cook, needed to move a twenty-kilogram sack of flour from the storage room to the kitchen. Lukas appeared, asked for permission, and carried the sack on his back as if it were a cushion. Helga was left speechless.
"Boy... that’s heavy even for me!"
"Is it?" Lukas blinked innocently.
"It doesn’t seem like it."
Helga opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again. She had already given up trying to understand what was wrong with that baby.
Besides controlling his strength, Lukas devoted those two months to active learning.
He already read simple books by himself, children’s stories, basic animal care manuals, and even some local history texts he found in the mansion’s small library, not the locked one, but the one open to family members.
Aurora continued teaching him, but now Lukas often learned on his own.
He would take a book, sit in the inner garden with Tilbo and Prata, and read quietly, testing the pronunciation of more difficult words. Whenever he encountered a word he did not know, he wrote it down in his small notebook, the same one Aurora had given him in the city, and asked Aurora or Clavor about it during dinner.
"Mom, what does ’residual mana’ mean?"
Aurora blinked, surprised by the technical term.
"Where did you see that?"
"In a book. ’Mana for Beginners.’ One of Judite’s books."
"You read Judite’s book?"
"Just a little."
"...how much is ’a little’?"
"Up to page fifty."
Aurora sighed deeply.
"Residual mana is the magical energy that remains in the environment after someone uses magic. Like... smoke after a fire. It’s not dangerous, but it can be detected."
"I understand."
He wrote it down in his notebook.
Lukas still did not understand much about magic. His mother and father did not explain much to him, always saying that he would learn when he awakened at the age of five.
...
After her Awakening, Judite began training magic with Clavor, or at least trying to.
Her father was not a mage. He knew the basics of mana, all warriors learned to use mana to reinforce their bodies and weapons, but he did not know how to teach complex spells or elemental manipulation.
"I’ll call a magic instructor from the capital." Clavor promised, seeing his daughter’s frustration.
"In the meantime, read the books. Try to feel your mana and the ambient mana. That’s the first step."
Judite read the books every night before bed, murmuring the words aloud as if they were prayers. Aurora stayed beside her, helping with difficult words.
"Mana is the energy of life..." Judite read slowly.
"Present in all beings... humans, animals, plants, even stones..."
"It’s beautiful, isn’t it?" Aurora commented.
"It is." Judite smiled.
"But I still want to learn swordsmanship too."
"You will. Both."
Lukas sometimes sat beside his sister and read the magic books over her shoulder. He did not understand everything, the theory was complex, filled with terms he had not yet mastered, but he absorbed what he could.
’Mana. Vital energy. Present in everything.’
’Some beings have more mana than others. Humans, magical beasts, elves...’
’The amount of mana can be trained. Increased.’
’Like a muscle.’
He wrote everything down in his notebook.
Lukas also significantly expanded his vocabulary. fɾēewebnσveℓ.com
He already understood practically everything his family said, complete conversations, inside jokes, and discussions about local politics.
He had also managed to understand most conversations in Great Rock City, although the city dwellers’ accent was slightly different from that of the Dmond family.
He could now read simple texts by himself, children’s books, manuals, and some letters that Clavor left on the table containing mundane matters, nothing secret.
His handwriting was still slow and clumsy, but he practiced every day, copying words from his notebook onto pieces of recycled parchment.
"You write better than I do." Judite complained one day, looking at Lukas’s scribbles.
"Your scribbles are worse than mine." Lukas replied.
"They are not!"
"They are. Look here." He pointed to a crooked letter on his sister’s parchment.
"Is that an ’A’ or a ’D’?"
"It’s an ’A’!"
"It looks like a ’D’."
Judite pouted but did not argue.
...
Tilbo, the ant that had appeared out of nowhere in his cradle months ago, had grown impressively.
Her body now measured nearly the size of an adult’s palm, about eight centimeters long, not counting the legs. Her black carapace gleamed with a more intense metallic tone, like polished bronze streaked with silver veins. The veins were not random; they formed patterns resembling waves or perhaps stylized flames.
Her legs were sturdier, with small bristles at the tips that helped her climb smooth surfaces. Her mandibles were stronger, Lukas tested them by giving her a thin piece of wood, and Tilbo shredded it as if it were paper.
She moved with a confidence that bordered on intelligence.
It was no longer the hesitant walk of an ordinary ant, testing every step. It was a purposeful stride, as if she knew exactly where she was going and why.
When Clavor saw her one morning on Lukas’s shoulder, he frowned and approached for a closer look.
"That ant... isn’t normal." He said, his voice deep.
"It may be transforming into a beast or a monster. It happens rarely, but it’s possible, son. Stay alert." He raised a hand to prevent Aurora from interrupting.
Lukas simply nodded.
Inside, he felt a mixture of pride and curiosity.
