Singer Sailor Merchant Mage

Chapter 13: Better late than never

"A wizard is never late, Frodo Baggins. Nor is he early. He arrives precisely when he means to".

Gandalf the Grey.

I've been in here exactly 6 months now! Well past when I thought I would be born.

But I am a wizard!

Well, hoping to be one day and I am going to stick with Gandalf's line.

I will arrive . . .

        precisely . . .

               when I mean to!

                        Never late but hopefully worth the wait.

Although, 'Better late than never' and 'Better never late!' Was what my cranky old computing teacher used complain to us if we were ever late to class. Along with 'Were you born in a barn!' if we ever left the door open on our way in.

I don't think I will be born in a barn but who knows.

I'm seven days overdue by my count and it is getting really tight in here. Think my mother must have abs of steel because there is very little give. Although nothing new there. First time round, in my last life, I was at least 10 days late.

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I am upside down, think I'm facing the right way round and I'm not moving. Not necessarily because I wouldn't like to but because there simply isn't any room left to move. A flex is about the most I can manage.

The last fortnight has to have been the least productive in terms of levelling up myself or my skills. No new skills and not risking levelling the Mana skills with my mother's health at risk over it. Pregnancy can kill the mother but it generally is a medical issue rather than a conscious decision or accidental manslaughter by the fetus.

But I have managed something new despite not moving anywhere. In my mind fortress it seems that the clocks I added to each room really do reduce the time required to level up the skill, Time Sense. It finally hit Lv 11, breaking through my imaginary cap at Lv 10.

By my estimate and this is more a guestimate than anything else. Each clock reduces it by a factor. So 2 clocks reduced the time for Lv 11 to 512 hours and the five clocks I have added reduced it down to 128 hours or roughly twenty five 8 hour days for Lv 11 of the skill Time Sense.

Not only that but this Tier 1 skill, that used to only get me 100 experience per level between levels 1 and 10 is now gaining me 200 experience. I'm assuming the experience gained will increase with each set of 10 levels but who knows how high it will go.

Having worked that out I am trying to think how I could decrease the time for my other skills.

What could I add to each room for my mind fortress to continually level a skill or level it at 5 times the normal speed?

For listening, it was fairly easy to add a speaker or two, to each room, allowing me to hear our heartbeats and the hum of her singing whenever I am in here. I always wanted my own home surround system. Eavesdrop was more of a conscious choice to focus on the conversations rather than let them wash over me. So I have added a voice recorder on a stand to record any conversations of interest. This will hopefully help with both my Eavesdrop skill as well as my Recall skill at the same time.

For Meditation I added a chime to each room but don't think that it will help as unlike the speaker and clocks it isn't something I can do all the time in each room. Also it generally involves me actively ignoring all the external distractions rather than having them run in repeatably in multiple rooms of my mind.

For Sense Mana and Echolocation I have added some 4 screens to each of my rooms to act as windows to the world around me. Initially using these skills were either a very green screen of Mana or a black world with white fuzzy blobs for the people and objects. But as I have practiced and the skills levelled the picture's definition has gradually gotten better and better. The green screen of Mana now has other colours floating through it. While the Echolocation is now black with white outlines of the objects around our house.

The other skills don't seem easily repeatable in each room. But I have been able to remember a few more lines from a few more books to start adding them to my library. Still more fiction than fact at the moment. Hopefully as the skills continue to level I will be able to recall more of my dry school textbooks.

As entertaining as fiction is, fact would probably be more useful.

Still my physical growth and mental gymnastics have managed to add a few more points to my stats and a little more experience.

Only 50,000 more to go!

I'm going to need a lot more experience one way or another.

Level: 8 Experience: 1210 / 51,200 Age: 6 months 0 weeks 0 days 0 hours

Health: 160/160 Stamina: 127/127 Mana 210/210

Vitality: 16

Endurance: 11

Strength: 11

Dexterity: 11

Senses: 26

Mind: 86

Clarity: 21

Magic: 21

Free Points: 80

Skills: Time sense (LV 11) Listening (LV 10) Meditation (LV 10) Sense Mana (LV 10) Swimming (LV 10) Eavesdrop (LV 10) Memorisation (LV 10) Echolocation (LV 10) Recall (Lv10) Composition (Lv 10) Mind fortress (Lv 10) Expel Mana (Lv 1) Absorb Mana (Lv 1) Mana Drain (Lv 1)

Skill experience: 200

Origin experience: 1000

Combat experience: 0

On second thought, I have edited my false status, my tabula rasa, once more to remove all skills I've gained in here. I have no idea what babies would be normally be born with but since the initial wake up to this world was . . .

Ding. Sentience recognised. User interface enabled.

I worry that skills wouldn't usually begin until after birth.

I mean, can babies even get the interface before being born. At what point does consciouness begin or qualify as sufficient for their user interfaces to be enabled.

Keep it simple, stupid. Although if people can read other people's interfaces I'm sure mine will look interesting anyway, what with 10 for everything but trying to keep it simple.

Level: 1 Experience: (000/200)

Health: 100/100 Stamina: 100/100 Mana 100/100

Vitality: 10

Endurance: 10

Strength: 10

Dexterity: 10

Senses: 10

Mind: 10

Clarity: 10

Magic: 10

Free Points: 10

Ouch! Is that a contraction? Wow their strong!

Finally time to get out of here