Aariv's small body was twitching in the cradle. Many court physicians had come to check up on him but no matter what they did his body kept twitching. Durdhara(queen) was going crazy worrying and crying.
Meanwhile in the Royal Court.
The civilians were sent out of the royal court as it was time to discuss the empire related subjects.
Acharya Kautilya was summarising the behavior of nearby kingdoms to the Mauryan empire.
"Your majesty, City of Toshali bordering the Kalinga kingdom has surrendered and is ready to be brought under our rule but Kalinga Kingdome has refused to surrender, instead they have proposed a treaty." After his last word, he looked at Chandragupta sitting on the throne.
He knew that Kalinga would be very difficult to defeat, they had a big army and well-fortified fortresses. If they were to attack Kalinga now he was sure that they would win but at a very big price. He expected that 70% of Mauryan troops would lose their lives.
Chandragupta scratched his beard as if he was in deep thought, after some time he looked at Acharya Kautilya "Acharya(Acharya is a prefix used to address a very knowledgable person), I don't think that it would be wise to start a war with Kalinga right now as we are already busy securing our borders and stopping revolts. What treaty are they proposing?"
Acharya Kautilya then summarised the proposed treaty: "Kalinga is ready to accept the empire's rule but they want full autonomy. Kalinga royal family wants to be in rule of their kingdom and they have proposed to sign a no-war pact"
"War pacts mean jack shi* to me, they would attack us the moment we show weakness. But again we can not do anything right now.
Acharya, accept the treaty and then send some spies to Kalinga to create instability, this will keep their hands busy. We will slowly surround Kalinga by taking over the small tribes and kingdoms around them."
Chandragupta was having a headache with all that was going on, he was also missing some field action as he never felt comfortable sitting on a throne in a safe palace and ordering his men to fight and die for him.
He would rather join his men and fight alongside, but now he also has 2 little sons. When he thought about his sons he started grinning stupidly.
Acharya also smiled seeing Chandragupta's face: "Yes your majesty, I will arrange for everything..."
He was just about to continue but a royal guard came in running and said something in Kautilya's ears.
Kautilya's face became pale as he heard about what was happening to Aariv, he then dashed to the emperor and told him about the situation.
Chandragupta stood up and made a run towards the bedroom as soon as he heard the news. His face had gone gloomy from happy just a moment ago.
Kautilya hurriedly adjourned the royal court and also dashed towards the King's bedroom.
when both Chandragupta and Kautilya reached the room they were greeted by a crowd of doctors and the crying queen. Everyone felt helpless as nobody could cure Aariv.
When Chandragupta and Kautilya came close they saw the twitching body of baby Aariv, their hearts skipped a beat, they were horrified with the scene. Queen stood up and hugged Chandragupta.
...
Inside Aariv's body.
He was back in his astral form inside a black space, in front of him were 100 of those big-headed, mind-talking aliens that he integrated with, the last time he leveled up, but this time they were not saying anything.
~ Ohhhh Shi*... Is this what I think this is? ~
soon his fear turned to reality as the bodies of 100 aliens started radiating white light and all of it began to merge into a single orb of light and started floating towards Aariv.
~AHHHH! NO! NO!... Fudge me sideways~ he prepared himself for the coming bone-melting pain. he just hoped that Juno was saying something so that he can focus on her voice to decrease his pain just like the last time.
When the orb of lights came in touch with Aariv, he started feeling unimaginable pain, many memories started floating in his mind, their lives, sorrows, deaths. He tried to find Juno's voice.
All he could hear was "WAKE UP AARIV".
Aariv thought that Juno didn't know that he was going through a level up so she just kept on screaming his name. None the less her voice did help Aariv a little but this time the pain was too much and even after focusing on Juno's voice it didn't reduce much.
...
Outside
Chandragupta was holding the tiny body of Aariv which was still twitching. This had been going on for an hour now. No one had any idea about what was happening to Aariv.
Chandragupta then noticed that little by little the trembling subsided. He was worried that this might be the end now. He waited for the little body to fully calm down and soon it became lifeless, he thought that his firstborn had passed away.
But then something crazy happened. Aariv opened his eyes and spoke.
"GO..A..E(goddamnit)" Aariv spoke in baby language. Nobody understood what the noise was but they still felt anger.
Juno, who was still screaming, stopped midway "WAAAAAAAAAAK... oh you're up"
she spoke in a calm voice contradicting her scream just a moment ago.
Aariv was angry at her, asking, "What do you mean oh you're up and couldn't you say something other than WAKE UP AARIV?"
"HEHEHE... I was bored," she cheekily laughed.
Aariv was even angrier now: "So you knew what was going on.
I'll give you a loli body in the future for punishment. Just wait and watch"
Juno got really scared with this threat "NO NO NO, please. You cant do this..."
Aariv ignored her and focused on his surroundings outside. He noticed that after leveling up to Novice Mid-level, he didn't have to touch someone to use telepathic powers on them, he could now easily read someone's mind or send thoughts to them form a distance of 20 meters and He could also talk to Juno without physically opening his mouth now.
He remembered the Criterion for reaching Novice Mid-level was to become as strong as 100 humans/aliens both physically and mentally. He was just born and had leveled up, he didn't train his body or mind then how did he level up.
He felt like he needed to research his powers more. It could be very dangerous to fall unconscious and start leveling up when in a fight, leaving my body vulnerable.
...
Seeing that Aariv was fine and awake, Kautilya told everyone to leave. only him, queen Durdhara and Emperor Chandragupta remained in the room. Aariv was still in the arms of his father. His mother had fallen asleep as she had become tired due to crying so much and not to be forgotten that she just gave birth to twins a day ago.
Kautilya came close to Aariv. He looked at the little prince and struck out his Index finger to check his pulse but to his surprise, Aariv caught his finger with his cute little hand.
*CLANK*
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA" Kautilya screamed at the top of his lungs.
Aariv had forgotten that now he was nearly as strong as 100 men, can you imagine a 1-day old baby this strong, Aariv still needed to adapt to his strength. To him, what felt like a slight touch was something much more in reality.
Aariv looked at the screaming baldy whose finger was still clutched in his hands. He knew that if he left the finger-like this then it would never heal, they had no knowledge of orthopedia in this period.
So Aariv used his Biokinesis power which had grown much stronger now due to his level up, fixing a bone was a child's play for him. He activated his power and golden light engulfed his hand which was holding Baldy's finger, 10 seconds later his finger as good as new.
Aariv was looking at his own palm confusingly, he was open and closing his fist.
Kautilya looked at Aariv oddly, he didn't know what to feel and to be honest he was not surprised with Aariv's power anymore after seeing the whole universe and that golden ball. But he didn't know that little Aariv was this strong and from what he could see that even Aariv didn't know this.
Chandragupta, who was holding Aariv the whole time, had his jaw still open.
"Acharya, WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED?" He looked at Kautilya and asked.
"Haha.. Your majesty, didn't I tell you that he is special." Kautilya said as he was checking his finger.
"But..But he just broke your finger and then healed it" he was still baffled.
Aariv tilted his head and looked at his father's handsome face which had many scars, a short beard, and ear-length hair. He looked straight into his father's eyes.
Chandragupta also looked at his son's cute face and he gazed into his deep black eyes.
"I can tell you're gonna be famous with girls" he praised his son's face.
Aariv thought that if he didn't show affection to his parents then it would just create rifts between them and right now he just wanted a happy family.
Aariv made a heart-melting cute smile with his toothless mouth and made some cute noises.
Chandragupta felt like his soul trembled with so much cuteness, he started grinning madly and brought his index finger near Aariv and said "Here my son, break this as many times as you want"
Aariv just stupidly looked at his father ~What's wrong with him?~ he thought.
Juno barged in, "Is he a masochist?"
Kautilya also looked at Chandragupta disappointingly ~What's wrong with his majesty?~
...
Due to Kautilya's scream Durdhara had also woken up but when she saw her son in Chandragupta's arms holding Kautilya's finger, playing. She thought it was a dream but after some time she came out of her stupor and dashed to hold her son.
Chandragupta saw his wife and handed her little Aariv. Aariv also tried not to make much movement, he was scared that he could end up hurting her.
Chandragupta looked at the mother and son and smiled, he went to the other cradle to pick up Bindusara and brought Bindusara near his wife and Aariv.
Aariv looked at his small family happily, finally everything was normal. He giggled looking at his mother, father, and little brother but then he looked at Kautilya.
Aariv pointed his finger at him and tried to speak "B..B.."
Everyone in the room had their attention at little Aariv.
Durdhara was beaming with joy.
"Honey, I think he's going to speak his first words, he's so smart," She said to Chandragupta.
Chandragupta was also very happy: "Yes, but what is he trying to say? B.. Bindusara? is he calling his brother?"
but to all their surprise, they were not even close to guessing.
Aariv made a lot of effort to speak "B..Ba.. Baldy".
He was still pointing at Kautilya. Listening to this both Durdhara and Chandragupta started laughing madly.
Aariv was also giggling while Kautilya had an annoyed smile and thought to himself.
~There goes all my 30 years of hard-earned reputation ~
*sigh*