Inside lay my mother drenched in sweat, lying on a large canopied bed surrounded by a few maids, including the one old one that normally looked after me quite often.
In my mothers arms was a small baby wrapped in cloth, with a small amount of golden blonde hair growing on top, crying just as I once had when I was born.
Sitting next to my mother with a wide and adorable smile was my older, now 5 year old sister, Alexanda Han Vowser, shortened to Alex, which I had heard from the conversations I had heard in the last month since I gained the system's language super-comprehension function.
I began shaking my arms and legs around a bit as my father put me down on the bed near my mothers feet before I began crawling towards my new younger sister. However I was evidently two slow as my elder sister shifted her attention from our youngest sibling to me.
"Too slow brother!" My sister shouted.
Alex soon pounced on me and with her tyrannical 5 year old tomboy level strength yanked me all the way over to our mothers side by the arms.
It hurt a bit, but I didn't cry though our father must have gotten worried as he almost reached out to separate us but paused seeing I didn't show any signs of discomfort.
"Look little brother!" Alex called out enthusiastically, her yellow eyes inherited from our mother practically sparkling as she excitedly pointed to our youngest sibling. Personally I had to admire our mother for giving birth to three children in only 7 years. My last life I only had a brother 10 whole years younger than myself and couldn't really find any common hobbies apart from the occasional elderly brother's guidance.
"Mh. Don't hope for any more siblings though…" Our mother spoke in a serene voice that soothed the mind in an instance as she passed our youngest sibling to Alex who sat down properly on the massive bed before carefully holding her. With the tiny distance from the soft mattress, it would probably be fine even if Alex dropped our youngest sibling right now so I understood why our mother trusted a 5 year old to hold such a tiny child since I know I wouldn't.
"My lord. Baron Ardish has arrived with his own daughter to congratulate you." The dark haired handsome butler that occasionally carried me soon entered the room and informed me.
"Hahaha! Good, I won't let him wait too long. Come on Alex, let's go meet our friends and let your little brother keep our youngest company." Our father soon laughed.
"Yes father!" Alex soon shouted back before suddenly handing our youngest to me of all people, much to our mothers sudden slight panic. Fortunately I was actually a fully experienced adult… Well… A knowledgeable adult. I assumed a posture and made sure to hold the baby's head up right, using my full two year old strength.
My Older sister soon ran out of the room to follow our father after jumping off the bed as our mother calmed down seeing I was holding our youngest properly, but still leaning over and keeping her hands close.
"My, my.. You're very smart aren't you?" My mother complimented as she stroked me and my youngest sibling with each hand.
"They are so cute together." One of the younger maids couldn't help but speak.
"Indeed." A more mature maid agreed before the older maid I was familiar with spoke.
"I'm more interested in young master Dirk. He must be very smart and observant to make sure he holds the baby right." She commented with a smile.
Meanwhile I suddenly had a random question that I asked. "N-naaame?" I asked, once again purposely messing up the word slightly and stretching the sounds.
"Mhm. Your little sister's named Ariel." My mother responded, using one arm to hold Ariel in her lap and using the other to hug me close. It was around now I was starting to feel like going back to sleep. I soon snuggled up to my mother and let myself quickly fall asleep as my mother gently stroked my back.
…
[(Basic) area-sense] [(Specialty) physical enhancement+] [(Advanced) accelerate] [(Intermediate) Imperial swordsmanship] > Over the years I was sadly dragged out of my comfy bed time and time again despite my protests. As such I only ended up getting 3 more rewards from my birthdays. One was [Physical enhancement] which was relatively self explanatory. I used energy from my core to enhance my physical capabilities. It was yet another basic but rather vital skill for me or anyone really. Since I had more skills I had mostly grasped sensing my energy instead of just manipulating it based on instinct downloaded into me by the system. The skill also worked better than [area sense] for me since my core, perhaps because the energy flow was inside my body, my core would maintain the flow for me until it got around half depleted before naturally stopping. Speaking of my core, I also had an interesting conversation with my mother 3 years ago. … "Mother?" I asked, laying on a couch in my mothers study. "Yes?" my mother responded, flipping through some pages in a book. "How do cores work?" "Hmm? Why do you want to know? Most kids won't learn until they are 10 and try to activate their own core." My mother asked. "Just bored. What do you mean activate?" I had to ask since I didn't do any such thing. "When you turn ten you'll get taught how to manipulate mana. Once you learn you'll have to take the ultimate test of fate and try to activate your own core. Most of us nobles can do it though so don't worry too much. Once you activate your core you'll be able to do all kinds of things." My mother explained simply. "Can I do whatever I want?" I asked. "With enough mana, yes. But you'll only have a tiny amount, maybe 1 to 10 units when you first activate your core. After that you'll have to stop being so lazy and focus on meditating to increase the mana you can control and store." "I see… Thanks mom…" I said, realizing that in fact it was not normal how my core was working and that it was definitely because it was a sentient core that was constantly meditating by itself to increase its energy. or… mana reserves. At least, that was my theory, but then again no one seemed to notice my core so I couldn't be sure. Perhaps my core was still activating or something. …