The result was something Ken had long expected, but the process still stunned him for a good few seconds. His primary progression panel showed no change.
.
[ Race: Human ]
[ Talent ]
[ Racial Talent: - ]
[ Artificial Talent: Casting Awareness (Common) (Passive) ]
[ Artificial Talent: Bloodline Extraction (Artificial) (passive) (???) ]
[ Class: Mage ]
[ Level: 4 ]
.
But when he focused on the last stat, the rows of secondary stats that jumped into focus were certainly different from what they had been five minutes ago.
.
[ Level 4 ]
[Exp: 0102/1250 ]
[Attributes: Strength (1.35); Speed (1.15); Stamina (1.65); Dexterity (0.05); Magic Affinity (4.05) ]
.
"I have an entirely new Physique Stat now? ...Wow!"
Ken's amazed mumbles didn't even seem to register in Simm's mind, whose gaze was fixated on the empty area in front of her face.
"Master... Why do I suddenly have a Magical Affinity stat? And why...how did our son's attributes get transferred to us?"
Simm wasn't so stupid as to not understand what had happened just now. But the sheer absurdity of the situation was certainly mind-numbing enough to make her question her own eyes. She was a Goblin who had trekked through this realm for more than a hundred years. Yet she had never heard of a transfer of attributes between two people. What was even more staggering about the concept was that the parties involved had done almost nothing. The world spirit itself had arranged for the transfer!
"Like the world spirit has explained, Kenshi's body could not handle leveling up so quickly and absorb the enhancements brought by the process. So the world spirit used our bloodline connection to transfer the unabsorbed attributes to us, his parents," Ken explained while suppressing his excitement. "How many points got added to your physique, Simm?"
"I... I got a total of 0.25 points, distributed across 5 different stats. I didn't even have a Magic Affinity stat before this, but now it's visible at the end of the list with 0.05 points!" Simm still appeared a little lost, perhaps struggling to rationalize the extraction of the attributes of her child.
"Same as me. I have 0.05 points for Dexterity now, and that's not even a stat most humans have," Ken told her while summoning Kenshi's progression panel again.
[ Race: Beastmen ]
[ Talent: Totemic Magic Affinity (Bloodline) ]
[Class: - ]
[ Level: 1 (2) ]
.
Just like what happened to Simm during her pregnancy, Kenshi's stats had fallen below the original number. He had returned from level 2 to level 1. And when Ken summoned the secondary panel for his level, the reason for the fall became clearer.
[ Level: 1 (2) ]
[ Exp: 004/200 ]
[ Attributes: Strength (0.2/0.3); Speed (0.2/0.3); Stamina (0.3/0.4); Dexterity (0.2/0.3) Magic Affinity (1.1/1.2) ]
Each and every stat that had been enhanced by 0.2 points after reaching level 2 was now missing 0.1 points, half of which went to Ken and the other half to Simm. Kenshi's body, it appeared, had only managed to amass half of the enhancements. It would now slowly adjust to the new physical foundation and what the outcome of that would be... only time could tell. Even Ken wasn't so sure.
"This doesn't seem right," Simm muttered. "I know I agreed to the deal before, but it doesn't sit right with me to deprive my babies of their potential like this."
Ken placed his hands on her shoulders gently. "The transfer is probably not a one-way gateway, wife. If their attributes can hop over to us, ours can do the same when the situation demands it. Don't worry, and remember, even if we let our children live up to their full potential, the best they'll ever reach is the ultimate rank, where they'll spend an eternity in misery and pain. The very reason why we Ultimate-rank experts avoided bearing children was because we did not want them to suffer like us."
Simm bit her lips for a long, silent moment, face tense, before nodding minutely. Relieved like the world's weight had shifted off his head, Ken went back to examining Kenshi's body.
The child didn't seem disturbed by the world-shaking changes taking place with him in the center. He slept soundly, his adorable button nose flaring up and down with each steady breath. Nothing in his body suggested an abnormality resulting from the loss of attribute points either.
Feeling assured, Ken went over to Simm's bed and laid her smaller frame across his lap. Simm closed her eyes and sank into sleep gradually as Ken patted her on the head gently.
He himself decided not to sleep, lest any issues emerge again in the middle of the night. And issues did pop up by the end of the night.
Just an hour before daybreak, Ken sensed a disturbance above their underground hideout. One of the anthills he had placed near the mouth of the tunnel had just received significant damage, killing dozens of ant totems that lived inside.
Silently poking Simm out of her sleep, he signaled at her to stand guard at the door of their room while he went over to check out what was going on. If it wasn't a false alarm created by a rogue animal, they had to be ready for a battle to death.
First, he cast a Life-seeker spell to scan for life signatures around the hideout. But it wasn't particularly effective due to the setting being a forest area, where even a small region housed hundreds of insects, worms, and plants. The common grade of the spell was quite limiting. Ken couldn't separate the newcomer's life signature from the ants scurrying on the forest floor.
Upon reaching the bottom of the entrance to the hideout, Ken cast an Object Consciousness Spell, elevating his perception to a higher level. Now, his senses could even penetrate the barrier of soil between him and the opponent. This was a risky move, because many mages and high ranked warriors had an equally elevated perception and predatory senses. Even casting a harmless spell near them could alert them of his existence.
As Ken's senses captured the silhouette of a humanoid figure hunched over the disguised mouth of the tunnel, a familiar voice came from above.
"Open up, kid. It's me, the bloodworm you trust so much. We need to talk."