《Winning Death's Lottery》 Prologue: Originality for reincarnation beginnings is hard. What is life? I ask myself while wrestling with the trash bags I should have taken out weeks ago, before they started to rot and release copious amounts of stench whenever they are the slightest bit disturbed. I am pretty sure that if I waited until the next time the garbage truck made its rounds it would have been able to move to the side of the street on it¡¯s own. Though if it reached that level of sentience, I doubt that it would let itself be taken by that garbage truck, only to be disposed of. I mean what lifeform would only exist to commit suicide? Sure some individuals within a species may chose to do, but a species that only lives to die? Not likely. Which brings me back to my original thought. What Is life? What is it that makes life-forms exhibit the basic requirements to be called as such? The easiest explanation would be that the universe is infinite and within infinity every possibility will come to pass, which also includes the creation of life as we know it, but should we really be satisfied with that explanation? Religions the world around would have you believe that everything was created by the gods, some say to serve a purpose others say we are just the side-effects created by their interactions. What almost all Religions and science do agree on though: Is that we as individuals, are even less than ants in comparison to the greater scheme of things. Why am I thinking about things like this at random moments? Multiple people once asked me. The answer is fairly simple: Because I, Hawk Robinson, am¡­easily bored while doing menial and repetitive tasks... This resulted in me cultivating the only skill I have pride in: Being able to multitask efficiently. One mind can only do so much however, so mistakes are still being made, But I Am proud to say that I never in my 25 years of living made mistakes that couldn¡¯t be fixed within a maximum of 15 minutes after making them. No life threatening mistakes for me! Could be because I also don¡¯t really do that much, stay at home to the point of it being not good for my mental and physical health and only cross the street for tasks like: This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.Doing the groceries, putting the trash out and in rare cases of a game I really like having a pre-order bonus that is only available at a specific store. I prefer to call it energy efficient. Most people in my surroundings call it lazy (and they are probably right, which I will Never admit), but I get by, barely and get to do the things I like. Back to my ability to effectively multitask, while I did say I never made a life-threatening mistake it seems like that is going to become a lie. Why? Well, it seems that this nice inner dialogue thing I had going on is going to be interrupted, violently, with one of the most generic ways to start a reincarnation story. Apparently the garbage truck driver was in a hurry. He doesn¡¯t like his job you see. So when he gets to exert power over people by, for example: making sure they are stuck with their filled up rotting trash bags for another 2 weeks. He tries to pass by the house of poor thash lugging me as fast as possible so that I am too late and he can give me the finger through his open window. What we both didn¡¯t account for was me being too distracted to notice a faster than normal garbage truck coming at me, stench of decomposing trash will do that to a person. Do you know what loaded truck going 50 kph + physically unfit 25 year old standing right in front of it equals? To put it in a certain game¡¯s words: FATALITY!!!. So while I was flying through the air uncontrollably, a slave to the laws of physics. I used my last precious seconds of consciousness to think: whelp, this is it. I wonder what death will be like? Chapter 1: Death Has A Waiting Room?! As I woke up from my last seconds of life. I found myself in a plain room, similar to the waiting rooms you see at a hospital or a psychiatrist, only smaller in scale as if they knew there would be only one person waiting here and without any exits. The windows also seemed to have a somewhat fake look upon closer inspection, everything seemed...off somehow, as if it was lacking something, but I couldn¡¯t quite put my finger on it. The chairs seemed comfortable enough, so thinking along the lines of going with the flow and not really wanting to stand with seats available, I took a seat. After some time passed, I don¡¯t know how long and frankly I don¡¯t care, it is not like I can do anything about it anyway. A door appeared in one of the walls. It opened and an androgynous individual stepped out and closed the, afterwards disappearing door. ¡°Greetings newly deceased and welcome to limbo. We will soon look upon and judge your previous life, before sending you off to the next.¡± ¡°Who are you?¡± I asked out of curiousity, I mean there is no knowledge about how death worked and it was not like there was anything else to ponder about. ¡°Interesting, you don¡¯t seem that shocked. Your emotions are really calm for a newly deceased, going even as far as passing the so called stages acceptance and even asking questions to satisfy what seems to be pure simple curiosity, very interesting indeed¡± ¡°You may call me Thanatos, that one is one of my favorites as far as names go. As far as genders go. I am neither, I simply exist to fulfill my task of guiding souls from one life to the next...¡± He, I am calling him a he since ¡®it¡¯ sounds derogatory in my opinion when referring to a person, I doubt he¡¯d care at all though, suddenly came to a stop. His eyes widening a fraction, as if he suddenly realized something before starting to mumble: ¡°How peculiar, to be able to bring out individuality while there should be none...¡± ¡°What do you mean, there should be none? I mean I still remember everything so retaining my individuality should be normal, right?¡± My question seemed to awaken him from his dazed state, after seemingly taking a few seconds to gather his thoughts he began ¡°Allow me to explain. The abnormality that I was talking about was not about something you did wrong. Aside from you being curious instead of being in denial about your death, which only seems to be making my work easier at the moment. It was about the fact that I was able to talk about my own preferences and with that define part of my individuality. I shouldn¡¯t be able to do so, I am but a single copy out of many and while our minds are linked to a certain degree, only the original Thanatos should be able to display his individuality. The fact that I am able to do so means that things aren¡¯t going as intended¡± ¡°Okay, that is indeed peculiar. Is this a problem? I mean if things aren¡¯t going the way you, or more accurately the original, intended then the most important question is whether or not this is a bad thing, isn¡¯t it? The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°To answer your question, I don¡¯t know. I should take this up with the original as soon as possible. My apologies, but it seems your passage to the next life will have to be put on hold until this is resolved.¡± He said before taking on a look that was completely empty, as if his mind was somewhere else entirely. Which is entirely possible I guess, they are al all linked to each other after all¡­ After some time, again I don¡¯t really know how much¡­ Purgatory seems to make fairly easy to just think of nothing while waiting for death to come and remain calm in the process. This probably was done to make the job easier, most souls being in denial of their death and all that. Calm often seems to help in those situations. Getting back on track¡­ The door in the wall appeared again and out came someone looking identical to the Thanatos already in the room. Only this one carried with him a presence that made you feel both enormously sad, tired, calm and elated at the same time. It was as if everything you hold dear was being taken away, while at the same time feeling the joy that can only stem from the ignorance of a small child, quite a confusing blend of emotions. The Original, calling them both Thanatos only creates confusion for me and the copy was here first, Looked like was both interested and irritated at the same time before saying: ¡°So you¡¯re the one who found the error in my system, don¡¯t look that special to me. Although the way you think is somewhat strange and your emotions are surprisingly stable.¡± He closed in on my seemingly towering over me, even though our height is actually the same. ¡°And how are you going to make up for this?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know, but isn¡¯t it also a bit irresponsible to blame the user for finding a fault in the system you created. When the only abnormality is that I was calmer than most, besides do you really want me to believe that I actually am the first to find this fault? Even if earth was the only place in the universe that sustained life, which I highly doubt, then there would be 56 million deaths annually. Even if that wasn¡¯t a large enough group I once read that around 108 billion people in total have lived on this earth, that means that 101 billion people at the least have gone through this system. Are you telling me that I am the first out of 101 billion people that remained calm after dying? I find it extremely difficult to believe that.¡±
Let''s see how for I''ll be able to take this. Next chapter will probably be posted in a day. After that I''ll have to spend 2 - 3 days with family, so I don''t know how much time I''ll have. Let me know if you see any grammatical errors, I suck at interpunction and have the tendency too make sentences too long if I don''t pay attention. Chapter 2: Answering Why I get to Reincarnate Differently ¡°...¡± Silence followed after my rant, settling down like a suffocating blanket. The longer it stretched, the more anxious I became. Eventually thinking: Could I really be the first? ¡°Bwahahahaha, that was amazing!¡± Suddenly the Original burst out in roaring laughter, Thanatos wryly starting to smile behind him. This went on for a minute or so before it again settled down and Thanatos began to explain: ¡°You were correct, though I only know this after making contact with the original, it seems that we copies can only remain the way I was before for a limited time, after this time passes we gain or perhaps it is better to say regain our individuality...¡± Thanatos then explained to me the origin of the copies. Apparently the Original personally guided all the souls that came here to their next life, however as time progressed more souls appeared and with this his workload increased. While reincarnation is able to recycle souls, whenever there is no soul available for reincarnation a new soul is formed. This happens similarly to physical reproduction. Simply put, when mommy and daddy loved each other very very much, created a baby and there was no soul available. A sliver of the soul of both parents would be used as a catalyst to form a completely new one. Both souls would eventually regenerate on their own and by then 2 souls would have become 3. As I was also correct of earth not being the only place to sustain sentient life and there being a multiverse. The workload put on the Original had become extremely heavy in no time, especially since not every soul deserved the same treatment. Death is not the only thing that is eternal after all. Time & Space (who are twins) may not care what happens, but Fate & Balance did care. And when they found out that souls have the tendency to form core behaviour, they demanded from Death that he¡¯d try to change souls for the better. Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! This was apparently needed because, after having to donate a sliver to form a new soul and then regenerate it. Souls eventually seem to erode at their core, causing them to reincarnate into people that more or less become evil. While mostly this was stopped in time with people like Roman Emperor Nero being the limit. If the erosion remained unchecked, Hitler and Stalin would become the equivalent of Gandhi in comparison to the resulting reincarnations. And since this would sway the balance of everything towards total annihilation, Balance wasn¡¯t a fan. That is when Death came up with the plan to use copies of himself imprinted on eroded souls, Since Death is not only the end, but also a new beginning and Death itself gains power as long as things die. He used his effectively infinite power to let those souls work as copies until healed. And so ends the explanation. With the Original being Death and Thanatos being a soul that while being healed fulfilled Deaths duties while thinking of itself as part of death instead of being a soul. Death, After seeing that Thanatos was done explaining his origins, then continued. ¡°But after a while the system got too perfect, I don¡¯t have any work left. The imprinting of souls happens in groups and only takes less then a second. Leaving me with only free time, which was fine at first. But it gets boring real quick when your amount of free time is infinite, so I decided to create a lottery. A lottery where every soul that happens to encounter a copy that is done being healed and therefore regains the ability to express individuality, gets a reward.
As I mentioned in the previous chapter, next chapter will probably take longer because of a lack of time. I want to thank any who follow or choose to follow this fiction and another special thanks to those who favorite this. Chapter 3: Sending me off. The reward is simple and exists of two parts: 1st.) You get to choose characteristics of the world your new life starts in. This includes the ability to choose race, this will be done by you having to fill in a questionnaire. 2nd.) you get the most cliche reward of all: Three wishes, these wishes can only be used to get an ability or characteristic normally not available to the race you find yourself in. Cheats can effectively be created, but will still require a certain amount of effort to obtain. So get it out of your head if you want to be completely invincible from the start, while you can get to the point of practical invincibility, you¡¯ll still have to work for it. Finally because this ultimately interferes with the normal process only memories directly related to social relations, such as family and friends, will be forgotten.¡± Now, let us begin! ¡°Let¡¯s start with the world you will be reincarnated into. Where do you...¡± ¡°Complete fantasy! Mana. Elves, Dwarves, Beastmen, Dragons I Want. It. ALL.¡± I said with eyes shining. If my eyes could have transformed into stars, they totally would have done so by now. Seeing my enthusiasm, Death only smiled wryly. He has probably seen it all already. I mean Time is infinite so who knows for how long this game has been going on already. ¡°The prerequisite for this is that the world will be around 20x larger than your earth, just so you know. Now as for your race, I am not going to give you every sentient race in the multiverse to choose from since that would be extremely inefficient and while I am bored, I am not going to take the long way around.¡± ¡°How Are we going to do this then?¡± I ask almost jumping up and down in excitement. The biggest reason I became the lazy person I was in my previous life, was because earth seemed boring to me. I was living in a time where development was hindered by ethics, humanities largest activity was killing each other for no reason with a close second being killing of the planet, which seems like an enormously stupid thing to do when interplanetary travel isn¡¯t possible yet. Added to that was the fact that with so much information being available, I kind of just wandered without direction picking up some of it while becoming apathetic towards the rest. This eventually led to me searching for an escape in every form of digital fantasy available, while making a living a freelancing programmer doing almost all my work through the internet. Back to the race¡­ ¡°I am going to give you options, which will let you decide the general outline of what race you want. When the basic outline is clear I will leave the rest up to luck. By the way, I will also add the prerequisite that the world contains status screens to your world. You will thank me later, both because there will be more to learn and it will be easier to get used to it.¡± This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work. After answering the questions the following conditions were set:
    1. I shall have a tail.(because tails are great!)
    1. I shall be warm blooded.(no weather dependency for me, thank you very much)
    1. I shall be born Humanoid
    1. I shall be born in a race that accepts/respects and treats both Qi and Magic users equally.
    1. I shall be born in a region that is at no risk of war for the upcoming 100 years.
  1. I shall be born to a race that is long lived even without training.
As for my 3 wishes:
    1. I wished for a high aptitude for everything (basically, I wanted to be able to learn everything possible and have enough aptitude for it to be considered talented while doing so).
    1. I wished for being born with the inherent ability to perfectly control Mana (Death explained that there was no real best method and even if you were to be given one that would be your perfect fit, you would never be able to use it to its full potential.)
  1. I wished for the ability to understand any and all languages.
With that done, I bid Death goodbye. ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter what you do, whether you create or destroy, I will not judge you for it for as long as you live. I only ask you to be entertaining and to remember that while I will not judge you in life, I will judge you after all is over. Goodbye and Goodluck.¡± Chapter 4: Birth When I woke up, I found myself confined in a space that seemed to have no way out. The walls felt like they were made of flesh and somewhere near me a steady thumping sound could be heard. This must be my mother¡¯s womb I thought Now how do I¡­ Suddenly the wall around me seemed to contract and the steady thumping changed, becoming faster and louder. I muffled cry could be heard from the outside. ¡°It¡¯s coming!¡± Those two words were filled with emotion: fear, pain and excitement all seemed to come together in those two simple words. While this was happening on the outside I soon wasn¡¯t able pay attention anymore. Getting pushed towards an exit above your head with the exit feeling like it actually is too small for you to fit through, tends to be a little distracting. After what felt like hours, the process of giving birth was done, or so I thought. Apparently a baby needs to cry, and with me not doing so, that sadistical bitch that called itself a doctor slapped me. Which Hurts. Like. Hell. Especially when your body is still that of fragile newborn. After I bawled my eyes out, both from the pain and the fear of being hit again if I didn¡¯t, the birth process was done. Now I was, cleaned, wrapped and given to my mother. My mother was simply breathtaking, although her face should have looked only a little above average, her eyes burned that notion to the ground until there was nothing of it left. They were a deep azure on the outside, changing towards vivid emerald in the middle, with a corona of orange inside giving the idea that one was looking at a pair of miniature suns. What also drew my attention was the fact that her pupils were slitted, like the eyes of a cat. Finishing my inner monologue, I started to pay attention to what was happening around me. I was interested in what my life was going to be like from now on after all. ¡°Isn¡¯t she beautiful Leo?¡± my mother said, holding me at her bared chest. Now that I think about it I am hungry, I wonder what it tastes like... ¡°How could she not be with you as a mother Felicia?¡± a voice behind me, probably my father, replied from behind me. There seems to be something off here¡­ ¡°Flattery isn¡¯t going to get you anywhere, I am still not agreeing to that stupid name.¡± ¡°What is wrong with it, Felicia jr. is a wonderful name for our daughter! I mean it is your name.¡± This stuff is delicious! Now where was I?Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. ¡°And that is exactly the reason you¡¯re not going to name our daughter that way. She is her own person and needs her own name, not just a copy of her mother¡¯s name. What about Catherine? I think it is beautiful¡± Ah yes, something was off¡­ Wait a minute! Aren¡¯t they talking about a she? I don¡¯t seem to have twin, so doesn¡¯t that mean they are referring to me as a she! I look down at my legs and find my answer, if it wasn¡¯t obvious yet, I seem to have switched genders¡­ Well, let¡¯s milk this for all it is worth, it is not like I can do anything about it anyway¡­ This is going to be fun! I think before bursting out in laughter at the situation. ¡°See, she seems to think so too. Catherine it is, any objections.¡± My mother says. Shouldn¡¯t that be a question? Why do I feel like it is a statement? ¡°Whatever you want honey, it is not like I could think of a name anyway.¡± Right after the naming process was done, the doctors came back and my parents began to talk about things that didn¡¯t really interest me at the moment. I sneakily looked at the man who was my father, noticing only now that both my parents have animal ears. My father was quite obviously a fighter. He was 1.95m tall, his build was lean, his muscles streamlined and the way he carried himself was fluid and graceful in a way only training can provide. But most important of all, one look at him and some primal part of you knew that this man was capable of incredible amounts of violence. This, combined with the desire to protect me and my mother that so obviously showed in his eyes, made me an amount of safety that I have seldom felt before. This feeling of safety and the exhaustion that comes from being born, made my eyes heavier and heavier until sleep claimed me¡­
Developed mind detected!
Huh?
Initiating status¡­
What is happening?
Status loaded!
Could this be the game like part of the world death mentioned?
Welcome! We interrupt this dream for an important announcement! You are old enough to get your own status!!! What does this mean you ask? It means that you can learn skills like a grown up! You can learn magic like a grown up! Your part of the big boys and girls club now! Congratulations!!!
While these messages appeared sounds of fireworks and a fanfare could be heard. I guess this can wait until tomorrow I thought, hoping that I could finally sleep now. Chapter 5: The first few days Day 10physical skills done It took me 10 days to obtain all the physical abilities needed get around reasonably. Being a newborn baby means that you''re soft and chubby, which doesn''t make for the best conditions when your trying learn things like: walking, running and manual dexterity. Articulating words created similar problems... Learing to speak and read wasn''t necessary because of my wish, luckily. Hearing birds scream about wanting sex was somewhat annoying though... Now! On to magic! Day 15 magic! After doing the stereotypical thing of sitting comfortably, closing my eyes and focusing on myself. Mana came as if it was waiting for me, almost as if it was eager to help with whatever I wanted from it. After some testing I found that I could control magic without any real effort, I did get tired after while by my mana depleting. But making it do what I wanted was no problem it also gave me the skill Mana Control which was more a confirmation than anything else. The amount of mana I could use increased everytime I used up. this increase was around 3 - 5%. After my mother being asked by the guards whether she saw someone suspicious, since they detected an unregistered mage using a spell in the area. It did come to my awareness that I needed to either come out as a 15 days old baby that is able to use magic or find a way to hide it. naturally, that means next on the list is finding a way to hide my magic, I am not going to be a complete miracle baby, screw that noise. Far too much attention and people demanding something from you. Day 18seeing mana After pondering about how I should hide my magic for a few hours, I started getting bored. Boredom is best solved by doing something fun, finding out what happens if you concentrate mana in your limbs is fun, therefore, for the sake of curing boredom, I have to concentrate mana in different parts of my body to see what happens! Let''s start with my hands, after concentrating about half my mana in them. They started glowing which was nice, but not really usefull. The extra strength was, but that wasn''t even half as interesting as long as I was still a baby. Moving upwards gave mostly the same result, muscles were strengthened and started to glow when they reached a certain amount of mana conentrated inside them. Only when I started concentrated on my nose something new happened, my sense of smell got stronger. This caused me to quickly realise a big disadvantage of having a sensitive nose, bad smells get stronger too. For example a trash can filled with a certain someone''s used diapers, not calling any names of course. After quickly moving on to the eyes I finally found my first clue towards my camouflage problem. Aside from seeing a broader spectrum of light, I could now also see mana signatures!!! Each living individual had mana. The mana in these people wasn''t all the same however, they all had a pulse going through them, everyone be they person,plant or animal having their own unique rhythm. Rocks, Water and other inorganic things also had one, but it was more uniform sorted by type not unique for each individual. Day 20 sensing mana After trying to mimic the pulse of other by outputting my mana in waves, I realised that this wouldn''t get me anywhere. It only changed the density of the mana I outputted, not the frequency. Which gave me a new idea, my eyes were never meant to see mana originally, so the pulse I saw was probably only a way for me brain to make use of input it shouldn''t have gotten. If I found a way to perceive mana without using my own, I''d probably had a better chance of solving my camouflage problem. So, I sat down again, this time focusing on the outside. And I realized two important things: 1. Sitting still for long amounts of time focussing on only one thing is not something I do not enjoy. 2. I could detect the pulse I saw by focussing on outside mana. Now I only needed to single out one pulse, mimic it and I''d be able to hide my mana. I again got confirmation of it by gaining the skill Magic Sense right after I was done. Day 30 camouflaging finished On the fifth day of trying to mimic outside mana I acquired the skill I needed Mana mimic. It allowed me to mimic the surrounding mana and, by doing so, hide from all unaware mages and mana sensing tools, both wouldn''t find me if I, for example, was mimicing the mana signature of a rock. I was still not done however, since I needed to focus to peform the skill and I needed that concentration for other things. This meant that I needed to keep it up until it would become second nature to so. This took another 5 days. Now, there was only one thing left: trying it out. I had to think of something that would draw attention of the guards and would not cause implicate me or my parents immediately after I did it. A few days later while being carried around in the arms of my mother, I found it. It was just hanging there, waiting for me to notice it, signaling me with the it shone in the sun, inviting me. And I would accept it''s invitation, I would ring the bell of the of the church tower.The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Day 33 ringing the bell The plan was fairly easy, I would spend the day as I do most of my days, in the arms of my mother getting carried around. Then, when we were outside on our way towards the usual shopping then gossip, I would act. I made ball of compressed air, high enough in the air that only those looking up would see the distortion it would cause, the size of a basketball and containing about half of the mana I could control. After that, I locked on to my shining target and launched the ball towards it. So far so good, but just then, right on the moment of impact, I realized why most experiments are done on a small scale before moving on to bigger things. As soon as the ball of compressed air hit, magic keeping it compressed stopped, causing all the air to suddenly decompress. The resulting explosion of force was far too strong for what I planned however, it didn''t just ring the bell. The explosion generated a shockwave that broke nearby windows, blew the tiles of multiple roofs and broke the supports that held the bell in place.This resulted in a giant brass object flying through the air, right towards a, luckily, empty construction site. When this all happened my mother, understandably, panicked. This resulted in me having to find out later what the results of my test were. Day 40 succes? 7 days have passed since I decided to test the ability to hide my magic casting. In these seven days the following events happened: While I felt guilty for the collateral damage my experiment caused, it seems my ability to hide my magic from my surroundings worked. I did also what my father did for a living, he was the town''s blacksmith, I learned this by overhearing him tell my mother that he got the order to make the bell to replace the one I destroyed. These 7 days also taught me another important thing, apparently my common sense was left behind in my previous life. It was up to me to acquire a new one.
Status:
Name: Catherine Race: Beastman (Panthera onca)
Health: 100% Physical status: Healthy
Mana: 100% Atributes: All
Special Properties: Winner of Death''s Lottery High aptitude for the impossible Age: 40 days
Physical Atributes:
Strength: very low Dexterity: very low
Intelligence: High Wisdom: Average
Mana skill aptitude: very High Physical skill aptitude: very High
Skills:
Language comprehension The owner will be able to speak and read any language encountered.
Mana Control the ability to control mana boosted as part of winning Death''s Lottery
Mana Sense the ability to sense mana by focussing on the surroundings boosted as part of winning Death''s Lottery: can be done without focus, effectively becoming a sixth sense
Mana Mimic the ability the mana signature of something else boosted as part of winning Death''s Lottery: can be kept up indefinitely after minimal training
Chapter 6: Information It¡¯s been around 6 months since I got away with causing destruction and a minor panic, everything has calmed down by now. I have also decided to show my ability to walk after hearing my parents talk about me seemingly being behind the curve in that regard. Which brings me to one of the first discoveries I shall reveal about common sense in this world. Beastkin, or Beastmen, have a higher rate of physical development than humans, they are also physically stronger on average. What this means is that, while humans take an average of 9 to 12 months to start walking, Beastkin take about half of that time to become able to walk. I think I wasn¡¯t able to completely fool my mother though, ever since the incident with the bell tower, she seems to pay more attention to me. Especially with the way she looks at me, I think she has at least some idea that I am not entirely normal. I also started talking recently, since I got bored out of my skull by only having myself to talk to and eventually figured that it was best to start showing the first signs of being able to talk as a way to stave of boredom. I started doing so when I was 6 months old, and found that the hardest part of it was not using words that I wasn¡¯t supposed to know. I also found out the calendar that is used. A week consists of 4 days of work with one rest day at the end for a total of 5 days.A month then contains 6 of these weeks for a total of 30 days which is one lunar cycle. A year is divided into 4 seasons each consisting of 3 months for a grand total of 360 days, meaning it is 5 days shorter than what I am used to. The seasons are still Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter. The way they name the months is simpler though, instead of having a name months are just simply called as is. Resulting in dates like ¡°the 22nd day of the 1st month of Summer¡± which is easy to remember, but otherwise fairly boring. Now that the really dry stuff is out of the way, I can talk about my parents, their house and how I am someone who far too easily jumps to conclusions. First there is my father. I thought he was a blacksmith, based on the fact that he got the order to make the new bell meant to replace the one I destroyed. As it turns out, I assumed wrongly, my father is a merchant who works for a bigger company that trades all sorts of stuff. His job inside this company is being in charge of the local metalworking companies, this results in him being in charge over multiple blacksmiths and making sure that the work is divided in a way that makes sure no one gets too much work. There seems to be no shortage of work by the way, especially when you hear him talking about the amount of paperwork he has to do.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. The job seems to pay well enough to keep us comfortable with him being the only working member of the family, but not enough to hire people to do work for us. In short we¡¯re fairly well off, but not rich, more around the higher middle class. My mother worked as a receptionist for the local guildhall before she had me. It seems that she retired from work to raise me after. While she is fairly proficient in fire magic, it seems that an incident in the past caused her to give up on making a living out of it, at least not in a fighting way. With that being said, she does use it for immediate waste disposal and cooking. Even when making a stew that should simmer for 2 hours, her cooking is purely magic powered. She simply starts reading a book, conversing with guests or playing with me while maintaining the fire. From what I¡¯ve heard from the guests that come over, that is not a normal thing to do. Which brings me to the last subject of my info dumping agenda, my house. The house I live in has two stories with a flat roof on top, the roof has a fence surrounding it and on the second floor there is a set of stairs leading to it. On the first floor there is a living room with an added kitchen separated by a wall around 140 centimeters high stopping at around two thirds of width of the room, leaving an opening that is the way in. Connected to the living room part is the hallway with our front door on one side and storage space on the other. On the opposite side of the living room there is door leading to the bathroom. The bathroom contains a small bath and a toilet, plumbing seems to be done by enchanted pipes taking water from a big reservoir somewhere in the city. To get warm water there is a second set of pipes that warms the water while it is still on its way, not everyone has these. Inside the hallway there is also a set of stairs leading up to the second floor. The second floor has three rooms. First there is the guest bedroom just in case (there wasn¡¯t any other real use for it),next that is the master bedroom for my parents and lastly there is what will be my room when I grow too old to sleep with my parents. The place I live is on the outskirts of a city. There is no city wall surrounding us, but if I look towards the west from our house than I can see it. That was most of what I found out for the last 6 months. I still have to find a way to practice magic in a way that can be measured, but since my mother is still always with me, I have to be satisfied with just enlarging my magic capacity.