Wharton had a very long dream.
In the dream, he was rushing to finish a piece of code that never seemed to end, the light from the screen making his eyes ache. Then he clicked save, closed his laptop, and fell straight into bed.
When he opened his eyes again, the ceiling was wooden, with distinct grain and several cracks. The air held the distinctive smell of an old house, mingled with a faint scent of incense.
He lay there for about ten minutes.
His body felt unfamiliar-tiny and light, with absurdly short arms and legs. He tried to sit up, but the simple movement was unusually difficult. His arms were limp and couldn't support his weight. In the end, he rolled to the edge of the bed, clung to the side, and slid down.
His feet touched the floor. It was ice-cold.
There was a bronze mirror in the room. It hadn't been polished very brightly, but it would do. He shuffled over and stood on tiptoe. In the mirror was a child of no more than two or three. His pale golden hair was a little messy, his eyes were a clear blue, and his cheeks still had their baby fat.
Wharton Baruch.
The name was like a key, unlocking a door. Fragments of memory flooded in, disjointed but enough to piece things together: he had an extraordinary older brother named Linley, a stern father named Hogg, and a kindly old butler named Hiri. The house was large, but old. Their surname was Baruch, a family that sounded ancient but didn't seem to be doing very well now.
He looked down at his hands. They were plump, with shallow dimples at the knuckles.
"I transmigrated," he murmured. His voice was so childish that it startled even him.
There was no system notification, no floating screen, no accompanying supernatural phenomenon of any kind. He had simply gone to sleep and woken up in a different life. He tried to recall his name from his previous life, only to find that it had already grown hazy, as though seen through frosted glass. The identity of "Wharton," on the other hand, along with those scattered memories of his early childhood, was as clear as his own breathing.
The door creaked open.
An old man with a bulbous red nose came in, wearing a faded old coat and carrying a wooden basin. "Young Master Wharton, you're awake?" The old man's eyes crinkled into slits as he smiled. "How come you got out of bed by yourself? Come on, Grandpa Hiri will wash your face."
Wharton didn't move. He watched him.
Hiri wasn't in a hurry either. He set the basin on a low stand, wrung out a cloth, then came over and squatted down. With practiced movements, he washed Wharton's face and hands. The water was just the right temperature, and his touch was gentle.
"The master and the young master have both gone to the training grounds," Hiri said as he washed him. "There's oatmeal for breakfast today. I put a little honey in it. You'll love it."
Wharton let him carry on, his mind on other things.
He needed to confirm a few things.
"Brother..." he began, his voice still babyish. "Training today?"
"That's right." Hiri beamed. "Young Master Linley trains very hard. He's four years older than you, but the way he applies himself, he's like a little grown-up." He pulled a small linen shirt over Wharton's head, then squatted down to help him put on his socks. "You should hurry up and grow big too. Then you can train with your brother."
Wharton nodded and asked no more questions.
He ate breakfast in a small dining room. The long wooden table could seat more than ten people, but only one place was set now. The porridge did have the sweetness of honey, and it came with a small piece of dark bread and a few slices of pickled vegetables. Hiri stood beside him, occasionally helping him steady his wooden spoon.
Halfway through the meal, footsteps sounded outside.
Hogg walked in, dressed in a plain linen tunic, his back straight. He glanced at Wharton first and gave him a nod in greeting, then said to Hiri, "I'm going into town this morning to check on the progress of the repairs after the disaster. Linley's lessons will continue as usual this afternoon."
"Yes, master," Hiri replied.
Hogg looked at Wharton again, his expression softening a little. "Don't run around after you finish eating. Have Grandpa Hiri teach you to read."
"Yes, Father." With porridge still in his mouth, Wharton gave a muffled reply.
Hogg seemed a little surprised by his compliance and gave him another look, but said nothing. He turned and left.
Once Hogg's footsteps had faded away, Wharton put down his spoon.
"Grandpa Hiri," he said, looking up. "I want to read."
Hiri paused. "Read? Young Master Wharton, you're still little. You don't even know all the characters yet."
"Just one with lots of pictures," Wharton insisted. "The kind Brother used to read."
Hiri scratched his head and finally gave in. "All right, I'll go have a look. There should be a few illustrated beginner's books in the study."
He left for a while and returned carrying a thick volume with a hard cowhide cover, its corners worn pale.
"This is the Continental Magical Beast Guide: Young Children's Edition." Hiri placed the book on the table and opened it. "There are lots of animals in it-oh, no, magical beasts. Take a look. Do you know any of them?"
Wharton climbed down from his chair and leaned over the book.
The pages held hand-drawn color illustrations, with simple descriptions underneath. The first page showed a gray rat with particularly sharp-looking teeth.
"Stone-Eater Rat," Hiri read, pointing at the words. "A magical beast of the first to third levels. It likes gnawing on rocks and has especially strong teeth."
Wharton reached out and touched the rat in the picture without speaking.
Hiri turned another page. It showed a black rat, drawn more nimbly than the Stone-Eater Rat, with a fluffy tail.
"Shadowmouse, a third- or fourth-level magical beast. It's exceptionally fast... Ah, Young Master Linley used to read this book when he was little. He loved it back then."
Wharton stared at the picture of the Shadowmouse for a long time.
Then he reached out a finger and slowly traced the strokes of the words beneath the picture.
"Shadow... mouse..." he read along, his voice very soft.
At that instant, something buzzed in his head.
It wasn't a sound, but a sensation. It was as though something had been activated, lighting up a region deep within his consciousness. Immediately afterward, several concise lines of text appeared directly in his mind:
[Skill: Literacy (attempting to trace)] [Proficiency: 0.01%] [Effect: An initial association between character forms and pronunciation has been established] [Tip: Repeated observation and practice can speed up mastery]
Wharton froze.
Hiri noticed nothing amiss and continued turning the pages. "There are even more powerful ones later on. Look, this is a Velocidragon, a Seventh-Level Magical Beast. It breathes fire and is very fierce..."
Wharton wasn't listening.
He closed his eyes and concentrated. The lines were still there, as clear as if they had been etched onto his retinas. He tried to "think" of something else-breakfast, Hiri's face, Hogg's retreating figure-and the text faded. When he recalled the feeling of tracing the characters, it appeared again.
It wasn't a hallucination.
He opened his eyes. His heart was beating a little fast, but he did his best to keep his face calm. Pointing at the characters for "Shadowmouse," he said to Hiri, "Read it again."
"Shadowmouse," Hiri read.
Wharton repeated it, tracing the strokes once more with his finger at the same time.
[Skill: Literacy (attempting to trace)] [Proficiency: 0.02%] [Effect: An initial association between character forms and pronunciation has been established]
The number had changed.
Wharton drew a breath and looked up. "Grandpa Hiri, I want to learn to write these characters."
Hiri was even more surprised. "Write? Young Master Wharton, you're only two and a half. You can't even hold a pen steady."
"I just want to try," Wharton insisted.
Hiri couldn't argue him out of it, so he fetched a small slate and a slate pencil. Wharton took them. His hand really was small, and his grip on the pencil was awkward. Copying the character for "shadow" from the book, he slowly drew it on the slate.
The very first stroke went crooked, like a worm.
[Skill: Writing (first attempt)] [Proficiency: 0.01%] [Effect: Extremely unstable; extensive practice required]
Wharton didn't stop. He wiped it off and wrote it again. Still crooked.
Again.
The third time, it was a little straighter.
[Proficiency: 0.02%]
Hiri watched from the side, his expression slowly changing from amusement to surprise. Although the child was usually well-behaved, he had never shown such an interest in reading or writing. And the way he concentrated wasn't quite what one would expect from a two- or three-year-old.
After writing it a dozen or so times, Wharton's arm ached, and his fingers had turned red from gripping the pencil. He stopped and looked at the last character on the slate, barely recognizable as "shadow," then looked at the panel.
[Skill: Writing (first attempt)] [Proficiency: 0.23%] [Effect: Extremely unstable; extensive practice required]
The increase was slow, but it was definitely moving.
"Tired, aren't you?" Hiri took the slate. "Rest for a while. You can play with this again this afternoon."
Wharton nodded and didn't insist. He knew he couldn't rush it. This "panel" looked like something that assisted learning. It didn't have a one-click function to reach the maximum level; he would have to work at it bit by bit himself.
But he had already grasped the most crucial information: it existed, and it was useful.
When Linley returned that afternoon, Wharton was chasing a butterfly in the courtyard. He was doing it deliberately-he had to maintain the behavior expected of a two-year-old and avoid arousing too much suspicion.
Linley was covered in sweat, his little face tense, but his expression softened when he saw Wharton.
"Wharton!" He ran over, scooped Wharton up, and spun him around. "Did you miss your big brother?"
"I did!" Wharton wrapped his arms around his neck and smelled sweat and sunshine.
Linley put him down and pulled a small object from inside his clothes. "Look, I brought you something."
It was a smooth white pebble with faint patterns on it.
Wharton took it. "Thank you, Brother."
"I saw it by the river while I was training. I thought it looked nice, so I picked it up and brought it back." Linley wiped away his sweat. "What did you do at home today?"
"I looked at a book," Wharton said. "Grandpa Hiri showed it to me. There were rats."
"Those were Shadowmice and Stone-Eater Rats-magical beasts." Linley's eyes lit up. "Once I'm strong enough, maybe I can tame a magical beast too, just like those magicians."
"You're the best, Brother," Wharton said, playing along.
Linley smiled and ruffled his hair. "You should hurry up and grow big too. Then we can train together."
At dinner that evening, Hogg asked Linley about his training that day. Linley didn't say much, but his eyes shone. Wharton quietly ate his porridge, listening while he sorted through what he had discovered that day.
The panel seemed to respond only to "learning activities." He had tried simply running and jumping, but the panel hadn't reacted. When he traced and wrote characters, however, and even when he later tried to memorize a simple nursery rhyme Hiri taught him, the panel brought up a [Language Memory] skill entry, whose proficiency likewise increased slowly.
It was like an intensely focused overseer, recording only "progress" and caring about nothing else.
After dinner, Hogg went to the study as usual. Linley played with wooden carved toys in the sitting room with Wharton for a while before Hiri urged him to go take a bath. Wharton bathed too, changed into clean pajamas, and was taken back to his little room.
Hiri tucked him in. "Young Master Wharton was especially good today. Go to sleep early."
"Good night, Grandpa Hiri."