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Chapter 6: The Choice and the Watchers

A month had passed since the fateful incident at the church. Two weeks after I had transformed holy photons into glowing butterflies out of pure scientific curiosity, my peace was utterly shattered. To my complete misfortune, the crazy cleric reappeared at the gates of the Vance Fortress. And he didn't come alone. He brought two monks from the Holy See with him.

The Teddy Bear of the Holy See

One of these monks looked like a literal giant teddy bear. I had already read in my illustrated monster book that this planet was inhabited by various exotic races, but seeing such a creature in person instantly activated my geek side. Even though I was fascinated by the biology of the being, I remained deeply indignant about their presence.

The three religious figures went straight to the main hall to speak with my father. Their proposal was a bureaucratic absurdity: they wanted to establish a rotation system where one of them would permanently stay at the castle to watch over and teach the dogmas of the "Light" to the supposed Chosen One. Worse: they suggested that, after the official response from the Holy See in six months, I could be ordained or baptized into the order. They basically wanted to drag me to a monastery.

"Do I look like a little bird to live locked up in a stone cage?" I snorted to myself, spying on the meeting while hidden behind the tapestries of the upper corridor. My cat-like curiosity was operating at maximum capacity, and I wasn't going to miss that discussion for anything.

The Munchkin Moment

Noticing my silhouette lurking from afar, my father sent for me, along with my mother. Sylvia entered the hall with her usual elegance, sat in the carved chair, and looked at me affectionately, asking the question that would decide my short-term future:

"Kaelen, my dear... do you have any interest in going with them to the church?"

I looked at the three clerics and shook my head vehemently from side to side. To make my refusal even clearer, I lifted the rustic monster book I carried under my arm and pointed out the window toward the muddy yard where I trained with swords every day. I wanted nothing to do with temples.

A loud theological argument began. The monks insisted that they needed to live in the fortress to accompany me.

"No, no, and no!" I protested in silence. That would ruin the little freedom I had managed to win. I wouldn't be able to read my scientific tomes in the dead of night or practice my psychic training anymore. Those divine bootlickers had absolutely no concept of personal space. My second chance at life had barely begun, and they already wanted to lock me in a convent!

My mother looked at my fired-up expression and, suddenly, let out a melodious laugh. I looked at her, completely confused. Did I make some ridiculous face without realizing it?

"Oh, dear... you look just like a munchkin with those cheeks puffed up in anger," she said, amused by my childish countenance. "I believe our son has made his wishes quite clear, gentlemen. May I offer my noble opinion on the matter?"

From then on, it was another hour and half of pure political and contractual arguments. It was a cold shower to my pride. Being trapped in the body of a six-year-old child, I realized I was still unable to hide certain facial micro-expressions. My feelings were just too visible. How many blunders have I already made in this world? I lamented, mentally adding that scene to my "family album of the ridiculous"—the kind of embarrassing record that mothers love to show to your girlfriends in the future, making you wish you had an ostrich's ability to bury your head in the dirt.

The Verdict and the Potato Sack

By the end of the meeting, a middle-ground agreement was sealed. The monks would rotate: each one would spend a week at the fortress testing my inclination toward the sacred, recording everything in reports for the Holy See. My father put his foot down, ensuring that my military training with Instructor Garrick would not be interrupted. I would be trained as a warrior, just as he and his father's father had been. The clerics, fearing the authority of the border lord, did not dare to oppose him.

Thus, I gained a rotating divine inspector per week. What goes through the minds of these gods and these people? I thought, incredulous.

To make matters worse, I had decoded an important biological detail over the past few weeks. After the black arrow struck my chest, Kaelen's body developed a severe speech restriction. I discovered, through the manuals, that certain magical toxins were specifically engineered to damage the target's vocal cords, preventing mages from pronouncing the verbal components of spells. If the masterminds behind the crime thought this would stop me, they will regret it bitterly, I planned with a cold fury. I don't use magic. My mind doesn't need vocal cords to bend reality.

I tried to sneak quietly out of the hall before the monks noticed me, but I was rigidly lifted by the collar of my tunic. Instructor Garrick had materialized behind me like a red shadow.

"It's training time, young master," the brute's hoarse voice thundered. "Where do you think you're going?"

I gave an awkward laugh, pointing toward the kitchen to try and engineer an excuse to get something to eat, but Garrick simply threw me over his massive shoulders as if I were a sack of potatoes.

"Don't worry, you'll have plenty of time to eat after you pay for your push-ups," the human bear let out a rustic laugh, marching toward the yard.

I thrashed around and pretended to cry on his shoulders. Are you crazy? Do you want to kill me? Those religious fanatics sucked up my entire morning, and you're already dragging me to physical torture! Looking back, I saw my mother waving from the window, laughing at my functional misfortune.

"Have a good training session, my son!" she exclaimed.

"This isn't a training session, it's my funeral," I huffed, crossing my arms over the soldier's back. I had already spent centuries fighting for my life in the shifting arenas of the ether; I just wanted one minute of scientific peace.

Katriny: The Grade 8 Inspector

The following weeks flew by, marking a month and a half since my rebirth. The monks kept following me around, noting my every step on official parchment. However, the rotation system brought me a fascinating biological surprise: the monk who looked like a teddy bear was named Katriny.

She belonged to an impressive hybrid race. Looking at her, I tried to scientifically decipher that crazy mix of human traits with a panda bear. She possessed a delicate physical build and features very similar to a human's, but she sported furry brown bear ears on top of her head and small fur patterns that blended perfectly with her face. It wasn't grotesque; it was incredibly delicate and exotic. My geek verdict was immediate: A solid Grade 8 for the biological design of this race!

Unlike the other two human monks, who were intolerable fanatics who spent the day shouting about the "Light of this" and the "Lord of that"—assaulting me with terrible migraines—Katriny was extremely gentle and observant.

A bit too observant.

Because of her sharp perception, the panda-monk almost caught me red-handed twice in the secret library devouring advanced books. Worse: she almost caught me by surprise in my room while I was using the silver medallion to channel and float photons of light with my telekinesis. Every time she walked in unexpectedly, my six-year-old heart would race from the scare.

However, the continuous use of the silver medallion brought extraordinary metabolic benefits. The jewelry seemed to stabilize the fluctuations of my foreign soul within Kaelen's biological flesh. My diction was slowly improving; I could already pronounce more complex words without stuttering so much. My Telekinesis gained surgical precision, and Psychometry stopped frying my neurons with crushing migraines. The grueling workouts with Garrick were also finally turning that childish musculature into a worthy vessel.

The great turning point of the week occurred in secret. Katriny had actually seen me mess with the holy light and caught me with the highly complex books. She had mapped out my behavior from top to bottom. But instead of reporting me as an anomaly to the Holy See, the panda-monk took a surprising action. She drafted a special report for my mother, Sylvia, and the other clerics of the order, hiding my psychic powers.

In the report, Katriny explained sweetly that little Kaelen was just an extremely shy and genius child, who was hiding his reading gifts and his connection to the light out of fear of failing his family's expectations. She formally requested in the document that everyone give the boy space and time to develop at his own pace, without pressure or sacred interrogations.

When I discovered the contents of that letter through a quick read using telekinesis on my mother's table, my shoulders relaxed for the first time in weeks. I looked out the bedroom window and saw Katriny in the yard, picking some wild flowers with her furry hands.

"Well, Miss Katriny... you think you are protecting a scared and prodigy child," I thought, adjusting the silver amulet on my chest with a sly smile. "But thanks to your benevolent intervention, you just gave the Hundred-Handed Warrior the time and oxygen needed to build the perfect laboratory."

The chessboard was finally aligning in my favor.