The night was murky, with nary a star in sight. The new moon was covered by the dark clouds. A storm loomed on the horizon, but no drop fell from the clouds.
Keita was having one of those troubled nights, and even from their room, Keshi could hear the muffled sounds of her son whimpering. Looking over, instead of seeing the fear and concern reflected on his face, all she saw was anger and indifference in Jata's eyes.
"What are we going to do now?" Keshi asked, her face wrinkled with worry. In times like these, her husband's indifference towards her son's condition was extremely vexing.
She wished he could just get over himself, and actually come up with solutions, but he never did. Jata loved his sons, both his sons, but he had a clear favorite. He barely paid attention to the other son, and even the daughter was more liked.
Both Keshi and Jata were vasilis, and they loved their children very much. However, Keshi had one concern. The better her elder son got, the worse her younger son became.
She still remembered the words of the seer when they were born. She feared that the elder was consuming the younger to become stronger, albeit not knowing about it.
If this continued, she wondered how much weaker Keita would become. Little did she know that this fear made her discriminate against her eldest.
Jata loved both his boys, but he was very proud of his eldest son. Zukov was everything he wanted in a son. Strong, healthy, and overflowing with talent. The younger was just so soft, so weak, and a constant dark cloud over the family.
Everyone knew of the seer's words.
Jata could not ignore it.
Somewhere deep down in his heart, he knew Zukov was leeching off his brother. However, that was not something he wished to acknowledge. In his mind, perhaps this was the price to pay for having such a blessed son.
With this attitude, Jata hardly paid any attention to his younger son, while doting on the eldest. Even when the family was together for mealtimes, Jata and Keita barely looked at each other.
Keshi could not stand Jata's attitude, which made her resent her husband. Alas, the family was crumbling, and Jata blamed his younger son.
For quite some time now, Keita had been getting nightmares, and the visions seemed to get more intense with time.
On that night, Keita's whimpering only served to anger his father. However, given his wife's insistence, he had to acquiesce.
"Summon the physician," Jata said, finding himself unable to take it. However, just as he was about to storm out, he heard a sudden boom!
Turning his attention, he saw his son glowing with power around him. In that moment, he realized something. Zukov had stepped into the second tier. He was a Tier 2 vasili.
It had to be known, many vasilis were usually stranded between the first and second tier all their life. For his son to break through to the second tier before his tenth birthday showed how much potential he had. There was no ceiling for his potential. This was a course for celebration. Unfortunately…
The moment Zukov broke through, Keita fell into a sudden trance. To his parents, one child's fortune was turning out to be another's misfortune.
However, what they assumed was misfortune, turned out to be something completely different. For Keita, he was caught up in a vision, but it seemed more like a memory. A long and deep memory. In that moment, he finally got to experience everything that his mind was trying to bring out.
Keita saw himself in another life, a different world. This world was called earth. While there were no superpowers and vasilis running around, the world was much more advanced than his current world.
He saw himself and experienced his past life. All his past life.
He had been a brilliant scientist. He was a trained engineer, with several masters' degrees in mechanical, electrical and electronics engineering. In his later years, he had been a professor at a university.
In that trance, he got to experience his other life completely. It felt as though he was downloading memories of a past life. He saw himself from when he was a toddler to when he was on his deathbed, at a ripe old age of 105 years. He had seen his grandchildren and even three of his great grandchildren. It was a life well lived.
When Keita got out of his trance, several days later, he had finally integrated the memories of his past life and current life. Somehow, they had morphed together to form a different person.
He was no longer the same Keita. However, he was also not some container for an ancestor piggybacking on his life. He was a combination of the two lives, two memories. It could be said to be a reincarnation.
When he found out what he was, Keita could only smile, as a dark thought crept in his mind. It was time to better his life, and while at it, balance the scales. However, to do that, he had to rely on his skills.
Leveraging on his knowledge and science of his past life, he would go forward and build a magnificent name for himself and wipe the shame of not being a vasili off himself.