The world outside the birthing hut was harsher than anything I remembered from my past life — even with the gift of sight.
Snow crusted the ground in patches, half-melted then frozen again into uneven slabs. The huts were built from leather, furs, rope, and bone — no metal frames, no glass, no nails. Smoke curled from small chimneys into the pale gray sky. People walked with spears, crude clubs, and woven baskets.
Every single one of them moved with hands outstretched, tapping, brushing, measuring the world with touch and sound.
Baba Voss carried me and Haniwa like precious cargo. His gait was heavy, confident, every step calculated. Even blind, he maneuvered the uneven terrain with a hunter's economy — body low, movements smooth, footfalls scanning for vibration.
He didn't need sight. He had survival.
The tribe gathered as Maghra departed with a handful of escorts toward Payan. No one knew yet what she had birthed. What she had hidden.
Only Baba and the midwife understood.
And me.
And, apparently, Haniwa — whose newborn eyes scanned the torches with fascination, pupils widening and shrinking as if testing brightness.
We stayed silent infants. But inside my mind, calculations unfurled.
This is a prehistoric society with post-apocalyptic leftovers. Labor is manual. Metal is scarce. Agriculture is limited. No written language. No maps. No glass. No irrigation. No medicine. No paper. No domesticated livestock beyond goats and dogs.
If I wanted an empire, I needed infrastructure before ideology. Bread before banners. Stability before sovereignty.
But I had one enormous advantage:
I could see the threats coming years ahead of time.
Day 20
Infancy was humiliating.
My muscles were underdeveloped, my neck unstable, my body tiny. But the system did not remain silent forever.
Twenty days after birth, as Baba hunted in the forest and the midwife rocked us near the fire, a soft chime shook my skull again.
System Unlocked: Sovereign Physique — Stage 1
Strength seeped into my limbs like warmth through cold water.
Effects:
Muscle Growth Rate
Bone Reinforcement
Reflex Development
Recovery Speed
Neural Adaptation
I wriggled experimentally.
My fingers clenched.
The midwife paused. "Strong babies," she whispered. "Too strong."
Good.
The system continued:
Growth Milestones Accelerated.
Crawling projected at: 3 months
Walking projected at: 6–9 months
Speech projected at: 10–12 months
Normal children crawled at 8 months and walked near one year.
I would walk before winter's end.
Haniwa stirred beside me, kicking her legs, grip tightening on the woven cloth. Her eyes flicked toward shadows with infant curiosity.
She has sight too, and the potential for strength.
We would support each other or clash — time would tell.
Month 3
It began with crawling.
Cold furs pressed against my palms, smoke hung in the air, and the midwife snored near the fire. I shifted my weight, pushed with knees and elbows, and dragged myself forward across the hut floor.
My muscles obeyed with precision that no infant should have.
I crawled.
Not clumsily — deliberately.
Across the hut, Baba's eyes snapped open. His head turned toward the faint scrape of fur on wood.
A hunter's instincts.
He didn't see me crawl — but his senses tracked movement, displacement of air, change in rhythm.
A slow smile formed under his beard.
"You are in a hurry to walk, little prince."
Prince.
He didn't know how literal that title would become.
He reached out, not toward sound, but ahead of the sound — predicting, intercepting my path.
I paused, stunned by his accuracy.
Baba Voss was terrifyingly competent.
He scooped me up, raised me to his chest, and murmured:
"Your mother said you would change the world."
The system chimed.
Bond Detected: Primary Guardian (Baba Voss)
New Passive: Survival Lineage
Effects: +Adaptation to harsh environments, +Endurance, +Pain Tolerance
So even my mentor mattered to the system.
Good. I needed warriors as much as scholars.
Later that month, Haniwa crawled too, though with less coordination. But she used sight instinctively, following torchlight patterns on the wall. She'd be a scout, a writer, or a diplomat one day. Her thoughts already danced toward curiosity instead of violence.
Opposites, complementary.
Month 6
Winter hit.
Temperature plummeted. Snow hardened like stone. The tribe rationed food. Death stalked the camp quietly, taking the elderly and weak.
This was why kingdoms formed in the first place.
Individual tribes couldn't withstand winter. Empires were survival mechanisms before they were political constructs.
During that bitter cold, another system window opened:
System Expansion: Dominion (Infancy Mode)
Territory: Alkenny Village
Population: 94
Production: Foraging / Hunting
Agriculture: None
Metalworking: Primitive (Bronze)
Livestock: Goats (6), Dogs (4)
Literacy: 0%
Government: Tribal (Hunter Council)
Government: Tribal was generous. It was barely beyond clan leadership.
Underneath the status screen, a quest emerged:
Development Quest #1: Establish Stable Food Source
Options:
• Introduce agriculture
• Expand hunting range
• Establish trade
• Domesticate livestock
Reward: Population Growth + Resources + Influence
My infant body couldn't lead a council meeting or draw maps — but timing mattered. The tribes would eventually move, fight, split, and reunite. I had to insert ideas subtly until I could command openly.
That chance came sooner than expected.
Month 9 — First Words
Speech accelerated just as the system predicted. My tongue felt too big for my mouth, and vowels slurred, but I could form words.
Baba was carving a spearhead near the fire when I spoke my first sentence:
"More… food soon."
He froze.
Not because I spoke — infants spoke early sometimes — but because of what I said.
The tribe had been worrying privately about dwindling stores for weeks.
He leaned down, voice calm but tight. "How do you know?"
I pointed — not with words, not with vision (which would expose me) — but with sound.
"Tress. Water. Dirt. Good. Food grow."
He interpreted it as using smell or intuition — not sight or reincarnated agricultural knowledge.
But the idea of farming was a spark in dry grass.
Baba rose and walked out of the hut, calling for the council. I crawled to the flap, peeking with boldness a baby shouldn't have.
Council members gathered, staffs tapping the ground.
Baba spoke simply:
"The children smell fertile soil by the river."
Smell was their stand-in for observation.
"We plant food."
Silence.
Confusion.
Then cautious curiosity.
"What food?"
"What seed?"
"What method?"
Baba shrugged, unbothered. "We ask the old stories."
The tribe remembered vaguely that once, long ago, humans farmed — though they did not call it farming. They called it "making food from sleeping seeds."
That was enough.
By end of winter, simple gardens appeared by the river. Beans. Root vegetables. Wild grains. Primitive, clumsy, but revolutionary.
The system responded:
Agriculture Initiated
Reward: +Food Stability, +Population Growth Potential
Influence +3%
I smiled — tiny and sharp.
Seed by seed, idea by idea, foundation stones of a kingdom formed.
Even as an infant.