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Chapter 1: Birth; my First Failure
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Now that I died I can derive some lessons from my previous life.
Lesson 1: Don’t wait to live your Life.
The Naru Zuna that I used to be was too reserved.
I was the first born of 5 children; the son of a poor working class woman, and consequently automatically felt the weight of responsibility of taking care of my siblings.
I was born in 1985 to a 21 year old na?ve village girl who had gotten sexually involved with the 17 year old son of the white family she worked for as a maid during the darkest days of Apartheid South Africa. At the time it was illegal for a European to be romantically involved with an African. So my birth was essentially proof of a crime in the twisted world of the racists ideology practiced by the white Apartheid Government of the South Africa of the time.
Needless to say that my mother was fired from her job and the boy that was my father was sent to Holland in the Netherlands to keep him from getting into trouble. As such I never knew my father, and because my mother had to earn a living I was left under the care of my aged grandmother while she went back to Jo’Burg to work for a different white family as a maid. Unfortunately my mother was an attractive woman so she had a lot of attention from wealthier men and so she ended up as a mistress.
So she became a kept woman of a wealthier African man and that resulted in 2 more children over the next 10 years; at least she got a somewhat decent house out of the deal. When things ended with mother’s lover I was brought over from the village after the death of my grandmother and became the babysitter as my mother became a woman about town in the new Democratic South Africa. In the next 7 years 2 more children were born to the new wealthier sort of African elites.
Wanting to run away from what I felt was a repressive environment with my mother and her new husband I joined the Army right after high school; 6 months of training and 3 deployments in the Democratic Republic of Congo as a peacekeeper. After 4 years in the army I got a job as an armed security guard in a shopping; it paid better than being a cop. Through correspondence I got a Diploma in Public Security from the University of South Africa through distance learning. I became a supervisor at work.
Later I completed a triple major Bachelor of Science in Applied Mathematics, Physics and Information Technology from the University of South Africa through distance learning. Thanks to that I was further promoted at work and became a security systems specialist at work tasked with monitoring multiple systems from the company head office. With a middle class income I bought a townhouse through a mortgage and took in 3 of my siblings so that my mother and her husband could live with their 7 year old child in Cape Town.
I’m not in any way saying that my mother didn’t love her children but she is cursed by beauty; even in her fifties she looks like someone in her late thirties. My previous mother is a beautiful woman and she can’t avoid being the centre of attention, and that means the demand for her attention forces her children to take a backseat. I was determined to make sure that my 2 sisters don’t go down the same path and that they didn’t feel neglected. My brothers would have me as a role model.
As a result I waited to actually live my own life; get married and start a family.
To be honest I was afraid that I would fail at marriage so I avoided it. Until it was too late.
Life insurance should settle my debts and the oldest of my siblings is old enough to look after the others.
Lesson 2: Take care of the people you Love.
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If it’s not obvious I’m currently asleep; that’s how come I’m able to think clearly.
Given the number of Heartbeats I know that I likely have a twin since during my brief bouts of consciousness I detected 6 heartbeats. That’s right; the Knora have 2 hearts.
I know that my twin is a girl.
How?
That’s because the crystal on my forehead is a kind of third eye and because I’m half Svern I get a kind of thermal imaging. So I’ve been able to make out her shape.
I can also see outside our mother’s belly. It’s a neat trick but don’t be too impressed because it requires a bit of concentration and I have the brain of an infant so I only get brief imagery.
I suppose I have to explain some of the weird traits of the humanoid species of this planet.
I’ve summarized the following:
Some information about the world:
The Enemy
From the knowledge of my genetic father I’ve been able to understand the basic principles of Magic.
Magic is all about Mana.
An individual’s Mana is unique.
You put your Mana in a rock and you can Manipulate that rock, You put your Mana in water and you can Manipulate that amount of water, You put your Mana in a Ice and you can Manipulate that amount of Ice.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
The same applies for Air, Fire, Space and so on.
There is no creating things out of thin air there is only Manipulating your Mana in the elements to control the element.
Demons do the same with their Demonic Aura.
Therefore how much of an element you can Manipulate depends on the amount of Mana you put in that particular Element.
So in Magic Mana Capacity is Everything.
There are however people who choose to specialize in Manipulating a particular Element. Thus forming magical disciplines.
Over time some humanoid races evolved competence and proficiency in particular magical disciplines.
The Vern Race evolved into Psionic Manipulation magical specialist and the Knora evolved into internal body Manipulation magical specialist.
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Since I’m half Knora and half Svern I’m gonna ignore the details about the other races and focus on what is of consequence to me.
The first thing I’ll point out is that the Knora have more females than males; 4 females to every male.
The Harem route can’t be avoided.
The prospect of romance with the other Humanoids is impractical; largely because the Knora are large, covered in Fur and weird.
All Knora have feminine features.
Wait!...... I’m saying this wrong!
All Knora are very muscular, but they have big boobs and butts as well as what can be considered a beautiful feminine face.
Did you get the part where I say all Knora?
Yes; this is how fucked up the Knora are.
Both the females and the males have boobs.
Fucked up right?
So that’s my future; despite the fact that I have a penis and testicles I’m gonna grow boobs that will eventually lactate.
Yes; males actually breastfeed the young.
This is some fucked up shit!
So the male of the Knora species are actually transsexuals. That means only weirdoes from the other races would be interested in a Knora male. Apparently amongst the Knora looking after the children is the responsibility of the males and working outside the home is primarily a female responsibility. Well; when you think about it this sort of makes sense since there are fewer males and there is no physical advantage. But as a former human male from Earth I can only despair.
At first I thought that since the semen came from other races there might be more males amongst the Knora sub-races but the memories of my genetic father rule that out. Heck I even entertained the idea that amongst the Vnora sub-race there would be a better male to female ratio and that being half Svern would lessen some of the Knora traits, but the memories of my genetic father ruled that out as well. Apparently the egg of the Knora provides many of the requisite genetic information; much more than is the case with humans.
According to the memories of my genetic father in the Knora the egg of the female provides 60% of the genetic information and the other 40% has to come from 2 sperms.
Crazy right?
Somehow this Knora species evolved a female centric reproduction system where a both Xxx and Xxy are female while only Xyx is male; for that matter an Xyy is a failure and fertilization fails. That means to produce a male the y sperm has to enter the egg first with the x sperm entering the egg second, but to get a female the x sperm has to enter the egg first and what comes after is irrelevant. Looking at it explains why there’s a 4 to 1 female to male ratio.
I’d say the one benefit of being male is that you don’t get pregnant but the price for that is that you get saddled with all the child care and most of the daytime breastfeeding duties. Given that there so few males to begin with it makes sense that the male is the one to be kept safe in the home rather than the risky cold wilderness that is the traditional homeland of the Knora in the far north. Subspecies don’t get a pass on the major Knora genetic traits.
My genetic father clearly didn’t have a high opinion of the Knora; consistently labelling them primitive barbarians. For that matter almost all the other humanoid races consider the Knora primitive barbarians. From the looks of things my sister is half Dvern so we don’t share a father since the super-magic transported the semen directly into the egg; an egg that had been optimized by the same magic. In this my twin sister is lucky in that her Fur will likely match with the normal white Fur of the Knora; thus making it easier for her to fit in.
The Knora have thick skin, tough Fur and a regeneration ability that rarely leaves a scar; the sub-races get 60% of those abilities. Thanks to magic I should be just as strong as a normal Knora; I just won’t be as durable or heal as well, but more magic should be able to compensate.
The Knora have a tribal system the normal Knora have a Matriarch who is more like the Queen of all Knora. All the Sub-races have their own Clan Matriarchs who is subservient to the Knora Matriarch so they are more like Clan Queens.
So how does one become Matriarch or Clan Matriarchs?
Knora children inherit the rank authority of their mothers. However to hold public office they have to prove themselves through ranking contests.
The ranking contest is simple: 14km Sprint, 14km Swim if freezing water and weight lifting.
Easy!........... yeah right?
For the daughters of the Matriarch the one to get the highest average in the ranking contests wins the contest and is elevated to Matriarch of all Knora.
The Clan Matriarchs are chosen in the same way unless the Matriarch of all Knora has daughters of those particular Sub-races. Since daughters of the Matriarch of all Knora have a higher rank than daughters of Clan Matriarchs in that particular instance the ranking contests can only involve the Sub-race daughters of the Matriarch of all Knora.
Knora law and customs demand that daughters of the Matriarch have families upon coming of age at 11 years old; every daughter must marry 3 females and 1 male to complete the traditional Knora family.
Thus the 4 spouses of the daughters of the Matriarch are chosen through ranking contests.
Females and males will compete separately.
For the rest of the population selection of spouses is chosen based on where they end up on the ranking contest. However the common Knora are allowed to disregard the ranking and choose spouses based on affection.
An Orro year is 574 Orro days and since there are no months in the calendar system the year was simply divided by 7 in reverence to the seven moons of Orro. So you end up with First Moon, Second Moon, Third Moon, Fourth Moon, Fifth Moon, Sixth Moon and Seventh Moon describing units of 82 days.
Therefore the ranking contest is held every 82 days.
So the best case scenario for me is that I’m born to the commoner class because they are the only ones with any kind of freedom of choice.
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Interesting fact about the Knora; apparently their fight against the invading Demons reduced the Knora population to just 17 females and 55 males. The Knora actually managed to fight 25 to 1 odds to a stalemate and were only defeated by the dragons; some 97 million Knora died, but it gave the other races a chance at survival. In recognition of the tremendous sacrifice the largest of the southernmost islands of the Orro Federation is reserved for exclusive Knora use.
Renamed Knora Island it is the largest and coldest of the Orro Federation Islands.
Knora Island is where 17 females and 55 males set about trying to save the Knora Race.
With the assistance of the Orro Federation government each of the 17 females managed to have at least 1 child with each of the 55 males. The longevity of the Knora saved the species. 1244 children from the 17 women stands as an incredible demonstration of fertility; an abnormal fertility fostered by Gvern magic.
This is one of the few instances where Magic is credited with the survival of an entire race of people.
Today the Knora number over 4 million.
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From the looks of things my sister moves around a lot; she may be more energetic.
To tell the truth I don’t know how long we’ve been in our mother’s womb; it’s kinda hard to keep track of the time since I’m asleep most of the time.
Shit; I probably sleep for days.
I think we’re almost fully developed; which means we should be born soon.
My life strategy revolves around relying on my twin sister.
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Ah! The big day is finally here!
It looks like my sister will be First
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Looks like there’s some kind of delay
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Fuck! There’s some kind of problem with my sister. The fluid has drained but we’re not moving.
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Shit! Shit! Shit! We’re both in the wrong position!
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Are we gonna die?
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We’re out, we’re out!
They cut us out!
That’s right; Knora can heal.
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Birth Report:
I’m asleep now.
Life Plan is a failure.
Mother is a somewhat aged Knora.
She was wearing some kind Crown.
Yeah; I’m doomed.
Mother is the Matriarch of all Knora.
End Report
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