Panlong's Worton

Chapter 1 I am Wharton

Wharton had a very long dream.

In his dream, he was rushing to finish a piece of code that would never be completed, the screen light hurting his eyes. Then he clicked save, closed his laptop, and fell asleep immediately.

When I opened my eyes again, the ceiling was made of wood, with clear wood grain and a few cracks. There was a unique smell of an old house in the air, mixed with a faint fragrance of incense.

He lay there for about ten minutes.

His body felt strange—small, light, and his limbs were ridiculously short. He tried to sit up, but this simple movement was incredibly difficult; his arms felt weak and couldn't support his weight. In the end, he rolled to the edge of the bed and slid off it.

My feet were on the floor, which was icy cold.

There was a bronze mirror in the room, not very shiny, but good enough. He moved closer, stood on tiptoe, and saw a child who looked no more than two or three years old in the mirror. The child had light golden hair that was a little messy, clear blue eyes, and chubby cheeks.

Walton Baruch.

The name was like a key, unlocking a door. Fragments of memory flooded in, disjointed, but enough to piece together: a very capable older brother named Linley, a stern father named Hogg, and a kind old butler named Ciri. The house was large, but old. Their surname was Baruch, a family that sounded ancient but seemed to be declining now.

He looked down at his hands; they were fleshy with shallow indentations at the knuckles.

"I've traveled through time," he said softly, his voice so childish that even he was taken aback.

There were no system notifications, no floating screens, and no supernatural phenomena. He simply fell asleep and was reborn. He tried to recall his name from his previous life, but found it blurry, as if viewed through frosted glass. Conversely, the identity of "Wharton," along with those scattered memories from his early childhood, was as clear as his own breath.

The door creaked open.

An old man with a bulbous nose entered, wearing a faded old coat and carrying a wooden basin. "Young Master Wharton, you're awake?" The old man smiled, his eyes narrowing into slits. "How did you get out of bed by yourself? Come, let Grandpa Ciri wipe your face."

Walton didn't move, just watched him.

Ciri wasn't in a hurry. She placed the basin on the low stand, wrung out the cloth, and squatted down to expertly wipe his face and hands. The water temperature was just right, and her touch was gentle.

"The master and young master have both gone to the training ground," Hilary said while wiping. "There's oatmeal for breakfast today, and I added some honey. I'm sure you'll like it."

Wharton let him do as he pleased, while other thoughts raced through his mind.

He needs to confirm some things.

"Brother..." he began, his voice still childish, "Training today?"

“Yes,” Ciri chuckled. “Young Master Linley trains incredibly hard. He’s four years older than you, but he’s got that kind of energy, like a little adult.” He helped Walton put on a linen shirt and then knelt down to help him put on his socks. “You should grow up quickly so you can train with your brother in the future.”

Wharton nodded and didn't ask any more questions.

Breakfast was eaten in a small dining room. The long wooden table could seat more than a dozen people, but only one set of tableware was set on it. The porridge did have a honey sweetness, accompanied by a small piece of dark bread and a few slices of pickled vegetables. Ciri stood beside him, occasionally helping him hold the wooden spoon.

Halfway through the meal, footsteps could be heard outside.

Hogg walked in, dressed in plain linen clothes, his back ramrod straight. He glanced at Wharton, nodded as a greeting, and then said to Ciri, "I'm going to town this morning to check on the progress of the damage repairs. Linley's afternoon classes will proceed as usual."

"Yes, sir," Hillary replied.

Hogg looked at Wharton again, his expression softening: "Don't run around after you finish eating. Let Grandpa Ciri teach you to read."

"Yes, Father," Walton mumbled, his mouth full of porridge.

Hogg seemed somewhat surprised by his compliance, glanced at him again, but said nothing, and turned to leave.

Once Hogg's footsteps had faded into the distance, Wharton put down his spoon.

"Grandpa Ciri," he looked up, "I want to read a book."

Ciri paused for a moment: "Reading a book? Young Master Wharton, you're still too young, you can't even recognize all the words yet."

"Just look at the ones with lots of pictures," Walton insisted, "the kind my brother used to look at."

Ciri scratched her head, and finally gave in: "Okay, I'll go look for it. There should be a few illustrated primers in the study."

He left for a while, and when he came back, he was holding a thick booklet with a hard leather cover and worn-out edges.

"This is 'The Illustrated Compendium of Warcraft: Children's Edition'," Ciri said, placing the book on the table and opening it. "It has lots of pictures of animals—no, I mean warcraft. Take a look, do you recognize them?"

Wharton climbed off the chair and moved closer to the book.

The book features hand-drawn, colorful illustrations with simple text descriptions below. The first page depicts a gray mouse with remarkably sharp teeth.

"Stone-eating rat," Ciri read, pointing to the words, "a level one to three magical beast that likes to gnaw on rocks and has exceptionally good teeth."

Walton reached out and touched the mouse in the picture, without saying a word.

Ciri turned to another page; it was a black mouse, drawn more lively than a rock-eating rat, with a fluffy tail.

"Shadow Mouse, a level three or four magical beast, extremely fast... Ah, this book was read by Young Master Lin Lei when he was a child. He loved reading it back then."

Walton stared at the image of the Shadow Mouse for a long time.

Then he stretched out his finger and slowly traced the strokes of the words below the picture.

"Shadow—mouse—" he repeated softly.

In that instant, his mind went blank.

It wasn't a sound, but a feeling. It was as if something had been activated, lighting up an area deep within his consciousness. Then, a few concise lines of text surfaced directly in his mind:

[Skill: Literacy (attempt to trace characters)]

[Proficiency: 0.01%]

[Result: Initially establishes a connection between character shape and pronunciation]

[Tip: Repeated observation and practice can accelerate mastery]

Walton froze.

Ciri, oblivious to anything amiss, continued flipping through the book: "There are even more powerful ones to come. Look, this is a velociraptor, a level seven magical beast that breathes fire. It's incredibly fierce..."

Walton didn't listen.

He closed his eyes and concentrated. The words were still there, as clear as if etched onto his retina. He tried to "think" of other things—breakfast, Ciri's face, Hogg's back—and the words faded; then, recalling the feeling of tracing the words, they reappeared.

It's not a hallucination.

He opened his eyes, his heart pounding a little, but he tried to keep his face calm. He pointed to the words "Shadow Mouse" and said to Ciri, "Read it again."

"Shadow Mouse," Ciri read aloud.

Wharton repeated the words while tracing the strokes with his finger.

[Skill: Literacy (attempt to trace characters)]

[Proficiency: 0.02%]

[Result: Initially establishes a connection between character shape and pronunciation]

The numbers jumped.

Wharton took a breath and looked up: "Grandpa Ciri, I want to learn to write these words."

Ciri was even more surprised: "Writing? Young Master Wharton, you're only two and a half years old, you can't even hold a pen properly."

"I'll give it a try," Walton insisted.

Ciri couldn't persuade him otherwise, so she went and got a small slate and a pencil. Wharton took it; his hands were indeed small, and his grip on the pencil was crooked. He slowly drew the character for "shadow" on the slate, copying it from the book.

The first stroke was crooked, like a worm.

[Skill: Writing (First Attempt)]

[Proficiency: 0.01%]

[Results: Extremely inconsistent, requires extensive practice]

Wharton didn't stop; he erased it and wrote again. It was still crooked.

Come again.

The third time, it was a little straighter.

[Proficiency: 0.02%]

Ciri watched from the side, her expression slowly shifting from amusement to surprise. This child, though usually well-behaved, had never shown such interest in recognizing and writing. And the focused look on his face was unusual for a two- or three-year-old.

Wharton wrote it about a dozen times before his arm ached and his fingers turned red from gripping it so tightly. He stopped, looked at the last character on the stone slab that he could barely make out as "Shadow," and then looked at the panel.

[Skill: Writing (First Attempt)]

[Proficiency: 0.23%]

[Results: Extremely inconsistent, requires extensive practice]

The increase is slow, but it is definitely moving.

"Are you tired?" Ciri took the slate. "Take a break, we can play with this again this afternoon."

Wharton nodded and didn't insist. He knew he couldn't rush things. This "panel" seemed to be a learning aid; it didn't have an instant-level-up function, and he'd have to learn it little by little on his own.

But he has grasped the most crucial information: it exists, and it is useful.

When Linley returned in the afternoon, Walton was chasing a butterfly in the yard. He did it on purpose—he had to maintain the behavior of a two-year-old and not arouse too much suspicion.

Lin Lei was covered in sweat, his face tense, but his expression softened when he saw Wharton.

"Walton!" He ran over, picked Walton up, and spun him around. "Did you miss your brother?"

"I've been thinking about it!" Walton hugged his neck, smelling the scent of sweat and sunshine.

Lin Lei put him down and took a small thing out of his pocket: "Look, I brought this for you."

It was a smooth, white pebble with faint veins.

Walton took it: "Thank you, brother."

"I saw it by the river during training, thought it was pretty, so I picked it up." Lin Lei wiped his sweat. "What did you do at home today?"

"I'm reading a book," Walton said. "Grandpa Ciri gave it to me. It has mice in it."

"Those are Shadow Rats and Stone-Eating Rats, magical beasts." Linley's eyes lit up. "When I become powerful in the future, maybe I can tame a magical beast too, just like those mages."

"My brother is the best," Walton said, going along with him.

Lin Lei smiled and ruffled his hair: "You need to grow up quickly too, so we can train together in the future."

During dinner, Hogg asked Linley about his training during the day. Linley didn't say much, but his eyes shone. Wharton quietly ate his porridge, listening attentively while his mind processed the day's findings.

The panel seemed to only respond to "learning behaviors". He tried simply running and jumping, but the panel didn't react. But when he tried tracing words, writing words, or even later when he tried to memorize a simple nursery rhyme that Ciri had taught him, the panel showed the skill item "Language Memory", and his proficiency also increased slowly.

It's like an extremely focused supervisor, only recording "progress" and not caring about anything else.

After dinner, Hogg went to his study as usual. Linley played with Wharton's wooden toys in the living room for a while before Ciri urged him to take a bath. Wharton also took a bath, changed into clean pajamas, and was taken back to his room.

Ciri tucked him in: "Young Master Wharton has been exceptionally well-behaved today, go to sleep early."

Goodnight, Grandpa Ciri.