Homesteading in a fantasy world

While I didn’t particularly like that I needed to take on new apprentices, the moment I had them, it was quite exciting to learn what they liked and then teach them the way of the homesteaders. Bert was an interesting case because not only was I teaching him, he was also teaching me energy-based magic.

This magic needed more than just spell structures; it also required ingredients to do what usually mana did. So, it was a slower form of magic, and while it could be used for fighting, it was more meant for support and ritualized magic that affected people or areas.

I quite literally sucked at it. I had no problem with making the spell structures, as that was just energy manipulation, but you also needed to pull specific compounds out of the ingredients. While I could do that without much trouble, the problem was choosing the correct ones to bring out and to have them in a specific amount, something I just wasn't that good at. Bert says that my problem is that I’m hurrying too much and not doing things precisely enough.

It was kind of like following a cooking recipe exactly how it was written, but I’ve never been able to do that well. I like to cook with feeling, even while baking, which should be a more exact art, but it has worked for me up until this point.

This approach, unfortunately, doesn’t work for most of the energy-based spells. There are exceptions, as some of the spells require that all of the ingredient needs to be used up. That, I can do really well: just grab everything that ingredient has and channel it into the spell structure.

So, I have some spells that I get perfect scores on and some that I can barely pass. Unfortunately, the more useful and strong spells are the ones that don't fit my style. I also checked the spell book I got from the dungeon, but unfortunately, all it had was mana-based spells.

The current count of spells that I have been able to decipher for our mages is closing in on 500, but we still have no idea how many more there are. I’m not really going that hard on it, as I need to do other things, and the mages also need quite a lot of time to get the hang of the spells so they can put them into the nation's repository.

Time flew by as my days were filled with teaching others, learning myself, crafting, and then fighting and leading armies to conquer dungeons or defend against monsters. Arabella has tried to get access to our portal a few times now, but she has been denied every time.

I wonder if she will eventually decide to just come here from the closest other portal, but I’m guessing she can’t because, from my understanding, she still has quite a lot of fights left on her arena contract.

Near the end of the summer, I was once again in Verdia, as I’ve been helping supply energy to our portal mage who helps us bring refugees to our nation. We have now received over 1000 refugees from Verdia alone, and the city-state is quite grateful to us as people continue to escape and travel to bigger centers of population to find safety from the endless wars that are happening.

That wasn’t the only reason why I was here helping the portal mage, as there were enough people to supply the energy to bring the people over. The portal mage also needed to gather data, and he said that a singular person charging his ability was better for his research than multiple people doing it.

He was still far away from developing a fully functional energy-based portal station, but every time I spoke to him, he seemed more excited, and I’m pretty sure the last time he told me that his latest prototype was actually able to teleport an apple across the room without it coming out with parts of it missing.

I would be quite excited if we got this working because, while getting back from Verdia was easy, getting here still required multiple portal jumps. It was at this moment when I turned onto the street where our compound entrance was and saw Arabella storming out, looking quite furious.

When she saw me, she basically did a sliding stop as her feet stopped moving. It was quite funny to see, but I didn’t stop and continued to walk towards her. "Hey, how are you doing? It's been quite a while," I said with a smile.

I could have sworn that I saw smoke rising from her head; perhaps it was a mistake to tease her like that. The next moment, she moved so fast that I couldn't stop the punch to my stomach. "Son of a bitch!" She screamed out when her punch didn't move me at all, and from the looks of it, at least two of her fingers were broken. "You should have aimed lower. But let's get back inside; there should be a healer that can take care of it."

She looked at me as if she was contemplating, not my suggestion to go in and get her healed, but my suggestion that she should have aimed lower. I cocked an eyebrow, which made her huff in annoyance. "Fine, why do you constantly wear armour? It's annoying." I laughed at that. "For the very reason that just happened. Now, tell me how everyone else is doing. Or have you not kept in touch?"

We moved back inside, where for a moment the guards almost moved towards us to stop Arabella, but when they noticed me, they immediately stopped. "Can we get a healer, please?" I asked them, while Arabella showed her hand.

They moved immediately, which made Arabella look at me weirdly. "Who are you, really? I heard about your trial, and while I’ve learned a lot about you, it still doesn't explain this," she said, pointing at her bow.

"Well, straight to the point. I can appreciate that, but you should know that I won’t answer. I mean, would you if the situation was reversed?" I could see how she wanted to argue; her mouth even opened a few times, but she closed it while her expression kept getting darker.

She was quite furious, and I could feel that not all of it was directed at me, but more at the situation. We were led to a side office where a healer quickly fixed her hand. We sat there quietly for a while before she started to speak of the rest of our party members.

It turns out that they were doing quite well, and we continued to talk like we had during our delve, just speaking of small things to fill the time. But we didn't have forever. "It was nice to catch up, but I have an appointment I need to keep that will take me away from this city," I said.

I could see the disappointment returning to her face, and then, when I was already halfway out of the room, she spoke up. "What can I do to receive the answers I’m looking for?" I pulled the door closed once again and turned to look at her.

She looked quite sad, probably expecting an answer she wasn't going to like. I wondered what was going through her mind. Did she think that I was going to make her sign a binding contract that would limit her freedoms and would be quite close to breaking the system's rules on slavery?

I gave her a small smile. "You have to join the United Freeholds." Her head snapped up, and our eyes met. I saw hope in there, a lot deeper than I expected. It seems she had her own secrets, as deep as mine, but doubt returned to her eyes. "This offer doesn't have an expiration date?"

With those words, I left, as I was almost close to not making it in time to start supplying the portal with energy so we could get almost 100 refugees to our nation. I wondered what she was going to decide and why this was so important to her. But whatever the case was, I guess time will tell.

Bringing the refugees over went as expected, and while I had only been away from United Freeholds lands for less than a day, I already missed the feeling I got when I walked on this land. The next big event was going to be an alliance signing with two of the closest nations to us, and then it was harvest time.