Homesteading in a fantasy world

Today was a glorious day because Goose achieved the second rank. He was now a lot more intelligent, but we still communicated through images most of the time. I tried to teach him some language, and he seemed able to learn it, but he didn't seem to want to actually communicate like that.

While this bothered me a little bit, it wasn't actually that big of a deal. What was more important was that he now grew bigger, and it meant that he could fly me without me having to flood him with energy.

This was brilliant news because now I would not have to burden the portal mages so much. Now I could just fly to the other nations when I start their military education. It will also mean that I could come back and tend to my own homestead whenever I needed to and when I got free time.

Just in case, I decided to go and ask if he would be OK with everything. "Hey, buddy, congratulations again. The flight earlier was amazing, but I have something to ask you?"

I received back excited images, so I just decided to march forward. "I will need to go to the two other nations down south, but with you now being able to fly me, I was wondering if you would be willing to do this quite often. That way, I could get new apprentices right away, and we wouldn't miss a large part of the summer in their training." Goose immediately sent images asking how often this would need to happen.

"Once or twice a week. Now I know that—" That was as far as I got before I was slapped by a wing that could encompass me. The feelings and images I got basically called me stupid and that he would be more than happy to fly me, especially if I would join him a few times on a hunt.

"I would be more than happy to hunt with you, Goose, but it might be more difficult to find prey that would be worthy of hunting." Goose slapped me with a wing once again. Apparently, I hadn’t taken into account how far we could now go. "You are right, Goose. You are right."

After a small pause, I could feel my leg tapping out of restlessness. "Want to go and fly once again?" I asked Goose, and it seemed that he was even more eager than me. He lowered himself so I could get onto the specially made saddle.

It did not only help me stay on top of him while we flew but also provided some protection for anyone attacking his most vulnerable spot. Flying in the air on top of a giant eagle was the freest I have ever felt.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t fly with him forever. After he brought me to the capital, I got everything started to quickly choose the 12 new apprentices as my last batch had all graduated, so to say. I really needed to also remember that Emma was getting married this summer solstice.

George already had a second child coming, and he also had two apprentices. Arthur had three apprentices, and I was quite certain that he fancied one of them. Perhaps after Emma got married, there will be another marriage this year, but I guess we will see what happens.

The other apprentices were still getting everything settled, but as I understand, next year quite a few of them will also take an apprentice. Now, it was quite normal that an apprenticeship wasn't going to take just one year, but that was to be expected. Most will probably stay for three or even five years, perhaps even longer, but that would depend on the apprentice and the teacher.

We were slowly starting to get the ball rolling on the homesteader class front. When I got my new apprentices and showed them around, it was time to head to the allied nations and start teaching them as well. Fortunately, Tim was quite happy to teach the apprentices, and of course, the extra hands always were appreciated around the homestead.

Time went fast, and soon it was the summer solstice. The teaching was going quite well, and I guess it helped that I was stronger because I could see how many of the seasoned generals didn’t want to change their ways. They did because all of them had seen me fight. Flying with Goose was incredibly fun, and sometimes he even asked me if I want a ride when there was no need. It was hard to say no to him.

Emma’s soon-to-be husband was quite average-looking, but I could see that he loved her, and that was enough for me. The wedding itself wasn’t a big event, but both of her brothers were here, and they also brought their family and guests. I brought Tim.

I gave her a big hug. “Congratulations, Emma. I’m proud of you, and I’m certain your parents would be as well,” I said. She squeezed me quite hard, and after we broke our hug, I could see tears at the corners of her eyes.

I knew that I hadn’t always been there, and I can be a bit distant, but I think I will always have a special connection with my three first apprentices. It was also quite nice to just relax for a day and talk about easy things.

Seeing George’s young kid already crawling around, sometimes even walking, reminded me of how fast time could go. It was sometimes hard to remember so far back, but I did remember when every year seemed like an eternity. For the first time, I truly wondered if I wanted to have kids in this world.

Sometimes I felt too old for new kids, yet if I didn’t have to deal with all the troubles coming our way, I might quite enjoy raising a few rugrats. The summer solstice overall was quite nice after the wedding, and I did enjoy a pleasant evening in the sauna.

This year, however, we had another pulse of death like I experienced during my first summer solstice. It seems that in the world, there was enough war and people not being buried properly that a wave of death that would awaken a lot of dead did spread once again over the planet.

Fortunately, we didn't need to deal with this as our lands were already protected, and we did give proper burials as well. Everyone else in the world, of course, will experience another awful summer, but at least this time, most places have armies that they can use to take care of the undead.

Of course, if they are not too busy fighting each other. Sometimes the stupidity of the so-called civilized races astonishes even me. What followed was an extremely nice, although busy, summer.

I was barely able to focus on improving myself, but I did continue to exercise, and slowly I felt myself healing. As another harvest approached, I finally felt that I could try a more proactive way of healing myself. It was a pleasant summer evening when I found myself on the bridge that I built, which I haven’t needed to raise for a long while now.

I sunk into meditation and started to use my energy inside my energy body and the parts of it that connected to my real body. I focused on the healing part of the energy I hold and slowly started to cycle around the worn-out parts that had healed quite well.

Not only that, but I also started to strengthen those edges similar to when I needed to fight mana with my energy. There was an obvious need to improve my capability of channeling energy as I didn’t want to become crippled after every serious battle.

After an hour, I was already sweating from the effort, but I needed to go slowly and be incredibly precise; otherwise, I might hurt myself more. But I could see myself improving slowly but surely. Not only was I healing myself faster, but I would also make sure that this didn’t happen again.

I only managed another hour before I needed a break or risk losing control. While I was completely tired, there was a huge grin on my face. Finally, I was able to start actively helping myself instead of just waiting, and I also found a new way to continue to train energy manipulation and control to make myself even better at it.