Ethan looked at the door to his own home and felt trepidation at what he was about to do.

Over the past few years in which he had been in control of his new body, he had grown fond enough to love his new parents, something he wasn’t sure he would have been able to do, having already grown up under a different set of parents.

His mother’s kindness and care, to his father’s lovable and slightly goofy personality, he felt the love they had for him in every action of theirs, at first it had felt strange to suddenly receive affection from would be strangers, he had grown to appreciate having someone in this unfamiliar world who cared for him in this unfamiliar world.

Ethan probably would have been a lot more stressful, if it wasn’t for their care.

And so, to tell them that he wanted to stop farming and instead study to get into the royal academy, he was nervous.

What if they didn’t approve? what if they force him to keep farming? What if this changes the current relationship he had with his parents?

In the end, Ethan couldn’t answer those questions, without going forth and asking them in the first place.

So, while steeling his nerves, he went up and walked through the door into his home.

“Ethan! You were gone for a while, come and sit at the table, dinners nearly ready and your father just got back to” his mother said, at the counter of the kitchen, making more bread and leafy greens, the unfortunate main choice for food in the village.

“I have something I want to ask Mum,” Ethan said, knowing if he didn’t get straight to the point, he may lose his nerves.

Samantha blinked, startled by the sudden change of topic, the quickly recovered “Of course, what is it, Ethan?” Samantha said kneeling before the boy.

Gathering his courage, Ethan said, “I want to study to get into the Royal Academy”.

Samantha was silent for several moments, staring at him, as Ethan was about to get nervous, she then slowly let forth a brilliant smile and quickly snatched him into a hug.

“You want to try and get into the Royal Academy? That sounds like a wonderful idea! You’ll get so many opportunities of you to get in and live a far better life than the one you can get into this village, I knew you’d do great things, you’ve always been so smart growing up, I knew you were gonna be unsatisfied as a farmer, when I first saw you walk back after the first day!” she rambled, hugging her child in happiness.

“Oh, uh thanks Mum,” Ethan said non-plussed at both the complete opposite expected reaction and the sudden raving of her faith in his ability.

Not ten seconds later, in walked Tom from the bedroom, drawn to the commotion.

“What’s going on Samantha?” Tom asked, looking quizzically at the scene he walked into.

“Tom! Our baby boy is going to study and get into the Royal Academy!” Samantha proudly proclaimed

“Eh?... but…farming?” Tom robotically replied, looking at them uncomprehendingly.

Deciding to rip the band-aid off, Ethan indelicately said “I hate farming Dad”.

Acting as if he was stabbed by an imaginary arrow, Tom staggered backwards, his face a rictus of unending pain as he stared shakily at him as if he had dealt him a mortal blow.

“but… you always… loved reading that farming book?” he said brokenly, still in denial at what he heard.

“I like reading and it was one of the only books in the house, I don’t like farming,” said Ethan, trying to convey his opinion, while still feeling bad about the pain he was causing his father, even if it was a little dramatic.

Falling to his knee’s Tom, shook uncontrollably, tears running down his face as he repeatedly said “no way” and “impossible”.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

Ignoring his father, Samantha said, “Ooh I should get something extra special for dinner today, we have some salted lamb we were saving, ill break that out and we’ll celebrate!”.

“Uh, sure,” Ethan said, deciding to follow his mother’s lead in ignoring his father.

~~~

After the best dinner he had in this world, Ethan had a conversation regarding his schedule to study to get into the academy.

He would only work from two hours before dawn to two hours after dawn on the farm, effectively halving his previous load, he still needed to pull his weight on the farm despite his mothers’ happiness over his choice of studying over farming.

Unlike in his previous world, there were no child labour laws and it was thus normal for children to start learning a profession from a young age instead of being educated.

Then he would go study at the Chief’s residence till dinner, learning all the things he deemed necessary for the exam.

And he was forbidden from starting weapons training with the guard force until he was at least eight, because in his mothers’ words “It’s too dangerous for you to go around swinging such dangerous things around at your age!”.

And as he went to sleep, Ethan couldn’t help but be excited at beginning his journey to escape from farming.

~~~

Ethan approached the Chief’s house, having finished his obligatory farming for the day, it was tiring but far more bearable than his previous shifts.

About to knock, he was prevented from doing so from the door opening, Gerald’s smiling face looking down upon him.

“Come in, I’ll show you where you can work and what to study!” Gerald said, walking down the hallway and leading him to a door just to the right of where he knew Gerald and Henry’s workspace was.

Opening the door, he came upon a room housing only a small desk, some shelves filled with books and a row of cabinets.

“This is where you’ll work while here, I’ve placed some of the introductory texts on the desk for you to go over first, also ill spend the next hour teaching you how to read, so you can go through these books on your own after” Gerald explained leading him in

“I already know how to read,” Ethan said, sitting down at the slightly large for his size desk

“Truly? Surprising but that just makes it easier on me” Gerald said, chuckling.

“Now, ill quickly go over the topics you need to learn if you want to get into the academy,” Gerald said, entering a lecturing voice eerily similar to the one Henry exhibited yesterday, maybe this is where he learned it?

“There are a few topics, but the main ones you’ll need to know are History, knowledge of the noble houses and geography of both the country and the continent,” Gerald said.

“You’ll also need to learn about maths and economic, but not as much as the first three topics,” Gerald said.

“Now these are the introductory books for each topic you’ll need, any questions?” Gerald finished

Ethan mused over the knowledge for a second before asking “what about knowledge of magic, is that not needed”.

“Commoners rarely know anything about magic, so it’s not too prominent in the exam, that and we don’t have any book’s about magic within this village, so we can’t learn about it either way” Gerald finished, seeming to have shrugged off the chance to learn magic.

Ethan couldn’t help but feel disappointed, ever since hearing about magic, he couldn’t help but want to try it, it would be an entirely new experience in this new world, and sometimes he couldn’t’ help but think of himself flinging fireballs or commanding lightning from the heavens.

“Oh well, I guess ill get started,” Ethan said, grabbing one of the books, which was titled unoriginally “History of the Diam kingdom Vol.1”

“Of course, I’ll leave you to it, let me know if you need any help,” Gerald said, retreating from the room to do his work.

Settling into his chair, Ethan prepared for some serious study.

~~~

Why did it have to be so dry! Ethan questioned, having gone through half of the first volume of the history of diam kingdom, the content was no doubt interesting for him, from the tales of a warrior and his vassals, taking over the coast and expanding their dominion to the north until defeating and bringing under the tribes of the low storm mountains, to the wars against the western country of Ragnor, that had resulted in numerous revisions in the border several times over the past 300 years since the founding of the kingdom.

The problem was that it was delivered in such a monotonous and dry recounting that he had trouble concentrating and had his mind drifting to other topics, such as where he could learn magic, something he was determined to do before the exam.

Alas, Ethan could tell that studying was going to be a tiresome effort and that he should prepare for the long haul, as both learning from all the books on the shelves of the Chief’s house and then retaining said information, would be a long time coming.

At the very least it was far better than farming, it was interesting, and not mind-numbingly tiring.

But at the very least his parents were happy for him, his father while initially heartbroken, was supportive of him and were happy for his decision, he could only hope that he would live up to the expectations of the two people with who he had grown an affection for within this new world and pass the Academy exam.

“Ethan! There you are, come in dinner’s nearly ready and tell me all about what your studying” and there was his mother, waving at him from the door of his house, with the exuberant smile that hadn’t left since last night.

“Coming Mum!” Said Ethan, rushing into the house, after all that studying, he was starving.