Cal noticed that the pond had changed overnight. It had visibly contracted—though still larger than before he dumped rain into it—and the water level had barely decreased.

He walked closer and saw that the floor of the pond’s slightly expanded borders were recessed. It was no longer flat like the rest of the field. That should mean the center of the pond now had an even greater depth, but he had experienced enough of his assumptions being wrong to just accept it.

The rumbling of the carts approaching his field was still quite a distance away. He had well over ten minutes before the first cart would pass the tree line.

More than enough time to wade in and test the depth. I can add more water—

Cal flinched when he heard a ground-shaking crash. He swiftly appeared at the origin—ready to demolish whatever was attacking his land—only to see the golem buried in a pile of rocks.

Nibbles was standing nearby and shook her head in disappointment.

He frowned as he took the sight in. There were four new piles—not counting the one around the golem—and the new area was thoroughly cleaned up. He now had a field that was four acres instead of two.

Still, he had yet to learn how the golem ended up in this situation.

“What did you do?” Cal blinked when he realized he had asked the mindless golem, who stared blankly at him. He turned to Nibbles and repeated the question. “What did it do?”

Nibbles was eager to tattle on the golem and did her charades with great amusement.

“… So it finished the clean-up, and then it proceeded to move the piled-up rock around the entire night,” Cal said as he stared at the golem. Nibbles continued her charades. “… And it started to throw rock balls from five feet away.”

Nibbles made a sound that resembled a giggle as she nodded.

It is my fault. I never gave an explicit end to its work. I had assumed my intent would have been enough.

“Don’t do anything until I give you another order,” Cal was as clear as he could be. He would rather have the golem be useless for some time than have it do something dangerous while the workers unloaded the supplies.

He was about to leave when a strange thought appeared in his mind. “Golem, nod if you like to throw balls around.”

The golem simply stared at him with its featureless, vaguely humanoid face that stuck out of the pile of rocks it was buried in.

“That was a stretch,” Cal muttered as he took his leave. He thought briefly of the golem being sapient, but that type of thing was just a myth. It was supposedly possible if the creator was skilled enough, but that’s how myths worked. Supposedly possible, but never any evidence.

Somehow, I have a golem that randomly throws things when left alone.

Cal waited near his house for the coming visitors. He mentally tallied the things he needed to complete today and found there wasn’t much he needed to do. He would be able to spend most of the time prepping the field with step one of the repair process.

It’s imperative to get the pond larger. It’ll be sucked dry at this size if it has to feed the whole field.

Cal saw the first cart pass the treelike and had to double-check that he wasn’t mistaken. It seemed that most of the people he knew from Mariner’s Rest chose to visit him. He didn’t like that.

Orrin sat beside Seris with a bored expression, and Cal didn’t mind his presence, though he had no idea why the boy was there. It was Nismus seated behind them who made him raise his eyebrows.

He would have questioned why Seris brought the suspicious man along if not for the heavy frown on her face. She usually smiled when visiting, so clearly, she didn’t suddenly take a liking to Nismus.

Cal took his eyes off them momentarily when the rest of the convoy started to file into the field behind them. It looked like an endless cart train loaded with loam, mulch, and occasional powdered crystals. Drex had sent over enough to fix the soil of his original two-acre field, with plenty more left over after he was done.

“Boss Cal!” Seris called out as soon as her cart was close to the house. “I brought over all the stuff Orrin made for you. And I pulled Orrin along too!”

Cal raised an eyebrow at the way she addressed him. She had never called him that before. “And Nismus? Did you pull him along too?”

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Huh?” Seris looked at him strangely and jumped down from the cart. “Drex told me you might be interested in seeing him. So here he is.”

“You have a marvelous farm, Initiate Cal,” Nismus said warmly, undeterred by the clear unwelcome. “I hope you forgive my intrusion.”

“… So I’m guessing you didn’t want to see Nismus?” Seris asked as she glanced between them.

“You guessed right,” Cal replied dryly before turning to Orrin. “Welcome to my little farm. I need to sort all these people out so they can leave as quickly as possible, so excuse me until then. Seris can show you around in the meantime.”

Orrin, being the sensible kid he was, didn’t make a fuss and followed an excited Seris into the house. Cal ignored Nismus for the moment and directed the steady stream of incoming carts to unload the supplies by the stables.

There was far too much to stack by the walls of his house, and with only two horses using the rather large stables, it was a perfect place to use for this.

He watched the workers unload the carts for a few minutes to ensure the horses wouldn’t harm them. He felt Nismus approaching from behind.

“What do you have over Drex for him to lie to Seris?” Cal asked without taking his eyes off the workers.

“Over him? You make it sound as if I threaten my friends.”

Cal didn’t believe the man’s offended tone one bit. But he did believe the reply. “Whatever you have to say better be worth it for Drex. He has lost all my business.”

“Well, that’s not entirely true. You will have to sell your harvest at the port… if you choose to do so.”

He gave Nismus a warning glance. “I’m sure that can be changed if necessary. What is it that you want?”

“I heard that you were close to harvest,” Nismus smiled when he received another warning look. “Guessing by that soil over there, the Sunfire Grains were already pulled out. I was hoping you would let me have a look.”

Cal turned to give Nismus his full attention. The workers knew what to do and no longer needed supervision. “You are aware that I have no interest in selling any of the harvest to you.”

“And I respect that. I simply find pleasure in looking at different harvests. I have seen all that this territory has to offer, but Sunfire Grains are something new.”

He didn’t know what it was about Nismus's voice that made him feel like he was dipped into oil every time. It was highly uncomfortable, and he wanted it to end.

Cal eyed the stream of carts that were still rolling into his field. It would take some time before all of the carts left his field, but the first ones should leave relatively soon.

“Follow. You can take a look before you leave on the first cart out of here.”

Nismus followed silently while Cal racked his brain to figure out what the man wanted. He knew he should probably kick Nismus out—nothing was stopping him—but he felt there was no reason to not see where this went.

If Nismus was shameless enough to invite himself to a guild member’s station, the man was willing to go much further to get what he wanted. Cal would rather have some control over the interactions while making it clear there would always be a disconnect between them… until he felt it was worth changing that.

“Red grains,” Nismus whispered as they approached the harvest on the other side of the piles of rock.

“There are some that have them,” Cal didn’t reveal that he had no idea what the red grains meant. Though, he could guess by the reverence in Nismus’s voice.

“You are a skilled farmer, Initiate Cal. One of the very best. The Celestial Order is blessed to have one such as you to be part of the guild.”

I have never felt more disgusted by flattery.

“Thanks,” Cal said dryly.

“No, thank you for letting me take a look. I’ll take my leave as you requested. I hope you come around to my house for some tea when you are in town.”

Cal watched Nismus return to the house with a puzzled look. That’s it?

He glanced at the red grains and wondered if it was just a convenient reason to meet him. Nismus seemed willing to play the long game, and this could be something to make sure he kept the man in mind as an option for the future.

The issue was Drex. Cal had already given him multiple chances to tone down the persistence, but doing this forced his hand. If he allowed Drex to continue without consequence, the overreaches would get worse.

The only thing was that it made little sense for Drex to push Seris to bring Nismus along. There was little reason to do so. Nismus could have just shown up to his field and had the same result.

He frowned before shaking his head.

Cal glanced at harvested crops again and noticed they were dry enough. He would take them to the port today. Sell them and find out what Drex was thinking—or wasn’t thinking—at the same time.

He returned to his crowded field and saw Nismus on a departing cart before putting the sleazy man out of his mind.

Supplies had already been stacked to fill the stables, and once the space inside was gone, the workers started stacking them out to the edge of the stone pathways that were built yesterday.

Thankfully, the two horses were still satisfied with their much smaller space. In fact, they seemed interested in watching the workers.

“Put the rest on the side of the stables,” Cal said as they started stacking the supplies on the soil after running out of stone pavement.

“Yes, Initiate,” a superior among them confirmed before directing the others as Cal requested.

He watched for a few seconds before moving to the cart Seris had been riding on. He then moved all the tools Orrin had made for him into the storage room.

Cal didn’t bother to suppress his speed and was done in less than ten minutes. As usual around mortals, they paused to stare at him at the beginning before returning to their work.

He stood in the storage room and tallied the new tools.

Six pickaxes, sledgehammers, and shovels, four plows, two wheelbarrows, and five hand buckets.

Orrin went the extra mile. I can see how the golem deals with tools with so many to spare.

Cal glanced over the spare tools again before going through the hallway that connected the storage room to the main house. The first thing he saw was Orrin blushing under Tavia’s curious questioning.

Seris was alternating between glee and frustrated, confused anger. That made Cal smile a little.

“Orrin,” he interrupted, to the kid’s relief. “Thank you for going the extra length with my requests. And you didn’t need to come here to deliver them. I told you I would have been happy to pick them up.”

“Ah, well, it wasn’t just for that, Initiate Cal,” Orrin fidgeted before giving him an awkward, unfamiliar bow. “I came to ask you for a favor.”

Finally! I was waiting for this.

“Oh?” Cal acted calm. “How can I help?”

“I was hoping you could be my sponsor for the blacksmith test.”

"... What?"