"H-hoi, there," Dylan nervously calls out, though he's not in my [Empathy] range yet.

I look over to find him carrying his son, the boy's head pressed against his father's chest but with an eye open to peek at me. Dylan's barely outside of my range and is fidgeting just a little while holding a hand protectively over his son.

Should I update my wardstone to include the alarm for if just anyone enters it? I didn't include that in the more permanent one, only a ward alerting me to potential threats.

I'll leave it for now, even if I'm having regular visitors. The two visiting are decent people and I don't mind their presences.

"Morning," I stand and approach, feeling Dylan's anxiety and Nolan's shyness. "And welcome back."

"S-sorry if this bothers you," he says. "Nolan wanted to see you again. At least, I think he does. He keeps staring in this direction ever since we left the other day."

Based on Nolan's emotions, his father's probably right. I take a peek into the kid's mind and find that he's thinking about the light butterflies from the other day.

"No worries," I conjure a trio of light butterflies – one blue, one green, and one purple – and send them over to the kid, who watches them as they flutter around him. "I didn't mind the two of you hanging out some. Just doing some morning chores."

Nolan seems pretty excited over the butterflies now, though it doesn't show on his face.

"Clearing the growth?" Dylan asks.

"Trying to get all the way to cliffs cleared," I say. "Both north and east, and up to the stream. Takes a lot of effort since it grows back a foot every day, so I need to do it in sections. Am thinking about taking a [Flamethrower] to it even though I want to save the wood."

Dylan's attention shifts toward the zone where I'm storing all of the felled trees and the lumber I've cut. That takes up quite a lot of space even with me having stacked things, just due to how thick the trees are and how densely they grow here.

"Though I'll admit I probably don't need all of this wood," I say. "But I'm used to saving all of the trees when I clear an area, for firewood, furniture, and the like. The actual cabin itself will probably be from trees further east of here, since those are slimmer. Hard to shift away from that mindset, even if I know I don't."

"Understandable," he responds. "I can help you, if you want. Maybe a little. If you'll offer some meat in return."

I have to refrain from snorting. The trip here was as much for his son's interest as it is for him. Dylan's hoping he can get more meat from me to add to their diet, and he's probably hoping that I'll offer to feed him lunch if he helps for the next few hours. That's probably why he showed up right after breakfast.

"I actually had a different thing in mind," I tell him. "Had a feeling you'd return within a week unless Thomas went off on you after his last visit."

"Something else?" Dylan asks, though I can tell he wants to ask about my Thomas comment.

"Yeah," I answer. "What would you say to learning how to read and write? I know it might not seem useful to you, but knowing what plants you're pulling up might expand what foods are available to you. And if you come across any magical plants while doing your own foraging or clearing of the camp, well, you can always trade them to me for things."

"All I'd have to do in exchange is help you clear undergrowth?" Dylan asks.

"Yeah," I answer. "Just for an hour or two each time. I'll give you and Nolan a lesson, then you help with the clearing. Once a section is cleared to the stream or the cliffs, it won't regrow as fast, so the more that gets cleared, the less work there will be overall."

I was working on clearing the undergrowth from my cabin to the creek the last few days, but I have to maintain a stretch ten feet in width while also making sure things don't grow too much around the rest of the perimeter. That takes a fair bit of time and all I've been managing so far is to maintain what I've already cleared.

The forest spirits have recognized I'm wanting to keep a zone clear, but they aren't completely stopping the growth. It's only been slowed down for everywhere not in the smaller yard behind the cabin. They can recognize I want it cleared up but the way the minds of spirits work is a fair bit different from ours.

It can be frustrating at times.

"As for the meat," I say. "Consider that more of a bonus if you help for more than an hour or so."

There's surprise in Dylan's mind, while his son is just focused on the green butterfly, which I'm having move around just barely out of his reach. The other two have landed on his arm and he wants to try and get the third to land on his fingers.

"Oh," Dylan says. "I guess… that makes sense. The bit about being able to know what things are when we're clearing or foraging, I mean. I can recognize the common stuff, sure, but I ain't ever able to tell if something else is safe to eat or not."

"I won't promise you'll learn quickly," I say. "But I can promise to teach you enough to figure things out. Even willing to do it every two mornings."

"That often?" The surprise in his mind is so high, it's almost tangible. "Thought it'd be once a week."

"The more help I have clearing the growth," I say. "The faster I'll be able to create the perimeter that gets the nature spirits to halt the excess growth completely in the greater yard."

"What do you say?" Dylan asks Nolan. "Want to help Rowan get rid of the plants in his way?"

Nolan looks over at me, then at his father, then at the light butterflies, all of which are now on his arm.

"Let's help Rowan, okay?" Dylan asks him, then looks at me. "We'll help you."

"Come on," I say. "There's a spot I made for teaching."

I lead them over to a spot I've fully cleared out and gave a special little space. The boundary for it is made up of 1"-thick slices of trunks from some of the medium-slim trees that I've cut down, halfway into the ground on their sides. This creates a wall of half-circles 2.5' in height. Hot water was used to make the wood more flexible, allowing me to curve them a little while also layering them three thick in an alternating pattern.

The entire zone is 21' in diameter, with an open space facing toward the cabin. Large runes are painted onto the outside of the outer layer in a silvery-blue color, each half-circle containing a different rune. The interior slices don't have any visible runes on them, though I'm sure they'll end up decorated over time.

Inside of this zone are five stools arranged in a half-circle on the right side when entering, another on the other side from them. The opening to the learning center faces toward the west, and the entire section between it and the stream has been completely cleared with smaller trunk slices forming a path to that. Those have faintly-glowing runes painted on each side in blue, with a section missing to act as an entrance to the path.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Thick, dark green grass grows from edge to edge of the path and the circle, just as thick and healthy as what's grown in the small back yard for the cabin despite there not being much grass in the undergrowth. A shelf of drawers sits within the learning zone, on the side with a lone stool.

"This is-"

"My labor a couple of days ago," I tell him. "I can teach anywhere, but I like a proper learning zone. Since I'm planning on offering lessons to more than just you, I felt I should set one up. They've been offered to Thomas as well. Not just reading and writing lessons, either, but magic as well. If anyone's interested."

"Magic?"

"I told Thomas the other day," I say. "But I do think everyone should know at least the basics of magic. It's a rather new school of thought that wouldn't have reached you guys yet. It's only begun gaining traction in the last five years or so. I've held the view since younger, though, and always taught anyone I was going on a long-term adventure with the basics. Knowing how to move objects with force magic and how to start a fire with a thought can be pretty important. So can learning how to pull water out of wood to dry it out."

"If you're making camp and it's raining," Dylan says. "Or if it had been raining and is dry now, all of the wood is wet. You won't be able to start a fire."

"Yeah," I gesture for them to sit, and Dylan takes a seat, Nolan sitting on his father's lap rather than a stool of his own. "It's a basic elemental magic exercise that's cheap in terms of mana. Doesn't give you very much [Elemental Magic] Skill Experience, and it takes a lot of effort to prevent the wood from splitting, but it's good for drying wood and starting a fire. If you get good enough, you can even quickly dry off muddy ground.

"And before you ask about more complicated magics," I sit. "Arcane and elemental are the two most basic ones. Almost no one can wield the others without considerable training, a special blessing, or a bloodline. If you accept my lessons, you'll be sticking with those two."

Though I wouldn't be surprised if the nature spirits granted him a blessing to make learning nature magic easier. I should investigate the other villagers to see if they're all as liked as the three I've met so far are.

"Okay," he says. "But we're doing reading lessons right now?"

"Right."

I gesture with my right and one of the drawers opens up. A few objects float out of it and over to us. Three wooden boards 2' in length, 1.5' in height, 0.5" in thickness, along with three pens made of transparent blue crystal. On side of each board has a more glossy look, with a yellow rune set decorating each corner.

A board and pen floats to me, while the others float to Dylan and his son. Since they know I'm a mage, there's no reason for me to not use my magic for this.

"Even kids can learn," I say as Dylan awkwardly accepts the items. "Though if he wants, Nolan can just draw instead."

"Here," Dylan grabs one of the other stools and pulls it up next to him. "Can you sit next to me so we can use our own boards?"

Nolan is reluctant but moves onto the other stool, after making sure he can sit as close to his dad as possible.

"Alright," I say. "Notice how one side of the board has runes in the corners and the other doesn't?"

"Yeah," Dylan says.

"If you take the pen and put the pointy end to that side," I demonstrate, and a blue line follows after it. "It'll draw or write on the board. If you want to erase it, rub the blunt side of the pen against the marking, like so."

I demonstrate, and Nolan immediately starts squiggling on the board, then erasing it. He doesn't show any emotion on his face, but I can feel the giggle in his mind.

"How did you get these?" Dylan asks. "This seems like it's pretty expensive."

"I made them," I tell him. "The runes you see are mostly just decorative. The wood itself is nothing special, just slices of tree trunks I cut into rectangles. The glossy coating you see was made through alchemy and is a mixture of sap, ground light magic crystal, and a couple of other things I could find here. As for the pen, that's just plain magic crystals, a little bit of light magic crystal, and a couple of other things I found here. Crushed, ground, liquified, then solidified. The crystals came from Thomas's hunts in the mines, which he's been paid for in items I crafted."

It didn't take very much from my share of the light magic crystal to make these, and I have one for each seat in the learning zone. I haven't given Thomas the lamps yet, but only because he hasn't come back since I made them after he left a few days ago.

If he'd stuck around just one more hour, he'd have them already, but he left after finishing in the bath.

"These are pretty basic," I say. "I only needed to apply a simple enchantment to the boards which causes them to react to the pens based on if it's a small end or a thick one. The light magics from the crystal is what causes the drawing effect and you don't need much."

"No ink?" Dylan asks.

"That's too expensive to keep replacing," I say. "Chalk or charcoal on plain wooden boards is usually used as it's cheaper, but I felt that too much of a hassle to keep replacing. It can be a bit messy, too."

Dylan looks at his shoulder due to the nature spirit sitting on it manifesting himself, and another manifests on Nolan's lap in a position which suggests he's ready to learn.

I doubt the spirits will actually pay attention to the lesson, they're just goofing around in their own manner.

"Alright," I say. "Are you ready for the lesson?"

Dylan nods as Nolan quickly tries to erase the lines, though he does a little bit of a sloppy job in his haste, as a two-year-old will do.

"Let's begin," I say. "There are forty-nine letters in the Oakarvian language. What I'll start with are the ones which make up your names, how they're written, and how they're pronounced individually. After we do your first names, we'll do your last names."

About a hundred or so years ago, everyone was given family names even if they weren't nobles. It was a push to be able to more easily identify people from larger areas, since saying "Cameron son of Alan from Tempest Oak" might refer to six different people, confusing the census. Even those out in the sticks like here were assigned said names.

Though most of them don't even know their family names, so it defaults to the primary parent's when a child is born, or changes to the primary spouse's when marriage occurs. So if Dylan and Nolan's mother were married – which they probably were – it would have defaulted to Dylan's last name.

Which I learn is "Stavazin" during the lesson, courtesy of Dylan sending me his Status so I can see. As I expected, he didn't know it.

"Do you worship Ulvranik out here?" I ask after teaching them the characters for their names. "Or another god?"

Ulvranik is the God of the Forest, his domain being plants and animals. He's most commonly worshiped in more rural areas, where hunting, foraging, farming, and the like are more common. I've met his Oracle before and she's pretty nice.

Then again, Oracles are usually good people. The gods tend to be pretty selective of who they choose to appoint to such a role and the gods themselves are kind beings. If an Oracle ever turned evil, they'd probably lose their status as one and all the power which came with it.

Then be shunned by all churches.

Fortunately, I've never heard of a case of that happening, and it's also neither here nor there so there's no reason for me to mention it to Dylan.

"We do," Dylan answers. "I have a small carving of him in our home," he reaches over and ruffles Nolan's hair. "Make sure Nolan knows to thank him for all of the food we eat and for each fish I catch."

"This is how you write his name," I write it on my board. "You'll note that it uses some of the same letters I just taught you for your names, but the pronunciation is a little different."

I explain to them how to tell when to pronounce a letter one way versus another, then use the ones I've taught them to write new words which apply to their lives. Simple, basic words.

"Would 'robin', 'rose', and 'rowan' all use the same initial character?" Dylan asks once I finish. "Or not? I know 'Rowan' and 'Rose' start with the same sound and 'Robin' doesn't, but it's close."

That's a surprising question, and I felt his curiosity suddenly increase right before he asked, as if a thought had just occurred to him.

"Yeah," I write the three words on my board and show it. "This is 'robin' at the top, 'rose' in the middle, and 'rowan' here. I know one of those is my name, so I'm guessing it made you think of other things with similar sounds?"

I've seen a few rose bushes in the area, and greencloak robins are the ones I've been hunting for fletching for arrows. There's a breed of rowan tree growing throughout the area, too.

"No," he shakes his head. "Robin is the name of the mage in the tower, and Rose is the other mage. It's the names of the three mages in the area. They all start with the same letter? Is that normal for mages?"

So those are their names? I was planning on asking during the magic lessons if he accepts them but it seems I don't need to.

"Ah," I shake my head. "It's more that mages change their names by the time they become full-fledged mages, and it's to something relating to nature. In mage families, they often have one to start with but might still change it. Some non-mage families name their kids with more mage-type names, and many orphanages name infants who are dropped off as such, in the hopes the child grows up to have talent with magic. I've met more than a dozen guys with my name."

The reason I didn't connect in inquiry to names is because all three names start with the same letter, so it really could have just been relating to local flora and fauna.

"Why do y'all change your names?"

"It's an ancient tradition," I say. "One which relates to the Mistlands and the origin of the first mages. And speaking of names, we can combine letters from my name and yours to get the word for 'river'. Let me show you."