Arthur sat in the shade produced by the carriage, together with the other members of the family he had been travelling side by side.

Although the heat of the sun was much lower while inside of the grassy Patches compared to the surrounding deserts, it was still enough to make them all sweat buckets, especially after marching and running for what felt like hours.

He still had no idea how the change in temperature was possible, even though the area covered by grass should not have been large enough to affect the climate in such a drastic way, but at least one of his questions was answered that morning.

Arthur had been wondering how the tribe could provide water to drink, wash their clothes, and even have the luxury to shower– which had surprised Arthur when he had been offered to do so. Apparently, his smell had been even worse than he suspected.

After asking around, he had discovered that the people here had not just one, but two ways to supply themselves with water. The first, and most common, was relying on a tool built by Miren through Inscribing, although he was not the one who had invented it, apparently.

The tool in question was a meter long hollow tube, which would be stuck in the ground halfway through, and then activated. First, the tube would dig downwards through sand and soft rock, expanding itself with some kind of solid barrier.

Then, if it found water underground before hitting something it could not dig through, it would carry the liquid from below to the surface.

The process was quite long, taking up to a quarter of a tack for each try, and the tools themselves were apparently prone to break often and resource intensive to repair or replace.

In addition, although the world as a whole had a lot of underground water reservoirs, they were scattered around far from each other in most regions, meaning days would often pass before hitting one.

This is why the second method was put into place; although it was apparently very expensive in magical power, Miren and Derin would use Water Magic to gather water from the grass around them in case of such a shortage, solving the problem temporarily.

This would leave them spent for some time, meaning they could not perform other important duties for their people, but it was better than letting everyone die from dehydration.

After getting himself cleaned up, the family had seemingly become more approachable, although if that was from the improvement of his body odour, or the shower getting rid of some of his crankiness, he wasn’t sure.

Still, he had been able to introduce himself, and finally learn of their names, so he wouldn’t have to call them by the role he presumed they covered in the family circle.

The two adults, as it turned out, were really a couple as he had assumed, and the three younger ones were their children. The chances of things being different were low, but since he didn’t want to offend anyone, he had been worried about getting it wrong.

Salan and Maali were the names of the father and mother, respectively, while the three children had been named Kudor, Reegi, and Lelee, from eldest son to infant daughter.

Although he had managed an introduction and some small talk, things were still a bit awkward, none the less because they didn’t have much to talk about, and Kudor was still staring at him as if he was waiting for Arthur to catch on fire.

Since he didn’t have much to do while the tribe took a siesta before getting on the move again, Arthur decided it was probably as good a time as any to grow back his javelins and spear before he ended up in a bad spot because he didn’t have any weapon with him.

Although he felt quite safe together with the Oni tribe, he had seen more than a couple of things since coming to this world that still made him pause when he went to lay down for sleep, and he had promised himself to not get caught off-guard as easily again.

He quickly checked his Skills, but as expected nothing had changed; he had neither trained any of his current Skills since the last time he checked, nor had he heard any pings indicating new additions or Level ups.

Arthur crossed his legs and propped himself up against the carriage, getting himself comfortable and ready for some Magick. Then, he rooted around the blades of grass, still streaming below them and passing through his fingers, and dug up a fistful of sand.

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Closing his eyes and ignoring the intensifying glare from the Oni kid a few meters to his side, he focused on the ‘blueprint’ of his spear, the one he had created just before escaping from the underground lake-prison.

He could still recall the process perfectly, thanks to his Skill, but he didn’t put it into the creation of a seed yet. Instead, he thought of a few improvements he could make over the design.

The first thing he had wanted to change was the length of the weapon, previously as tall as he was, or around one meter and eighty, which he had realized in his latest struggle was just too unwieldy for him.

Although he had intended for the length to be a deterrent and keep his opponents away from him, with his previous spear he had more often than not found himself unable to retaliate when one of the buggers got too close to him.

He started to make his adjustments, shortening the weapon by around twenty centimetres, when another Skill made a surprise appearance in the middle of the process. As the shaft got shorter, the invisible hand of his admittedly low-Level Skill [Self-Taught Spearmanship] guided the process, modelling everything in a more balanced shape.

When the shaft part of the spear was done, complete with a more comfortable handle, Arthur instinctively knew he could also do a better job on the tip, and so he went to work.

He discarded the cone shaped model completely, realizing it was just a bad idea all in all, and implemented a leaf-shaped tip instead, trying to increase the density and blade shape of the wood even further.

Working with [From Sand, Seed] kind of reminded Arthur of when he was younger and trying out different things, and spending a good month trying to learn Blender and modelling random stuff, before moving on for greener pastures when he realized his talent didn’t particularly fall into the arts.

When he was finally satisfied with the product of his work, he finalized everything by forming a seed from the sand he was still holding in his hand, and putting the blueprint as the incentive to grow into it.

Arthur opened his eyes just as he felt a hand land on his shoulder.

“Honoured Arthur, the caravan is getting ready to move out in a quarter tack. We should ready ourselves too,” Salan spoke, just as his face entered Arthur’s field of view.

Arthur nodded, still feeling a bit embarrassed at the honorific the Oni used when speaking with him, and got up. Since he didn’t have a place to put it he had to carry the seed by hand, which went mostly unnoticed by all, except for the single person who had been staring at him all this time.

“What’s that?” Asked Kudor from behind him, with that slightly annoying tone all children used when they wanted to know something, and they would not leave you alone until they knew.

Arthur was usually great with kids, and he honestly had a soft spot for them, but he and Kudor had just hit it off on the wrong foot. Or maybe the kid was just racist, who knew?

Since it wasn’t really a big secret, as everyone already knew just by looking at his hair that he could use magic of some sort, Arthur flashed the kid a grin, and answered, “Magick.”

Kudor tilted his head to the side, and Arthur almost let out a sigh as he realized this wasn’t nearly the end of it. Luckily for him, a hand descended from the heavens, smacking the kid on the back of his head just as he was about to ask more questions.

“Kudor, don’t go and pry into the guest’s business. You’re annoying him,” Maali reprimanded from the carriage, before turning to Arthur with a small smile.

“I am sorry about my son, I hope he’s not being too much of a bother,” she said, as Kudor went off sulking.

“It’s no problem, he’s just a kid,” and it really wasn’t, since it wasn’t like he had a better way to use his time at the moment.

Maali nodded, and turned back to the baby she held in her arms, who in the meantime had started crying, probably demanding her mother turn her attention back to her.

When the whole caravan was ready to move, Arthur’s spear was mostly done growing, and he didn’t miss the impressed stares people were throwing his way as they noticed the weapon appearing from nowhere.

Apparently, the novelty of his magic was more impressive than being able to collect water or make boats levitate.

He also noticed Kudor trying to approach him, but he got intercepted at every attempt by a glare his mother threw his way, which sent the kid scampering. After a few times of this repeating, the second son, Reegi, joined in, probably just for fun, doubling the headache on their mother.

From this, Arthur got an idea to win over the kids and bring back peace to poor Maali, who had to struggle with three kids; although her husband was also trying to help as best as he could, that had to be said.

Arthur approached Salan, and laid out his plan, mostly to get permission from at least one of the parents. Then, he went to work his Magick, which was magnitudes easier than before thanks to the simplicity of the project. He could do it even while walking!

A few minutes later, Arthur presented Reegi and Kudor his bribe– ahem, gifts; a pair of wooden swords, obviously without an edge and with exaggerated proportions to prevent the two from stabbing each other.

As predicted, the two kids immediately stopped what they were doing and took off to impromptu duel with each other. They would probably get a few scratches, but Salan had just told him it was something normal, and that Oni skin was apparently thicker than human’s.

Since he wanted to stay fair, he also had a gift for Lelee, namely a small rattle, composed by a simple hollow cylinder filled with wooden pellets, and a handle attached to the bottom.

Although it was simple, Arthur was still happy to see Lelee very much enjoyed the toy, and he was even happier to see the couple could have a moment of respite.

If this was how his life in the village would be, Arthur thought he wouldn’t have nothing to worry about.