A couple of hours later, Derek returned to his magical training. Despite the much needed time with Marie, if he didn’t spend his time pushing forward, they wouldn’t survive. He wanted to grow old with Marie and watch their kids… well their kid grow up and have a child of their own.

Walking through the garage, he noted Jenny’s focused work at the forge, a reminder of the evolving skills and crafts emerging within their group. Shadows on the walls from the forge’s glow followed her movements as she struck the work piece. Flickering light across her concentrated face, she held a long, glowing steel rod in one hand and a hammer in the other. Without interrupting, he opened the garage door to ventilate the space. Stepping outside, he embraced the open space of the driveway for his practice, since his clothes didn’t fit… again.

Outside, the late fall drizzle soaked his hair. He pulled his mana into his core and considered what he wanted to do with it. With the Elemental Berserker path in his mind, he thought about various elemental spells instead of the more esoteric magics.

He visualized the rain coalescing in his hand, transforming into an icicle. As he released his mana, it developed the spell’s structure, then extended outward like a sphere, collecting each rain droplet, and pulling it toward the forming frozen rod, while sharpening into a point. Derek turned and launched it like a javelin. It shot through the air and landed somewhere in the neighbor’s yard.

Pulling on his mana, he practiced more with the elemental magic, forming different shapes, and manipulating the spells as he familiarized himself with using magic. He cycled through various spells, exploring various concepts and elements to understand their limits and possibilities. Then Derek delved into established spell forms like that of the D&D spell list, methodically practicing each elemental spell. Why create spells from scratch when someone had already done the work for him?

He found basic spells like Ice Knife and Shield straightforward to cast. Attempting higher-rank spells was possible, but with insufficient mana, his results were weak. Experimenting, Derek modified spells, transforming Shield into variations like Earthen and Fire Shield, and adapting Thunderwave into Firewave and Icewave. Soon, he shaped Fire Bolts into swords and used Mold Earth to form stone weapons from the ground. Most of the spells took so long to create that he wouldn’t be able to use them while in melee combat. He needed to cast spells instantly while his hands were full.

D&D spells required spell components, with sometimes verbal or hand commands, to activate. Reality didn’t require that Derek could easily cast any of the spells silently, but he had to build the mana needed for the spell and concentrate on what he was casting. The weakest spells could be cast near instantly, but advanced skills took time.

After several hours of training, his brain needed a break, and he was hungry. He grabbed the prepared towel and dried off before going upstairs. Marie and Candace were in the kitchen preparing lunch as he sat on one of the bar stools at the island. The kitchen was a scattered mess as they cooked meat and cut vegetables.

“Is any of that ready? I’m famished.”

“Yes, you wanna eat now or with everyone else?” Marie replied.

“I’ll eat now, I want to get back to training.” Derek said.

“Don’t forget we’re having the neighborhood over for dinner and you menfolk are cooking.”

Derek blinked at her as if this was the first time he had heard this piece of information.

“We talked about it at breakfast, were you not listening?” Marie smirked, raising an eyebrow.

“And what are we cooking?” Derek asked, dodging the question.

“Burgers and brats.” She answered.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

“Oh well that’s not too bad. Just let me know when it’s time to fire up the grill. Until then I’ll be training. Hopefully the rain stops.”

After a quick lunch, Derek moved back outside and his prybar appeared in his hands. The hours passed as he worked his way through a series of practice maneuvers with the pry bar, then used one of the orc’s swords to practice some longsword maneuvers. With his enhanced strength, he wielded the heavy weapon with ease, though it was awkward as it didn’t feel like a natural weapon. His magic flowed around him the entire time, practicing using various elemental attacks throughout the process.

Techniques swirled in his head as he replayed every single fight in his life. He could pick out every single misstep he had ever taken and had corrected it in a dozen different ways. With the orcs he could have been much more effective with a Thunderwave spell, only if he had known how to use magic at the time, and the small opportunities that he missed in each fight were obvious and apparent. It would be nice to have had someone to train him in magic and fighting, but that was a pipe-dream.

Finally, when Leroy came to get him for dinner, Derek realized the time. In the garage, he noticed Jenny was finishing up at the forge, the sounds of her work echoing through the space. Jenny had shut the forge off, its heat wafting through the garage heating the space. She was wearing one of his welding shirts as she banged on a flattened steel rod.

As he returned inside, he noticed the interactions and the lives of the family around him, filling him with a sense of peace and belonging. The neighbors were starting to arrive, so Derek cleaned up, opened the umbrella on the porch to ward off the rain, and fired up the grill. Carson and Phil joined him at the grill as all the neighbors pulled into the driveway.

Steve and Johanna were the first to follow up followed by Mrs. Peters. After that Derek lost track of who was arriving and when. Steve joined the dynamic trio on the deck after grabbing a beer.

“When Marie said you change, she wasn’t kidding.” Steve said, looking up at Derek who stood at the grill, spatula in one hand, beer in the other.

Steve’s eyes moved to Phil and Carson each leaning against the rail with a humor in their eyes.

“Steve, the hippy is Phil, and the redneck is Carson. Carson, Phil, this is the lawn fanatic, Steve.”

There was a round of ‘nice to meet you’s and they moved on to another topic.

“Nice day to be grilling, isn’t it?” Steve asked, looking at the light drizzle falling from the sky.

Conversation ebbed and flowed as the rest of the neighbors poured into the house, making their house feel tiny. Phil the master of conversation kept people entertained as they flowed through the house. Carson spent most of his time wrangling Leroy and keeping James from sneaking off. The ladies were entertaining inside while sipping wine and snacking.

Derek for his part spent the entire time cooking, using Phil as an excuse to avoid conversations. Derek’s biological changes were a topic of conversation and the number of times he heard Phil and Marie explain had made his own mind exhausted. So he happily spent the afternoon cooking at the grill while others ate, snacked, and chatted amongst themselves.

May escorted Mrs. Peters outside, they were both looking tired. “Thank you, May. Ah, Derek, wow you really have changed. They say you’re a dragon-something now.”

“That’s right, Mrs. Peters.” Derek smiled at her.

Derek liked her the most out of all their neighbors. Mrs. Peters didn’t talk a lot and didn’t mince words when she did. When called out on it, she laughed and blamed her age. The old fox.

“You haven’t seen the Greens have you?”

“No, they haven’t came in in the last two days. I’m assuming they are gone.”

“Ah well, too much death now. At least I have my soaps to keep me company and May.”

Derek raised his eyebrow at the nurse.

“I moved in with her so that I can help out.” May explained. “Mrs. Peters cheats at cards.”

“I most certainly do not!” Mrs. Peters argued.

May eyed her incredulously. “The cards were literally up your sleeve! I lost twenty dollars in that hand!”

Derek laughed at the exchange. Obviously, he knew that she was a cheater, she cheated on her last husband when she was 70 and managed to squirrel away all his money before the divorce. Now, she was retired living in his house and spending all his money after the divorce. She spent her weekends down at the social club robbing old people of their poker money, while flirting with the staff.

“It was only twenty dollars.” Mrs. Peters assuaged.

May harrumphed, knowing it was a lost cause. Derek handed a plate filled with burgers and bratwursts to May, asking her to take it inside, leaving Mrs. Peters and Derek alone on the deck.

“Derek,” She started, looking at him severely. “Make sure you take care of this neighborhood, we are all each other have.”

“Of course, that’s the plan.” Derek replied.

After the cooking was finished, Derek settled at the table, its surface set with plates and cutlery, around which the others were already gathered eating. It seemed like everyone was involved in separate conversations based on the amount of chatter around him.