As I agreed to be less reckless Raha joined the conversation, “Well done Swift, you have managed to beat the head of my guards using an interesting technique. I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone knock a person out with two fingers before. You’ll have to tell me how you managed that…”

I nodded and replied, “It’s simple really if you know how our bodies are designed, we have two major blood vessels providing blood and oxygen to our brains. I used my two fingers to cut off the flow of blood, without any new blood providing oxygen the brain shuts down rather quickly. I could show you where you need to press on a Susi, barbarian, or Vuohian, not sure about any of the other races since I haven’t had to heal any yet. You could also kill a person by cutting either of the spots I targeted, they would bleed out in less than a minute, and lose consciousness in seconds.”

Raha rubbed his neck, obviously a little uncomfortable with the knowledge, he said, “My, my Aatto, what have you been teaching your son? Back in the old days you emphasized breaking bones and targeting joints, I don’t remember you every targeting blood vessels…”

Dad put his arm around my shoulders, pulling me close and said, “No you’re right, those are the things I target when I fight, but Swift is an accomplished healer more skilled than any I’ve met. He decided to try and take my style to the next level by targeting something called pressure points along with joints. He says he got the idea from spending so much time examining his own internal organs. He’s done his best to understand exactly how we heal and the purpose behind every organ in our bodies. When he was about seven he surprised me with the move you just saw today. I let him get my back once in training to show him why it’s a bad idea to attempt a chokehold on a Susi and then I was out like a light. While Swift’s style is similar to mine when an opportunity arises he tends to go for those pressure points. He isn’t overly skilled at their application just yet, but by the time he’s twenty I fully expect him to have developed his own unique martial style.”

I nodded and chimed in, “I think a lot of my moves would be easier if I was already grappling with someone, but Dad’s training emphasizes avoiding grappling, he says that there isn’t a point in getting locked up with one opponent because that will just get you killed on the battlefield. I get his point as being mobile and wearing down your opponent makes sense, but I’d like to practice my grappling more, all I ever do with Dad is practice throwing my opponent.”

Raha nodded, “Well I think I can arrange for someone to help you out on that front. Now that you have passed the martial portion of the test I’ll have Muuntaa work with you on your wrestling skills. He probably won’t be too hard on you, after all you did fix his arm after you destroyed it so…”

I bowed my head in acknowledgement, “Thank you, I look forward to having a new training partner. Speaking of Muuntaa we should probably get him back to his tent, he is going to need some rest and a lot of food to recover from the healing I administered.”

Raha responded, “Of course, I’ll have a couple of my men put him to bed. In the mean time I believe you have some work to do on building my basement.”

I shook my head in mild exasperation and said, “Sure, sure, I‘ll get started soon enough I just need a little rest before I get started. I’ll go talk to the foreman and get him to clear the area so I can get to work.” I walked away from Raha and my father and said, “I’ll see you for dinner tonight Dad.”

As I turned away to go see the foreman Dad waved to me and said, “Don’t be late Son, your mother is making velocichicken tonight to celebrate your victory.”

I turned back and exclaimed, “Has Mom picked out the Velocichicken yet? Because if not make sure it’s Bessie, I have been wanting to eat Bessie for the last three years. Every damn day I’d go in to collect eggs she’d attack me. Every day…”

Dad smiled, “Sorry Son, I think Mildred is on the chopping block today, Bessie is still our number one egg layer and she keeps the males in line.”

I sighed, “Damn.” In case you hadn’t guessed I was the one allowed to name the velocichickens and I named them in English. When my family asked why they had such odd sounding names and I just told them the damned velocichickens deserved nonsense syllables instead of real names, which they seemed to readily accept.

I continued on toward the foreman a little depressed, but hey velocichicken would be a break from the constant Lehmakin we had been eating so it wasn’t a total loss. Vankka was in the midst of a small crowd that had yet to disperse. When I got close I could see the exchange of coins take place, apparently the industrious little foreman had made some money betting on me. He smiled as he collected from what I assume was the last of his debtors and said, “There he is, the man who made my day! How are you Swift? Muuntaa didn’t hit you too hard did he?”

I gave him a wry grin and replied, “Well I feel like I have a better understanding of the life of an anvil, but I won so I’ll accept the bruises with a smile. I see my fight was beneficial to you too…”

The little Vuohian gave me a hug then took a step back and beamed up at me, “Yes indeed, apparently when Raha announced that you couldn’t use magic the guards assumed you would be helpless. They were more than willing to bet on their captain and after seeing you work I was more than willing to take their bets. You my boy have made me close to a gold Kulta today, if Raha is as generous with his guards as he is with his work crew I think I took a month’s salary from them. Hehehe today has been a very profitable day for me. So what brings you over anyway? I figured you would have gone home to celebrate with your family…”

I nodded, “Nothing would please me more, but the day isn’t done yet and Raha expects me to work until it’s over. I’ll be celebrating when I get home tonight, but for now we need to get back to work… So do you think you could start clearing out the rest of onlookers and get your crew ready to move some dirt?”

Vankka shook his head briefly before replying, “And here I thought we’d get the rest of the day off. Too bad, but yeah I’ll start gathering the crew, are you going to get started on the basement?”

I answered, “Yeah, we need to get it all set up before we can start working on the actual house. How has the gathering of limestone gone? Do we have enough to finish the basement or do you need to send out another party to get more?”

Vankka replied, “We should have enough, based on your estimates, maybe even a little extra. Do you think you will be able to get started on the transformation before the end of the day?”

I shook my head, “I really doubt it, I’ll probably be able to clear out most of the basement, but I doubt I’ll be able to do anymore before sundown.”

Raha smiled, “Great well then I’ll start gathering the crew, I assume you’ll be here meditating until I get back?”

I shook my head, “Actually I need to go grab someone before we get started, I’ll be right back.”

I searched amongst the remaining crowd until I spotted him. Gurt was still with his parents looking excited to see me come over. It looked like he was about to give me a hug when Westra blocked him out and gave me a hard squeeze. She was the first to speak, “Congratulations Swift that was an amazing fight though you had me scared there for a while.”

Kurt spoke up next, “I’m surprised you were able to stand up to that monster’s blows. It’s pretty obvious your father hasn’t been holding back too much while the two of you were training. I’ll have to see if he can teach Gurt to do more than just a bit of magic…”

I shrugged, “Yeah Dad hits pretty hard when we’re sparring but he always claimed the only way to be ready for battle is to go all out in training. Obviously he was right… Anyway, I was hoping I could borrow Gurt for a couple of hours, I have a large hole to dig and Gurt could really make that a lot easier. I’ll give him half my pay for the time we’re working on it.”

Gurt spoke up before his father had a chance to say anything, “Please Dad? We don’t have anything to do today that we can’t do tomorrow and I could use some spending money…”

Gurt looked between Westra and Kurt giving them his best impression of puppy dog eyes. Apparently it was effective because the two exchanged a glance and Kurt answered, “Sure Gurt, you can help your friend just make sure you don’t over exert yourself, you are still at a fairly delicate stage of development.”

Gurt nodded, “Of course Dad, a little coin isn’t worth messing up my development.”

I also chimed in, “I’ll make sure I monitor his mana expenditures, after all Dad would kill me if I allowed his best student to lose progress because I was being selfish.”

Westra spoke up, “Alright boys, do a good job and make sure you are home in time for dinner Gurt.”

Gurt and I replied at the same time, “We will! Thanks Auntie/Mom”

I pointed to the foreman and the growing crowd of construction workers and Gurt and I headed over. On the way I explained to Gurt, “So I’m just going to need you to do some earth waves, it should be pretty easy, I’ll show you where to start and how powerful to make the waves. You shouldn’t need to do more than 5 or 6, then I’ll be able to take over from there. Any questions?”

Gurt nodded, “Yeah, how much am I getting paid for this?”

I scratched behind my ear while responding, “I’m not really sure, I’m getting paid for building the entire house in a certain amount of time, but also on a per section basis. The sections don’t really make me that much money, the real money comes from completing the building quickly. The fair thing to do would be to give you a percentage of that total based on how much time you save me compared to how much time it takes me to finish. For example, if you saved me 5 hours’ worth of work and I end up taking 200 hours to finish the building you would get 2.5% of the total I’m being paid. I could also just pay you what you and I agree the work is worth. Now I’m getting paid 2 gold kupari if I can get the house I redesigned built within a month’s time, so if I work 6 days per week at least 10 hours a day I’d use about 260 hours of my time. If you end up saving me 5 hours that would make you…” I paused to do the math, 5 of 260 is 1.9% 2 gold kupari is 36450 Copper kulta 1.9% of 36450 is 690 something, let’s just call it 695 which would come out to… “1 Silver kupari, 2 Silver hopea, 2 Copper kupari and 2 copper kulta. That’s if it takes me 260 hours, if I have to work more it would make you less money, if I work less it would make you more money. Or we can just agree that amount is fair and that’s what I’ll pay you.”

Gurt stopped walking to think things through, I calmly waited while he came to a decision. His face was scrunched up while he thought, but I could easily see the when he reached his decision because his face smoothed out and a smile blossomed. He answered, “Well let’s just to the fair thing, I’ll just do the percentage based on how much time I save you, that way no one ends up feeling like they were cheated. After all I might not be able to help as much as you thought, or I might be able to help you out more than you thought. We’ll just do the fair thing and when the house is built you can pay me what I earned.”

I held out my hand and we shook on the deal. When we made it to the group of construction workers I introduced Gurt to everyone and then explained, “Okay everyone so today we are going to be digging out the basement, I’m sure Vankka filled you in on the basics of who will be doing what, so I won’t be going over that instead I just want to give you all a word of warning. Gurt is going to be casting earth waves to make the job easier for everyone, but he is less experienced than me and probably more powerful so make sure you stay clear of the site until Vankka sends you in to remove the excess dirt. We don’t want any accidents we can avoid and I don’t want to have to reattach any toes because you decided to move early and the spell wasn’t done. It’s a waste of my mana and it will not be a pleasant experience for you. Now Gurt and I are going to go get ready, and I am going to turn you back over to Vankka.”

I walked away from the crowd while Vankka started telling everyone to grab their tools and took Gurt over to the center of the southern section of the basement. I pointed to the northern edge of the proposed basement and said, “Make sure you aim your earth wave at me and have it die out right as it’s about to hit me. I’ll have some mana in place to stop it if you put a little too much juice into the attack, but do your best to keep control over your mana and try to make the earth wave as wide and deep as possible.”

Gurt nodded and I headed over to the other side of the basement I sent my mana down right at the edge of where the basement should start, creating a wall approximately six feet wide and six feet deep. It had been a while since I’d seen Gurt perform this bit of magic and I wasn’t really sure what he was capable of. When my mana shield was in place I signaled Gurt and after a deep breath he launched off an earth wave.

Now I don’t want to mislead you by saying that it was the biggest earth wave ever, because I’m sure it wasn’t, but it was by far the biggest earth wave I’d ever seen. I mean sure I’d made some impressive ones myself when making room for the fish farm, but I’d made my waves have endurance as opposed to size. I thought I had prepared well enough by making it so that either dimension was large enough to cover his wave regardless of how he spread it. Apparently I underestimated his ability to channel mana because when he released his earth wave it was close to ten feet wide. I couldn’t be certain until I actually saw what he managed to carve out, but the amount of earth he was able to move was intimidating. I quickly sent out more mana spreading it as widely as I could without sacrificing the integrity of the shield I’d already made. I also jumped back once the wave got within a few feet of me which was a wise move as I felt his mana impact upon mine. If I hadn’t jumped back when I did I probably would have been buried or at least caught up in the wave. Either result would have been embarrassing/potentially dangerous so it was a smart move not one made because of how frightening a giant wall of rocks and soil can be when it’s charging straight for you.

Anyway now that the earth wave was finished I jumped on top of the fresh mound of earth that covered my previous location and looked at what Gurt’s earth wave had accomplished. It looked like someone had done a bad job digging a giant trench. The walls of the trench were at least 10 feet apart and the bottom was at least 4 feet deep and it went the entire length of the basement which was around 30 feet. I was stunned Gurt managed to move around 1,600 square feet of dirt in one earth wave. Keep in mind that’s square feet every square foot of earth weighs close to 100 pounds, so Gurt managed to move 160,000 pounds of dirt in 10 seconds. I nodded to Vankka to let him know to get the crew moving then I walked over to Gurt.

As I got closer Gurt started fidgeting, apparently he was nervous about something. He started looking around almost refusing to meet my gaze except for a few quick peeks. It was at moments like these that I was reminded that Gurt was only an eight year old boy. I stopped a few feet away from him and said, “What’s wrong Gurt? You look really nervous for some reason…”

Gurt gulped and replied, “I’m sorry Swift, I know I was supposed to stop the earth wave before it got to you but I put a little too much power into the spell and it got away from me. I didn’t mean to but I haven’t really done an earth wave in a while and I guess I’m a little out of practice. Plus you know I don’t have the best control over my magic…”

I nodded then placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder, “Gurt, I’m not mad about you almost taking me out with an earth wave, I’m just surprised at how big it was. I mean honestly I can only move about half of that amount of earth at any one time and Dad says I’m a prodigy. I don’t know if that level of magic is normal or not for a Vuohian, but I’ve never seen anyone use that much power…”

Gurt’s emotional shift was kind of funny to watch as he went from nervous to surprised, proud and then bashful all in the space of about 30 seconds. I spoke again while he regained his cool, “Seriously Gurt I think you are strong enough to be able to get a scholarship to one of the magic academies. Which would mean you could come with me to the capitol when Raha and I go in a couple months, although we will have to talk to your parents about it, but I doubt they’ll say no. Also I’m definitely going to have to pay you more, if you can keep up those earth waves we’ll be done in no time.”

I sent a pulse of mana through Gurt to check on his mana reserves and got a couple of surprises, first off his mana core was huge, significantly bigger than my own, his channels were developing nicely and apparently the earth wave he’d just launched off had barely drained his reserves. Based on the amount of mana I found in his core he should be able to launch off at least another 8 waves of the same size without it affecting his current level of cultivation.

Basically Gurt would be able to do the entire basement without any help from me beyond containing his power. Gurt spoke up again, “You’ll really pay me more? And you really think I could make it in one of the academies?”

I nodded, “Yeah Gurt to both questions, your mana levels are very high you’re a year younger than me, your species matures slower than mine and you have the capacity to do more magic than me already. Don’t get me wrong you need to work on your control and diversify your skill set since the last time I checked you could only do some basic earth manipulation spells, but still I think you have the potential to become incredibly powerful.”

Gurt seemed at a loss for what to do so he started nervously scratching behind his ear, “Do you really think it would be okay for me to go with you though? I mean that capitol is so far away and my parents don’t have the money to send me all the way off to the capitol…”

I nodded, “Sure they might not have the money, but I will have plenty when we are done building this house for Raha so I’d be happy to cover your expenses while we travel to the capitol.”

Gurt was so surprised, he asked, “Really, you’d pay for me to go to the capitol??”

I answered, “Well of course I would, you’re my best friend after all and it would be nice to have someone I can trust coming along with me. Besides if you feel like you need to pay me back I’m sure it will be pretty easy once you graduate. After all powerful mages can make a ton of money with little difficulty. So yeah don’t worry about the money I’ll take care of it, you just need to get your parent’s permission.”

Gurt’s head sank into his hands, “Ugh that’s almost harder than if I had to come up with the money myself. You know they never planned on me leaving the farm, when they tell me anything it’s always been for us to earn enough money to buy some of the surrounding fields off your parents and start up our own farm.”

I nodded sympathetically, “Yeah your dad doesn’t really like surprises but I’m sure they will understand, after all their son could wind up becoming a powerful mage and providing them with all the money they’d ever need. We’ll talk to Raha to find out exactly what it costs to attend one of the academies and what their standards are. Of course first we will talk to your parents to find out whether or not it’s okay for you to go after all there is no point to doing anything else if your parents aren’t open to the possibility of you going.”

Gurt nodded, “That makes sense… Okay that’s what we’ll do, but you’ll be with me when I ask right? They tend to listen more when you’re around…”

I nodded, “Sure thing Gurt, I wouldn’t let you wander into the Ursakin’s cave without backing you up, especially when it’s my idea. Now I’m going to let you cultivate while we wait and you can think about what you want to say to your parents while you’re cultivating. The crew should be done removing all the dirt in another twenty minutes so take a peak around then, I’m going to help with the dirt removal process.”

And the next 4 hours proceeded just like that, Gurt would break up the earth and the crew and I would remove it from the construction site. If you’re wondering how we got it dug out so quickly then you need to remember that you’re dealing with 40 motivated Susi all of whom are heavily muscled and at least 6 and a half feet tall moving close to ten pounds every five seconds. When you have a crew that big you can get a lot of earth moved in a short amount of time.

Frankly I was really happy that I enlisted Gurt’s aid for this project as I never would have been able to get it done so quickly on my own. Without his seemingly endless mana we probably would have accomplished a third of the work. I’d have to see if I could teach him my water blade. If I could we might be able to do as much as a saw mill. But that idea would have to wait for now because the sun was starting to set and all that was left to do was remove some of the remaining dirt in the basement.

I ended up walking over the Vankka and saying, “Well Gurt and I are done on the magic side of things, all that’s left is removing the remaining dirt in the basement which you and your men are more than capable of doing. Tomorrow I’ll be back to turn the walls into something a little more sturdy than hard packed dirt and if we have enough limestone to spare I can even build some of those stone support columns we were talking about. Anyway, I’m going to take Gurt home and head to dinner, see you tomorrow.”

I held out my hand and Vankka stopped working to shake it. He responded tiredly, “Sure thing Swift I’ll get things ready for tomorrow then send the crew back to camp. You might want to wash up before you head home though, you seem to have gotten a bit dirty…”

I chuckled then grabbed Gurt and headed for the pond. Vankka wasn’t kidding when he said I was a bit dirty, one of the earth waves Gurt had sent my way had a little extra umph to it and I ended up getting showered in dirt. Upon arriving at the pond I jumped straight in, executing a shallow dive. The water was cool and refreshing, exactly what I needed after a long day of hard labor and an intense fight. I relaxed for a couple of minutes floating on my back and letting the cool water soothe my tired muscles. Of course I couldn’t spend the rest of the day in the pond as Gurt so graciously reminded me when he yelled, “Come on Swift, we have to talk to my parents and maybe eat a Lehmakin, I’m starving…”

I got out of the pond and shook myself dry, or dryish. Then I grabbed my clothes put them on over my still damp fur and we head over to Gurt’s place. We walked right inside when we got there but to our shared surprise no one was inside to greet us. I asked in a louder than normal voice, “Anyone home? Auntie Westra? Uncle Kurt?”

Silence was my only answer. I cocked a quizzical eyebrow at Gurt and asked, “Think my Mom invited your parents over for dinner?”

Gurt answered, “Probably, I mean they aren’t here so they must be at your parents place.”

I shrugged my shoulders and we headed over to my place where we were once again greeted with an empty home. Something had to be going on that was well outside the norm, neither of our parents were home and food was not ready even though Mom was supposed to be preparing a huge meal to celebrate my victory. I didn’t like some of the possible reasons for their absence so I grabbed a couple loaves of bread for Gurt and I to munch on then said, “I think we need to go search for our parents…”

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AN: Sorry for the near month long hiatus Moving sucks and not having a job is almost worse. I've spent too much time searching for a job and sleeping in on couches. It makes the whole writing process somewhat difficult. My living situation still isn't settled and I still am jobless so updates will be irregular for now. I also need to thank someone for giving me my first donation it really helped and made me feel bad for not updating more often this last month. I'm going to try and get something set up so those that donate will get chapters early and probably some bonus chapters that I haven't found a way to properly include in the story yet. Stay tuned and thanks for reading.