(Jason, 11)

"Why are we out here?" I ask Mama Alyssa.

Right after magic control training five days ago, Mama Alyssa told me to make sure I was ready to leave for a long trip after breakfast. Then we ate breakfast, and she took me out here, just the two of us. We went even further from civilization than where we live, and are now standing in an uneven terrain with a bunch of cliffs and valleys and hills, and mountains are only a few miles from us, now. There are some bursts of steam coming out of the ground, too. Not really geysers, as it's just steam.

"You're getting strong with magic," she tells me. "And your Papa Samuel is going to start taking you out here for combat magic training."

"I can already do combat magic!"

"Yes, you can," she nods. "But you're also able to do quite potent spells. Papa Samuel decided that this would be the best place for you to train. There's no one around for you to hurt, and no one around to see you training. This way, you don't have to hold back all the time. Papa Samuel will still teach you how to hold back as well, as that's also important."

"But why did you take me, then?" I ask. "If Papa Samuel's the one doing my combat magic training?"

"He's not the only one who can," she smiles. "But that's not why we're here. No, we aren't here for combat training. For the next month, you and I are living here."

She holds out a hand, and a spatial storage magic circle forms. She begins pulling out leathers used for the sides of tents and wooden poles we made last summer to make tents with. We could just use earth magic to make sturdy tents, but this is more fun and more cozy.

I help Mama Alyssa set up the three tents, since I know she won't tell me everything until she's ready. Once we have the tent set up and our things put inside, she looks at me. I look at the tents. One for her, one for me, and one for storage.

"Alright, Jason," she says, and I look at her. "We're building a house here."

"Why?" I ask.

"Coming out here to train," she tells me as she summons her spatial storage and pulls papers out of it. "Is a five-day journey, as you noticed. Papa Samuel isn't going to bring you out here just for a few hours. Every time he does, it will be for several days, so you and I are going to build a house for the two of you to stay in. These are the plans."

Cool! I get to help build a house! So far, Mama Alyssa has only let me help her build small things or do wood carvings.

She hands me the blueprints and I read them, frowning.

"Uh, Mama Alyssa?" I say. "These plans give the house a master bedroom and six bedrooms. Plus a library, an office, a magic training room, the bathing room, the potty room, the dining room, the family room, the kitchen. Then there's the storage room, the woodshed… Mama Alyssa, are you lying to me?"

"No," she answers. "But I'm not building a house out here that's small. It's going to be big, decent, and ready for a family to move in."

"A family?"

"Metaphorically," she says. "I wouldn't feel right making a small house for a member of our family, even if it's to stay in temporarily."

"Uh-huh," I say. "Well, if you're making such a nice house, you should at least make sure there's access to the hot springs."

"There aren't any hot springs around here," she says.

"Those steam bursts," I point at some steam bursts around twenty yards from our camp. "They're the steam from hot springs that are covered by dirt."

I walk over to the edge of the space and hold out my hands, weaving together the spell needed to lift the dirt and throw the slab of it to the side. Bits of dirt fall into the hot springs below. They're about twenty feet down and stretch about twenty-five feet in one direction and fifteen in another.

"Hot springs!" I look at Alyssa.

"How did you know there were hot springs there?" She asks.

"I read in one of your books," I tell her. "That hot springs can sometimes form beneath the surface, and one way to know they're there is warm, moist soil and the presence of steam drifting up. Since the steam was rising through holes, I figured that counted."

"I see," she says. "And it just happened to tell you exactly how much space it took up?"

"Hehe!" I grin at her. "That's my secret, Mama Alyssa! So how many trees do we need?"

Mama Alyssa and I get to work felling the trees and setting them out. We swiftly use our magic to debark the trees and seal their ends when they're set up in the work zone, and it takes us two days to get enough trees for the two-story log cabin. The upstairs has the six bedrooms, and the library is two floors tall, but only has access from the first floor.

It's a huge house. I know she lied to me. I'm probably going to start punishing them for lying. They always tell me not to lie, then they go and lie! I know Papa Jared ate the cookies! And I know Papa Samuel still sneaks some of the candles I make into our training! I mark them with my magic to make sure I know I made them!

Once all of the trees we need are cut and ready, Mama Alyssa and I start using our air and water magic to accelerate their drying. We have to be careful to make sure we dry the logs evenly, or they'll warp and split. That's a process that takes three days to complete.

The day after the logs are dried, Mama Alyssa and I get to work building the cabin. We have to cut them and do saddles on the ends of them to make them fit. I think that's what she called it. They look like saddles were carved out of them, sort of. For the inside of the house, we cut the logs into various types, including rectangular blocks, to make walls and floors. For the fireplace in the family room and the stove and oven in the kitchen, we transmute dirt into stones and build them by hand, sealing them with mortar.

As we build the home, we enchant every log and every brick for durability, magic resistance, wear resistance, rot resistance, bug resistance, and so much more. We also make holes in the walls and install the pipes of transmuted wood for water and waste. The final process and water storage is beneath the house, and will draw up water from further below when it's needed. We also make sure it won't leech into the soil around with further enchantments. After that, we seal it with magic and add on another layer of protective enchantments.

The entire process takes us a month, and when we finish, Mama Alyssa and I begin using our magic to reshape the land around hot springs, creating a ledge five feet in width around them, along with bathing rooms ten feet tall beneath them in the cliff I made when I revealed the springs. We use more logs for those, to help make sure the roof, which we transmuted from dirt to stone, stays up. It also receives magical pluming to filter the bath water. We also transmute more dirt into stone, which we then use to line the hot springs to help protect against erosion, create seats to sit on, create walls to rest against, and just to increase the aesthetics of it in general.

Once all of that is done, Mama Alyssa and I start installing magical lights, then spend two months creating furniture. As we do, she pulls out cushions and blankets and stuff that I helped make. This is not a spur-of-the-moment thing, they were definitely planning this back in the winter. I remember making those blankets! I thought Papa Harold sold them without buying them off of me!

Once we finish with that, Mama Alyssa and I use our earth magic and transmutation to create sturdy stone walls around three feet tall around the property, then enchant them for durability, magic resistance, and to ward off monsters and animals.

That last one's important, because without it, there's a risk things like ogres and corrupted monsters will try to take up residence in it or destroy it. The house is already warded against pests, so that won't be a problem, but the enchantment on the walls is an extra layer of protection, just in case.

After three months of hard work, Mama Alyssa and I finally finish the home and inspect it. The air is brimming with the magic we imbued into it, though that will fade in time, even though the enchantments will remain.

"Your papas and other mamas and I," Mama Alyssa says as we stand outside the house, looking at our finished product. "Were talking, and agreed that if you put in good effort during this construction, Jason, you'll get to have the master bedroom all to yourself when you're here."

"Really?" I ask. "I get my own bedroom and bathroom?"

"Yes," she smiles. "You put in just as much work as I'd expect of my workers, back before I retired, and you're only eleven. More work than some of those who worked under me."

"Cool!" I say, then grin at her. "We could've built it out of stone, you know. Just transmute the land right into it, like we did for the bath!"

"Yes, we could have," she nods. "And it would have been quicker for us, too, but if we built it out of stone, you'd try to take every opportunity to start turning it into a castle."

I grin at her again.

"Let's take a few days to rest," she tells me. "We've done a lot of work out here, between building the house, using our magic, hunting for food, tanning the hides of our kills, and so on."

I puff my chest out. I'm wearing a leather vest I made from a bison we killed while we were still building the house. I make all my own clothes, now, and Mama Elizabeth's taught me a lot of enchantments for magical gear.

"Mama Alyssa!" I think of something. "I wanna celebrate finishing the house with everyone! Can we go home and get them all?"

"That would be five days there, and another five back."

"I wanna try something!" I tell her. "If it works, then we won't have to worry about that!"

"What do you mean?" She asks. "Teleportation magic? We've told you before, a blind teleportation can be quite hard to do, and teleportation in general is risky."

"Not that," I shake my head, then turn and hold out my hands, focusing my magic and shaping my mana into the spell. "I want to make a gate!"

"A what?"

"A gate!" I repeat. "Like how the gate on our wall here joins the property to the outside area, a magical gate would join two locations together! But instead of walking from our property onto the outside area when stepping through the gate, we'd step into our home instead!"

I finish putting the spell together while thinking about the house, and a purple and black rectangle forms in the air, bordered by purple magical runes.

I pull a paper out of my spatial storage and scribble a quick note on it, then fold it into an airplane and throw it through. A minute later, one of the chickens is pushed through. It squawks at us.

"It works!" I exclaims, and Papa Samuel pokes his head through. "Look! I linked us! But only until I cancel the spell or run out of mana!"

"Make it again in twenty minutes," he tells me, then pulls the chickens back through.

I cancel the spell and sit down, then grin at Mama Alyssa.

"It worked!"

"Yes, it did," she smiles. "I've never heard of such a spell before."

"I came up with it!" I tell her. "I don't know what all I can do with it, though, but I know it links two places together! It's not like teleporting, where you need that extra part of the spell to ensure you displace what's where you are or don't appear partly into something, so there's less risk."

(Samuel, 75)

"Everyone!" I call, and the others soon filter into the family room over the next few minutes, including Zachary, who stopped by for a few days to see how we were doing and if Alyssa and Jason had returned yet. "I have news."

"What kind of news?" Zachary asks.

"Alyssa and Jason finished," I hold up Jason's paper airplane, and hand it to him. He reads it, then passes it around. "He sent that to let us know."

"What does it mean," Elena asks. "'Put a chicken through so we know if it'll kill or not. If it doesn't, everyone come over to celebrate'? I don't see an enchantment on this, how did he get it to us?"

"It seems," I say. "That our little boy has figured out how to create a sort of portal that allows him to traverse space with ease. I poked my head through after hearing him exclaim when the chicken made it, and it seems to be instant. You walk through the spell and are there."

The boy linked two locations together through magic, which is something I've been attempting to do for decades and magicians for millennia. What was the missing link needed to solve the issue? Knowing Jason's thought processes, it was probably something simple. The perspective of a child who didn't know about past attempts to create such things.

"He wants to celebrate finishing the house with all of us," I say. "And will recreate the portal in a few minutes. Why don't we grab some stuff to celebrate with? He'll likely want us to stay the night as well."

Fifteen minutes later, we have food and clothes packed up and ready to go, and not long after that, Jason reopens his portal. He made it early, probably out of excitement. The six of us pass through and find him standing on the other side, Alyssa sitting at a table.

"How did you do the spell?" I ask Jason, who probably thinks the question is a test, as he does with most of the things we ask when he does something strange.

"The gate?" He asks.

"The gate?" I ask.

"Well, technically, it's a door," he says. "But 'gate' sounds cooler than 'door', doesn't it? I just opened a door between here and home! Yeah, 'gate' definitely sounds better!"

Gates… doors… we've been looking at it as 'portals', which were how beings from the underworld and from heaven entered our world, Midlaris, in ancient times. Then we get Jason, who thinks of 'door' instead of 'portal'. I'll have to see if changing my mindset to a door instead of a portal will enable me to cast the spell.

"How does it work?" I ask him as Elena and Jared begin preparing a fire to cook on. Jason seems to have caught a tide buffalo for us to cook. "Can you tell me?"

"Yes," he nods. "Instead of swapping two items or instantly transporting one to another location, the gate spell creates a gate – well, a doorway – to where you want to go. Then, you walk through it, and it's like walking through a door. All you have to do is open it, and it links the locations. I don't know the full limits yet, I only just invented the spell."

He said 'invented', not 'discovered', and he looks pretty damn prideful. He's confident I don't know it.

"Don't look so smug," I smile at him. "I've been on Midlaris much longer than you, I'll probably figure out your spell in a day or two."

"Oh, I'm sure," he smirks. "But I figured it out first! Take that, old man!"

He sticks his tongue out, then runs off, and I look at Alyssa with a raised eyebrow.

"He's feeling quite happy over inventing that spell," she chuckles. "And he worked quite hard on the house. Hello, Zachary, I didn't know you were there."

"I stopped by to see if you two had returned yet," Zachary informs her, just as I sense a powerful force of magic.

We all look in the direction of it in time to see a pillar of flames hundreds of feet tall and at least ten in diameter shooting into the sky only a hundred yards from here.

"Jason's been in a really good mood," Alyssa adds. "He likes having free range to cast strong spells. After creating the gate the first time, he immediately got to work seeing how big of a spell he can cast. Caught the tide buffalo by accident, it came charging in, probably to investigate the sudden presence of a large amount of water. It mistook Jason creating a tsunami on land for a lake."

Where did all the water go? Did he move it somewhere else?

"That's a new vest and pair of boots he's wearing," Elizabeth comments. "Did he make them while you two were working?"

"Yes," Alyssa answers. "We've done a lot of tanning, as he's managed to catch most things without damaging their hides too much."

He's still casting the pillar of fire. Is he trying to see how long he can cast it for?

As everyone else talks and prepares to cook, Michael and I walk around the house and examine the construction and enchantments. We can tell that Jason did the majority of the enchantments, and they're of the quality we've come to expect of him.

At the back of the house, we come across stairs leading down to hot springs that are brimming with magic as well. Michael and I walk down and investigate them. In addition to the magic from them shaping the land to fit their designs, there are natural magics here, a part of the hot springs themselves.

Based on what I can read of them, they will enhance recovery of stamina and magic of those who rest in them, and even help recover for injuries. Knowing Jason, he likely knew this. We suspect he can read magics in the air, despite not having been taught. Growing up with seven people who use magic in their daily lives while also learning how to use those same magics, he probably figured out how to do that and uses it actively whenever he finds something new. He already knows how to read mana, so it's not that far of a stretch to assume he can read the magics themselves.

Without warning, the ground suddenly shakes and an explosion fills the air, and Michael and I hurry up to the top and towards the explosion, where everyone else is converging. Jason gives us a sheepish look as the smoke clears away.

"That worked!" He says once he realizes he's not in trouble and we just want to ensure he's unharmed.

I look to where he's been casting spells and find a crater in the ground around twenty feet in diameter, clumps of scorched dirt thrown around.

"What did you do?" I ask.

"I created magical flames in too small a place underneath the soil," he answers. "Then released the barrier surrounding them so that the flames would expand to their natural size. Well, as natural as magical flames can have. That resulted in rapid expansion, which then blew apart the dirt. I'm going to try it with air next, if that's okay."

I am now even more terrified for what will happen if someone manages to arouse his anger. Very few people defend themselves from attacks from below because such a thing is unheard of in magical warfare. At least, not that kind of attack from below.

An explosion with enough power to create a crater that large… it might not tear apart a magical shield, but it would definitely send the person flying. The surprise of it would also likely break the caster's concentration on their barrier, causing it to fail.

"Jason," I say. "Why don't you and Papa Michael spar for a little while? Since you have plenty of space here, you don't have to worry about holding back."

"Cool!" Jason quickly draws his sword and aims it at Michael. "I challenge you to a duel! Loser has to give the winner negative ten cookies!"

"Negative ten?" Michael asks.

"Yep!" Jason says. "You owe me! I know you ate those cookies! Now fight me, Papa Michael, and don't lose on purpose to make me give you cookies, or I'll make them taste bad!"

The rest of us return to the new house as the two of them begin sparring, and Alyssa tells us about Jason's efforts during the construction. She said that he started to lag during the creation of furniture and the walls, but I'm still impressed. She managed to have him focus on a project for three months, and he put in as much effort as he could without complaint. Most eleven-year-old boys would have complained or wanted to take breaks that were for mental rest, even if they didn't realize it or acknowledge it.

I suppose he's twelve, now. His birthday passed by while they were out here, and based on Alyssa's account of it, he accepted the stuffies from us she gave him and went right back to work.

It sounds like Jason's suspicious of the reasons for having such a large house out here just for training. Just because we'll be training out here does not mean we cannot also live in luxury or have family celebrations out here. We don't have ulterior motives for everything, contrary to what he thinks sometimes.

When Jason finishes his training with Michael, he returns to us, soaked in sweat, and tells us he's going to wash up, then disappears into the house. Twenty minutes later, he returns and sits by Zachary, listening in as we talk about life. We're almost ready for dinner when I notice what Jason's working on.

He's carving some sort of wheeled box. There are several of them linked together, and they look like odd carriages.

"What is that?" I ask him.

"It's a train," he tells me with that 'you should know this' voice he uses sometimes. Usually, that means that it's something that may have come from his past life, but he hasn't realized it. "What else would it be?"

"Let's pretend your Uncle Zachary has never heard of trains before," I say. "Because he's an idiot who doesn't pay attention to stuff. Can you tell him how it works?"

Jason huffs, his expression saying he knows this is a test to see his knowledge.

"Unlike the standard carriage," he looks at Zachary. "It runs on steel tracks with these wooden bars under it. I don't know why it has the wooden bars, but it does. A train also needs no horses or other beasts of burden to pull it, as it moves on its own using an engine. It probably runs on a mana-based engine, but coal and steam are other options. It can move at high speeds as well, enabling people to travel between cities much faster than normal."

That sounds revolutionary.

"Here's a challenge for you," I tell Jason. "By the winter solstice, make a working model of that, complete with tracks for it to run on. It needs to be able to run."

"Okay," Jason nods, then scratches the back of his neck, something he does when he's unsure. "I'm not sure how to make the engine and stuff. What if it takes me longer than that? I only have… four months? Yeah, four months."

"If you fail," I take the opportunity to add some pressure onto him. "Then I am changing the lock enchantment so that only those I've keyed into it will be able to unlock it based on our magical signatures for at least six months, you will not be allowed any sweets for six months, and Michael and I will double your daily training for six months. You will not be allowed to leave the main property during that time as well, meaning you won't be allowed to hunt. Your chores during those six months will also be increased."

"So," he says hesitantly. "This is a really, really big test for me? And if I fail, I get punished really bad?"

"You've been learning magical enchantments for six years," I tell him. "And even invented mana batteries. This should be within your capabilities, even if you have no idea where to start. Our library is comprehensive, but it isn't absolute and still lacks a lot of knowledge. There are also spells and enchantments we know that aren't recorded in there."

"Okay," he says. "I'll do my best, but you better not sabotage me by increasing my training and chores!"

"I won't," I promise him. "We'll keep things how they are unless we feel the increases are needed for your growth, Jason."

"Okay," he says. "Four months. I can do this. I can definitely do this. It's only four months to create a mana engine without knowing the science or magic behind how engines works and no clue how to make it work and how to make it move the train. That's simple enough. I just need to come up with a miracle. I can do that. I can definitely do that."

He's trying to convince himself of it, which means the pressure is already working. This is the first time we've managed to do that, and I pray to the gods that it works and helps him learn to cope with pressure rather than breaking under the stress.

"If I don't, I'll lose sweets and access to the-" Jason's eyes widen and he looks at me. "You know I've been sneaking in there!"

His realization and admission to sneaking into the library sends the rest of us into laughter, and Jason gives us a grumpy look.

"Meanies!"