The day after the auction, Will boarded a covered wagon with Lawrence Holo. A year ago, Will traveled the same route with the trader Karl. Now, Will, Lawrence, and Holo stayed at the same inn. Although Holo, like Elder Li, hid her animal ears and tail. Will stayed in a room, separate from Lawrence and Holo. In each inn, Will saw people playing reversi, laughing, and drinking. At the inn, people boasted about meeting him a year ago, to each other. The stories were outlandish, and each new story was more embellished and fictitious than the one before.

Sitting at a table in the back with Lawrence, Holo, and Will laughed hearing the stories,

"Aye, I met the young noble last year, he had a strong aura, I knew then he would accomplish great things," said a customer sitting at a bar.

"Oi, he shook my hand, and then I was able to kill a dire beast in one stroke," said a person playing reversi.

Will was disguised wearing a traveling cloak he bought before the journey. He bought a horse and this cloak. The horse was hitched to the wagon. Will wore a noble suit, and people could still see his bright green eyes, but his silver hair was hidden under the cloak's hood. As they ate, Will missed the Aether-infused food. The food tasted bland; his mana whirlpool missed the nourishment. Will left his pills and herbs back in the cottage, a mistake he knew now. His body was conditioned to receive constant Aether, and now he felt different since of hunger.

Regardless, Will ate and drank and spoke with the couple. As they traveled Lawrence, traded goods along the way, picking up goods to sell in the beast tribal lands. As they traveled, Lawrence told Will about the beasts' tribes, much of which he heard from his readings.

"The beast tribes occupy land about 3x the size of Fermion. Most of the land is hilly grasslands, but numerous marshes, waterways, exist. Large, powerful tribes occupied large sections of land, comparable to a duchy, with smaller tribes living inside those tribes. The tiger and cat tribes were in such a situation. The tiger and snake tribes were two of the most powerful tribes, and hand tens of tribes living within their territory. A war between these two would be tantamount to a civil war. Will all tribes have representatives on the Tribal Council, there were five dominant tribes: tiger, snake, bear, wolf, orca.

The orca tribe governed the oceanfront territory. They were master naval commanders. The wolf clan governed the eastern front, adjacent to Will's parent's barony, and were known for their intelligence. The bear clan governed the middle of the territory and were expert ferocious warriors. Both the middle and eastern lands were prairies. The snake clan governed the western front and was known for their craftiness. The western lands were covered in thousands of marshes. Finally, the tiger clan ruled the northern forest. Each clan was very protective of its borders and did not suffer fools.

The tiger and snake tribes fought over a particularly large river that began in the northern mountains, traveled south through the tiger and snake class. The river marked the boundary between the territories. There had been several droughts and river levels had lowered considerably. This river was a great sense of water for the tiger clan, who lacked fewer freshwater resources than the other tribes.

In the Tribal Council, the wolf clan supported the tigers; and the orcas supported the snakes. The bear clan was always neutral when disputes arose among the powerful four clans. The smaller clans were vassals, so they dutifully followed their lords. The country was evenly split, and it seemed like a civil war could break out at any moment," Lawrence finished his lecture.

As Lawrence finished speaking, Will saw his barony town slowly appearing on the horizon. The town was small, compact, but lively, as almost in celebration. It was decided that Will would unite his horse, and travel into the town first, separate from Lawrence and Holo.

Uncovering his hair, Will galloped into the town at full speed. When the townsfolk saw someone galloping they turned to heads. As Will galloped onto the poor cobblestone streets, people were ecstatic. They crowded around his horse, praising him. They heard about his scholastic accomplishments, his treatment of commoners, entrepreneurial success. They had previously known Will as a shy, quiet, bookworm.

Will had planned for this moment, he knew how important it was for a person to have a good reputation at home. Before he did on Earth, he was known as a prominent philanthropist and that was because he wasn't stupid. People were envious of the wealth and identified rich people as villainous. Any wealthy person with a brain would realize it was better to toss away a few coins than have local, regional, national, or global resentment towards you. That is why Will gave donated large amounts of money, not out of the goodness of his heart, but because it kept the media off his back.

Seeing the crowd gather around him, Will got off his horse and threw hundreds of copper coins in the air. The crowd roars their approval. Holding the reigns, Will walked to his parents' mansion a kilometer away handing out coppers. After all when you have over 100,000 gold, what are a few coppers. As Will walked to the mansion crowd followed him, collecting copper coins along the way. No one fought because the coppers kept raining down. Finally, outside the mansion's walls, Will's father, mother, Marcus, and the mansion staff regretted him.

"Father, mother I've returned," said Will, his heart being loud. He loved his new parents, as much as his own.

"Welcome home son," said his father hugging him.

The crowd erupted in joy, seeing the father-son reunion. Will's mother cried in happiness when it was her time to hug her some.

"Brother!" said a clean-shaven, well-dressed, Marcus, who longer resembled a hairy caveman adventure. The two brothers hugged.

The butler closed the mansion gate, and the family walked between a column of servants bowing to Will as he entered his home.

Will felt emotional remembering his transmigration to this world, and exploring the mansion. All the memories about growing up here returned. The mansion was a small three-story building, about 50 meters long and wide, with a crumbling white stucco edifice and ivy climbing wildly up the walls.

Will walked through the vestibule to the not-so-great hall. The family walked to the drawing-room, but before Will could sit him mother shouted at him for pulling off the stunt at the Death Valley fort. She asked that next time he runaway. Will tried to explain, most certainly would have led to their deaths to no avail. His mother was adamant he protect his life, or she would die from sadness.

Marcus and Will looked at each other and tried not to laugh, but Will lied to put his mother at ease. His father asked to see his medal of valor, and Will promptly showed him, his pins. Will kept his cadet uniform in his small baggage. He figured he stay out on his quest until the second year officially began.

"Will, congratulations on your retaining your first and second rank at the Knight and Mage academies. How long are you planning to stay at the barony? His father asked.

"A week father, I have Elder Thaddeus gave me a secret quest that I must accomplish this summer," said Will refusing to tell his parents about traveling to the beast tribal lands.

"Alice, make up Will's room please," said his mother. Will immediately recognized his childhood attendant.

"Yes madam, Master Will be wonderful to see you again. I missed you and followed your exploits with great enthusiasm," she said bowing respectfully. Will saw her massive breast. He had never realized how attractive his nursemaid was until now. Will's nascent puberty picked this time to grow.

"Thank you," said Will, shifting his seating position to avoid letting her see his stiff reaction.

When she walked away, Will's eyes tracked her out of the room.

"All these years I wondered about you, but now I see your wick is lit by women," said Marcus laughing.

"Marcus we will not have any of that vagrant adventure talk in here! You shall bespeak as you were trained before leaving this house. That vulgar language will not speak in front of me! Isn't that right dear," said Helen speaking to her husband.

"Rightly so dear," said an uncaring James.

The family spoke for an hour and a half more before lunch was brought to the dining room, where they spoke for another two hours.

In that time, Will found out Rebecca had traveled to the capital for her baptism and training with the Church of Aether. She would spend long hours each day in meditation and prayer. It sounded like Rebecca was training at a nunnery. After the fiasco at the Death Valley fort, Jason was promoted to captain and took over as fort commander. Katherine had returned from her voyage with her fiancé. Helen vont Ballard spoke positively about each of her children. However, she was not happy that another son was stationed in the Death Valley fort.

After lunch, Will toured the old house. His first stop was the first-floor library adjacent to the dining room. The room was much smaller and less grand than he remembered. After working in the Knight Academy, he realized that the baronry's library was small, and not as grand as he remembers it. Next Will went to his second favorite place, his father's office, which sat across the hall from the drawing-room. Will examined his father's ledger with sadness.

"I might no do as well as you, but there is no need to frown," said James vont Ballard barreling into his office. "This reminds me of ages ago, Marcus is outside practicing with his sword, and you are in here looking at my ledger. Gods the years have flown by," he said in remembrance.

"Father why didn't you tell me the baron's fields are drying. I didn't realize the drought was affecting you two. How is the river level?" said Will concerned.

"The river is about a half where it was a year ago. Why would I slight myself to inform you, you have your own life to live. It is Jason who should be worried instead of you!" he said coldly.

"Father I have interest in succession battles, please do not take offense. I merely want to help my parents. Let me help you, as a terramancer I can renourish your fields. From your ledger, I can tell you are paying quite the copper to hire an aquamanner, but it's not helping your crops the way you thought," Will replied, James could see his son's desire to help.

"Good father, I will visit the farms this week too and cast [fertile soil] & [nature's blessing]. I would also suggest you stop cultivating wheat, and instead play soybeans," said Will for three reasons.

First, soybeans provide nitrogen into the soil helping to enrich the soil. Second, because he wanted parents to create miso, soy sauce, and other food products that would revitalize this barony's economy. Third, every farm in Fermion planted wheat. The last harvest, Fermion had a bumper crop of wheat which drove down prices, making it created for buyers, but poor for sellers.

Will's father was dealing with less profit, a drought; while also having to house and feed soldiers the crown sent. Even worse, his father tried to recoup the lost profits by taxing the peasantry. When the soldiers came, and his expense increased, he taxed the peasants further he had no choice. However, taxing the peasants more brought less coin, and more aggravation from the townsfolk. It was not wrong to stay James vont Ballard was in a tough place financially.

This is why Will never invested in the commodities market on Earth. Buying stocks in commodities was based on production, commercial demand, and speculation. While Will was a master of speculation, the commodities market was too variable. Think about Fermion, wheat was the cash crop, everyone grew wheat, there was a large commercial market, but farmers sell their crops based on future contracts. All the farmers in Fermion would sell their crops at a set date, this meant buyers could decide the price based on the supply and demand at that moment. When worse was the added cost of farming after the perishable crops were harvested.

In Will's opinion, it was better to cultivate less popular crops, industrialize them yourself, and then send the finished product to market. And soy was a king bean, just perfectly fit for this. Soybeans could be turned into food, sauce, fodder, oil; soybeans could be used in hundreds of different ways. Even better, soybeans were rarely sold on the market. If the barony grew and import sells beans, they could monopolize the entire soybean market.

If he could convince his father, he would create the infrastructure and leave it to his father to manage. Even better the barony would patent the products and contract them only through Will's new general store.

After their conversation it was late-night, Will walked to his old room. The familiar walls brought comfort. This is the room was Will's haven, he remembers sleeping here in his crib wondering about his new life. Even with the twist and turns, Will was living his dream. His business empire was growing wings, and one day he would return to regain his throne.