It has been 3 months since I decided I had woken up to my ambition and had since started practising for the village leader role. While I could confidently say my training has been going great, it hadn’t started exactly as expected. Similar to my dad’s thoughts when he said I should conserve my mana to practice with mom, I too had expected that I would have at least started practising my magic by now. But no, my mom said that unless I pass some requirement, I would not be able to start practising actual magic.

While reinforcement was magic as well, in my head at least it was part of the warrior class skills, but as a magic enthusiast I want to become a warrior mage, maybe even a magic swordsman like the dragonslayer and I clearly remember asking her about when she would start teaching me magic.

*Flashback*

“Mom, you haven’t been teaching me any magic!”

“Well, yes, I didn’t teach you magic yet because you have not reached the requirements to practice magic yet.”

“Bu-But “

I wanted to argue with her that she is the one that accepted my magic training so she should train me now, but knowing that I will lose the argument I released a sigh of defeat as I asked

“Okay, so what are the requirements?”

“Well, don’t worry about it! I will tell you when you reach the requirements, but for now, don’t worry everything I make you do will be for reaching those requirements so don’t worry”

*Flashback end*

Seeing that she wasn’t teaching me anything, I tried to do it without any instructions. I tried to bring my mana out of the body while also making a mental image of a ball of water. My first instinct was to imagine a fireball but cooler heads prevailed that day. However, my method seems flawed because as soon as the mana came out of the body it dissipated into the air without doing anything. Since then, I have tried many methods but nothing seems to work. Eventually, I gave up seeing no result and since I didn’t need to conserve mana anymore, I focused on maximising the reinforcement training instead and ended up with good results as I could now keep the reinforcement active for an additional minute before exhaustion.

It seems that with the improvement of the body the amount of mana was also increasing, it was either that or it could be that the more I use mana the more my mana capacity increased. Whatever the case was, the end result was my mana capacity increasing. Though I made a note to myself to study this phenomenon when I got more knowledge about magic. Other than that, both Cylix and my skills were growing fast. When dad noticed how fast we were progressing he said

“Sigh, you guys are so lucky to both have similar levels of skills. If I had a sparring partner at the same level as me I would have so much fun. Don’t take this for granted kids, to have a sparring partner that is at your level and challenges you to improve is the ultimate dream of all warriors.”

It seemed dad’s statement was true as we quickly reached reserve hunter standards. Though, even if we had reached the standard, we couldn’t exactly join the hunting team till we were 9, which was a bummer after I got to know about it. That little discovery also led me to investigate other parts of the village culture I didn’t know about. In the end, I ended up asking Nana since my mom was busy during the day with her healer duties and running around the village.

“Nana, why can we only join the hunters at 9? We have already reached at least the reserve team level.”

“Hmm, it is for no other reason than to let you kids enjoy your life a bit more before you brave the hardships of the jungle.”

“But Nana-”

“Even if you both are stronger than your father you will still not be allowed on the hunting team so don’t whine.”

“Sigh, well, since I came here anyway, at least tell me something interesting about the village I don’t know yet.”

“Well, do you know about the village war-”

“I know about the ward stone beneath the rowan tree.”

“Then you know about the village lea-”

“Yes, I learned it from mom.”

“Then how about the Dharma law?”

“Dharma law?”

“Well, Dharma was one of the wiser council members during Village leader Oweyn’s time. He asked the leader to create a law that we still use today and the people named the law after him.”

Woah, to even get a law named after oneself, this law must be a huge deal.

“Well, the law that Dharma proposed was that everybody irrespective of their age or gender had to train regularly to become the village’s defenders, reducing some of the burdens on the hunter team to protect the village.

Obviously, the people raised an uproar misunderstanding that they had to train as regularly as the hunter team. They protested, saying that if they trained as regularly as the hunter team, they wouldn't have enough time or energy to do their own work.

Thankfully Dharma anticipated this and had made a gathering of all the protesters and explained that they did not in fact have to train as regularly as the hunter team but all the children when they reached 9 years old would be compulsorily drafted and had to train for a year.

After that, there would be a village-wide test every two years, where one had to reach the standards for the village defence otherwise, they had to do penalty training for 6 months regardless of their work.

Dharma law is one of the foundational laws of our village and one cannot escape the training unless you are either too old, too young or have some disabilities.”

Oh, so that’s why there are so many people at the training grounds every day, I always wondered why people that weren’t becoming hunters practised regularly.

“But I don’t think we had a beast wave recently and beast waves only happen if there is a major event. So why is this law still in effect?”

“Of course, it is in the case of raiders or bandits!”

“Wha-”

Of course! How could I forget! Even if humanity is on its deathbed there are still some people coming to stab it to get some more wealth. I have always known that there are humans outside our village since I wasn’t one to underestimate humanity’s tenaciousness, but the first outsider that I got to know about is a bandit which is a bit of a sad fact.

While I sighed about the human nature, Nana started chastising me

“Don’t sigh like an old man! You are too young to be doing that! Anyway, that is for today’s story. You guys should head back right now.”

Oh crap, the very reason I came here is to escape home and eat at Nana’s, if I go back now, I will have to eat mom’s terrible offal stew. I mean I admire her spirit to not waste any part of the animal but her offal stew is uneatable. I just have to find a reason to stay here now as it is time for Nana’s cooking. If I stay here when she starts cooking, she will make some for me too.

“U-uh, yes, I have another question that has been bugging me. Why don’t we have surnames in our village? Before the apocalypse, everybody had surnames, right? Why not now?”

“Oh, that? That is simply because the number of people in the village was so small that people eventually stopped using surnames. Now off you go! I know you are trying to stay here to avoid your mom’s stew but you should eat the offal sometimes as it is good for your health.”

Seeing that my trick had been found out, I had to accept defeat as I walked back home. Returning back home, the first thing I saw was a big trapezoidal bucket around knee-high for adults or nearly half body for us six-year-olds. I was looking it over when Cylix came out of the house with some tools, noticing me he immediately greeted me happily.

“Brother, look it came. Now, we can try and make that wheelborro.”

“It is not wheelborro, but wheelbarrow”

This wheelbarrow prototype we were making was the first try at replicating some of the stuff I saw during my last life as Angelo. Cylix on the other hand was very happy that I had a similar hobby that we could share together. While I could calculate and make designs, I couldn't exactly make the stuff because I have zero practical skills in these areas. This is where Cylix came in with his help as he had worked at a blacksmith during his time as an orphan, and even though he wasn’t a full-on craftsman, he qualified for the mini prototypes we made as we didn’t need to be perfect, just working.

We had made all the other parts of the wheelbarrow but we couldn’t make the wheelbarrow bucket ourselves so we requested mom to make an order at the carpenter. Even though she was confused about the request, seeing that we were trying to make something, she went along with it and ordered it. Now that we have it, we can finally start assembling it. It took us just over an hour to completely finish building it.

“Mom! Mom! Come out here, we've finished building it!”

“Yes, yes, I am coming! Now show me what has got you kids so riled up since last month?”

She came with leisurely steps as if I hadn’t just invented something that would change the life of a lot of people in the village. But I had anticipated this lukewarm reaction, so I prepared a little show for exactly this reason.

“Mom, how much time do you think Cylix would take to take this pile of firewood to the stove?”

“He should be able to carry 3 pieces at once, around 15 minutes?”

“Hahaha, Now see my genius! Show her Cylix!”

However, Cylix stood there as confused as mom. Of course, I only said that we are building this but never explained how to use it to him. I leaned in and whispered into his ear.

“Put all the firewood you can fit into the wheelbarrow and then lift the wheelbarrow and push it should be able to move with the help of the wheel.”

He looked like he understood the steps but was trying to figure out the principle behind it, but eventually started doing so according to the instructions. Now I just need to sit back and watch the show.

As Cylix was loading up the logs into the wheelbarrow, Mom's face shifted from bewildered to worried about the more logs he piled up at one point she even tried to stop him.

“Cylix honey, that many logs would be too much for you”

But Cylix continued loading up the logs till the wheelbarrow was full and then he hesitated for a second after which he lifted the wheelbarrow. At first, I could see the confusion in his face as he didn’t feel that much weight as he had expected and then he started pushing it forward and immediately that confusion transformed into realisation as he looked at the wheel and then finally settled in wonder and amazement Mom was going through a similar set of feelings as she saw the wonders of SCIENCE! Eventually, Cylix reached the firewood stack by the stove and started unloading the firewood.

“So how do you feel now that you have seen your son's genius mom?”

“My baby boys are so amazing! This will help a lot of people in the village! I have to talk to Nana and then we will present it to the council tomorrow!”

“Wait Mom! We can’t present this to the council!”

“What! Why not!?”

“Mom! This is the kiddy version, you can’t present this to the council. We have to make one adult size if we want to show it to the council.”

“You are right, we have to make an adult one, but I don’t know how. So, you will have to come with me tomorrow to the craftsmen lane”

“Okay, no problem! By the way mom, since we have made such an invention, you should make something special.”

“Hmm, yes, I will make sure to cook tamatina rice as well.”

Tamatina was just the word for tomato in this world, and I didn’t exactly dislike tamatina rice, however that is not what I was looking for.

“Mom, instead of the offal stew, make a steak tonight.”

“Oh no sorry honey, I already started the offal stew, we can always eat the steak tomorrow.”

Ugh! I should have been a bit early, unlike earth, Unia doesn’t have refrigerators so anything that has to be cooked has to be cooked now and eaten now as well. Curse you, refrigerator gods, for not being present in this world!