Once more, Jeb looked at the obvious answer. The soil from the garden was clearly better than the sand. As he touched and smelled them, though, he felt like he could better picture what would happen to the roots of the wheat.

  Before the training, he could intellectually understand that sand was bad for wheat. This time through, he almost felt like he was the root system of the wheat, supported in one soil and choked out in the other. Each soil felt that way, and as he started choosing between two plausible answers, he understood where he had gone wrong the previous time.

  The soil he’d chosen was still good soil, he was more sure of that than ever. But, it wasn’t the best soil for wheat. It was missing something, for all that Jeb still couldn’t quite name what was missing.

  Though he was doing better, he still eventually made a mistake. By the last pair of soils, he chose totally at random. He could not find a single difference between them.

  That ate at him as he went through each pair again. When he once again was presented with them, he realized what the answer was.

  “These are the same soil,” he said.

  “Are you sure?” his grandfather asked.

  “As sure as I can be. If these didn’t come from the same shovel load, then there’s something I’m missing.”

  As Jeb said that, he was suddenly distracted by two Notifications, so he missed what his grandfather said.

  Something felt unfinished about that, but his grandfather was still speaking, so Jeb ignored what was wrong.

  “I’m sorry, grandfather,” he said, “what did you say?”

  “I just commented that if you haven’t unlocked Soil Savvy yet, we’ll need to try something wildly different. What distracted you?” It was clear that his grandfather knew the answer to the question, but wanted to give Jeb the chance to say it first.

  “I unlocked Soil Savvy!” he said.

  “Congratulations! It’s a little late for you to start working with your uncle today. Do you have something else you can use to occupy your time?”

  “I think I can manage,” Jeb said. In truth, there was plenty to occupy his time.

  His grandfather gave a small laugh, “I’m sure you can. I’ll let your uncle know to expect you first thing after breakfast tomorrow, so be ready.”

  Jeb figured out how early he would need to wake up in order to get his exercise in before he went to breakfast. His grandfather clearly understood what he was doing, because he interrupted Jeb’s thoughts, “You will probably want to hold off on the lifting until after the day is done. It’s going to be a hard day, but it should finish before dinner.”

  “Thank you for the advice, grandfather!” Jeb said. The two of them walked back into the house before breaking apart to go to their respective rooms.

  “What do I do now?” Jeb thought aloud. His hands and fingers felt fine again, so he went through a lute routine. He was too distracted to get the most out of the practice time, but the scales still continued to become smoother with each repetition.

  Jeb decided to see what his new Skill Quests were before he did anything else.

  That seemed reasonable enough, and Jeb saw immediately why Soil Savvy worked so well with other Skills. Identifying the problem was a Quest, and then solving it would presumably be another Quest.

  He moved on to the Identification Quest.

  That was easy. Jeb acknowledged the prompt to complete the Quest.

  That was a nice bonus. Jeb opened the new Quest, just to make sure he wasn’t missing anything from the title.

  That was strange. Then again, the feeling that he was missing something about Identification hadn’t gone away. As Jeb focused on the feeling, he felt the System pushing him towards Glyph Groking. When he tried to open the Skill to see what was happening, he received a prompt.

  That explained it. Jeb went back to the Quest.

  The new Quest was almost exactly what Jeb had expected.

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  Jeb looked at the pile of books he had made the day before. The general Magic Primer still seemed like a good idea, but he really wanted the immediate gratification that learning another few Glyphs would give him.

  He opened the Quest again, making sure that he was spending his time correctly. Also, since Glyph Groking had changed, he wanted to make sure the Quests hadn’t.

  Thankfully the Quests remained unchanged. His goal before dinner was going to be finishing the “First Tier Elemental Chain First Quest.” That meant he needed to learn an Air and a Fire Glyph. He flipped a coin to see which Primer he’d work through first.

  He opened the Air Primer, hoping that his new Glyph Groking Skill might help him to learn the Spell Glyph, even through Mud Magic’s hindrance. He skimmed the chapter, making sure it didn’t say anything like “this Glyph is intended to show you how upper level Glyphs look.” Making that mistake once was enough.

  The first Glyph in the book was Least Move Air. Jeb sent the smallest thread of Mana into the Glyph and watched it light up. As he visualized it in his mind, he began from the first point.

  Connecting to the second point felt somehow totally wrong. It was doable, and easily, but it left him feeling like he’d committed some offense against his nature. That’s probably just the Mud Magic, Jeb reasoned, continuing to build the Glyph.

  To his surprise, once he had gotten to the fifth point, the Glyph suddenly felt effortless to learn. It was as though his Mana already knew the path the next twenty points would fill. Jeb could feel a small tug from the System, but he wasn’t sure where. Nonetheless, a glance at his Notifications showed him that he had learned the Spell.

  A glance at his Status sheet confirmed it. Jeb realized he’d forgotten to light a candle to make sure he hadn’t lost track of time, but the sun didn’t appear to have moved too much. He quickly ran downstairs and saw his mother preparing dinner.

  “Just double checking, how long have I been upstairs?”

  “I couldn’t say. No more than fifteen minutes, for certain, though.”

  “Thank you!” Jeb went back upstairs.

  Jeb remembered to light a candle this time, setting it in his eyesight but away from the growing pile of books in his room.

  He opened the Fire Primer, and found that the first Glyph recommended in it was a Creation Glyph. Something about the balance of Fire and Water both recommending beginning with Creation while Earth and Air started with movement resonated in him, but Jeb didn’t bother exploring why. After all, he had a Glyph to learn and a Quest to finish.

  Once more, the first five points of the Glyph were far harder than the last twenty. This time the tug seemed to be, strangely enough, towards the Glyphs he’d already learned. Jeb didn’t know where the Glyphs were stored in his Spirit, though, so that was unhelpful.

  The Quest, on the other hand, was far less mysterious.

  The candle didn’t appear too diminished, but Jeb wanted to try his new Glyph. He put out the candle and then tried to light it with his new Glyph.

  The wick caught flame, burning as though he had never extinguished it. Jeb felt the same constant pull on his Mana as when he cast Create Water, but noticed no difference in the fire when he stopped feeding it Mana. That would be something he’d consider another day.

  Jeb looked at his Status as he considered what to do next. The Glyph Groking Quest had taken far less time than he expected.

  Jeb’s Status Sheet at End of Chapter: