[Xander – 12 years]

  As it turns out, the chores Carter has to do before breakfast are not things like "clean the bathroom". He woke at five-thirty and we both got up then, got dressed in clothes good for working in, and are now in his golf cart.

  "I'm on chicken duty for this morning," he tells me. "So we're going there first. Dad and Collin are at the stables, making sure the horses are getting fed. The stable hands are doing some work, too."

  "They're already here?"

  "We have a building for them to live in," he explains. "Not all of them do, some show up later in the day. There's a lot of work that can be done, and those who can do some of it are few and far between."

  "What do you mean?"

  "To handle the horses directly," he says. "You've got to be pretty good with water magic and pretty strong with them, too. It's hard to find someone like that, so we don't actually have many people who can do some things. That leaves it mostly to my family. So while the hands can do things like feed the horses, muck the stalls, sweep the stables, and such, they can't do things like train the horses or take people out on trail rides."

  "So most of your work is interacting with the horses," I say. "While most of the ranch hands' work is ranch stuff that's not interacting with them?"

  "Right," he says. "And I said they're being fed – food's being put into the feeders for them, but Dad and Collin are letting them out into the pasture to graze. The rain's supposed to start a little after noon, so the horses'll graze in the pasture. Then, they'll have food in the barn for if they get hungry later."

  "And your dad or brother'll watch them while they're in the pasture?"

  "Right," he says. "Mom does that, too, if she's not in the office. But she'll be in the garden, harvestin' some stuff right now. We'll help her if we've got time after the chickens, and here we are."

  Carter pulls up to a small barn, or maybe it's a large shed. Inside of it, we prepare the food for the chickens. It consists of putting a bunch of different things into buckets and loading those into hand-pulled wagon. The explanations of why each thing is included in the meal is too much for me to understand, but I understand some of it.

  Like that there are some foods a chicken shouldn't be fed, though, such as raw potatoes. They also need enough protein to make them plump enough to be worth eating when it's time for that.

  "So we add some extra protein," Carter tells me. "The grain mix we're measuring out now was soaked in a solution that added protein to it. Grains like soaking things up, it's why you can use bread to mop up stew. And a lot of the veggies and greens we're mixing in help give them nutrients they need. It all comes from our gardens, actually. We've got a big garden to help feed not just us, but our chickens, too."

  "So you don't buy the food?"

  "We buy some," he says. "But they're magic chickens of a specialized breed. They've got both fire and water magics, so they prefer food with either or both of those."

  "Which means you can't find fresh stuff all the time."

  "Yeah," he confirms. "We'll buy from stores in winter, though. And we buy the grains – they ain't too hard to find. One of the farms in the area actually grows 'em, which makes it easier."

  "Oh."

  We finish measuring out the ingredients and filling the buckets, then we pull the wagon to the chickens' pens. There are a few different sections to it, including the sheltered coops where they live. They have two sections for roosters and three for hens.

  "Have to keep the roosters separate from the hens," he says. "Else they'll mate when we don't want 'em to. The third pen there, that's for when we're mixing hens with roosters to get fertilized eggs. That gets us chicks, which grow up into more chickens. From there, we get more eggs and some meat. Take 'bout eight weeks to get big enough to eat."

  "How many farms do you guys own?" I ask. "You've got horses and chickens and wheat and your own gardens. You've got others, or not?"

  "We do," he nods. "We've got more fields past the hay fields. Have to go through the forest some more, and we do take the tractors there, they just get stored at the hay fields. We grow a few things there, like corn, wheat, beans, and whatever else my parents decide to do that year. Those three are staples, though – we use and sell corn and wheat, and use the beans to fix the nitrogen in the soil. Those lots aren't massive, though, and it's mainly to help feed us and earn just a little bit more money. Come on, time to dump the food."

  Carter shows me how to properly put the food into the chicken pens, telling me that they'll eat them throughout the day. Their chickens apparently don't care about rain and so will come out and eat even when it's rainy. For water, there are a few water buckets with drinking protrusions. Those get refilled using magic as it doesn't take much to do so.

  The chickens swarm out of the coops once we start dumping the food into the feeder pans, which startles me so much I nearly teleport away.

  "Hungry little ladies today, ain't ya?" Carter chuckles.

  "W-will they really eat all of this?" I ask as I dump my bucket.

  "Yeah," he answers. "There's a pecking order among the chickens. Those higher up will eat more, and this ensures there's enough leftover that once they're full, the others'll get to eat."

  "It's enough for the full day?"

  "Should be," he says. "We'll check again this afternoon to see if we need more, just in case."

  We finish feeding the chickens, then grab baskets from the wagon and enter the coops for the hens. He creates a thin glove of water magic over his hand, which he uses to pick up eggs. I check the structure of the spell, then cast it without the errors on my own hand and do the same.

  By the time we're done, we have over fifty eggs. I knew he said that they have enough they can give away or sell, but this is even more than I expected.

  Especially since he tells me that their hens are a breed which lays about an egg a day, sometimes more. That slows down a little in winter, but there's a lot of time until then.

  "You said you sell some of the extras, right?" I ask as we put the baskets in the wagon.

  "Yeah," he answers as we begin returning to the barn-shed. "We've got plenty to eat, but it's too much for us. So like I told ya, we give some away and sell others."

  "How much do they sell for?"

  "A dozen normal eggs cost $2 right now," he tells me. "If you wanted a dozen eggs of chickens with only fire or water magics, you'd be spending about $4 for a dozen."

  "But these have both," I say. "So it's $6 for a dozen of them?"

  That's an extra $2 per dozen per magic type.

  "No," he grins at me. "This is such a rare breed of chicken that they sell for even more. They're a buck-fifty apiece."

  "That's…" I try to do the math. "That'd be $18 a dozen?"

  "Yup!"

  "Whoa," I say. "That's so expensive."

  "Yeah," he says. "But the flavor's unique, which adds a unique flavor to anything it's used in. And I don't just mean the magic aspect, either. The actual flavor is unique. Not only that, but if you know what you're doing, you can actually utilize their magical properties when cooking. One thing my ma likes to do is make it so they stay warm for longer, and that's all from their own fire magics. With the right technique, making 'em sunny-side up can make 'em extra juicy with their water magics. They can also make a cake retain moisture better, allowing for a less-dry cake with more ease."

  "So it's the stuff you can do because of their magic that makes them cost more?" I ask.

  "Yeah," he answers. "And then add in their unique flavor, and the price goes up more. There's a demand aspect, too."

  "Demand?"

  "Yeah," he nods. "If we didn't sell 'em for that much, we'd actually sell 'em a lot faster than we do. Get asked 'bout 'em even when we're out sometimes."

  "So it slows down getting asked," I say. "But it's not too high that people won't want to buy 'em?"

  "Right," he nods. "If we tried selling 'em at two bucks a pop, almost no one would want to buy 'em."

  This is just another reason mages can make a lot of money, especially mage farmers and ranchers. They spend a little bit more to buy the things they have to, but can sell things for even more.

  I'm fairly certain there's something similar with Luke's family's company. He's tried explaining it to me before. I don't understand the energy provider part, other than that they mostly provide magitech electricity mainly to large or mage businesses. I do, however, understand the generators, sort of.

  Their generators cost a little bit more than mundane ones and require mana crystals to work. At the same time, however, they're silent due to being magitech. That's already a major perk over mundane ones, which make a lot of noise due to the way they work. People will pay a little bit more for something that makes less noise, and I can understand that a lot.

  More than that, the generators last longer than mundane ones. People will accept paying more for something if they need to replace it less, as long as the increase in price for that isn't too much. But because of the lack of noise, people see the increased cost as acceptable.

  Especially because they don't create pollution, which means they're safer for the environment. They can also be stored inside, if someone has the space in their home. If someone's power goes out during a multi-day storm or when it's freezing out, they'd prefer to be able to stay inside to turn on their generator.

  That allows the price to go up even more. And that doesn't even cost extra to do. It's just a nature of being made from magitech, just like the sound part. Then add in the fact that magitech generators can more easily be set up to turn on automatically if the power goes out, reducing the downtime before it's back on, and the price goes up even more.

  Yet people still buy them. The generator market for North America is in the billions. A lower price point on them would mean the companies which produce them would need to make them even faster. So they take advantage of their ability to earn extra profit to slow down the sales so they don't need to make more assembly lines.

  I think it's similar to my hoverboard. Right now, Xanson Technologies is the only company able to produce and sell them. Because of that, we can sell them for a lot of money and people would still buy them. People are willing to pay an extra fifty grand just for me to build it instead of the company.

  So I definitely understand how his family can sell magic eggs for $1.50 apiece.

  "There's more to do," Carter tells me as we enter the barn-shed.

  "Gotta wash the eggs?" I guess.

  "Yeah," he answers. "It's not done in all countries, I've heard, but we clean the gunk off of 'em on this side of the ocean. They can last a couple of weeks at room temp unwashed, or a little longer refrigerated. The washed ones you buy at the store can last a few weeks in the fridge."

  "But there's something special 'bout yours?" I make another guess.

  "Yup!" He answers. "After we wash them, we dip 'em in a special solution that creates a protective trait which makes 'em last a month even at room temp. They can last about a month and a half in the fridge with it."

  "That's… really good."

  "Yup!" He nods. "Come on, I'll show you how to wash them."

  Washing the eggs is a lot easier than I expected, as long as I'm careful not to use too much force as I do. The solution that they get dipped into is in a large, five-gallon bucket. It's a little cloudy, but Carter assures me that's normal.

  We use a spoon he calls a skimmer to dip the eggs in, and they soak for a minute before getting pulled out. They're then moved to a towel to be dried.

  "Once they've soaked for a minute," he tells me. "The protection is as good as it'll get. It only soaks into the shell and not any further, and it gives the effect to the shell. That's why we can dry 'em off with a towel instead of letting the coating dry on."

  "Because it's already done its work," I say.

  "Right!"

  Each egg is placed into a lidless egg carton which can hold eighteen of them. Those are stacked onto each other with a total of fifty-three eggs. Two full cartons and one that's one egg shy of being full.

  We clean up the cleaning station, then bring the eggs to the golf cart and head back to the house.

  "How were the chickens?" Mrs. Martins asks when we bring the eggs inside.

  "Doing good," Carter answers. "One of the chicks was moving a little slow, but I didn't feel any pain in its mind when I tried using empathy on it. And like I said Friday, I think two of the older hens are ready for butchering. Ain't laying as much anymore."

  Chicken duty is usually left to Carter as he's the youngest member of the family. That's something he told me while we worked, but he wasn't complaining about it. He just sees it as part of his chores and life.

  They better compensate him well for his work. He didn't ask them to bring him into this world and it's not like he has a choice in where he lives.

  "I'll check 'em this afternoon," Mrs. Martins says. "You boys wash up, then help me with breakfast."

  "Yes, ma'am," we both respond.

  Breakfast today consists of waffles with maple syrup, sausages, eggs, berries, and honeydew chunks. Carter and I drink milk and orange juice with it, while his parents and older brother have those and coffee. Collin does the dishes after we finish eating breakfast and Carter's told to go get changed.

  "Changed?" I ask.

  "Yeah," he says. "For church. You want to come with us? I know there's a bunch of different ones and that S.G. ain't religious. The god we believe in 'round here's probably a bit different from any of the ones you believe in over there."

  There really are a lot of different religions. I'd rather not go into a church unless I have to – or unless it's for something like the Youth Group, since they're nice people and it's fun to hang out with them. Unfortunately, I have a reason to accept his offer.

  "I'm not religious," I tell him. "But Trenton is. He asked me if we could check out your church. Um. I won't have to pray or anything if I go, will I?"

  "No," Mrs. Martins tells me. "You can just watch if you'd like."

  "We actually go for the morning," Carter tells me. "Our church has two services. During the first one, there's also Sunday School, which is for kids. Mom's the teacher for the junior high Sunday School, so she misses the first service. So we go to Sunday School, then to second service."

  "I probably won't be able to pay attention for that long."

  "That's fine," Mrs. Martins smiles. "Plenty of kids zone out during the service."

  "Lemme ask my dad."

  Dad gives me permission, so Carter and I go to his room to change. We can apparently wear jeans to the services, so I pick those. We also put on nice button-ups rather than work ones. Thirty minutes later, we arrive at their church.

  Trenton's in my arms, and I look down at him as we approach the building. Quite a few people are showing up right now. Most guys are dressed nicely even if wearing jeans, and most women are wearing dresses. Almost all of the guys are wearing cowboy hats or baseball caps, including all of the ones wearing jeans and dress shirts.

  The ones wearing dress pants instead of jeans don't have hats on at all.

  What determines the difference? The Martinses are all wearing their cowboy hats so I've got mine on as well. All of the kids I recognize are dressed with jeans and their cowboy hats or baseball caps, too.

  I really want to know what determines who wears what, but I'm a little nervous to ask. It's probably something everyone around here knows and they might think I'm stupid if I ask.

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  "Really?" I ask Trenton, then use my right hand to have him look up at me, then nod. "So you just wanted to see that?" I make Trenton nod again. "And you were right?" I nod him again. "That's interesting."

  "What's he saying?" Knox asks as he joins us.

  "He said he suspected you all believed in -," I answer. "Since you all have blessings from them. And now that we're here, he can feel -'s energy and presence, which confirms it."

  "I, uh… whatever name you're saying, it ain't coming through," Knox tells me. "I don't know what's going on. I can see your mouth moving, but I ain't hearing words."

  "That's because most mortals can't comprehend the names of gods," I explain. "At least, according to Trenton. He says yours is -, who's a god of nature. That makes sense, this is a big farming area and there's lots of hunting and fishing in it, too. Well, gods ain't really 'gods of' something in the way most people think. They all have the same powers for the ones of the same tier, they just prefer certain things over others. And the god whose energies and presence is filling the church apparently really likes nature, so that's what he mostly focuses on."

  Knox is quiet for a few seconds.

  "Ain't you just hallucinating the bear talking?" He asks.

  "Knox!" His mother exclaims. "Be nice!"

  "But it's true!" Knox says. "I'm just confused about the bear saying all that stuff 'bout gods and stuff!"

  It doesn't feel like he's trying to be mean. I can't feel maliciousness in him. And he was honest about being confused, so that's probably all it is.

  "Yeah," I say. "Trenton talking's just a hallucination, but I learn a lot of stuff from it. That's why I listen even when I don't want to. He has lots of useful stuff to say and if I ignore him too much, he might go quiet. Then I'll stop learning the interesting stuff he has to say."

  "How does that even work?"

  "I dunno."

  "Okay."

  We all head inside, and Carter takes me with him and his friends to the high school Sunday School even though I'm a middle schooler. Apparently, the grade or grade ranges for them isn't an absolute thing and guests usually go with whoever they came with even if they're in a different one.

  The Sunday School class is really boring, and the candy jar is mostly chocolate. I struggle to focus on the lesson and start thinking about magic. Knox, Bo, and quite a few of the others here are all farmer kids, and some of the kids are the children of ranchers.

  From my understanding, the Martinses are actually a "smaller" family in the current generation. A lot of farmers and ranchers apparently have at least three to five kids while they only have two. That means that even in a small town like this, there are quite a few kids in the junior high Sunday School class.

  With most of the farms and ranches in the area being magic ones, based on what I've learned over the past few weeks, most of the kids here are mages. Strong ones, too. Most of them are about as strong as the magic special forces soldiers I've met.

  They definitely know magics which help with their farms. I'm fairly certain I can easily tell whose family has been a magic farming family for generations. Everyone else here has some degree of earth magic in their mana, though some have it stronger. They probably use it when tending to their gardens while the farmers use it in the fields.

  What would they use it for, though? Probably to make the soil more fertile. Or to break it up if needed. Actually, they might use it for plowing the soil. But they probably have tractors for that, so probably not. It might've been used for that a long time ago, though.

  By the time the class finishes, I think I've figured out three different spells that will help with a farm or a garden. Greyson might like them, he let me know that he was going to try and talk his dads into letting him grow a garden in their back yard.

  Then again, Greyson probably also figured gardening magic out on his own or has some in his database. It was a fun exercise, though.

  The church service itself is boring. They do a lot of singing, quite a few prayers, and the preacher guy talks a lot. By the time the service finally ends, I'm nearly falling asleep out of boredom.

  Then it turns out that the adults do a lot of talking in the foyer and sanctuary after the service ends. That results in a lot of the kids finding something to do, whether it's playing outside or just talking on their own.

  Carter's one of the ones who goes outside, and he (and many of the other boys he's playing with) take off their dress shirts to avoid getting them dirty or stained. Those who were wearing western boots take them off for the game as well, as the shoes are apparently not suited for that kind of movement.

  Which explains why they all wore hunting boots yesterday instead of their normal ones.

  I sit off to the side and watch the others. They decided to throw a football around, and there's a lot of tackling going on. I wouldn't join in on this even if they still had their shirts on.

  "Hey, Carter?" I use magic so that he can hear me as the game resets. "I'm going inside to get away from the rain."

  "Rain?" He asks. "Did you feel a sprinkle?"

  Some of the other boys stop to look at Carter. None of them can hear me so they're probably wondering who he's talking to.

  "No," I answer. "But it's probably about to start, so I'm going back inside to wait."

  I get up and head inside, then watch the others from the space between the two sets of double doors leading into the church. There are big windows here, allowing for a good view of the parking lot and yard.

  Carter's frowning, then his eyes widen and he goes over to grab his shirt and boots. Most of the others don't listen to him, even when Tate, Bo, Knox, and Cooper join him in coming inside.

  The five of them barely make it in here before the rain begins falling. The moment it does, the other boys run over to their shirts and shoes to hurry inside.

  "How did you know?" Cooper asks as the boys outside hurry inside. "We've all got good instincts for rain and can usually tell at least twenty to thirty minutes before."

  "I saw the water elemental," I answer.

  "There was a water elemental?" Bo asks.

  "In the sky," I nod. "Trenton told me to look up so I did and I saw them up there."

  "And you could tell it was going to rain because of that?" Tate asks.

  "Yeah," I nod.

  "How?" Carter asks.

  Many of them need rain for their farms, but they don't know this?

  "I saw it in a documentary," I tell him. "The water elemental was flowing in circles and waves. When they do that when it's cloudy, it means they're going to make the rain start in the next few minutes rather than when it was originally going to start."

  With playing outside out of the option unless they want to get soaked more, the boys switch to either playing cards or chatting. It isn't just the boys playing cards, as some of the girls who were talking in here join us.

  Finally, after what feels like forever, it's time for us to go. I end up taking a nap on the way back to the Martinses' ranch, Carter nudging me awake when we arrive.

  "You staying for lunch?" He asks.

  "Am I allowed to?"

  "Of course!" Mrs. Martins responds. "You're more than welcome to join us for lunch, sweetie. Why don't you two change out of your good clothes while I get started?"

  We head inside the house and change into more regular clothes in Carter's room, then come back out. Mrs. Martins is pulling ingredients out in the kitchen, but no meat. That's really weird because every meal they've had with me around has had meat in it.

  Though I learn why when the Coxes arrive as they bring a cooler of chicken with them. Mrs. Cox joins Mrs. Martins in preparing lunch while I meet Tate's three older brothers.

  "Hey, Tate?" I ask once the introductions are over. "I had a question. Um. I wanted to ask if you'd be willing to teach me something. If-if you knew. I can pay you for the lesson if you can."

  "What's up?" He asks.

  "The ceiling."

  We stare at each other for a few moments, then he snorts.

  "Xander," he says. "I mean, what did you want to learn?"

  "Do you know how to turn off empathy?" I ask.

  "Oh!" He says. "You've got that, right. And it's passive like mine? Yeah, we're all taught how to turn it off when we're little. It's more like suppressing it, though, so it takes effort. Useful in crowded areas. Dad'll be better at teaching you than me, though."

  "And no need to pay," Mr. Cox tells me. "This is an essential skill for any empath."

  "No paying?"

  "No paying."

  Mr. Cox and I move to another part of the living room, and he walks me through the process of how to suppress my empathy. It takes me a few minutes to manage it, but once I do, a pressure I wasn't even aware of fades from my mind.

  "You have to maintain it when you want it off," Mr. Cox tells me. "Your great-grandfather might have a better method, but this is what we know."

  "It's good enough for now," I tell him as I open up my backpack. "Thank you."

  "You're welcome," he says. "What's this?"

  He's staring at the box in my hands with a confused expression. At least, I'm pretty sure that's confusion.

  "Cookies."

  "Xander, you don't need to offer me anything," he says. "Like I said, it's an essential skill for any empath. Whichever of your parents you inherited it from, they probably would've known how and taught it to you."

  "Dad," Tate tugs on his father's sleeve, his voice a little quiet. "Just accept it."

  Tate used telepathy while saying that, but I don't know what he said. I wasn't eavesdropping and only know about it because of sensing the magic use. A secret code?

  "O…kay?" Mr. Cox gives his son a weird look, then accepts the box. "Thank you, Xander."

  "Thank you," I tell him. "That'll be really useful around certain people."

  "You're welcome," he chuckles. "Why don't you boys have fun while lunch is worked on?"

  The six of us boys end up playing cards while waiting for lunch, which is fried chicken with salad, onion rings, and fruit for the side. After lunch, we boys clean the dishes, then the dads begin working on dessert and the moms talk about local going-ons in the town.

  "They alternate who makes lunch and who makes dessert," Carter tells me as he, Tate, and I go to his room. "Last week, the dads made lunch and the moms made dessert. That's who'll do it next week, too."

  "So you guys always have lunch together after church on Sundays?" I ask.

  "Usually," Tate answers. "Not always. Others sometimes join us, or we might head over to someone else's. And we sometimes eat with just the family."

  "But our families usually eat lunch together on Sundays, yeah," Carter hops onto his bed. "What was your favorite part of the weekend?"

  He's looking at me.

  "Me?" I ask.

  "Yeah!"

  "Um… I dunno."

  "Really?" He asks.

  "Yeah," I nod. "There was so much stuff. Like, I liked riding in the tractor. Not in a 'I wanna work on a farm' kind of way, but I liked finding out what it was like to ride in it, even if it's a magitech one so it was simple enough even I could do it. And the hunting trip was fun. I didn't like the field dressing part, or having to cut the hares with a knife, but I did get useful materials. And riding on the ATVs… I didn't like getting muddy, but I had a lot of fun doing that once I stopped being scared and nervous. And I don't know what I liked the best."

  "I take it you didn't enjoy playing the game last night?" Carter grins.

  "What game?" Tate asks with a slight smile.

  "Only a little," I answer. "But that boss fight made no sense! It should've been weak to fire from the start! And then losing its weakness to air magic? Is there even a monster in the real world that just shifts what hurts it more just because it got too damaged? And isn't weak to something that a significant part of its body is literally made out of? It makes no sense!"

  Carter starts laughing at that, while Tate just looks between us in confusion.

  "On a different topic," Carter says once he calms down. "I heard your great-grandfather's made it so that it'll be required for everyone to learn magic in school within the next few years. A required course, like math and history. I know he had those centers start gettin' built so folks can learn to sense their mana and use the devices to make mana crystals for some extra money, but… this is an even bigger step."

  Grandpa Adrian did what?

  "Oh, right!" Tate exclaims. "I was wonderin' 'bout that, too. Do you know why he suddenly changed that? It just happened and he had companies under him even buildin' trainin' centers."

  "Wait," I say. "I didn't even know about this. How did y'all hear about it?"

  "It was in the news," Tate answers. "You don't watch it, do you?"

  "I don't really watch TV," I tell him. "Mostly documentaries, and not ones that are airing on TV. Ones that are already movie-style, where you can just pick from a list and watch. No commercials."

  "Ah," he says. "So you really don't know 'bout it?"

  "I don't," I tell him. "But I can ask Grandpa Adrian. Is it okay if I call him?"

  "He's probably really busy," Carter says.

  "He always answers if I call."

  "So he… drops everything to answer your call?" Tate asks. "Why?"

  "I don't think he's that busy," I tell him. "He wouldn't just drop stuff so he could answer the phone. That might break the stuff he dropped. I can call him and ask."

  Carter and Tate snicker for a moment before telling me they're fine with it, if I really want to. I pull out my phone and call Grandpa Adrian, who answers on the first ring.

  "Good morning, Xander," he says. "How was your sleepover?"

  He knew about it?"

  "It was nice," I tell him. "I had fun. I had some questions for you."

  "Go ahead."

  "First," I say. "I'm still at Carter's, and I'm in his room with him and Tate. They wanted to know something I didn't know the answer to, so is it okay if I put it on speakerphone so that if you answer, they can hear it?"

  When Trey was teaching me proper phone etiquette, he taught me to always ask before putting the phone on speakerphone and to state who all is within range of hearing the call. If I have it on speakerphone from the start, then I should immediately inform them that I have them on speakerphone and who else is in the room.

  At least, that's what I remember him teaching me, though I could be wrong. He said it's a courtesy thing, and also that it lets the person on the other end of the call know not to say things they don't want others hearing. That way, they can avoid saying things they don't want others to hear.

  "You may," Grandpa Adrian tells me.

  "Okay," I switch it to speakerphone. "You are now on speakerphone. Carter and Tate said you made it so that learning magic is going to be required in school within the next few years and wanted to know if I knew why. I know why you had the centers for learning how to access mana and use it on the devices to make mana crystals, but not that. The mana crystal centers are so that people can learn how to use mana and earn extra income.

  "But at the same time," I say. "The increased supply of mana crystals will make it easier to increase the supply of magic materials for making magitech items. You said we're going to be entering into a new era of magitech, so the greater supply is needed. An added bonus is it helping to raise the average mana levels, since a lot of people will do it for the extra money, especially kids. So a lot of people will go there and once they can feel their mana, will earn money that way. And if they do it even just twice a week, their reserves will increase over time. It'll take years for it to be a large amount over from where they started, but it'll still help."

  "Yes," Grandpa Adrian says. "Have you heard of the 'mage effect'?"

  "No."

  "I have!" Carter answers. "The mage effect is how, when people interact with a pretty powerful mage often enough, they find themselves driven to learn magic or improve their own magical abilities. The more powerful the mage, or the more of them they interact with, the greater this grows."

  "Yeah," Tate nods. "I've kind of been feeling a little inadequate after hanging out with you for a few weeks, Xander. Made me actually do some more training."

  "I make you feel inadequate?"

  "It's not a bad thing, Xander," Grandpa Adrian says. "And the fact that Luke was involved influenced it a little as well. But it was mostly you. And again, it's not a bad thing. It creates a drive to improve in most people.

  "There's another concept many don't know about," Grandpa Adrian says. "It's a lot more complex and involves many smaller factors. The short version of it, however, is that there's a certain… a certain balance to things.

  "I won't get into the finer details," he tells me. "But the balance is skewed. I've known it has been for awhile, but was struggling to acquire all of the information I needed to know how skewed. Based on the information I have now, I should have all of it. It's allowed me to do some complex calculations, and I determined that the best way to counter this skew was to raise the average mana capacity of the continent over the next twenty years. The sooner this is implemented, the easier it will be."

  "What's this balance?" I ask.

  "I'll explain the finer details to you another time," Grandpa Adrian tells me. "You don't currently have the knowledge necessary to understand it."

  So I can't learn because I'm dumb. That sucks, but if he says it, it must be true. There would be no reason to lie about something like that… I think. It could also just be his way of pushing off having to outright tell me he won't tell me.

  "Did you have any other questions?" Grandpa Adrian asks.

  "Yeah," I answer. "You always answer if I call and show up if I need you, but are you really that free on time?"

  "I use the avatar spell," Grandpa Adrian tells me. "It allows me to create replicas of my body, down to even their mana capacity and recovery rates. The avatars don't register as spells as the spell itself is over once they form, so you wouldn't have noticed. And they count just as real as the original, which is why your perspicacity doesn't reveal anything."

  "So if your real original body dies while you have an avatar active," I say. "You're not actually dead because your avatar is also your real body?"

  "Correct," Grandpa Adrian answers. "And with you being special enough, I have a body dedicated to being available at all times in case you need me or have questions."

  "Greyson wants to learn that spell," is all I can think of for how to respond to that.

  "I know," Grandpa Adrian chuckles. "Though he lacks the magical ability to actually cast it, which we're all fortunate for. Two Greysons running around would be a disaster."

  Double the Greysons, octuple the explosions, I'm sure.

  "Yeah."

  "Is that all for now?" Grandpa Adrian asks.

  "Yeah."

  "Alright," he says. "Have a good rest of your day, Xander."

  "You, too, Grandpa Adrian," I say.

  "Bye."

  "Bye."

  The call ends, and I pocket my phone again.

  "So that's the answer," I say. "Though I really wanna know the full explanation, but it seems like I'm not going to for at least awhile."

  "Well!" Carter says. "You'll learn eventually!"

  The conversation shifts away from that and ends up being a little bit about their ranches, a little bit about Carter's next video, and a little about cartoons. Then we're called out to the living room for dessert.

  The dads prepared blackberry pie and ice cream. The ice cream is definitely from mindwave cows by its taste and when I examine the magics in it. That also reminds me of something.

  "I thought you guys were a beef ranch," I tell Tate. "Not a dairy ranch?"

  "We're both," he tells me. "But the dairy operation is a lot smaller and mainly run by one of my uncles, on another part of our land. Dad's still the one in main charge of everything, though."

  "Oh," I look over at Mrs. Martins and frowns. "But… how is that possible?"

  "My uncle's employed by my dad," Tate tells me. "What's confusing you?"

  "No, not that," I say. "Mrs. Martins just got pregnant. But she's eating dessert on the couch. How is that possible?"

  "I'm sorry, what?" Mrs. Martins looks at me.

  "I can tell when people are pregnant," I tell her. "Everyone's mana is different and distinct from each other. They have it even while in the womb. And another two mana sources just formed in your stomach. They're super tiny, so they're new babies. But you're sitting on the couch, not doing… that. That doesn't make any sense. And Grandpa Adrian was very clear that you have mana from the moment of conception. That means the moment of fertilization."

  Collin snorts for some reason. This is serious, though! It shouldn't be possible to get pregnant just eating ice cream on the couch! At least, not with my understanding of how this works.

  "Xander," Mr. Martins says, looking a little awkward. "Conception doesn't happen during the act. If it happens, it can take a day or two after to happen. If you want more information on how it happens, you can ask your dad."

  "I'll just look it up online."

  "Don't!" Carter and Tate exclaim.

  "Why not?" I ask.

  "Just… don't," Carter tells me. "Ask your dad."

  "Hold on," Mrs. Martins says. "Did you say two?"

  "Yeah," I point. "One right there, and one right there."

  "So we're having fraternal twins?" She asks. "Wonderful. I hope they're not both boys."

  "Why fraternal?" I ask. "Why can't they be identical?"

  "That's another question for your dad," she tells me.

  This stuff must be serious if they want me to ask my dad about it. The way Carter and Tate panicked when I said I'd look it up online is concerning, too. I'll ask Dad why they would be freaked out by that. They might not be willing to tell me, since they wouldn't tell me why I shouldn't look it up.

  "Okay."

  We finish eating dessert, then it's time for me to leave so that I'm not late to getting my cheesecake. I already missed it yesterday and I really don't want to miss it today. Saying hello to the shop owners is also something I want to do today, too, but I'll probably have to do that after getting cheesecake.

  Changing the order is something I really don't want to do, but I'll be late for cheesecake if I don't.

  "Wait!" Carter says as I'm getting ready to leave.

  "What?" I ask.

  "We've got something for you," Mr. Martins tells me. "Hold on."

  Mr. Martins heads to his kitchen and enters the storage room, then comes out with a carton of eggs. It looks like it's a carton for a dozen of them.

  "I asked for them?" I frown. "I don't remember doing that, just asking about how much they were. That's a dozen so it's… eighteen dollars, right?"

  "No," Mr. Martins says. "You helped feed the chickens, collect, wash, and treat the eggs, so you get some from the harvest."

  "That's how it works 'round here," Carter tells me, then gives me a grin. "Guess I forgot to mention it!"

  "So I'm not paying for them?"

  "You already did," Mr. Martins tells me. "Via some of the work. Here."

  "Oh…" I accept the carton of eggs. "Thanks."

  "Also," Mr. Cox says. "We've got the meat and leather you negotiated for last night. For the meat and hides you didn't take from your share of the hunts."

  He grabs those for me, and I put them into the backpack along with the carton of eggs. That will save me on having to buy some of my own to practice with. Dad will probably let me go to the workshop after I return home and say hi to him. I really want to go there because it should be quiet and that will let me rest.

  I'm starting to feel overwhelmed.

  "Thanks for hanging out this weekend!" Carter tells me. "I'm glad you accepted the invite!"

  "Thanks for inviting me," I say. "Um. Bye, everyone."

  They all bid me goodbye, then I leave the house and teleport back to Dragon Falls. Time to get some cheesecake, go through the mage district, and then relax.

  Did You See the Farm Chores Coming?