In the tower on the bottom floor Arthur sat with Canus and Placus around a simple table while Calavia was elsewhere.

  “Lord Albinus has given me permission to use as much land as I need. I will of course still need to inform him of these changes, but having actual fields as opposed to a large garden is not out of the question.”

  “Excellent to hear sir, whenever you are ready we can begin working.” Canus said loudly as he stood up from his chair.

  “Now just hang on a moment, Canus! We still have several other things we need to discuss before we leave!” Placus almost yelled as he pulled his brother back down “For example, how much of these plants do you actually need to do your alchemy things?”

  “With what I have at the moment in that garden I am able to create a decent amount of potions, however I am truly unable to meet the demand of Lindum without first multiplying the amount of ingredients by several times. I suppose it would really depend on how much the both of you would be able to grow.”

  “Well the two of us should be able to handle twenty acres of farmland, we did a little bit more than that back home.” Canus interrupted with a wide grin on his face.

  “Yes, that is true.” Placus reluctantly agreed despite his brother's lack of social awareness. “But that would partly depend upon what plants we are working with. We mostly grew grain for making into flour and then into bread. Do you know what these plants you are using need to grow properly?”

  “I do actually.” Arthur answered with a small grin as he reached into the bag around his shoulder. The two brothers watched as he reached his full arm into the very small bag with a mix of surprise and worry, thankfully nothing dangerous happened to Arthur’s arm and instead it returned with a book.

  “It took me a while to find but this book here contains a small treasure trove of information about the local plants and their growth cycles. I found it in this small bookstore in one of the old neighborhoods in Lindum. The owner had it in a big box with several other books he was trying to rid himself of. Apparently he had the thing for a whole ten years and figured it was worthless, so much so he allowed me to have it for free.”

  Without waiting for a response from the two brothers Arthur quickly flipped the book open to the page covering the first of the plants he was interested in growing in mass. He turned the book around and pointed to the accompanying picture. “This here is what I for a while called Sulfweed. Its real name is Brimblossom, it was named after brimstone which was the old name for sulfur.”

  “Does the book tell you how to cultivate the plant?” Placus asked as he leaned forwards and looked upon the text, being a farmer his reading skills were rather simple compared to someone like Arthur who read almost everyday of his life and he could only understand around half of what was on the page.

  “Yes it does, see this section right here?” Arthur asked as he pointed towards the last few paragraphs. “This here covers the ideal conditions for growing it and how long it takes to reach maturity. Most of this we don’t need to worry about, like the ideal climate and soil, we are in said climate after all. This section about growing in non-ideal climates means nothing, which just leaves the planting, watering, and fertilization.”

  The two brothers shared a somewhat worried look between themselves, neither could follow most of the words as Arthur spoke. They couldn’t really know if he was over summarizing what was written or if that really was everything.

  “Here take the book, you two might as well keep the thing for now.” Arthur said as he suddenly handed the open book between the two brothers who looked at him with shock.

  “No need to look like that, I have memorized the whole book. In truth I really have no use for it anymore so you might as well get something out of it.”

  “No, it isn’t that sir.” Placus replied with a touch of stress in his tone as he tried to find the words to explain to Arthur that neither he nor his brother could understand the book.

  But Canus being the fool that he is was far more direct. “We can’t read the book sir.”

  For a moment Arthur looked between the two with a puzzled look on his face before suddenly realizing something.

  ‘Right, most people don’t have access to books or libraries. So they obviously wouldn’t know how to read very much. They might know individual words they see on signs or on a menu, but they wouldn’t have many other opportunities like a mage or a scribe would.’

  “Of course, my mistake.” Arthur said as he awkwardly took the book back and placed it in his bag. “I suppose in that case I will need to guide you through the process and make sure you both know what you are doing before leaving you to your work.”

  “We are terribly sorry sir.” Placus said in what was almost a whimper as he lowered his head in shame and embarrassment.

  “We will make sure we listen to everything you say, we won’t forget a single detail of your instructions.” Canus said after his brother in a far more distressed tone.

  “Now now, don’t be so worried you two. We still have at least a day before we start doing anything related to farming and the ingredients I need. Perhaps we should discuss something else, such as the matter of payment for your work.”

  *********

  Like Arthur had told the two brothers, it took around a day's time for Lord Albinus to become aware of the developments regarding the new farm. For around an hour Arthur stayed within his manor going over all the necessary procedures from taxation to land rights. But by the end Arthur had permission and the locator Sven in his company so he could properly designate the farm land.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  When Arthur returned with news the two brothers almost jumped with joy, without waiting for very long they joined Arthur and Sven on the wagon as they were setting out to designate the proper edges of the farmland.

  By the time the day ended a thin and small section of trees were cut down along the outside of the designated farm area. The trees were left there for the time being as the four didn’t have any way to transport them.

  For the next several days they worked on cutting down as many trees as they could within the designated area, those that were close enough to the tower were cut into halves and stacked for later use as either firewood or lumber for building. During this time Canus and Placus slept on the bottom floor at night until Arthur had worked something out with the carpenters guild to build a home for the two of them.

  It took nearly a week to clear the first acre of land even with Arthur’s magic on their side. While he was able to literally tear the stumps from the ground and carry them around with pieces of earth he could only focus on one or two at a time. As a result by the time the month ended they had only cleared roughly five acres of land. Not a terrible start, but they would need to start planting soon if they wanted to plant anything at all.

  *********

  As night came Arthur stood several meters away from the bonfire where everyone else spoke and ate to their hearts content. He looked upon the forest draped in darkness and the unfinished squared field that stood out like a fire.

  Suddenly the sound of footsteps came from behind and stopped just a few meters away from him, he was about to turn and look when Calavia spoke.

  “Are you alright Arthur? You have been standing out here for a long time now. Your soup will get cold if you don’t eat it soon.

  Calavia wasn’t worried about the soup like she said as there was more than enough for everyone to eat all week, she was far more worried about Arthur. It was her way of addressing the situation without overburdening or nagging him.

  “I am quite alright, I am just thinking about our progress over the last month. I highly doubt we will have enough time to clear all of the trees before our window for planting closes.”

  “We could start planting over what we have at the moment. Then when we have the time we could continue cutting down more trees and make more space.”

  “That could work.” Arthur eventually replied after a moment of careful thinking. “I will run it by the two brothers before we do anything, but that could definitely work.”

  “Good to hear, now I would like you to come and eat your dinner with the rest of us. It isn’t healthy to be eating late at night like you have been the last few days.”

  “Alright I will be there in just a minute.” Arthur said and was quickly met with a slight scowl from Calavia.

  “Alright, I’ll go there right now.”

  “I would like to think so. I'm not sure what you would do without me.”

  “Neither do I.”

  *********

  Several months passed as the farm land expanded before the first harvest was done, filling a significant portion of the basement with all the ingredients that Arthur needed for at least a month of constant alchemy which brought another problem to Arthur’s attention.

  “We need some sort of place to keep all the ingredients for when we harvest them.” Arthur spoke aloud to Calavia as he looked over a map of their home and farm land. The map was rather simple as it just showed the outlines of the tower, the home built for the two brothers, and the fields as squares and rectangles.

  “It sounds like you need something similar to a granary or a silo. That is what farmers call those tall wooden structures they keep their wheat and grain in anyways.” Calavia replied as she sat down next to Arthur and pushed a bowl of soup towards him.

  “Do they keep all their produce and grain in one singular silo or do they have different ones for different things?”

  “I would suspect they have individual silos for each type of produce they want to keep safe, that way they wouldn’t need to sort through everything to get what they were looking for.”

  Arthur nodded and drew a few squares on the map between the fields and their home signifying where he wanted the silos to be. Close enough to both the fields and his workshop so he could pursue his alchemy without interruption.

  But as he was about to finish he was interrupted as Calavia pulled the map away and pushed the bowl of soup to where the map was before.

  “You can worry about your map after you have had breakfast, you need to eat or you won't have any energy to do anything today.” Calavia said as she stood up again to clean her own bowl as she had finished her soup some time before.

  For a moment Arthur didn’t say anything as he felt guilt for making Calavia feel that way even though he really didn’t understand why she did. But eventually he found his voice and said “Thank you, I don’t know what I would do without you.”

  *********

  With Calavia keeping him in check Arthur expanded his operations with several silos to keep the various plants he had the two brothers grow while in their free time they continued expanding the field to fill all the space they had agreed with Lord Albinus.

  For a whole four years Arthur dedicated his attention towards his alchemy business, his magical knowledge, and his wife Calavia. In addition to the land he was already farming he expanded to several more of roughly the same size, of course he had to hire more people to work those fields, but it was rather easy to find people who would get a place to stay in addition to a decent income.

  With all the money Arthur was making he invested a good portion into furthering both his and his wives magical knowledge with a small library of books they ordered from the capital. They ordered so many books they had to keep them in the same room as Arthur’s alchemy station which ended with being lined with bookshelves.

  Arthur’s main focus was on geomancy which he managed to learn a handful of tier five spells for. His other main focus was alchemy, of which he learned several tier four spells for potions.

  Finally a much smaller interest for him, but still received some attention was his studies in golemancy and by extension enchanting. With the fairly large income he had he had the opportunities he needed to buy sufficient mana stones to experiment with. With this he was able to recreate a few of the weaker golem designs he found in the journal of Brexius Sanguine Bane so long ago, specifically one of the designs made from wood that resembled a mannequin which took a handful of tier two spells to create.

  Calavia also continued her studies with her main focus being in pyromancy reaching a similar potency to Arthur’s geomancy. She also continued learning more about restoration magic, learning to manipulate plants to a certain extent, though nothing like how a mage manipulates fire or earth, this was more akin to subtle nudging towards a desired outcome. A good example of this was the oddly shaped trees she grew around the little hamlet that formed around the tower. The trees were of the same type that inhabited the forest around them, only she had them all in the middle coiling around each other in a way that made Arthur think of snakes.