Jacob spent the next few weeks after the thaw in a haze of mucky grinding as he pushed his magic further.
Sera would often watch him from the porch while brushing Lila's hair to a soothing tune.
He would spend most of the day crashing into the ground, which caused Sera's singing to be interrupted by her and Lila laughing at him for faceplanting in the muck.
Even Arthur and Caleb would get a good laugh out of Jacob crashing into the ground as he struggled to develop a real flight spell.
He was a good sport about it, of course.
At least I'm getting some good practice in forcing the ground to soften and hastily deploying my kinetic absorption spell.
But the flight training and farm work were interrupted by the heavy spring rains, which forced everyone indoors when they were not doing critical work around the farm.
During this period of heavy rain, Mira was driven out of the caves, and Oren took a break from training more often to eat and relax at the farm.
This had especially become the norm after Jacob expanded half the house with a water core. He found that he could feel the physical space he was able to affect with the expansion enchantment when he began channeling his power through the core and realized that it could only cover half the house safely.
The more material that had a mana field for the tendrils of magic to anchor to within the limited field that felt safe, the more stable the enchantment felt to Jacob, so he centered the enchantment on Lila's room and shaped it to the four rooms on the back half of the house.
This provided enough room to add a guest bedroom by splitting Lila's room in half, which made both rooms the same size as her room was previously. The same phenomenon happened with Jacob and Caleb's rooms, which were originally split in half.
Mira would often stay in the new guest bedroom, while Sera would bunk with Lila since they had been getting along as sisters lately.
Arthur and May decided to keep the master bed and bath as it was for now, but noted that there was always the option to figure out how to add an additional room there if need be.
Jacob used the indoor time to upgrade his friends' gear as a thank-you for their help during the raid.
He enchanted their base layers for warmth and self-cleaning, and Oren received a specialized weight-assist lattice on his cuirass to help with mobility during long skirmishes.
Mira asked for more lethal enchantments on her daggers as goblin scouts were becoming a frequent sight in the forest, and she took it upon herself to get rid of them.
Jacob applied sharpness and mending runes to her steel, ensuring the blades would not chip against bone.
He also provided both of them with enchanted bandages. He asked May to hem strips of heavy linen, which he then imbued with durability and a focused healing intent.
"These bandages won't save your life," he stressed to them when giving them the enchanted bandages. "They are designed to get you out of a rough spot so you can get help. Don't go trying to wrap a broken bone in one of these and expect to be able to get back into the fight."
At the end of the heavy spring rains, Sera's grandmother tragically passed away in her sleep.
To make matters worse, her uncle from out of town kicked her out of the house and seized all of the assets before loading them all onto a small caravan to sell them where he could, claiming them as his inheritance.
And he didn't even attend the funeral.
The funeral was a somber event. The heavy rains had ended, but it was still wet and muddy.
Arthur and Elis rounded up some men from the village, and they set out to dig the grave in the village graveyard.
Jacob decided to tag along to help the men with his magic.
It is important, he thought, that she be buried at the correct depth, especially around here.
The men had already started digging the grave by the time Jacob made it out. He had been following Arthur from one of the neighbors, so he was a bit behind Elis and the rest.
The mud was very loose and hard to shovel out of the way to get started, so Jacob used his magic to first firm the earth a little while ushering the water over to a runoff point that flowed away from the new gravesite.
The men digging were suddenly stable in the mud, able to find purchase in the soil, as their shovels began to move significantly more mass that clumped together instead of running over the edges of the shovel like a soup.
Between shovelfuls, he used his magic to directly remove chunks of the earth, while ensuring the walls of the grave were made tight and compact to prevent it from caving in.
The men had little to say about the magic, or were too focused on the somber project at hand to notice.
They finished before the sun was even halfway to high noon.
"That will be enough," Arthur announced to the men still digging. "That should be at least two meters, more than enough for her to rest peacefully."
Hearing the reminder caused Jacobs' stomach to knot. He didn't know the old woman very well, but he felt for Sera.
"Now," Arthur continued, "Lets get the tent set up before the casket gets here, we don't want this hard work to be wasted."
With most of the men helping with the tent, Jacob worked with the rain to reduce the amount of water assaulting the workers. He directed most of it toward the makeshift runoff drain, and the tent was put up smoothly.
They didn't wait long, with the mourning group arriving with the wooden coffin, which was removed from the wagon with thick ropes and carried by some of the gravediggers.
The funeral was a quick event, as per the village tradition. Everyone grabbed a handful of the dirt and threw it onto the casket after Sera before retreating to their respective homes to get out of the rain and mourn in what comfort they could.
The atmosphere at the Hemlock farmhouse was somber when Jacob and Arthur returned home from making sure the dirt was filled in to the grave properly. Jacob even compacted it a bit with his magic to make sure the waters wouldn't seep in and wash the loose dirt away.
They could see Sera and Lila sitting at the fire, holding hands, while Sera hummed a sad, low tune.
"You know," Sera began, interrupting her own tune, "I knew this day would come soon. I knew she was old, especially for our village. But it still hurts."
Her small speech was broken by her own stifled sobs, so she stared at the fire instead while Lila rubbed her back, just trying to comfort the girl she had come to see as her own older sister.
Jacob felt hopeless in such a situation, knowing there was likely no magic that could ease the pain she felt.
And even if there were, I doubt it would be used. He thought to himself. It would remove the meaning of mourning.
Sera remained withdrawn for the next few days as work on the farm continued with the reduced precipitation as the main spring rains passed. She had fully moved into the Hemlock house with what little her uncle had allowed her to keep.
Jacob was out in the field, helping with a shipment of cattle from another farm. With the expansion of their fields, the farm now had much more land to work with, but with an increasing number of mouths to feed, they had been reducing the number of heads they could sell.
The solution was to purchase another steer with a few milk cows and a couple of dozen pigs.
The largest field they had purchased recently was already planted with saltgrass, but they converted it to a fenced-in area for their grazing animals with Barnaby to watch after them at night.
They found out quickly that the animals liked the saltgrass. It produced very few salts on its blades, but the animals still liked to lick them clean daily.
After herding the animals to their fenced-in area with only a mild disturbance when Jacob had to invent a new spell on the spot to grab a fleeing pig, Arthur turned to his youngest son.
"We'll start seeding the rest of the fields with the crop for this season soon." He said to Jacob. "Your magic has been a great help in getting things running smoothly this year. Especially now that we are managing even more land than before without more hands on the roll. But I think it's about time you consider investing more effort into learning about magic. The farm will always be here, but the more chances to learn that you pass up, the less you will likely get."
Jacob nodded his head. He already knew he would have to sacrifice his plans for farming in order to pursue magic further, but it was a sobering reality when his father laid it out like that.
"I'm grateful for your consideration, Father." Jacob began in reply, "And I know you are right. It's going to take more than a casual glance for me to actually figure out magic. Even now, I have a block in how to proceed further. The new spell today was just a fluke."
Arthur walked up to Jacob, who was watching Caleb wrestle a pig in the mud. Placing a hand on his son's back, he figured he would point out something that Jacob had mentioned at the hearth in the past.
"Do you remember that Gerald once told you that there was someone he was interested in introducing you to?"
This caused Jacob to furrow his brows in thought. Of course, I remember, I just don't trust them. This has gotten to a point that I think it's a little more serious than before. There must be a good reason that the nobility has magic locked behind the academies, and I bet they don't like people like Old Thom handing out secrets.
Arthur could see the worry on his son's face.
"I think you can trust them, Jacob."
That caused Jacob to look at his father with a bit of confusion on his face.
"You are underestimating the protection you have," Arthur began in reply to his son's unvoiced question, "especially since this is your trial year. Most villagers don't push the limits as much as they can, but this tradition is protected by royal decree. Now, I will admit, I don't know too much beyond rumors about royal decrees and such. But I do know that even the mages will bow their heads to the king."
Jacob has to think about what his father is saying, but Arthur continued first.
"I think you should head over there tomorrow. He should be around soon, if I am not mistaken, and if he isn't, you could hang around and figure out where the adventurer district is. I bet they would let you in if you show off a little magic."
He said that last bit with a wink.
"Also," Arthur continued, "You are going to need to pick up the parts for that harvester which you specially ordered from your favorite blacksmith if you and Bran are serious about getting the thing built before the first harvest."
Jacob nodded his head, mind made up.
"You're right, Dad," Jacob began, "I do need to haul the parts back, and they were supposed to be done by now. As for the magic, maybe the mage knows!"