“Tomorrow?” I repeated.“Is there a problem?”“It’s just that… well, it’s sowing season, and my father lost his arm last year. I’m the eldest son, and without me, my family might struggle to finish planting our fields. Could… could I come after we’ve finished?”The Magus looked at me, his expression unclear, and I was worried I might have blown my chance. But after a moment, his expression softened. “You’d miss the start of the term, so delaying would be ill-advised,” he said. “But I suppose we can’t just leave your family to starve, either. Show me your fields.”“Uh, yes sir,” I answered, following him out of the chapel. I guided him past the village square and down the road that led to my family’s home, and past it to the fields we worked. Torra glanced up—I noticed she had barely made any progress on the row I had been working on when I left, suppressing a scowl—and she called over to my father.The two made their way over to us. “This is my father, Hildan, and my sister, Torra,” I said, introducing them to my sponsor. “Torra, dad, this is Magus Somnial.”The Magus inclined his head. “I have decided to sponsor your son for entry into the magic academy of Ivarnel,” he stated. My sister went through a complicated set of expressions that oscillated between excitement for me and sadness that I’d be leaving the village. My father’s brows simply furrowed slightly.When Hildan had woken up and learned about my revelation, he had mostly just scoffed. I wasn’t sure he really believed it. At the time, he was still lost in his grief, so he didn’t really comment on it, and I never practiced in front of him to draw attention to it.After Tomelia was born, and he started getting his life back together, he had come out once to find me practicing out back. I had been releasing balls of mana, basic depletion training, then recharging through the breath.“Magic, huh,” was all he had (...)