Arthur pulled out some fancy-looking parchment and a quill with ink that almost seemed to sparkle in the light.
"This doesn't look like normal ink," Jacob noted, leaning over the desk with Caleb to get a better look at the shimmering liquid.
"It's mana-infused," Arthur replied as he carefully dipped the quill. "When you're dealing with the crown, standard paper and ink won't suffice. The kingdom relies on a very specific magical infrastructure for its legal system to prevent fraud and interception."
Arthur began to write, and his handwriting was meticulous, looping formal legal script across the thick parchment. As he wrote, he explained the complexities of the law to his son.
"A royal injunction isn't just a letter you hand to a courier on a horse," Arthur said without looking up from the page. "If we gave this to a rider, Baron Talbot's men could easily intercept it on the road if they were looking out for something like this. While that is highly unlikely, the document would vanish, and we would probably be penalized for resisting his baronial inspection."
"Could he do that?" Jacob replied in confusion, "It seems like the crown would have some sort of system to prevent retaliation if they have this injunction option, right?"
Arthur nodded with hesitation, "Well, yes, they do have some laws to punish retaliation for cases like this, but it would be my word as a peasant farmer against the word of the Baron. Without this magical infrastructure, it could be hard to even bring this up. I assume that's why they created this process in the first place."
While Arthur was finishing up his writing, after his explanations, Jacob took a closer look at the ink with his new skill.
Inspect Used:
Identified: mana-infused ink. Special mix unique to Sinclair Kingdom.
Jacob scrunched his brows at the lack of information, but his unease was quelled a moment later with the familiar chime of the system.
Level Up: Inspect (1/10) -> (2/10)
Focusing back on his father, Jacob felt a small smile creep up on his face.
Arthur finished the final paragraph, signed his name, and set the quill down. Then, he opened a small, velvet-lined wooden box sitting on the corner of his desk and withdrew a heavy brass stamp.
"This is a royal seal," Arthur explained.
He held the brass object up so Jacob and Caleb could see the intricate crest carved into the bottom. "You have to purchase them directly from the crown's representatives in the county capital. They're incredibly expensive, but they're also necessary when dealing with these matters. While this is a first for me, this isn't the first time our family has had to do this."
"What exactly does it do? And what happened the last time?" Jacob asked, his curiosity piqued by the intense magical signature radiating from the small object and the mysterious past he was uncovering of his family.
Caleb seemed entirely unsurprised, so Jacob assumed he had heard this before, even if this was the first time they were actually requesting an injunction.
"When I press this seal to the parchment and push my mana into it, the document will physically teleport directly to the count's bureaucratic chancery thanks to some property of this ink and wax and maybe even the seal itself. I've never actually figured out the mechanism," Arthur said.
He scratched his head in thought before continuing, "It bypasses local borders and local nobles entirely. It's supposed to protect all parties involved by ensuring the message reaches its intended destination without any chance of tampering. I don't actually have the record of the last time this was done by our family, but we do have this seal, which indicates something happened. My grandfather also wrote that this method did help in the past, although he was not very specific."
Jacob raised his eyebrows, thoroughly impressed by the logistical application of magic. He had to pull his thoughts from how the teleportation magic would work as he focused on the details of this lesson. "That seems quite efficient to have the letters essentially sort themselves, even if they come from peasant farmers. But what if the count simply ignores it or denies the request to protect Talbot?"
"That's the brilliant part of the law," Arthur smiled grimly. "The moment the seal activates, the request is simultaneously duplicated and noted in the royal ledgers back in the capital. It's recorded regardless of whether the Count approves or denies the actual injunction. Once I seal it, there is no going back. Even if we withdraw our request, it's still noted in the capital and will reflect such in an investigation."
Arthur pressed the brass seal firmly onto the bottom of the parchment.
"Why does the crown care about denied requests?" Jacob asked, piecing the political logic together in his head.
"They use it to track how often individuals feel the need to request an injunction against their local lord," Arthur answered. "If Baron Talbot has one or two injunctions filed against him, the crown ignores them. But if he has twenty, it creates a permanent paper trail that could signal abuse or conspiracy."
Arthur had to take a second to gather his thoughts, scrunching his brows as he thought, "The king doesn't like nobles who destabilize the tax base, but the crown also has to prevent organized actions against their local lords. The ledger keeps the lower nobles in check because they know the crown is always watching the numbers, but they also know that it protects them from their own subjects."
Arthur pushed a surge of his newly leveled mana into the brass stamp. The sparkling ink on the page flared with a bright, sudden light.
In the blink of an eye, the parchment vanished from the desk with a soft pop of displaced air, leaving only the empty brass seal behind.
Almost immediately, the familiar mechanical chime of the system rang in Jacob's mind.
System Notice: New Skill Unlocked - Legal Tradecraft (F-rank) Level (1/10)
Jacob smiled, swiping the blue notification away with a thought. "Well, I guess the system thinks I finally understand enough basics of kingdom law to grant me the skill."
Caleb clapped his brother on the back with a tired smile, "Congratulations, Jacob. You can work on it by reading some of the books that Dad has tucked away in his room and also practicing your legal script based on the examples in those books."
Arthur sat back in his heavy wooden chair. A look of relief washed over his weathered face. "The request is out of our hands now. We just have to wait for the count to respond. Regardless, they have a week to make their move. I would expect them to take the whole week, though."
Caleb was the first to get up, looking dead on his feet, "I'm heading to bed. It's already late, and I've got pig pens in the morning."
That caused Jacob to perk up. "Oh, I have a quest to clean the pens, wake me up if I'm sleeping in when you go out in the morning."
Caleb looked at Arthur, who nodded affirmatively, "He's 12 now, and he has a quest for it; might as well let him start doing farm chores if that's what the system is pushing him towards."
Caleb nodded and smiled at his little brother, "Well, I'll be glad to have your help in the morning."
After they all said goodnight, each of them went to bed.
The sun had barely begun to peak over the horizon when Caleb gently shook Jacob awake.
The crisp morning air of the frontier had settled into the room, making the warmth of the bed incredibly difficult to leave, but Jacob threw off the covers anyway.
He had a system quest to complete, and he wasn't about to let his older brother tackle the pig pens alone.
They walked out to the pens in the cool morning mist. As they approached, the loud grunts and impatient squeals of the hungry livestock broke the quiet tranquility of the farm.
Caleb leaned a heavy wooden shovel against the fence and handed another to Jacob. "Alright, usually I try to corner them in the back half while I muck out the front, but they've been stubborn lately. Watch your toes. The big sow likes to step on them when she wants food."
Jacob took the shovel but immediately leaned it right back against the wooden fence. He stretched his hands out toward the pen, a confident smile forming on his face. "I think we can skip the manual labor today, Caleb."
Caleb raised an eyebrow. "You're going to use magic on the pigs?"
"I invented a specific spell for this before I left for camp," Jacob explained as he reached into his core. "I call it the 'Gentle Hand'."
His tier 1 mana surged forth, taking the shape of his currently favored skill. Unlike intent shaping, his spells didn't seem to suffer from the increased density of his magic; rather, they seemed to be easier and faster to cast.
He extended his intent over the pen, wrapping a soft, distributed field of pure force around the massive pigs. With a subtle upward motion of his hands, the squealing abruptly turned into confused grunts.
All six pigs slowly levitated a few feet off the muddy ground. They paddled their hooves in the empty air, completely unharmed and suspended by the invisible, cushioned force of Jacob's magic.
With a flick of his wrist, Jacob smoothly guided the floating livestock out of the main pen and gently set them down in the adjacent, dry holding area, safely securing the gate behind them.
Caleb stood frozen, staring at the empty, mud-filled pen, and then at the thoroughly bewildered pigs. "Well. That definitely saves time."
"It gets better," Jacob grinned.
He turned his focus to the soiled hay and muck covering the floor of the pen. Using a broad, sweeping wave of kinetic force paired with a minor manipulation of earth and water magic, Jacob gathered the waste into a single, massive clump.
He levitated the entire mess out of the pen and deposited it directly into the compost cart waiting nearby. Following it up with a quick splash of conjured water to rinse the stone troughs, the entire pen was spotless in under two minutes.
Caleb let out a loud laugh, shaking his head as he grabbed his unused shovel just to put it away. "If the rest of the village saw this, they would form a mob just to make you do their daily chores."
As Caleb went to grab the slop buckets for feeding, the familiar chime of the system rang pleasantly in Jacob's mind.
System Notice: Minor Quest Completed - Clean the Pig Pens.
Reward: 100 Quest xp.
New General Quest Available:
1. Tend to the Greenhouse (0/5) (Locked for 9hr 59min)
Rewards: 100 Quest xp.
Well, Jacob thought to himself, I guess the system is really pushing me to develop that class skill. Makes sense, though.
As they cleaned themselves up with the assistance of Jacob's magic, Oren came out of nowhere with a couple of swords.
After throwing one of the swords to Jacob, Oren explained his intentions, "Lets head over to the yard. It's been a while since you've trained with the sword. I hope you've kept up with your forms." Then he turned and started walking to the other side of the house.
Jacob turned to Caleb with a grin, "I guess it's time for me to go get beat up. Have fun with the rest of your chores!"
Caleb waved goodbye to his little brother as Jacob took off after Oren.
The open yard beside the house was still covered in a thin layer of morning dew. Oren was already waiting in the center, idly spinning the blunted training sword in his hand to warm up his wrist.
"Let us see if you just built muscle or if you actually learned how to use it," Oren challenged with a confident smirk.
Jacob gripped his training sword as well, feeling the nearly forgotten weight of it in his hands. Most of his sword training at summer camp was at the beginning. After showing his skill, he was told to focus on other weapons for the rest of the summer so he had a well-rounded idea of how each weapon worked.
He still favored the sword, though.
He settled into the opening stance of the Flowing Forms Oren had taught him before the summer. He focused on his footwork, which the sword form emphasized as he warmed up.
Without waiting for another invitation, Jacob lunged forward.
He channeled the raw physical strength he had built in the life energy grove, expecting his sudden speed to catch the older boy off guard. Their wooden blades clashed with a dull, echoing crack of wood that sent a vibration traveling right up Jacob's arm.
Oren's eyes widened slightly in surprise as he was forced to slide half a step backward in the dirt to absorb the impact of the force coming from the smaller boy. He clearly had to use more power to block the strike than he ever did before Jacob left for camp.
And he felt a bit of excitement well up in his chest. Like a feather tickling his heart just a bit.
"That's not bad," Oren grunted, immediately twisting his wrists and parrying Jacob's blade aside. "But strength isn't everything when it comes to swordplay."
For the next two hours, the yard became a grueling classroom. Despite Jacob's enhanced physique and tier 1 mana density, Oren weaved around the younger boy like a seasoned master instructing a novice.
Every time Jacob overcommitted to a heavy swing, Oren was already standing just out of reach, tapping the flat of his blade against Jacob's ribs or the back of his knees to correct his posture.
Oren was not using his aura or any of his system skills at all. He relied entirely on the fundamental basics and flawless footwork to dismantle Jacob's offense. Partly, it was to show Jacob direct examples of how to use the form to its full potential. Also, it helped him perfect the basics to train like this as well.
"You're swinging like a Thornhold lumberjack," Oren critiqued, deflecting another heavy downward strike and spinning behind Jacob. "Your body is keeping up, but your system combat level is clearly still sitting at level one. You lack the structured battle experience to make use of the attack forms of the flowing strikes."
Jacob gritted his teeth, wiping a layer of sweat from his forehead with the back of his sleeve as he turned to face Oren again. "Then how do I level it up?"
"I'll take a trip into the woods soon," Oren replied, lowering his blade for a brief pause. "We'll fight some of the straggling goblins from the dungeon break. With some real combat experience, it'll help rank your combat level up. But, more importantly, you can actually practice fighting real opponents. This practice can really only bring you about this far."
"I don't know," Jacob breathed heavily as he replied, adjusting his grip and launching into another sequence of the flowing forms as he talked, "wouldn't it be better to go into a dungeon?'
Oren grinned as he easily parried and spun Jacob around for a soft kick to his lower back that caused him to take a few confusing steps forward.
"We could," Oren replied as Jacob spun back around to face him, taking up the basic stance of the flowing forms, "but we would still need to form a full 6-person team for that. It's too dangerous otherwise. Even for me."
They continued the relentless sparring session until the morning sun was fully above the tree line.
Jacob was drenched in sweat, his chest heaving as he forced his tired muscles through the basic patterns of the sword form.
He was using a low-grade regenerative magic spell, but it would only speed up his natural recovery without something amazing like the sun fruit. Any higher spellform would interrupt his practice.
He focused intently on the exact angle of his blade and the placement of his feet, trying to mimic Oren's effortless grace. He replayed the sparring session in his mind, emulating the young sword master's form.
Just as he managed to execute a perfectly balanced parry and riposte sequence with the corresponding footwork required to pull them off, the familiar mechanical chime rang out in his mind.
System Notice: New Skill Unlocked - Sword Mastery (Level: 1)
Sub-mastery: Flowing Sword Form (Common)
Jacob dropped the tip of his practice sword to the dirt, letting out a long, exhausted sigh of relief as he looked at the blue notification screen. "Finally. The system just recognized my Sword Mastery and the Flowing Sword Form."
Oren smiled, resting his own training sword against his shoulder. He didn't look like he had even broken a sweat. "Good. Now the system will start helping you. Just remember how the scaling works. You can only get two levels of weapon mastery per combat level. So, right now, you're capped at level two for your sword mastery."
Jacob nodded, dismissing the screen. "And the mastery levels actually help me fight?"
"Each level in mastery helps refine your forms and builds passive muscle memory," Oren explained, walking over to hand Jacob a waterskin.
"It makes the weapon feel more and more like an extension of your arm. But if you want to keep progressing the skill past level two, since it has a sub-mastery, then you have to raise your combat level first. You can only attain two levels in a combat skill that is sophisticated enough to come with a sub-mastery, like sword forms. That means we definitely have a date with some goblins, and soon, if you want to be dungeon-ready before you find our sixth dungeon team member."
Jacob took a long drink from the waterskin, feeling the cool water soothe his dry throat. He had a lot of work to do, but for the first time, the path forward felt incredibly clear. At least for his physical combat mastery, it did.