Almost every day after lunch, Edwin goes to Grandfather Amos’s home for personal tutoring, his grandfather’s house is smack dab in the middle of town, in between the library and in front of the Inn, a well-maintained structure, a stone wall surrounds it, leaving only two entrances in an out of the residence, it was built as to complement itself with the rest of the houses in the village.

On its own, it wasn’t that much compared to the homes of the nobles in any other city.

but grandpa Tobias's house was still the biggest one in Hillside, much bigger in comparison to the inn or the library.

Another thing that differed from the rest of the surrounding houses was the number of slaves or the existence of them at all.

“A slave isn’t too dissimilar from a normal person, they just have a fixed role,”

That’s what Amos said when Edwin asked him about the skinny people working the flowers in the garden.

“They are a symbol of wealth and status,”

Ed heard it from the people in town soon after. Slaves in other places weren’t treated as well as they were in the Aynor household.

But his grandfather gave them food and a place to sleep. He treats them with dignity.

Even going as far as giving them their own personal attire, fashioned towards the style of clothes used by the maids and butler’s, the main difference besides the quality of materials, are the colors, employees wear black, slaves wear blue.

Edwin always tries not to pay them any mind. But something in the eyes of a slave was scary to him. It gave him the feeling they were not looking at anything in particular as if they were staring at something beyond what’s visible.

As usual, he entered through the main gate, avoided eye contact with the slaves pruning the flowers, and continued on. Inside the main hall, he was received by the usual maid.

“Good day young Lord,"

“Good day to you miss Aeleen. Where’s grandpa?”

“Master Amos is in his study today,”

“Thank you!”

Ed walked through the main hall, heading straight for the last room.

opening the door, he was greeted by a small room and a big window that covered almost all the north wall.

One could clearly see the backyard from it, a beautiful green picture filled with flowers from all places in the region.

The east side of the room had a big bookcase, the west had many paintings of people Edwin didn’t recognize.

At the center, a lean man with short white hair, about as white as his beard that was kept long but not disheveled, was sitting behind a big desk writing some papers.

His face was dignified but gentle. When he looked at the small child, he smiled.

Amos Wren Aynor Hillside’s town head stopped his work to welcome his grandchild.

“Ah! Edwin, good, come on in, have a sit,"

He did as the man said, taking a seat in a chair in front of the desk.

“You had sword practice today?” He asked, his tone gave away a slight irritation.

“yes”

“How is that going on? Maybe I should tell your father to stop with them before my successor becomes naught but a pile of the fleshy ruble. I would prefer to look at my grandchild instead of a child-sized bruise,”

He looked at himself, discolorations visible on the lower neck and arms.

Ed remembered today’s slash on his back. It wasn’t hurting yet, but it definitely would come morning.

“I can at least take this much,”

“Is that so? Then I’m grateful, but a leader has no need to endure pain. Instead, the focus should be on avoiding it entirely,"

“I will, grandpa, it’s nothing, I’m still learning,”

“Well, I hope you start learning a bit faster because your days are about to get a bit more hectic,”

“Why?”

“Well, I thought, since you are so inclined to learn how to use a sword, might as well learn how to wield the staff if you can understand me,"

The kid thought about what he was implying

“I’m going to learn magic? Why?”

“What, you don’t want to?”

In reality, he did. He was even thinking about asking Freesia to teach him.

since she is so good with healing magic, but she probably won’t

He shook his head fervently from side to side.

“I’m just surprised, you never like to hear about my fighting lessons, you say it's unnecessary since I’m going to have a work that’s less about combat and more about talking,”

“The job of the village head it’s about fixing problems, not through brute force but knowledge and smarts.” Not that I have any of those.

“Well, I have my reasons, and magic can be less dangerous than a sword if trained by the right person,”

“Who’s going to teach me?”

Maybe it’s going to be one of those super old super strong arch wizards from Ori-Sha or an imperial court mage from Assythia it's going to be SO great.

“He’s an ex-student from the magic academy in Enerin, currently he has been looking for work as to enter the academy as a professor in the future since they won’t let you in without practical experience, and since a friend of a friend asked me to, I’m going to give him a hand, Edwin, you should always give a hand to a friend, making connections and gaining favors it’s a very important job, you never know when you will need a friend,”

So, it’s not really him wanting me to learn magic, well I don’t care. Either way, I want to throw fireballs!

“I can see your excitement reflect nicely on your face,”

“Yeah!”

Still… Just a graduate? I wanted to be taught by a great and powerful legendary mage, those that can make it rain to ice, the kind that can lift an entire army of corpses like Axterum the storm and Qwainthar black death.

“He will be coming in a few days, I will tell you when the lessons start” He set a stack of papers on the table with an annoyed look. It wasn’t directed at Edwin.

What is he reading?

“Now, you should go with Baul, he’s waiting at the library. I heard you are getting better with the numbers,”

“Just a bit,”

After making some time talking to Amos, he got reminded of heading to Baul, his teacher, one of the few people in town with a good education.

He had been contracted as his instructor from even before he was born. he taught Edwin how to read and write, as well as math and history.

He often said Ed was a slow learner, but once he grasped the basics of something, he wasn’t half bad at it.

They practiced addition and subtraction followed by Ostaran history. They were on the subject of colonization of the north, a slow process, ongoing to this day.