[Xander – 12 years]

"How'd you sleep?" Katie asks as she approaches the kitchen area. "Better now that the monster's gone?"

I stare at her. She's feeling extremely happy, and it's probably because of what I felt earlier. Also because of what I can feel right now, which makes me a little uncomfortable and uncertain. Should I have changed back to human form instead of staying in pajamas when I came down?

"What?"

"I can feel minds even through walls… and you were in Dad's room when I got to the stairs and could feel in there."

Katie's mind fills with embarrassment and her face flushes just a little.

"You and Dad said you weren't going to get together even though you liked each other because you're his employee and even if you quit, it'd be inappropriate," I say. "And you were being honest then. But then you two broke that and got together anyway. And now I'm all confused."

They didn't lie to me, they just later changed their minds. When they told me they wouldn't, they definitely didn't intend on later changing their minds. It would have counted as a lie then and it didn't. So this is them actually changing their minds.

Which is why I'm confused.

"Trey and I had a very long talk last night," she says. "We were going to tell you during breakfast. You've made it very difficult for us to deny our feelings for each other, and the fact that you start calling me 'Mom' when you're stressed or very excited about something makes it clear how you really view me, that it's taking you real effort to call me 'Katie' rather than 'Mom'. I do view you as a son, too. With those and some other factors in mind, we decided we would switch from me being his employee to me being his girlfriend.

"With that in mind," she says. "I'll still be cooking and helping you with your baking streams, taking you shopping, and so on. I didn't become a chef and a baker and go through years of training for the money, I did it because I enjoy it. And it's not as if Trey doesn't also cook at times."

I don't understand what that last part has to do with anything so it's probably some adult thing.

"Okay," I say. "So you and Dad are gonna get married and that'll officially make you my mom?"

My tail is wagging now. They finally stopped denying their feelings for each other like mature adults! I really don't understand why it took them so long.

"Maybe not marry just yet," she says. "We do like each other a lot, and were only a couple of steps away from being in a relationship, but we still want to see how things go for a little bit, just to make sure."

"But if you weren't gonna get married, then why'd you get pregnant?"

"I'm what now?" Shock fills her mind. "We took precautions…"

"Pregnant," I say. "I can feel their mana right there," I point. "And I don't know what precautions you took, but when they gave us the puberty class in school and the talk at the boys' home, they made it very clear that the best precaution is to not have sex. Also, you're the fourth woman I know who's gotten pregnant recently. Do you know how that makes me look? And it's not my fault! And I'm gay!"

"Nobody is going to think it's your fault," Katie tells me. "Though I'm going to need to talk with Trey."

"Please do."

Amusement fills her mind for some reason.

"What do you want for breakfast?" She decides to change the topic.

"Can you have a quiet baby rather than a noisy one?"

"People don't get to choose what kind of baby they have," she tells me. "I also asked what you wanted for breakfast, not for a little sibling."

"Fine," I huff. "Can we do waffles with ice cream, and sausage links on the side?"

"Ice cream with breakfast?"

"Yes."

We stare at each other for a few moments.

"Okay," she says. "Ice cream with breakfast today."

"Awesome!"

Mom makes breakfast and when Dad comes down, he raises an eyebrow at her when he sees the ice cream being put out. It's what's left of the batch we made a couple of days ago, so we'll probably be making more when I come back either tonight or tomorrow.

There's a sleepover at Connor's tonight since it's Friday and they do sleepovers on Fridays during the school year starting with the second week of school. They rotate who hosts it by the initial of their first name, starting at the front of the alphabet.

My name comes first, but they said that "Xander" is what I go by so that's what they're using. That makes my turn to host last in the rotation.

"I'll tell you later," Mom tells Dad.

"She's pregnant," I tell him.

"That is a discussion between Trey and me for later," she tells me. "For now, let's focus on breakfast. And Trey? He could feel my mind in your room, so I've already let him know that we're together now."

"And I don't have to keep forcing myself to call her 'Katie'," I say. "Which is a big relief. It was so hard to keep doing it…"

"Let's go ahead and eat," Dad tells me. "You need to get ready for your field trip after, don't forget."

"I'll try not to."

After breakfast, I do my morning routine, then make sure to pull on my recreational backpack. I don't know if I'll need it but I've seen pictures of kids who went on field trips and they all seemed to have theirs with them. Field trips must have time for playing, too.

Or maybe it's so the kids have water with them instead of needing to wait until they're near a water fountain?

Ready to go on the field trip, I let Dad know I'm heading to Sig's. When I arrive, Sig is dressed in shorts, sneakers, and a sleeveless shirt, along with the bracelet I gave him. No one I've seen since giving them to them has been not wearing them when I see them, even in pictures. I can't tell if they put them on so I see them or if they're just always wearing them.

It would be a lot of hassle to take them off and put them them back on even just for pictures, so it's probably something they just don't take off very often.

Which I think means they like the bracelets.

Thankfully, Sig put on a shirt before answering the door. He usually answers it shirtless but I guess he understood the field trip requires a shirt, just like most classes in school (PE doesn't always and most don't wear one for swimming, of course).

"Hello, Sig."

"Morning, Xander!" He says as I give him a hug.

"Hi, Ms. Rachel."

"Hello, Xander," she greets me. "How're you?"

"I'm okay," I say. "How're you?"

"I'm doing good," she looks at Sig. "Behave for Xander and Mr. King, okay?"

"Will do!" He grabs his backpack from beside the door. "Ready to go, Xander!"

"Okay," I say. "Bye, Ms. Rachel."

"Have a good one, Xander," she says.

"I'll try."

Sig and I head down to the street, then I pull out a marble with a spell formula in it.

"What's that?" Sig asks.

"The spell formula for the teleport."

"Don't you already know how to teleport?"

"Yeah," I answer. "But if I'm teleporting somewhere I haven't been before, the spell formula's a little bit different and requires knowing some information. Grandpa Adrian gave me this so that I can see what the spell formula for teleporting to the field trip location is."

"Oh."

After examining the marble, I teleport us to the location designated by the spell formula contained within. When we arrive, we're outside of a really large hill with an entrance set into the base of it not far from us. A forest covers the hill and part of the surrounding size and makes it so that we can't see the actual size of the hill itself. Not from here, at least. From what Grandpa Adrian told me, the outside is one thousand feet in diameter. I think that means it's going to be five hundred feet tall at the center.

Though it's much larger on the inside.

"Hello, boys," Grandpa Adrian appears a few feet in front of us. "Are you ready for the tour?"

"Yes," I answer.

"Yeah," Sig answers.

"Okay," Grandpa Adrian says. "Follow me."

He leads us through the front door and down a long tunnel, which eventually ends in a large room.

"I don't have any human employees working the farms themselves," Grandpa Adrian informs us. "Though I could if I desired. This would be a break room for them, if so. It also acts as an entrance and security center. Each entrance – including the loading areas – has one of these."

"Security?" I ask.

"No human employees?" Sig asks at the same time.

"Security consists of advanced combat golems," Grandpa Adrian indicates a wall with a tinted window along it. "That's the security booth, and there are several golems in there right now. They scan anyone and everyone who enters. If there were human employees, the golems would know if someone was employed here or not and would stop anyone who wasn't. There are more hidden throughout."

The golems' magic designs are really interesting. They would make for good security at the workshop. Not that they'd really be needed. Greyson's ninja guards are pretty good and I keep updating our security enchantments to be even better.

But they might still be useful for additional security, just in case.

"As for employees," Grandpa Adrian says. "In order to make the center comfortable for humans to work in, I would need to go to a lot more measures than just to grow things. I already simulate the sky to some degree, but even an ordinary person would feel a sense of wrongness if they spent too much time here."

"Though I could adjust things further to make it more realistic," he telepathically informs me. "But that takes more effort and is only needed for people, not magical creatures. This keeps things simpler. So you'll notice a few areas when we're going through that could be adjusted for change. Don't tell S.G. that, though, okay?"

I don't understand why he doesn't want me to tell Sig about that, but I telepathically let him know I'll try not to.

Thankfully, Sig doesn't wonder why there's a longer pause than necessary in what my grandpa's saying, because there isn't one. Grandpa Adrian and I are both powerful time and mind mages, so our minds are faster. That entire conversation happens in the natural pause in Grandpa Adrian's explanation.

"So instead," Grandpa Adrian says. "I use a blend of golems designed for farming, plant creatures, other plant-type beings, and some equivalents in water, earth, light, and a few other varieties. These ones don't mind the sun here not being the real one as it feels the same to them. There are other factors involved, but they're all happy here."

"Are there any human employees?" Sig asks. "Um… sorry."

"Asking questions is fine," Grandpa Adrian says. "This is a field trip tour, after all. The delivery trucks with take the products away from here are driven by humans, and many of the goods go to processing plants where they're turned into food products such as fruit snacks, gummy bears, donut fillings, pasta, bread, and more. Most of what is done here is growing, harvesting, and sorting, then it gets shipped off for whatever it gets used for. Only some of the actual post-harvesting and sorting processing is done here."

"Like for what?" I ask.

"Syrup," Grandpa Adrian answers. "The sap harvested here is converted into syrup on-site. There are sugar maple farms around the country, but a significant portion of them grow in areas saturated with enough magic that there's mana in their sap. As a result, ordinary maple syrup would be expensive as well, so there's a maple farm here in an area which is deliberately lower in mana content to prevent the trees from becoming imbued with mana. Roughly eighty percent of all ordinary maple syrup in the world is made in this facility."

Not just the country but the world? And it's just from this one facility, too.

"Whoa," I say.

"So is the mind maple syrup Katie buys for you," Grandpa Adrian adds. "There's a fresh batch of the syrup finishing up in a few hours, I'll get you a couple of gallons of it."

I heard field trips often result in souvenirs, but I didn't know they resulted in souvenirs like that. That's awesome!

"Okay!"

"The drivers don't enter the farm areas," Grandpa Adrian tells me. "All of the vehicles you see moving around are driven by golems as well. I know you're a bit shy about your wolfkin form, so I wanted to let you know in case you wanted to change into it for the trip. The only other person who's in the areas we'll be in is Lily, my wife."

I could be a wolfkin here and only people who've already seen it would see, other than my great-grandma? That sounds good, but from what he told me about the inside, I'll probably already be uncomfortable.

"No," I shake my head. "I'll stay in my human form for right now."

"Okay," he says. "Let me know if you change your mind and I'll give you a private space for you to change."

"Okay."

Grandpa Adrian leads us out of the break/security room, through a short hallway, and out into a parking lot. There are a lot of farm buggies set up in the parking lot along with a few trucks, which are apparently for human employees to use. Or guests.

Beyond the parking lot is a large grassy area with a road cutting through it, and a farm spread out to either side of it, the crops different for each. They're also slightly dense with plants of different varieties. Above us is a ceiling over a hundred feet up and shaped like a dome, making it even higher as it goes further into the center.

There are magics woven into it deeply and it doesn't look like the sky at all. At least, not until I realize that those magics are probably what are simulating the sky. I'm just seeing right through the illusion of the sky which probably exists.

But there's still a big light source further in, the fake sun. It's full of magics which release light in certain ways and some other things, probably to help simulate the real sun here. Those aren't illusions so I can see the effects properly.

Sig and I are handed walkie-talkies with earpieces and are told to clip them onto a pocket and put the earpieces on. Once we do, Grandpa Adrian hands me the key to one of the farm buggies.

"I know you know how to drive one," he says. "So drive the one right there, and I'll be driving in front of you for the tour. When we're on the buggies, we'll use the walkies to talk. Use telekinesis to push the button if you don't want to take your hands off of the wheel."

He's trusting me to drive? I barely got to drive one at Carter's, though.

"O-okay," I say. "I'll do my best."

We get into the buggies and start driving. As we pass by the farms, Grandpa Adrian explains that they do a degree of companion planting, a farming and gardening method which helps improve the quality of the crops. It uses multiple plants which act beneficial to each other or to the main crop in order to do things like attract beneficial pollinators, improve soil quality, and deter pests.

"Though we don't have an issue with pests here," Grandpa Adrian says. "The long tunnel we entered in from outside neutralizes and kills them off, as well as destroys their remains."

"There's magic like that?" Sig asks.

"Magic can do nearly anything you can imagine it to," Grandpa Adrian tells him. "As long as you know how to to use it right and possess the ability and mana necessary for you to do so."

This is especially true for those who can use magic in its truest form: simply using one's will to make things happen. Sort of like when I turned into a wolfkin the first time, or how dog fur never sticks to me, or how my mega-bakes always come out right even though they should be too heavy to rise properly.

"Huh," Sig seems impressed.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"The field on the left here," Grandpa Adrian tells us. "Is primarily a peanut farm. There are also carrots, spinach, and cucumbers growing in the field, among other things, though as secondaries and not necessarily all together. You'll note flowers such as marigolds and sunflowers. There are also herbs scattered throughout as well."

As Grandpa Adrian explains the purposes behind planting the crops together, I spot some of the workers. The most common ones actually tending to the plants look like small shrubs about a foot tall. Small shrubs, but ones with really dense leaves, with legs which look made out of roots and small antlers made out of branches with only a few leaves on them. A few of them have berries growing on them, and those ones have a lot more mana than others.

Grandpa Adrian confirms that they're the primary workers for tending the plants, able to instinctively tell when things are wrong, when things are just-right for harvesting, and can use minor plant magics to mend any damage they find.

"What about the one with berries?" I ask. "Those look delicious… the berries, not the workers."

"Those are elder ones," Grandpa Adrian tells me. "They're old and powerful for their kind, and they're the original immigrants of their kind. None of the ones without berries are old enough yet to have been around when I rescued their people. They work as supervisors while also training the younger ones on how to do their jobs."

"Oh, okay."

"That's cool!" Sig says. "Wait, so you rescued them?"

"It's a long story," Grandpa Adrian says. "They enjoy living here, though, and are quite happy. No predators live in the dome facilities so they don't have to worry about that, and they can take care of plants all day and night. That's something their people enjoy – tending to plants."

"How much do you pay them?" I ask.

"They're plants," Sig says. "What would they do with money?"

"For the live-in workers like the shrubs," Grandpa Adrian says. "There are break areas and living quarters. They enjoy using the cash they're paid with to buy things from the vending machines. Even the ones who were around when I first introduced vending machines here a few centuries ago still enjoy using them."

"A few centuries ago?" Sig asks. "Aren't vending machines new? You invented them?"

"Did you, um… never mind."

I was going to ask if he knew about them from another world, but Sig doesn't know that my great-grandpa isn't from Earth and I can't remember if Grandpa Adrian told me I can tell others or not. Most people probably wouldn't believe me anyway but I'm sure Sig would.

"No," Grandpa Adrian chuckles. "The first record of a vending machine on Earth is nearly two thousand years old and was used for dispensing wine."

"Of course it was alcohol!" Sig laughs.

Why would it be 'of course'? Alcohol being its first use doesn't make any sense to me. Food would make more sense since that's essential to survival and alcohol is just for people to get drunk with.

"There are clouds here?" Sig suddenly feels startled. "Oh! It's how you water your crops! You simulate the sky to that degree?"

A long stretch of clouds began drifting through the sky over the field to our right, which seems to be raspberries, but there are also mushrooms and other plants growing there as well. The clouds are raining lightly as they slowly pass over the fields, but I can tell that they're making the rain directly rather than depositing the water making them up.

"Those are creatures, too," I say.

"They are?"

"Yeah," I answer. "They have mana like most animals and don't seem to be magical constructs. They're sort-of intangible, almost like the monster-under-the-bed monster. That one was fully, though, and magic was needed to touch it. The clouds themselves are probably touchable. Tangible."

"More workers," Grandpa Adrian explains. "The shrubs let them know how much water is needed in an area and when, and the clouds pass over with rain at the stated rate to put enough water in the soil to water the crops but not so much to over-water.

"Xander," he says. "Do you see the masses of magics in their centers? They have more organic shapes, as if a sort of liquid that's bound together by itself and nothing else. Sort of like ever-shifting blobs."

"Yeah," I answer.

"Those are their real bodies," he tells me. "The rest is just an extension of themselves they can manifest."

"Oh."

"Are they refugees, too?" Sig asks.

"No," Grandpa Adrian answers. "There are cloud beasts on many worlds, and these ones are local to Earth. There are plenty more of them outside of here, these ones are those who agreed to come work for me. A few different colonies live in each of the facilities, between their various levels."

"Various… levels?" Sig asks.

"Yes," Grandpa Adrian says. "The facilities each consist of nine total layers, each layer smaller than the one below it. The higher the layer, the more rare and less in-demand the crop or animal. Though they're all quite sizable – what animals are raised in my facilities are free-range. Without a winter to worry about, they can graze all year as well."

Grandpa continues telling us about the farms and fields as we pass by them, and he tells us about the various worker types we can see as we go. At our first break, we're joined by a woman with suntanned skin and deep green eyes, who appears to be in her late teens. She's dressed in jeans and a t-shirt she's tucked in, along with sturdy work boots, her dark brown hair fixed into a tight braid.

Though she's half as strong as I am, it's easy to see that plant magics are extremely woven into her, her mana fully attuned to it like how Luke's is now fully attuned to lightning magic. That makes sense, though, since she's apparently some sort of plant which looks like a hybrid between a tree, a shrub, and a flower.

"This is my wife, Lily," Grandpa Adrian introduces her to us.

"My great-grandma's a plant?"

"What?" Sig gives me a look of confusion that is nowhere near as strong as his feelings of it are.

"My family tree just got even more confusing…"

"Lily is a type of plant," Grandpa Adrian. "Though one which is also a type of magical beast, so she fits into the 'animal' category of life. Xander's magical perspicacity allows him to see not just through illusions, but also a person's real form. When it comes to non-human beings, it's more like an awareness of their actual self. When it comes to something more human in form, though, he sees their real form superimposed over their current looks. It's why I take on my actual appearance around him – because seeing me as both an old man and my nineteen-year-old self messes with his vision and can be quite unsettling for even an ordinary person."

Is that how it works? Then it makes sense why I didn't just see everyone's real form at the mage district after learning about it. I might have actually been aware of their real selves for a long time and then just… got used to it and so never paid attention to the awareness anymore.

It might be my power, but it's not like it came with a manual, and it's not like I'm experienced with seeing the real forms of different people. Maybe I should ask Grandpa Adrian for a manual on that as well.

Later, though. That can be after the field trip.

"And… you had children with a plant?" Sig's face gets screwed up in confusion. "How does that work?"

"I am in a human form right now," Lily chuckles. "But magic was involved as well."

"I have a plant for a great-grandma, a dragon for a grandma, a phoenix for a grandpa, a unicorn for a grandma, a pegasus for a mom, and a horse for a cousin," I mumble. "Just how much more confusing can my family tree get?"

"I have a lot of questions," Sig quietly says.

Oh, are we back to the tour stuff now?

"So do I," I look at Grandpa Adrian. "That's clearly an apple orchard there, but no companion planting like you did the peanuts and raspberries. How come? Oh! Wait! Sorry, Sig! You go first!"

"No, it's fine," he says, and that's apparently the truth. "Um. Yeah, how come you're not doing companion planting for the orchard?"

"There's companion planting there," Grandpa Adrian begins driving his buggy again, Grandma Lily having joined him in it. "The flowers and grasses there are based on what will help the trees grow delicious fruit. Some of the flowers are also harvested to make extracts used in perfumes, candles, soaps, and other things, and we also grow some herbs in there. The apple orchard on our left is mainly used for…"

[Sig – 13 years]

The farming facility is too big for me to comprehend, and we didn't even get to tour the entire thing due to the sheer size of it. We did get to visit several of the other layers of it and see quite a few different farm types. There was even a chicken farm, which turns out to be the source of all of the chicken from my favorite brand of breaded chicken tenders.

Xander and I both received souvenirs, though in vastly different quantities. Xander assumed it must be because he eats a lot more than me, but I think it's also because Adrian King dotes on him.

I got a jar of peanut butter. Xander got seven gallons of it. To be fair, he did eat at least two cups of it in smaller bites he took when he thought no one was looking, but still. Seven gallons of peanut butter is quite a lot.

Not that I'm jealous of him or didn't enjoy the trip. For something which I think was just Xander wanting to get out of school and his great-grandfather wanting to spoil him, it was actually pretty educational. I learned a lot about companion planting while Xander learned a lot about magic. The discussions the three of them had regarding the magics involved in the facility went above my head but Xander seemed to be able to keep up.

And Xander wasn't the only one who made odd sounds to describe what magic was doing. Oddly, it seemed like they could all understand each other even with "fwoop", "fweel", "blehpl", and "kchkch" making no sense to me.

We both learned about companion planting, to be fair, not just me, but I still learned a lot about it. Adrian and Lily King are definitely good at explaining things in a way kids like us can understand. Another thing we both learned a lot about were various magic beasts, though Xander kept asking how much his great-grandfather was paying the workers.

Does he really think his great-grandfather wouldn't compensate workers? His grandfather, who has made sure there's legislation across the nation and globe which helps minimize exploitation and severely punishes those who do? And who has made sure that child workers are fairly compensated, treated well, and not put into dangerous settings?

Other than the confusing bits, this was a pretty fun experience for me and I'm glad Xander invited me.

"Thanks for letting me take a tour," Xander tells his great-grandparents as we enter the break/security room we entered the facility through. "I learned a lot for when the greenhouse gets built."

"The greenhouse?" I ask.

"Yeah," Xander looks at me, then fidgets with one of his bracelets as he hesitates. "Um. So I usually end up running away when I get super stressed. It's not like I'm thinking about it, I just do it. And then when it's near time for school to start, I get really stressed. And then run away even more, especially before school begins. The boys' home usually gave me a reward for not running away for awhile. Dad wanted to do that, too, but he wasn't sure what to get me. I mean, I can usually get stuff on my own now, especially with having $250 a day I can spend on my card in addition to my allowance, and I can ask for the cap to be increased for the day if I'm buying something big and it's reasonable and not in violation of the rules for what I'm allowed to buy."

"You get an allowance?" I ask. "If you're making thousands a week, just how much is your allowance? Er… sorry, shouldn't have asked that. Aunt Rachel's giving me $20 a week. She'd go a little bit bigger since I'm in eighth grade, but that's all she can afford right now."

Not that I'm complaining as I didn't even get an allowance when I lived with my parents. I'm still earning money from odd jobs, even if not as much now that school's resumed. Once I start getting paid from my streaming and videos, the allowance will matter even less.

I tried telling her I don't need it, but she insisted.

"It's okay," Xander says. "I get $40 a week, on Sundays. It's $5 per grade I'm in, so that rate started this week, since last Sunday was still before I was officially in the eighth grade."

Seriously? He receives an allowance of that little when he's probably already nearing millionaire status and can spend up to $250 a day just from his own bank account? That is so weird.

"Oh," Xander adds. "But Dad covers everything at the bowling alley. He says he considers it to be a mix of a sport and a hobby rather than just a hobby. The bowling part, not the eating part. The eating part he covers because… I don't remember the reason.

"Back to the greenhouse," Xander says. "Dad said I could make a list of things I wanted to be my reward, and so I did. Well, a list for if I was unsure of what it was. He'd said one thing would be the reward, but ended up agreeing to three of them."

"Three?" I ask. "And a greenhouse was one of them? A magic greenhouse, I'm guessing?"

He did just say a minute ago about learning a lot to use for it from this trip.

"Yeah," Xander nods. "It'll have an expanded space in it and different sections so we can grow things with different requirements all throughout the year. It won't be a large-scale thing like this, just something to provide us with fresh produce all year, and maybe a little extra in case of parties or something. I'm paying for the entire thing, and Dad said either I needed to do all of the work inside of it myself or hire someone to. He was probably thinking I'd do it all myself in the hopes it'd make me give up on it."

Xander looks at his great-grandfather.

"Grandpa Adrian," he says. "How do I get a permit for gardening golems? I've already analyzed what was visible of their magical setups and can probably figure out the rest on my own, so I can build some of my own design at the workshop. They'll be really useful in there. And I think that for a smaller operation, I'd not need as many creatures. Could I hire some of yours? Like a couple of the shrubs and the seed worms?"

Seed worms? Adrian King did mention there were some large earth magic worms which worked in the soil and compost zones, but I don't remember him mentioning "seed worms" at all. Either that's what Xander's calling the earth-monitoring worms or there's something which wasn't mentioned.

Well, I figured there would be plenty of things not mentioned, but also that Xander would be telepathically informed not to mention them if he notices any.

"Could I also buy some of the insects you use for pollination?" Xander asks. "So I can let them loose in the greenhouse? Buy them after it's built, I mean. And hire the others."

"Wait!" I realize. "Is that why you kept asking about how much they're paid?"

"Yeah," Xander answers. "I wanted to know if it's in-budget. Apparently, paying magical creatures to help out in a greenhouse isn't that expensive."

I'm fairly certain the only reason his great-grandfather is able to actually maintain things is because he's ancient and has connections with an ancient plant creature. Lily King did mention that she has assistants in all of the facilities to oversee them.

Not all of the creatures working here are paid, too. There's an intelligent species of butterfly who help keep the air here clean and they only care about having safe places to lay their eggs and flowers with good nectar. The cloud beasts are happy to help out as long as they get to regularly deposit water and draw some in. They don't care that the water they're absorbing back out of the air comes from water they generated as water is just water once it's created.

Apparently, the evaporation cycle still works here, to a degree. The cloud beasts absorb extra water in the air and convert it to mana, so it just vanishes. But they later create more to water the crops, so it's close enough to the same thing.

And it prevents actual rains from occurring as water evaporates. It's a really nifty system he's got here. The entire setup is probably a lot more expensive than I can imagine, too, which is probably why he's the only one who does it on a large scale.

The fact that he has several of these facilities across the nation only makes it more impressive.

"I'm assuming you'd like to hire one of the cloud beasts for it as well?" Adrian King asks.

"No," Xander answers. "I already have a plan for how to handle the watering of everything."

"Okay," his great-grandfather chuckles. "You've still got plenty of time before normal school hours end. Do you have any final questions, or are you ready to leave?"

"I have some," I say. "Um… is there anything I'm not supposed to talk about here?"

"I let two adolescents into one of my facilities," Adrian King tells me, mild amusement in his voice. "If there was something you weren't supposed to find out about this place, you wouldn't know it."

"Yeah," Xander nods. "He telepathically told me not to tell you about some of the stuff I saw. I don't like keeping secrets because I'm bad at it, but I promised I'd try my best."

So that did happen. And it's easier for Xander to keep a secret when he doesn't know it's a secret and just feels like nobody will believe him about it.

"Okay… what about the weirdness with Xander's ancestry?" I ask. "I feel like that might not be something I can say, and I don't really understand any of it beyond just that he's descended of a plant and… apparently a bunch of formerly-mythological creatures? And I don't even understand that."

"One of my sons married the queen of the sun dragons," Adrian King informs me. "And had a set of triplets with her. Xander's father is one of them."

Which would make Xander one-quarter dragon… and Matt King, too. No wonder they're both extraordinary. So Xander was off about the dragon ancestor of his, but he's actually more dragon than he thought he was.

That's… okay, that's actually insane. My boyfriend is one-quarter dragon.

"And my dad apparently married a pegasus," Xander says. "A real one, not just a descendant of one. They apparently originate as the offspring of a phoenix and a unicorn when they mix their magics together in equal amounts while… uh… and my grandma from my mom is the queen of the unicorns of Earth, and my grandpa from her is apparently Blaze, who's apparently the king of the phoenixes on Earth. So I'm one-quarter unicorn and one-quarter phoenix, too. And a child who's born of a phoenix and a unicorn in equal amounts is a pegasus, so I'm technically half-pegasus instead, but that just makes it confusing because I still have unicorn and phoenix pretty clearly in me in addition to the pegasus. And Grandpa Adrian's only one-quarter human, which means I'm only one-thirty-second human. Do I even count as having human at this point? I look human, but I'm apparently not!"

Xander genuinely looks stressed over that while I'm barely comprehending that the last time a human was even in his ancestry was several generations ago. I know plenty about reproduction and none of this makes sense. Magic really can work wonders.

No wonder his great-grandfather is being so involved in Xander's life. Xander really is a unique person.

"On a genetic level," Adrian King says. "You aren't a human. But the only reason that's how humanity is defined is because that's what humanity knows. You look and act human most of the time, so I'd say you count as human."

"Only most of the time?" Xander stress-whines.

"Well," his great-grandfather says. "You do become a wolfkin at a times. And an ordinary human wouldn't hunt Akrolnomak."

"You did what?" My head snaps to face Xander.

"Yeah," Xander starts pulling the ancient wyvern's head out of one of his pouches. "The boss monster in a video game Carter let me play with him didn't make any sense but was based off of Akrolnomak. I already sent the devs the video of me fighting him so they can see how wrong they were about him not being weak to fire at the start."

I have no idea how to respond to this.

"Put that away," Adrian King rolls his eyes. "Why do you still have it?"

"I keep meaning to ask you what to do with it," Xander answers. "And if it's cannibalism if I eat it."

"Wyverns and dragons are two different species," Grandpa Adrian tells him. "They evolved from different creatures. Think of it like a wolf eating a tiger. And S.G., I don't mind if you tell people about Xander. He's fairly honest, himself."

"It's not like people believed me when I thought I was one-eighth dragon," Xander says.

"Yeah," I say. "I don't think people would believe me about any of that…"

Adrian King smiles at me. That's why he's fine with it – because he knows no one would believe him. Even if someone did, they'd not be able to do anything with that information with any form of ill intent without pissing off literally the most powerful person in the world.

"Alright," he says. "Any further questions?"

"No," Xander answers as I shake my head.

"Then let's head out."

We're led out of the facility and back out into the real sunlight, and say our goodbyes to Xander's great-grandparents. Then, Xander looks at me.

"We've got more than half an hour before it's time to meet up with the others," Xander says. "Is it okay if we head to the Coxes' to buy some meat?"

"Sure," I answer and suddenly find myself outside of the main office at the Coxes' ranch. "Hey, Xander?"

"Yes, Sig?"

"Could you maybe warn me about the teleports in the future?"

"Oh, sorry," he looks down at his feet. "Um… let's go in."

We enter the building and find Mrs. Cox behind the desk.

"Hello, boys!" She smiles at us. "No school?"

"I tested out of high school," I tell her.

"I can skip it because I qualify for that," Xander says. "But we were on a field trip today and just left it after it ended. Is it okay if I go to the ranch shop and buy some stuff?"

"Sure thing," she says. "I'll let them know a guest is on the way."

After Xander buys about fifty pounds of beef in several different cuts (that'll last a few days, I'm sure), he also buys some dairy products, eggs, wheat, and some other crops they grow here. Meat is important but he also wants other stuff with mind magics in them due to how good they taste.

It just tastes like regular food to me, but I guess that's because I'm not neither a powerful enough mage for food from magic creatures to taste good to me nor a strong enough mind mage to be able to taste mind magics in food.

How does that even work, anyway? I tried looking it up but no one has a proper explanation, meaning it's probably just another effect of magic doing its own thing.

"Hey, Xander?" I ask as we return to the main office.

"Yeah?"

"Didn't you say your budget is $250 a day?"

"I asked Dad about increasing it," Xander tells me. "He said it's $2,500 and there's no need to increase it further if I'm just buying fifty pounds of beef and then some other food, since this it ain't that expensive. I mean, it's more expensive than regular stuff, but it ain't absurdly so. So I stayed within the extended budget for today."

His dad really will increase his budget for just about anything, won't he? What were his thoughts when Xander said he wanted to buy fifty pounds of meat? Because that's both a lot of meat but also something I can see Xander going through in just a few days if he's allowed to.

"Ah, okay."

"Hello again, Mrs. Cox," Xander says as we enter the office. "Is it okay if I go do something and Sig stays behind, if he's okay with that? It might take me about fifteen to twenty minutes. He won't be able to come with me for this. Sorry, Sig."

What does he want to do?

"It's fine!" I say.

"Sure," Mrs. Cox says. "I'd like to hear about him testing out of high school. That must've been an experience for you, huh? Doesn't it take three different teachers recommending it, then the principal reviewing and recommending, then the school board reviewing and recommending, before you can?"

"It takes all that?" I ask. "Huh. Didn't know so much was involved."

With how often teachers suggested it, they must have put everything through even before the school year began. That would explain why I was able to take the test so fast after deciding to, too.

Mrs. Cox and I talk about the testing for about twenty minutes and when Xander returns, his hair is darkened and sticking to his head and he looks out of breath, his face flushed a bit. He's also in a different outfit from before.

It did start storming while we were talking, but Xander doesn't look wet outside of his hair. Did he change and just not dry his hair off?

"Everything alright?" I ask.

"Yeah," Xander answers, then looks at Mrs. Cox. "It should stop raining so much now. I dealt with the beast instigating a lot of the rains and storms in the area. If it keeps going, I'll take further measures to ensure it stops."

That sounds ominous and I nearly ask him what he did on impulse. The part of me that's rational stops me, though. If Xander did something to stop it from raining so much and sounds ominous about making the issue permanently stop if it doesn't stop with this, then whatever it is might actually make it hard for me to sleep.

Just like seeing the head of an ancient, powerful wyvern. Today's had too many shocks for me.

"Ready to go?" Xander looks at me.

"Yeah," I answer. "Let's go meet up with the others."

At least that won't make me question my entire life.

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