The old mayor, Hew, had taken a serious liking to me, and I think he may be trying to groom me into the village’s next mayor. Crescent also shared most of the lessons but with the mayor’s stance of always having a second to take over if you are busy. His example being his wife makes his intention quite clear. I’m not sure how Crescent feels about it, but nowadays she seems to have trouble even looking at me. I still insist on spending time with Master Yoren, Gam, and Nightshade. The mayor is aware, and I think he's catching on to my extensive array of skills, but he hasn’t pressed me about it.

  Whatever the case, the mayor was patient to get what he wanted and was willing to help me in most matters. Crescent also flourished under his guidance. The shy but determined girl I once knew was quickly becoming a confident leader, except whenever I was involved. It wasn’t that she was averse to me, but she seemed to frequently lose focus, getting lost in her head, and she found such instances embarrassing.

  A report we had gotten from the inspector had marked Callia as a natural prodigy and already reaching a level sufficient to work shifts as the town inspector. If not for her frequent combat training, which she insisted on, the inspector was confident that Callia could fill in for shifts. Nixie showed promise to a lesser extent and was more on par with one of the boys who had stepped up to learn the profession.

  Crescent and I walked side by side down the new street, inspecting the work that we had directed and I had participated in. Three residential districts, a processing district (for food and wood), and a merchant street stretching from the side of town closest to the gatehouse all the way to the docks. The whole stretch included space sufficient to prop up a large number of stalls suitable to make the Apprentice Festival more manageable in the future.

  Callia, like a hoodlum, runs across someone’s roof heading straight for us. It breaks, and she briefly falls inside before jumping back out, ignoring the angrily shouting owner.

  “Crescent, next time we are planning for long-term improvements, including reinforced roofs suitable for travel. I don’t think Callia will ever conform to roads.”

  Crescent just giggles and nods while Callia jumps from a building across the street. It’s an impressive leap, and I wouldn’t be as upset as I am if it hadn’t also ruined the roof.

  “CALLEN! IT’S TIME. MOM’S POPPING!” Callia screams as she falls towards us like a missile. I don’t even listen to the rest of whatever Callia was saying. Mom had reached the end of her pregnancy, and even Callia’s three previous false alarms didn’t slow my response. I pulled my 3rd iteration of magic glider/plane out of my void space and launched myself into the air on a direct path to my destination even faster than Callia had been in her rooftop parkour.

  My work had become something of a curiosity among the townsfolk, and whenever someone saw me flying, I would get cheers and calls from the people below. When I made my first successful flight, the whole town was in a buzz for quite a while. The mayor saw it as a huge breakthrough and had made me promise to teach some younger kids how to fly to replace our future couriers. It was still unreliable in uncertain conditions, but today was perfect, and it cut a ten-minute run into a 5-minute flight.

  I dropped from the flight onto the landing pad I installed on our new home right on the border between town and the empty field that will eventually grow into a new town forest. At the door I’m confronted by Nixie, who immediately calls me out.

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  “Callen! You idiot, Mom went to your new town hospital! She knew you would mess up and had me stay here. . . “ I tune out the rest of her statements and leap from the roof, taking back to the skies and moving with maximum haste to the hospital. However, I do make out her screaming behind me.

  “TAKE ME WITH YOU!”

  Too late, I silently wish her luck getting to the hospital at the center of town. Just like my home, I had a landing pad built into the hospital. The idea was when I was skilled enough at making one-man glider planes, I could design a couple to act as medical emergency deployment or retrieval devices. It was just a piece of a whole system of new ideas I had incorporated across the town.

  I landed without issues and went into the building below and soon joined Mom, Dad, Grandpa, Crescent, Reesia, and Callia, who beat me here because I had gone on a detour. I join my family on the side, and Mom rasps out.

  “Callen, you left Nixie behind!” I don’t really have much of an excuse.

  “Sorry, Mom, I was moving before thinking.” She just chuckles a bit because she already knew before grunting in pain. We wanted to stay, but the healer followed the new procedures I had established to prevent accidents and had his assistant shoo all of us except Dad, who Mom was now grabbing onto for dear life, out of the room. It was an uneasy several hours, and during the wait Nixie showed up panting. She seems to understand the situation and remains quiet, joining us in waiting for news.

  In the room I hear Mom’s struggle more vividly than anyone would ever want. I get brief flashbacks of going through that nightmare myself. A lot of the details are hard to recall, and I get the feeling that's something I should be thankful for. My musing is interrupted when a new voice replaces Mom's. A baby's cry echoes from the room, and a few minutes later the healer comes out.

  “Congratulations, your mother and sibling are both stable and ready for you to join them.” Our entry is a mix of urgent and cautious as we carefully make sure not to disrupt the room with our presence. We gather around Mom's table, close but not crowding, watching Mom gently rock our new sibling. It’s a younger brother. Mom’s voice is hoarse but sweet, and as she gently cradles him, we all hear her whisper.

  “Your name will be Rylin.”

  New Port Town

  Mayor Hew reviewed the list of projects Callen had designed. When he had given this project to Callen, Hew had almost no expectations. Callen was only chosen because every carpenter who had the skill of architecture had died. Callen was literally the most experienced person in the entire town because he had designed his own house.

  Still, that necessity was proving to in actuality be one of the biggest boons the entire town ever had. The post-disaster recovery state was something unsustainable in the long term because it was inspired by generosity and necessity. Nobody got paid in anything other than food because everyone needs to work to survive.

  After torching every last speck of wood where the worms might’ve been hiding, we had about a year at best where people might be motivated to contribute without pay to restoring the town. Callen’s decisive leadership in leading the village craftsmen was more than just restoration. It had inspired those who followed him and the townspeople watching on as our home didn’t just rise from the ash but had a foundation set to build our futures around.

  Callen took ideas from all sorts of professions to see to it that nobody was dissatisfied, and on top of the basic ideas, he built a number of wonderful new amenities. A sewage system, poles scattered across town that used mana signals for help from healers or doctors, and an aqueduct with plumbing that made water the turn of a faucet away. So many ideas Hew had long figured out this wasn’t merely his imagination. Callen may perhaps be a soul returned from humanity's golden age. His interest in acquiring every skill possible suggested he knew some means of surpassing human limitations.

  Despite that, Hew didn’t press, ask, or even hint to outsiders as such because if Callen had a soul from humanity's golden age and didn’t share, then Hew assumed he wasn’t ready. Hew was an old man anyway; the discovery of a granddaughter was already more luck than he had a right to. The cute little Crescent had been well taken care of before he took her in, and he had already given his full support to Crescent. Who wouldn’t want the future savior of humanity as a son-in-law? Hew could only hope Callen's successes wouldn’t close out Crescent’s dream to stand by his side.