Morning light spilled over Acorn Village as Leon finished his second set of tai chi forms, his movements fluid and steady. At ten years old, he stood nearly 1.4 meters tall—broad-shouldered and sturdy, far more robust than most boys his age. Three years had passed since his return from the southern edge, and the once scrawny seven-year-old had grown into a young man with calloused hands and a calm, focused gaze.
He'd studied under Eldrin for nearly six years now, mastering the core of herbal medicine. He could identify hundreds of herbs at a glance, grind remedies with precise hands, and tend to wounds with the steady touch of a seasoned healer—only the subtleties of herb processing, the perfect control of fire and time, still eluded him. His literacy had long since surpassed his master's; six months earlier, he'd finished reading every book Eldrin owned, his photographic memory locking away every word. Eldrin, self-taught through adventure and necessity, often joked that his apprentice had become the village scholar.
The family's bread business thrived. They sold around sixty loaves daily—two-thirds dark bread, as its lower price appealed to most villagers, while the pricier white bread catered to nobles and taverns. To maintain their premium reputation without lowering prices, Leon had devised a "buy two, get one free" deal—a trick that had kept loyal customers coming even as other bakeries copied their fermented dough recipe. The first year had been a frenzy: bread flew off the shelves by the hundreds each morning, and in just seven months, they'd earned over ten gold coins, paying off their debt to the lord's son. Now, with steady competition, profits settled at around five gold coins a year, but it was enough to live comfortably.
Leon had experimented with new creations: juicy meat buns, beloved by his family and Eldrin but too fragile and perishable to sell; dumplings, a holiday staple that everyone begged for but took too much time to make regularly; and rich egg-and-honey loaves custom-ordered by the lord, made with expensive ingredients he couldn't yet afford to mass-produce. "You promised me new varieties when I bought that cart," the lord had teased during his last visit, and Leon planned to deliver—once they could expand.
His skills had grown beyond healing and baking. He'd kept up his tai chi, no internal energy to show for it but a body with exceptional coordination, making his hands steady as a rock when grinding herbs or sewing wounds. He'd taught Isabella to read and write fluently; she now kept the bakery's simple accounts and wrote notes to neighbors. His little brother Gage, five years old, could run and chatter, a playful "little tagalong" who adored following his older siblings.
Most challenging of all was Eldrin's "herb-tasting art"—the skill of identifying unknown plants by sampling tiny bits. Leon had endured his share of mishaps: a mouthful of bitter cow parsnip root left him doubled over with diarrhea for a day, and more than once he'd spat out toxic leaves, saved by the antidotes and bowls of milk he kept handy. The constant tasting had sharpened his tongue to an almost supernatural sensitivity; he now detected the faintest off-flavors in bread or stew, making his cooking noticeably milder—a quirk his family teased him about, though they secretly preferred his precise, balanced dishes.
Eldrin, now the oldest man in the village, moved slower these days. His hands trembled slightly when pouring tea, and he spent more afternoons sitting in the sun, staring off into the Whispering Forest with a distant look. "I was young once, full of foolhardy courage," he'd say sometimes, trailing off before explaining. Leon sensed the old man was in a hurry to teach him everything, sharing rare herb recipes and warnings about "places where magic lingers" that he'd never mentioned before.
Garin, meanwhile, had been saving diligently. "We'll move to the town soon," he told Leon one evening, wiping his hands on his apron. "A bigger bakery, more customers—you and Isabella can attend the town's school, learn more than I ever could." Leon nodded, but his chest felt tight. He loved Acorn Village, loved Eldrin's cottage and the forest trails—but he also knew the town held more opportunities. For now, though, he wasn't ready to leave the only mentor he'd ever had.
As Leon sliced fresh bread for breakfast, the scent mixing with the aroma of wild ferns frying in camellia oil, he glanced toward Eldrin's cottage. The old man would be waiting for him soon, ready to teach another lesson, to share another fragment of his past. Three years of roots had grounded him; now, change loomed on the horizon—but for the moment, Acorn Village was still home.