Raha showed me the designs for his new villa and I had to admit I was impressed, it was huge, with large windows and high ceilings. While only one story it had a spacious kitchen, three bathrooms, eight bedrooms and a large dining room and a grand salon I’m assuming to allow him to entertain guests. It was way too nice for the neighborhood, but hey rich people tend not to care about that sort of thing. Of course despite the size of the proposed building there was a lot of room for improvement. Sure the place was big but it lacked a lot of basic amenities. There was no indoor plumbing for one thing, the kitchen while spacious was very inefficient no center island for one thing and no hanging cabinets. The bedrooms were plain and the whole thing was blocky, no real sense of style.

I said as much after examining the plans and I could see Raha get angrier with each word. When he responded to my critique I could hear the barely suppressed anger in his voice, “Really brat, you think the design is so bad? What would you know about architecture on this scale huh? The only buildings you have seen are the house you live in and a few of the poorer homes in Meadow Rest, a provincial backwater. This house will be elegant and refined, if I could get anyone of note to travel out here I’m sure they would be impressed.”

I laughed, and not kindly either, my laughter was almost pitying. “Raha while I’m sure you are an excellent merchant I think you may lack an eye for good architectural work. The building you are planning while large and imposing lacks any refinement. The design is boxy, the rooms are plain and honestly the size doesn’t make a lot of sense. Sure you need to be able to entertain guests, and you might even be able to impress some of the villagers in Gladeston, but as you said no one of consequence will come out here to visit anyway. Why build a giant structure that you will rarely use and then have it wind up drafty in the winter and too warm in the summer. There is so much room for improvement on this design, I’m sure I could come up with something better in a day or two.”

Raha smirked, “Alright boy then consider this a test of your problem solving skills. Design a building that I will admit is better than what we have planned currently. If you do you can consider that portion of the test completed. And since I am feeling generous, if you manage to impress me I will even pay you for the work. Let’s say two gold Kulta, what do you say Swift?”

I smiled at Raha and said, “Well thanks Raha, I’d be glad to design a new home for you and I’d gladly accept your conditions, of course if you want it built properly you will have to pay me a little more for my services but two Kulta for my design work sounds reasonable. My only question is will you provide me with paper and a writing instrument or do I need to improvise something?”

Raha smiled back, his expression was not nearly as friendly the word smiled implies, he said, “Oh Swift I think it would be best if you improvised, after all this is a test of your problem solving skills.”

I nodded and said, “Okay, fair enough then I will be on my way, I’ll let you know when the plans are ready for your inspection. Oh and make sure your foreman knows not to start building just yet, I don’t want him to have to tear anything down, it would be a waste of time and manpower.”

I smiled sweetly at Raha then looked to my parents, “Well, apparently I have some work to do. Mom, Dad, I will see you both at home, I hope you have a fun rest of your day spending time with Raha.”

My parents both looked confused as they waved goodbye to me. They were probably still wondering why I’d taken such an aggressive stance when dealing with Raha. After all he was a friend of my father’s and had been our benefactor for my entire life, even if I didn’t know it until recently. Frankly even I wasn’t completely sure I was right in pressing my case like that. However I think the reason was because I didn’t like the fact that Raha seemed to have hidden depths that my parents just didn’t see. They seemed to think that he had done everything out of the kindness of his own heart, and based on how he treated them that might be partially true, but I just couldn’t believe that was all there was to it. After all Raha didn’t exist in a vacuum, he had to answer to his clan and council, and by taking us in he made several enemies. That doesn’t just happen because they were friends as kids, I’m pretty sure the fact that I could become the leader of the clan one day played a role in his decision. Basically I didn’t feel like I could show Raha any weakness or I might wind up a puppet for him and his clan.

I motioned for the two humans to follow me and we headed out of the tent back toward the construction site. I knew right away that if I was going to design a better home for Raha I needed to know exactly what the construction capabilities of the crew were. After all I didn’t want to be forced to make the entire thing by myself, and designing within their capabilities would draw less attention to the fact that I was apparently a better architect than whomever designed Raha’s proposed home.

The next two days were a bit of a blur, I spent a lot of time talking with the foreman, a Vuohian named Vankka then drawing my new design into the ground. I knew that comfort was very important to Raha so the first thing I designed was a basement, that way he could put things down there during the summer to keep them cool. I also put in a small bedroom with the same purpose in mind, it got uncomfortably hot during the summer and having a bedroom that was at least ten degrees cooler would be a welcome relief. It could be accessed by a trap door I put in behind the bar. Next came the first floor, I designed the entryway to have a small room where one could remove their shoes without tracking in dirt from the outside. This led into what I dubbed the grand entryway, a large two story room with a stairway leading to the second floor. It was the first sight to greet you upon entrance, off to the left was a lounge area with a bar included, to the right was the dining room capable of seating twelve people. There was a kitchen behind the dining room with an island in the center for food prep, along space for a stove and oven. I even added a refrigerator… kind of… it wasn’t really anything like a modern refrigerator, but instead more of a large cold box. It would be made of stone and if you threw in some ice it should keep things reasonable cool for several hours.

Behind the lounge would be a study, lined with book shelves and a nice desk; it would be a place where Raha could conduct business, or bring a few intimate friends in for a drink. Underneath the stairs I designed a bathroom with indoor plumbing and between the kitchen and the study was a bedroom designed to be the servant’s quarters. The second story would be made up primarily of bedrooms, I put in 3 guest rooms with two half bathrooms to service them and a master bedroom with a full bathroom attached. I gave the master bedroom a balcony that overlooked the fish pond and designed a large walk in closet. In the attic I put a boiler room which would allow me to utilize the plumbing to dispense both hot and cold water. I also put in two large cisterns that would be filled by rain water, and just in case it didn’t rain enough I put in an access point to the roof from the boiler room in the attic.

By the time I finished the design two days had passed. While I was busy with the design work I kept the humans, whose names I finally learned were Julius and Rufus, busy helping out Gurt. He wasn’t exactly pleased with having to watch over two potentially murderous savages, but he was pleased with the prospect overseeing the work of the two as opposed to doing it all himself.

After I had added the final touches to the design I spent a couple of hours and used a little bit of earth magic to make something that was bound to impress Raha then went to his tent to show off my design. It took little convincing to get him to come out to the construction site, after all my parents were there and I don’t think he wanted to disappoint them. Besides that I could tell he was curious as well, after all I promised him a better design than something a professional came up with how could he not be curios.

When we arrived at the construction site I showed him my plans, or at least I tried to, he seemed to be entranced by something else. The scale model I had built seemed to have done its’ job. I looked at my parents and I could tell they were equally impressed. I was a little confused, I mean sure I’d designed a pretty cool house, but it’s not like I’d done something so outstanding that they should be in awe of the design, after all I was still an amateur architect. The three of them approached the model and stared for a while, I began to get a bit impatient so I asked, “Well, what do you think? This is my vision for the house, you can also remove layers of the model to see the basic floor plan of each level, or you can check out the blueprints I made off to your right.”

I pointed at the ground I had leveled and drawn the floor plan on. I’d used magic to create them so the design was very clear, the lines were straight and distinct. Of course none of them looked up from the model. Raha finally spoke, “You actually made this in only two days? How did you make such a lifelike model in only two days? It’s all made from stone, it should have taken weeks to carve this…”

I was confused for a second then replied, “Actually it only took me a few hours to make the model, most of my time was spent designing the building and talking to the foreman… What’s so impressive about the model?”

My Dad answered, “Normally creating something like this requires either a skilled craftsman and several weeks or a mage with very impressive control over their mana. The detail you put into this model is beyond the level anyone your age should be capable of…”

I got a little nervous but tried to respond as calmly as possible, “Well you know I started cultivating at a younger age than most of my peers, so it doesn’t really surprise me that I can control mana better than them. Besides you guys know I’ve never really had too much trouble shaping mana and by extension the earth how I want.”

Mom nodded, “That’s true you have always had a gift, I remember you surpassing my healing skill by the time you were seven.”

Raha took his eyes off the model and looked at my parents, “You mean you two were serious when you were bragging about your son to me all these years?”

Dad looked back at Raha, “Well of course we were. In all the time we have known each other how often have I lied or exaggerated?”

Raha had a stunned expression, “I just figured as new parents you might have been seeing things he did in a more favorable light… I figured it was just you two being proud of your son’s accomplishments… So he really did dig out and supply this pond in only a week?”

I answered, “Well, yeah, I just used a bunch of earth waves to dig out a deep enough hole, then used a series of them to connect it to the river. Honestly the most difficult part was building the sluice gate since I didn’t have the right tools it was pretty crude. I mean sure I was able to turn it into something reasonable after a couple of weeks, and the banks and bottom of the pond were dirt until about a month ago when I was finally finished changing it to sandstone… Is what I’ve done really so impressive? I mean I always figured I was ahead of the kids my age, and I knew my mana capacity was higher since I started developing it so much earlier, but you look way too surprised.”

Raha laughed for and not happily, it was more of a release of pent up stress than any true mirth. When he finished he said, “Is that impressive… oh my boy to answer your question yes it is extremely impressive, frankly Susi shouldn’t be capable of doing what you have done. A skilled Vuohian mage might be able to do it, but it would take at least four master Susi mages to accomplish what you did with the pond in only a week. Your father was fairly skilled before his exile, how long do you think it would have taken him to do what you did? At least a month, if not longer. You my boy are a rarity amongst Susi. The thing that really puts you over the top though is the control you apparently have. No one who hasn’t been practicing control over mana for at least 30 years should be capable of putting in the details you managed on this model. Cutting the stone so precisely is just too difficult.”

I spoke up, “Oh, I didn’t cut the stone, I simply formed it out of the earth, it’s much easier to do that then to try and carve something like this…”

Raha laughed again, “Formed it out of the earth, once again you astonish me boy, turning dirt into stone isn’t easy, it is energy intensive, frankly it would take less effort to carve it rather than form it.”

I shook my head, “That’s only if you don’t have the right ingredients… if you add this stone to the mix it makes the whole process a lot easier and less energy intensive.” I held out my hand and showed Raha some pure limestone I’d used to form the sandstone model.

Raha looked at the stone with disbelief clearly evident on his face, “You’re telling me this stone makes it easier to form stone? Really?”

I nodded, “Yeah it takes me close to a tenth of the energy with that type of stone present as opposed to when I try and do it without.”

Raha took the stone and said, “I’ll have to get someone to try and verify your results, but if that’s the case I think we could make quite a bit of money selling this to mage run construction crews. Either way you display of control is enough to impress me, added to the power you must have possessed in order to make the timeline you claim with the pond, I have to consider the magical portion of my test completed. Moving on the actual design you’ve made, I have to admit I’m a bit confused. The house looks nice enough on the outside, but there are a lot of things I don’t get about the interior design…”

I took apart the model and showed off each level, explaining the rooms, the plumbing and the purpose behind all of the improvements I made over the original design. Raha appeared to be suitably impressed, as I walked him through each room, he didn’t ask a single question though out the presentation and at the end he said one thing, “Looks like you passed the problem solving portion of my test. I’ll go talk to the foreman and you can tell him about the changes that will need to be made.”

I smiled at Raha and said, “I actually already spoke with the foreman, I discussed the changes I planned on making and figured out what was feasible for his crew. There are of course a couple of improvements that his men can’t do with their current tools, I could do them, but we will have to discuss the price of my labor. Still, you should talk to the foreman, he can give you a list of the improvements he is currently incapable of doing without my assistance, and the price of said improvements without my assistance. It will give you the information you need when we negotiate a price from my time and effort…”

Raha scowled knowing that my improvements were going to cost him more than he liked, all the while I gave him a wolfish grin. “Oh don’t worry Raha, my rates are reasonable, and the work I do will last. Go talk to the foreman, he can explain all the technical details of my proposed building and explain the hidden costs that hiring me will cut down on.”

My parents laughed all the while Raha scowled, Mom said, “Raha, I haven’t seen you this upset about a deal since Aatto tricked you into training alongside him. You haven’t even heard the price and you’re already upset. I’m sure our son wouldn’t gouge a family friend.” She directed her next comment toward me, “After all a friend you take advantage of while they are weak is not one who will back you when they are strong. Swift isn’t foolish enough to do something like that to you.”

I smiled up at my mother, “Of course I wouldn’t Mom, I will be giving Raha a friends and family deal for my services, I’m more than willing to settle on a reasonable price to make the improvements to his home that will put all of his other houses to shame.”

Mom smiled and Dad said, “Glad to hear it, now let’s go home, I’m sure Raha has a lot to discuss with his foreman.”

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AN: Hey guys I'm going to stick to the once a week release schedule for now, as I'm currently busy working on a new story. http://royalroadl.com/fiction/7636 it's a bit of a departure from the style of this one as I am trying make it into an action packed high pace story. I need the practice for some of the future chapters I have planned for this story. Check it out if you like my style of writing, I'm shooting for daily releases on the new story at least for the next week or two, then I'll reevaluate based on the response I get from my readers. Anyway, hope you guys enjoyed the chapter, leave a review if you haven't already. Thanks [th_108_.gif]