Every day Sable woke Auren around 9 o'clock. He had started using the lavatory himself since he could walk and was three, so he finished his business on his own. Sable brushed his teeth with some plant-root stick—he was not allowed to do that even now, when he was five years old. Sable insisted on doing it for him, in case he hurt himself.
Weird how it was okay for him to use a wooden sword, but brushing his teeth was too dangerous.
Then he ate breakfast. Dante was long gone, Sable and granny woke up much earlier too—so he ate alone. After breakfast, he was allowed to go play a little in their backyard, as long as he didn't try to open the fence gate. He wasn't stupid though—there wasn't much to see in this village. He could already see everything from here, not to mention there were occasional animals coming out of the forest behind their Kenzo's house.
He used to just practice with his internal white energy during this time—experimenting with it, playing with it. But for the last two weeks, he had used the wooden sword and practiced everything Dante and Hanzo had taught him. Once in a while, he even used the energy inside him to power some moves when no one was looking.
Sable—a simple, sweet lady—and his granny (No comments on her personality) were initially quite surprised that he was doing this, but after two weeks of him following his schedule, they had gotten used to it and mostly ignored him while doing their daily chores. After an hour and a half, Sable washed him. It was not a bath—the woman had brushes and even a homemade soap. She derived great pleasure in cleaning him up so much that his skin became red in places.
It was another thing he wasn't allowed to do on his own, even though he kept insisting.
He wasn't allowed to play in the dirt after wearing freshly washed clothes. They ate lunch after he was massaged, dressed, and made all pretty. It was the most embarrassing thing in the world. He wanted to refuse, but seeing the woman's happy face as she hummed songs, he just surrendered to his fate and let things happen to him.
The food was mostly bland—meat, bread, simple things. They had a serious shortage of spices in this village. He never complained though—he had eaten worse. They always made special sweet things once in a while for him as treats. The granny acted strict at times, but when she made these treats, she fed him with her own hands. Every bite he took put a smile on their faces.
After that, Sable tried to teach him words. She had an old half-burnt book—she had marked the alphabets of this world in it. She had already taught him most of it. He could already speak much better, and day by day he also learned to read and write. They couldn't practice much since there was no paper other than the book, and they couldn't scribble in it. She often used a clay dish filled with dirt and a stick to draw letters inside—teaching him his own name, their surname, and everything else.
Sable was not from this village, he had learned—she was from the nearby city. She was the daughter of a middle-class merchant. The story she told him was that Dante had been stationed there as a knight in the Baron's service. He had fought in real battles even.
But when he fell in love with Sable and married her in the city—the Baron, a good person according to them, had given him charge of this village, recognizing his efforts in battle. It was Dante's birth village. Grandma had lived here alone after grandpa died in another past battle. Dante used to send her money here—but after the marriage and learning he was about to come into the world, they had permanently shifted here with the Baron's help.
Sable knew how to read and write and was probably even smarter than Dante. She had taught Dante all these necessary things. She had read a lot of poems, songs, and stories in books, which she often told him after the "learning" ended. It always put him to sleep. Once in a while, his grandma told a funny story of the villagers instead of Sable's fantasy stories. Those were fun too—he had learned lots of villagers' names through them. All those stories had some this or that thing to learn from them. In the afternoon, inside their house, they did such things and tried to sleep for a while.
In the evening, they gave him snacks after he woke up. Sometimes he was taken to play with the neighbour's kid, and sometimes, if Sable or grandma had something to do in the village, he was invited to tag along. He never said no. Playing with the five-year-old wasn't much fun.
Since he couldn't play with the internal white energy in the morning, he often did that while doing such random things. He always made sure to fully exhaust himself of this smokey energy at least twice—or even three times—a day. It regenerated in his body slowly, every six to seven hours.
Any business they were on in the village, they always made it back to their home before Dante came home. If he was with his grandma, they could take longer. Still, the time after the sunlight was not so intense in the evening was reserved for him to play in their backyard. This was the time Auren used to activate his right crest's summon.
After doing this a dozen times, he had finally realized—it wasn't nothing. The few particles of dirt he had felt falling on him when he had activated it the first time—that thing was actually his summon. Both his crests summoned inanimate things—the lowest of the three categories.
He hadn't expected a powerful spirit or anything, but a cute animal like Dante's would have been nice.