He stepped back and studied all four beds together while the sun beat down across his shoulders and neck.
Each plot shared the same tired soil and the same careful layer of manure. He planned to use the same type of seed in all four and plant them on the same day. The only major difference would come from the patterns etched into the stakes that framed three of them, invisible to ordinary sight but very real to any mage who paid attention.
One normal bed would show him how things behaved without enchantment. The others would reveal whether healing magic, bent in different directions and carried by wood, could nudge crops in ways that actually mattered to harvest and hunger.
By the time he finished with the etching tool and set the last stake, sweat ran down his spine and soaked the back of his shirt, which made it cling to his skin. The sun had climbed higher, turning the world bright and flat, and the big field still looked mostly untouched from the lane.
His little corner, however, now stood marked and claimed, crisscrossed with twine and anchored by his experiments that hummed just beneath his thoughts whenever he let his focus slip.
Bootsteps crunched on the packed path that bordered the field, a familiar sound to Jacob.
Arthur leaned on the fence rail with one leg propped on the lower board and watched in silence for a moment. He carried a clay jug of water in one hand and wore a tired half smile that belonged to a man who had already seen too many seasons fail and still kept walking out to look at the fields anyway.
"You look like you picked a fight with the whole field, and you are losing on points," Arthur said, letting the words drift across the quiet space between them with an easy tone.
Jacob straightened and suddenly noticed how much dirt streaked his arms, hands, and shirt. "I'm not trying to win all at once, which means I am still in the fight."
Arthur handed him the jug without further comment, and Jacob took a long drink that cooled his mouth and throat. He wiped his lips with the back of his wrist, then nodded toward the beds that lined his small grid in the tired soil.
"I split the field into four smaller beds," Jacob said. "One will be planted exactly the way you and brother have talked about, and three will use different runes on the stakes. If the normal one fails and one of the others does better, I will know which change helped instead of just guessing and bragging."
Arthur's brows rose while his gaze tracked the twine lines and the faintly glowing, to a mage's sight, pattern lurking inside each stake. "You are turning my fallow patch into a counting table and a storybook for runes at the same time."
"Into proof, eventually, if anything works here," Jacob said. "If any of these beds do better, we can copy that approach onto a bigger piece later. If none of them work, then all I lost was some time and a little seed, and everyone already decided this field was not worth the trouble."
Arthur stared at the beds for a long stretch of silence that the wind filled, moving across the open ground. His eyes moved from the second bed's corner stakes to the third, then toward the slight ridge and basin carved into the fourth bed.
"What did you put on the second one?" he asked finally, without looking away.
"I took the healing rune you use on cuts and pulled out the parts that talk to skin and blood," Jacob said. "Then I turned what was left toward growing instead of closing wounds. It should encourage plants to root deeper and recover from strain more easily, but I kept the pull nice and easy."
Arthur grunted while his mouth twitched near the corner with reluctant humor. "As long as the weeds do not enjoy that kindness more than the crops, we might survive your cleverness this time."
"If the weeds love that version, I will know that pattern is wrong for fields, and I will cross it off properly in my notebook," Jacob said, accepting the risk without flinching or pretending it did not exist.
Arthur pointed with his chin at the third bed and kept his arm relaxed. "That one has a different flavor, I am guessing, and you did not simply repeat the first idea."
"Same starting idea, but slower and more stubborn," Jacob said. "Less about fast recovery and more about not giving up when the season turns rough. If the year turns dry and ugly, the third bed might hang on longer, or it might show nothing at all. Either way, we will know something that we did not know before we tried it."
Arthur nodded slowly, then shifted his attention toward the fourth bed and the slightly raised ridge along the upper edge, along with the shallow basin inside it. "That little ditch and lip you carved have a trick attached to them as well, I suppose, and I am not just looking at pretty dirt."
"Healing for stress again, plus a nudge that tells water to stay here a bit longer when it passes through," Jacob said. "If it works properly, those plants will have more time to drink after a storm and might come back better after each gap between rains instead of scorching at the first pause."
Arthur's mouth curved with reluctant amusement that did not entirely hide real interest. "You sound like the old men at the festival when they argue over crop rotations and fallow years, except you show up with twine and invisible etchings instead of sticks and dusty boots."
"They had proof after years of trying different patterns with their fields," Jacob said. "I am still working on my first attempts at proof, which means I am behind and need to move faster before my Trial Year ends on me."
They stood side by side for a while without speaking, listening to the wind rustle the weeds that grew farther out where the soil had given up on respectable crops. A crow called from somewhere near the lane and then went quiet again, leaving only the soft hiss of air moving over furrows.
"You understand that this might not show you much during this year," Arthur said eventually, with a tone that carried warning and respect together. "Bad fields can take time again, even when you stumble onto the right trick, and sometimes they never forgive the past at all, no matter how clever the mage feels."
"I understand that part and I believe you," Jacob said. "However, I need to start somewhere, and this place already counts as a loss in everyone's head. I cannot keep selling enchanted brooms and hope the land fixes itself while we sleep. If we care about a strong harvest in five years, we should be doing something about it right now instead of waiting."
Arthur's gaze softened and weighed him with a different kind of attention that felt heavier than simple approval.
"You sound like an old man talking about soil and patience and future harvests," Arthur said quietly. "I am not sure if I should feel proud that my son understands that or worried that he carries that much already on those thin shoulders."
"Both reactions sound reasonable to me, and you are allowed both," Jacob said, letting a quick, tired smile slip through despite the heat.
Arthur clapped him on the shoulder with a rough, familiar gesture that carried more support than force or warning. "All right then, experimenter. Make sure you mark every bed and every rune pattern in that little notebook of yours when you get home. Write down the weather, the dates, the seeds, and whatever else you change. If you are going to waste time on this field, you should at least waste it like a professional who expects someone to check his work later."
Jacob returned the smile with a steadier one that lasted longer. "Yes, Father, I will write everything down, including my failures and every stupid idea that does not work."
Arthur turned back toward the lane and adjusted his grip on the empty jug with a small flex of his fingers. "I will leave this field to you for now, since you clearly claimed it. Do not plant more than you can watch with your own eyes, and keep away from the far end where the ground starts to crack. The soil gets worse down there, and I do not trust it after heavy rain and shifting seasons."
When his father's footsteps finally faded down the path, Jacob walked each bed again in slow circles, checking the tension on the twine and the steadiness of every stake. He smoothed one or two scuffs in the soil and let his senses rest against the quiet hum of the enchantments that framed the second, third, and fourth beds like invisible fences.
Nothing dramatic happened while he watched from the edge of his grid. No sudden green shoots tore out of the ground, and no friendly glow rose from anywhere, and no voices announced success or failure.
That suited him better than any wild spectacle would have, because real work in farms and in enchantments usually moved slowly, step by step, and he preferred steady truth over flashy lies that vanished when nobody watched.
He stood at the edge of his claimed corner and looked out across the rest of the exhausted field, letting his eyes follow the long, tired furrows as they marched toward the hazy horizon without promise.
"This is where everything starts for you again, and for me again," he said under his breath, speaking to the field and to himself at the same time. "If I can convince you to grow properly, then I can convince any field to grow properly . . . eventually."
He tightened the straps on his satchel, gave the four marked beds one last measuring glance, and turned toward the road that led home and the waiting notebook. As he walked, he began silently sorting his next thoughts, planning which healing patterns to twist in future experiments, and how far he could push them toward crops without breaking anything that mattered more than a handful of seeds.