The Gate Traveler

The hailstorm lasted two days. On the first day, all of us were happy to stay at home, relax, and eat the delicious shepherd's pie I made. Inspired by Rue's obsession, I made it with minced dungeon beef and smoked crab mixed in, and instead of potatoes, I used raak from Lumis. The result was one of my best creations, and the largest pan I had was gone in under ten minutes. I made three more during the day, and we gorged ourselves on tasty food. Al contributed a drink that started green with orange undertones, turning bright yellow when he added ice. When the color began to change, it sparked my suspicion.

"What is this?" I asked, squinting at the color-changing liquid.

"A concentrate from two fruits from Tatob, with a special potion mixed in that enhances the flavor and removes the excessive acidity," Al said, pouring the drink into a glass and handing it to me.

I sniffed it. "Are we sure we want to drink it?"

Mahya mixed her drink with a long spoon and also looked at it. "You're the one always looking for new tastes and smells," she said. "Why the reaction all of a sudden?" Her mouth was saying one thing, but I noticed that she didn't taste it either.

"I don't know," I said in a cynical tone. "Maybe because it's in the process of becoming something else and has Al's drug potion in it?"

"The potion does not contain drugs," Al said and stiffened with a huff. "It is made from the leaves of two plants and merely removes acidity while enhancing the flavor. If you prefer not to taste it, that is entirely your choice. I simply believed you would appreciate something new and unique." He sounded calm, but looked clearly offended.

I took a deep breath, gathered my courage, and took a sip. It was the tastiest drink I'd ever had. It was sweet, sour, and slightly bitter, but all those elements were in perfect balance, and the unique fruit flavor was on another level. It didn't resemble anything I had ever tasted, but it was good. Very, very good.

Hmm, maybe if I mixed strawberry, lemonade, pineapple, almonds, and coconut, I could come close to this flavor, but only partially.

The taste had more layers.

"This is amazing!" I exclaimed, looking at the glass in surprise.

Al smiled widely, satisfied, and nodded; his earlier offense disappeared completely.

In the evening, we got drunk on some alcohol supplies Mahya bought in Tatob. Mixed with Al's creation, it was still horrible, but slightly more palatable. Like drinking wood varnish with juice. Mahya and I looked at Al with clear expectation and didn't need to say anything. He got the message.

He sighed, straightened his posture, and gave us a small nod. "I will endeavor to work on the potion the moment we gather the required ingredients."

At least this time, we got drunk at home. Rue didn't need to herd us anywhere, and we all ended up in our own beds.

The next day, everybody went to do their own thing. Mahya disappeared into her workshop, Al took care of his greenhouse and went to his lab, and Rue snoozed on his beanbag, chasing something in his dreams. I sat on the couch in the living room and looked out the window. The view was nothing special. Part of the cliff that was one of the anchors was visible, with some other boulders strewn around, dense trees, and the falling murder balls. They weren't the biggest we came across, but not small either. Maybe three centimeters in diameter.

I watched them for over an hour and got an idea. There was little open space in the cramped area around the Gate. I even had to open my house in the smallest configuration possible. But there was still about half a meter to the closest boulder from the door.

"Extend a porch beside the door with a roof," I told the house.

Outside, I tried to affect the falling ice. My magic managed to yank some balls off course for a centimeter or two, but that was the extent of my success. I caught one ball, held it in my hand, and slowly extended it until I held an ice spike about ten centimeters long. I tried to make it fly away, but the damn thing stayed on my palm and didn't show any willingness to move. I tried to remake it back into a ball, but the ice crumbled. The next one I changed into a crooked bird. It had too big a head and too small a body, but was still obviously a bird. I counted it as a success and even dusted my shoulders in a personal celebration. The third one I shaped into a butterfly that even looked almost proportionate. When I tried to make it flap its wings and fly, the ice crumbled.

This way, I spent a few hours on the porch playing with ice. By the time I was done with it, I still couldn't make anything fly, either by flapping its wings or just flying away like a Mana Dart, but got very good at shaping ice. My last creations were perfect. One of them—a shrimp with a walking stick, removing a top hat in greeting—I was sad to let go. It looked too cute.

The biggest achievement from the training session was a stronger connection to the ice element and an increased immunity to its cold. When I started, the cold burned my hand. By the end of the training session, I could hold ice for hours without any discomfort. I felt the cold, but it didn't bother me.

The next day, the little I could see of the sky through the trees was blue without a cloud in sight, not even white fluffy ones. The ground was another story. It was covered by at least a meter of ice balls, melting slowly.

We stood on the porch and looked around.

"We could fly out on the swords," Mahya said, squinting up at the sky.

"Can you use the scrolls from the swords?" I asked, leaning against the railing. "Or do you prefer to wait till the ice melts?"

She looked at me with her eyebrows up. "You're not joining us for the initial clear?"

"If you need me, I will. But if not, I prefer to do other stuff."

She looked back at the forest of trees and boulders, eyes scanning the terrain. "I prefer to clear the towns the traditional way, not with scrolls."

"Why?" Al asked.

"Because we used all our crystals on your house, and we're still missing a few. The key points are covered, and everything currently works great with the core. But it would be a good idea to add some crystals at the intersections of rune formulas and along some wires. In some places, I'm not happy with the length of wires without a relay crystal."

"Is it a problem?" Al asked.

"I don't think so, no," she said, shaking her head. "But since we made it, I want it to be perfect."

"You'll get a ton of crystals from the dungeons," I said, pushing off the railing.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

"True," Mahya said with a slight nod. "But we need them not only for the house, but other projects. More is always better. And if we have a big area with monsters to clear, it's a shame to waste it."

I had to concede the point.

We flew to the first town in the chain. Along the way, there were some monsters in the forest. It was clear they weren't animals or beasts, but monsters. No way nature created something so strange. They looked like a question mark that fell on its face, with the curved part facing up and the small tip at the bottom pushing them forward as they slithered. But the shape wasn't what gave them away. It was the bone spikes running along their entire length. I saw one of them shoot a spike at a bird. Nasty buggers.

We located an area a few hundred meters from the first town that looked monster-free and had a small, nice clearing surrounded by trees. I reopened my house, and we spent two days waiting for the ice to melt. They were still busy with their projects, and I played with the ice on the ground. The more of it melted, the harder it became to control, but this difficulty helped me improve my manipulation with relatively fresh ice from the bottom that hadn't started to melt yet.

They got ready to start clearing the monsters. Before they left, Mahya called me to the spell room and dropped a batch of metal parts on the table with a clatter.

"If you're not coming with us, can you help me with this thing?" she asked.

"What is it?"

"The cleaning robot," she said, and lifted a metal rod, turning it slowly in her hand. "They somehow put the runes inside, and I can't reach them. I tried to melt the metal partially to look inside, but it burned out the runes. You can sense mana much better than me, so I need you to reach the runes or at least examine them without burning them out."

Through my mana sense, I could tell that each piece had a lot of mana clumps inside. How to reach them was a mystery, but I was willing to give it a try.

"I'll try," I said, picking up a concaved part. "But I'm not promising anything."

"You don't have to make any promises," she said with a shrug. "Just see what you can figure out. I'm stuck."

First, I tried to "open" the metal parts with tools, without too much hope of success. I was sure Mahya had tried it already, and I was right. Nothing came out of it. I could feel the clumps of mana inside, but they were completely inaccessible. I ran my fingers over the cold surface, expecting to feel something through touch alone, but there was nothing.

I thought about what Mahya said about using the Fire element to work with metal.

Maybe?

I picked up a piece and looked at it, turning it this way and that.

Melt it and see what's inside?

She tried it already, but with my better mana sense, I might be able to feel the mana better and stop it from burning out the runes.

To actually test if I could do it, I took out an iron bar we bought on Earth and tried to channel fire into it. I focused, forcing my mana into the metal like water into a sponge, and imagined heat curling off the surface. My mana did stream into it, but there was no aspect of fire in it, not even a hint. It was just raw, inert mana. No matter what I tried, without a spell or an existing fire, I couldn't channel the fire element into the iron.

I lit a fire in an oil lamp, connected to it, and tried to "pass" it through me to the iron. The result was the same. There was an echo off the fire, a very faint one, but enough to know that the element was present. But that was it.

Defeated and feeling inadequate compared to Mahya, who wasn't even a wizard, I sat on the porch, deep in thought. My mind kept replaying her explanation of how she uses the fire element when working with metal, and I began to think about ways I could replicate it. The thinking itself didn't produce any results. I just sat there, staring at nothing, the thoughts running through my mind like a hamster in a training wheel.

My eyes caught on some red and orange mana eddies in the air.

I wonder…

Reaching out with my mana, extending both my sense and my intent, I "grabbed" the eddies in the air. It felt strange, like trying to catch smoke with my mind, but I could feel their heat against my senses. Truth be told, I fully expected to fail. I was so sure of it that the first time I felt the contact, it startled me and I lost the connection. The second one was easier. It wasn't exactly like communicating with an element. There was no order from me with a response or pushback from the element, but the action itself had a common denominator. Both stemmed from the same source—my connection to the specific element.

With that solved, the next step was to apply the element to the iron, and that step was as easy as pie. All I had to do was move it with my affinity and into the metal. The ease with which I did it surprised me more than the first contact with the element. I put the metal aside, walked back out to the porch, and sat looking at the eddies. All this time, I thought an elemental affinity was about working with the element's physical manifestation, controlling it through communication or intention. It never even crossed my mind to consider the mana eddies as part of the element.

I tried to grab a different mana eddy. It was light gray and had a slightly unpleasant feel. Not exactly pain or revulsion, but something close to those two, if milder, and unpleasant nonetheless. It was much harder, and I had to work on keeping it in my mana's grasp, but it did work.

Hmm, so it's not only affinities?

I put that aside for now and concentrated on the fire element floating around. Catching the eddies got easier with each one, and after a few, I didn't need any more of them. Now the metal had enough of the fire element in it that I could fuel it with my mana and make it grow.

Slowly, following the perimeter of the piece, I tried to melt the edges in the hope of opening it. After a few minutes, something inside it activated. A new mana clump came to life and actively sucked in all the mana I poured into the piece. Then it directed it along a line into the other clumps. They all winked out.

Those bastards! They had built-in protection!

The same happened with another two pieces. Annoyed, I put them aside. Basically, I was stuck like Mahya. At least I learned something new about the eddies, so I might have been annoyed at my failure, but not too much. Mostly a mild pfft, and not a desire to break the damn things.

They came back in the early afternoon. Rue was bursting with happiness. Tail going a mile a minute, a huge doggy grin with his tongue lolling out, and waves of pure joy pouring at me down the bond.

"Had a good day?" I asked him.

"Rue is smaller, but Rue is still dangerous! Rue is very very dangerous! Rue defeated the mostest monsters!"

I patted him and scratched his ears, his whole body vibrating under my hand. "Of course you are. I told you that size had nothing to do with it."

He was so excited about his danger level that he had trouble lying down on his beanbag. Three times he tried to settle on it, only to bounce right back up, circling it in tight loops with his tail going wild, his nose pointed at the ceiling, and letting out excited little yips.

Mahya looked normal. No overexcitement or anything, but since they weren't going dungeon clearing that day, it was expected. Al looked mildly pissed. And with his self-control and the tight grasp he kept on his emotions, that mild anger was a raging fire by anyone else's standards.

"Are you hurt?" I asked him, stepping closer to get a better look.

"I am alright. I drank potions."

I diagnosed him and located at least twenty cuts that were mostly healed, but not completely. Two casts of Healing Touch cleared all of them. He nodded in thanks and relaxed, letting out a slow breath as the tension eased from his body.

"What happened?" I asked, glancing between them.

"The spiky bastards are too fast," Mahya said. "Even I had trouble jumping out of the way most of the time. They're also very good at hiding between the ruins."

"So switch to scrolls," I suggested.

To my utter shock, Al shook his head with a tight expression and a clenched jaw.

"No?" I asked, not quite believing it.

"No," he said in a firm tone, eyes steady on mine.

"Why not?"

He took a breath, arms crossed over his chest. "In the last world, I nearly died twice. That is unacceptable. I am grateful to both of you for getting me out of those difficult situations, and to you, of course, for healing me." He gave me a brief nod, then looked out the window at the forest. "But I cannot allow that to happen again. I do need to gain more levels, yes, but more importantly, I must train my reflexes and reaction time. I need to become faster and more precise. I am not angry because of the pain. I am disappointed in my abilities. That is what truly troubles me."

Yeah, almost dying could do that to you. I could see his point. But just in case, I squeezed his shoulder, looked him in the eye, and said, "I understand. But make sure you don't kill yourself in the process."

"That is the opposite of my intention," he said, straightening a little.

"I know, but sometimes we get too stuck in our own heads and our perceived shortcomings, and go overboard in an attempt to make up for them. We push too hard, ignore the warning signs, and call it growth when it's really just self-punishment. Make sure you don't. I'd rather have to patch you up every now and then and know you're still breathing, than see you push yourself so far you don't come back."

He looked into my eyes for a second, then nodded. "Thank you, my friend."

I patted his back. He heard me, and that was the important part.