“The first rule of travel is caution. Do not use a transit sphere if you don’t have abundant free energy in your soul. Forming one is the least expensive part of travel. It is the transition between normal space and chaos that drains you. If you are unable to hold the barrier as you transition, your sphere will catastrophically colpse. You will not survive.

  “Generally, you should expect initial sphere formation to require ten percent of the energy budget for travel. Another ten percent is necessary for the movement between worlds. That leaves forty percent for the transition to chaos and forty percent for the transition from chaos. If you use twenty percent of your energy budget to form the sphere, then you need to abort your travel attempt. People who push the limits might get lucky a couple of times, but as a rule they don’t live long.

  “Before I demonstrate anything, what is the first rule of travel?”

  Volithur answered promptly. “Caution, Master Zara.”

  The woman nodded curtly. “The transit sphere will arise from your externality aperture. The most common externality type among Xian is item projection. You will see plenty of spears and swords and shields. A transit sphere is a highly specialized type of item projection. What distinguishes the transit sphere is that rather than projecting the aperture through chaos onto normal reality, the sphere remains submerged within chaos and intersects normal reality. Watch closely.”

  Using his mental senses, Volithur witnessed Master Zara manifest a small blip in reality. At first perplexed by its otherworldly geometry, he suddenly gasped as his perspective shifted. The microscopic sphere was impossible. It was the spherical equivalent to a four-dimensional hypercube. Most of the sphere’s space was outside of reality, leaving only a single three-dimensional cross section exposed.

  “Good. You appear to grasp the complexities involved. Now watch as I expand the sphere.”

  The hyper-sphere didn’t change size at all. The exposed portion grew rger in real space as the internal geometry shifted. The enrgement in real space was caused by a rearrangement of space within the hyper-sphere. Volithur thought he saw roughly how the trade-off worked, even if it made no sense to him why it would be the case.

  When the vessel stopped growing, it was a slightly fttened sphere the size of a pickup truck from his home world. He could tell that it had stopped growing because the hyper-sphere had nothing left submerged.

  “The false space inside this transit sphere can’t house anything real, so we press in a side with our domain and create a pocket containing space from the world.” Having said that, Master Zara pressed in with an energy cable, dimpling the surface of her mirror-reflective sphere. She forced the dimple to continue deeper, then expanded the inverted surface to its maximum shape, lining the entire interior.

  “Step inside. Good. Now I pull together the open face of the hole that was created using my externality. This will be a challenge the first several times you attempt it, but it will eventually be a trivial task.” The hole contracted until it was microscopic, then puckered. “We call that point the weld. It’s a deceiving name because the hole is very much still there. You need to hold it closed with your utmost efforts if you don’t want to die in a colpse. That is the point of failure for transit. You need to be steadfast in your efforts to hold it closed and be generous with your energy expenditure.”

  The sphere around them rotated strangely. “We’re transitioning into chaos now. From the outside, the sphere will appear to be shrinking while the internal space remains constant. In actuality, we’ve submerged the sphere into primordial chaos. As of now, we are gone from the world of New Mart. I am moving us towards Tian currently. You can’t witness much from within someone else’s sphere, unfortunately.”

  Several minutes passed in silence, then Master Zara spoke again. “Our emergence will be the same process in reverse. Retracting the sphere once you are done with it is as easy as rexing. What you will find most challenging for many years is navigation. It is a skill that you will hone over time, but it will never be simple. The only easy world to find is the one you are born from. As they say, ‘travelers can always go home’. That applies even to the new ones.”

  He watched the weld holding the sphere closed release and expand, allowing the deformed transit sphere to submerge fully back into chaos. Then he turned his attention to their surroundings. They stood in a rge wooden building filled with shelves as far as the eye could see.

  “The main warehouse of the Shaocheth family,” Master Zara said. “We are ten miles from the estate of the main household. You will be pced in a cottage on the outskirts of the nearby town. The neighborhood manager will keep your pantry stocked with the basics and you will have a stipend to purchase anything you need beyond that. Once your apprenticeship ends, your income will be increased by a generous amount.”

  They walked out of the facility and were passed off to an underling, who accepted Zara’s clipped commands without hesitation. Very soon, Khana and Volithur stood in a small cottage holding a set of keys to the front door.

  They shared a lost look with each other. Things had changed for them quite suddenly. They were in an unfamiliar pce with no meaningful connections to anyone. It was freeing but at the same time a little terrifying. Volithur remembered that Khana was pregnant and suddenly felt his heart begin to race. They were about to start a family and had no support network. The Fifth Household might have been aggravating, but they had been a safety net.

  “Are we supposed to carry a key with us every time we leave the house?”

  Volithur began to ugh. “I forgot you never lived outside the pace.”

  “Don’t make fun of me, Volithur! This is hard!”

  He pulled her into a hug. “Let’s at least check out the house before we panic.”

  They strolled through the small building. The common room had a firepce, dining table, and wash station. There were also two cozy bedrooms, a wash room, and a separate toilet. As Volithur looked down the center of the seat, he saw the wide pipe led directly to a ceramic tub that was accessible from the outside for easy emptying. He had to assume people here did not spend much time in their back yards.

  A walk outside confirmed that the back yard seemed mainly dedicated to the storage of fire wood. The front had some picturesque hedges and flowers growing on it. The only other thing of note was the sizable pantry that was stocked with staples and kitchen equipment.

  “I’m not terribly impressed,” Khana said. “Am I supposed to cook meals all day?”

  “Well, if it makes you feel better, every ingredient you use would be considered a cultivation resource on New Mart.” Volithur poked at a couple of potatoes that had started sprouting. His mother had possessed a thrifty streak, so he wasn’t picky about such things. There were also onions, carrots, rice, maize, beans, and flour.

  “That does make me feel better about it.” Khana poked at the items. “Do we just put the pan over the fire?”

  Volithur frowned. His style of cooking had typically involved a microwave. He wasn’t entirely sure how to start a fire let alone make a meal over it. “Well, cooking a meal is going to be an adventure.” At least they were going into this life transition well fed. They wouldn’t starve to death before they figured out how to make something edible.