As I sat there, reveling in my awesomeness, the rain began to fall. Initially, it was a drizzle that I ignored, but the iy picked up fast. I looked around, found elevated ground, and took out a tent.

  On sed thought, I wao rearrange my coolers and he space, so I stored it and took out a tent I hadn’t used before. I asked for a big tent and was told that this one was a “Gmpi” and the biggest avaible. It took me almost twenty mio figure out how to set it up and ahirty mio do it. It was HUGE. You could raise a family in it. Its yurt-like desigured a foldable partition for the sleeping spad a generous “living room.” It had three opies that you could open or leave hanging like curtains. Big windows, two entrances, and two-yer fl—one was thick bamboo fl that you put otom, and the sed was a thick rubbery carpet. It wasn’t a tent; it ortable pace!

  Stretd I were soaked by the time I finished setting it up. Not wanting him to soak the tent, I took a towel and said, “No shaking yourself inside. We want a dry tent. If you want to shake yourself to get rid of the water, go out, shake, and I’ll dry you.”

  He listeo me!

  He went out, shook himself, and came ba, wagging his tail. I dried him, told him he was the smartest and the best dog ience, and got a facial toh. After getting rid of my wet clothes, drying and redressing, I id Stretch’s bs and arranged a table and chair for me. We ate lunch, and Stretch took a nap.

  I summoned some of my meat coolers and ahem. When I stored the meat oh, I packed it with id was gd I did. With me stantly summoning the coolers, the ice kept the meat fresh. The ice remained pletely frozen in the coolers I hadn’t opened, but it partially melted in the coolers I opened and closed to retrieve food. I also had coolers with only ice that I hadn’t touched yet. I moved a yer of meat from one cooler, covered it with ice, put another yer on top, covered it with ice, and proceeded like this until the cooler was full. Like this, I re-packed and rearranged all the meat from Earth by categories—beef, mb, chi, and turkey. When I was done, I had niy coolers. I also took out the bison coolers and re-packed them with ice. I reused the half-melted ice from the other coolers and threw out the water outside. With the iy of the rain, my puddles were invisible.

  When I was doh my project, it was getting dark. I threw my light ball up to the tent’s ceiling, and it looked like an actual living room with a light bulb. We had a nice dinner—without beer—ao sleep.

  The day, it was still raining, so I tie my Ste. I had some frayed personal clothes I put aside in a basket. With my spell, I cast it every evening on myself, Stretch, and my clothes, and I wore the same things daily. As a result, the tinuous wear caused some of them to bee ragged. I mehem one by oh the Mend spell and refolded them in my suitcases. Yes, I had suitcases. I k was silly with my Ste, but it felt right to me.

  I switched ting the rest of my food supplies. I freed another four coolers by moving the eggs from the coolers to trunks. Rearrahe fruits aables in the baskets and freed some baskets. Rearranged all the baked goods in the boxes and collected all the reusable takeaway tainers in one pce.

  By the evening, the ground uhe front opy was dry, so I lit a fire and cooked dinner from the new biso. After we ate, I tio cook it and filled almost all my takeaway tainers. I should have bought empty ones for su occurrehis time, I didn’t facepalm—progress.

  In the m, it was still raining. The dihe night before with mana-rich meat gave me an idea. I re-summohe coolers with meat one by one, eled a little mana into the meat to feel what was happening i, and eled mana into it to saturate it without exploding. Initially, I would stop when I felt some pieces were close to exploding. After a while, I experimented with excluding them from the eling and tinuing to saturate the rest. I had a few mishaps with some pieces that exploded, but I got the hang of it, and by the third cooler, nothing blew up.

  Yay!

  I had to stop twice tee mana, but finally, all my meat and fish were mana-rich. I moved to the eggs and then to the fruits aables, which were trickier for some reason. A few exploded, but again, I prevailed!

  , I treated all my baked goods. This entire process took me nine days.

  It was still raining. I engaged my active Lud still felt the dire and “no hurry.” It seemed likely that someone was writing a book about mana. I o give them a ce to finish it.

  After nine days, I ran out of food supplies te and saturate. Hmm. I spent two days reading, cooking us three meals a day, cooking some more food reserves until I ran out of tainers, pying my guitar, learning new songs on the guitar, aing and scratg Stretch. He spent his days napping, beied, or being very nosy about my as.

  It was still raining.

  I also noticed that the temperatures dropped. It wasn’t cold yet, but colder than before. Judging by all the flowers, I thought I crossed over to Shimoor in the early spring. I tried to estimate my time here, but I wasn’t sure. Although I didn’t keep track of the days, I believed it to be te autumn or early winter. I didn’t think I was here longer.

  Another rainy day.

  Getting an idea, I took out all my empty packaging tairunks, baskets, cardboard boxes, etc. Luckily, I was smart enough to buy some folded cardboard boxes. So, I assembled them and began arranging goods I thought would sell here by price rahe cheapest, average, above average, and the hated “too fancy.” I didn’t arrange everything. I didn’t have enough tainers and too much stuff in my ste, but I arranged quite enough. This took me another four days.

  It was still raining.

  Awo days of leisure. Remembering I had a pleted film with photos, I took out my darkroom tent and developed the film. I didn’t print it—the sky was too dark, and I he sun to direct with mirrors into the enrger. I didn’t want bd-white photos.

  After awo days of rexing and reading, my mana reached full without active regeion, and I was gettiless. Initially, I had two free coolers, freed ahirteen by moving and rearranging stuff, and another empty ohat used to be full of ice. So, I had sixteen coolers to fill. I decided to ighe rain, I wouldn’t melt, and go bison hunting.

  Strech stayed in dry ient, no matter how much I called him. Smart dog.

  After shooting and draining the first bison, I again filled the carcass with mana, followed its path, arrahe mana as I wa, and pushed. Again, the bison colpsed on itself. I had no idea how long it took. When I was “examining” and infusing it, my senses were muted to the outside world.

  I should have bought a watch.

  There were meical watches that should have worked here. But I thought that such a unique apparatus, with a different time dispy, would be suspicious and didn’t buy any. Judging by the sun, I was sure it took a while. Two? Three hours? Too long.

  After ing, I checked my mana: 480/6900. I knew I couldn’t do another ohat day, and I’d hree days to recharge. Oh, well.

  During the hree days, I leisurely breathed in mana. It was still raining.

  Another bison. This time, after taking it down, I stuck a peg in the ground and marked the line of its shadow. The looti easier and quicker. When I was done, I checked the peg. The line moved about 45 degrees, or at least I thought so. It was hard to tell with su overcast sky. I had no idea how much time it represented, but I was sure it was a while. Mana: 710/6900. At least I used less mana this time.

  Ahree days of rain and regeion. Another bison. I still stuck the peg in the ground for parison, but actively tried to make it faster this time. The shadow moved only 38-40 degrees, but I was lightheaded. Mana: 50/6900.

  Hmm, speed is more expensive?

  Ahree days eing, reading, and endless rain. I worried the valley would flood, but after cheg some areas, everything looked fine.

  Another bison. I stuck the peg in the ground for parison, and this time, I actively tried to make it faster and use less mana. The shadow still looked like it moved 38-40 degrees, but my mana was 1250/6900.

  Progress!

  I spent ahree days regeing, reading, and experieng endless rain. For variety, I also pyed my guitar. The gloomy weather also affected Stretch; he didn’t howl-sing while I pyed.

  Bison number five—I remembered the song “Mambo Number Five” by Lou Bega and resolved to look for it in my songbooks.

  Iion: less mana and faster. Result: 30-35 degrees shadow angle, 1580/6900 mana.

  Yay!

  Three days tee and endless rain. At least I found the song and had fun learning and singing it. This time, Stretch joined me, but maybe only because I gave him a beer beforehand.

  Bison number six: angle 25 degrees, mana 3350/6900.

  Bigger yay!

  The herd looked smaller, and I felt like the vilin iory. I had another five meat coolers—maybe it was time to pack up.

  I checked my profile and wondered why I got no levels in my wizard css with all the experiments. The wizard css se differed from other csses. I finally uood the “Learned” part of skill acquisition, but the rest was a BIG surprise.

  Name: Je: 38Css: Healer Level 10

  Healer Spells:Heal Muscle - 14Diagnose - 10Stop Bleeding - 3Heal Bone - 7trol Blood - 11Healing Touch - 20ralize Poison - 1Purify - 10 - 15Ahesia - 7Regrow Flesh - 1Fortify Life Force - 5se - 1

  Hidden Css: Gate Traveler Level 3Gates to level: 2/8

  Css Abilities:versionTravelers’ ArchiveIdentify - 1Ste - x4Local Adaptation: Spoken nguageMapOne of the Crowd

  Profession: Mert Level 5

  Skills:Bargain - 1Sense Hoy - 1Appraisal - 2A Nose for Business - 2

  Sub-css 2: Wizard Level 2

  Wizard Abilities:Mind Split x3Mana Sensing [Apprentice]Mana Saturation [Apprentice]Harvest Mana Crystal [In Progress]Harvest Game [In Progress]

  General Spells:Mana DartMana Shield - 1Spellbinding - 3Invisibility - 2Mend - 1Adaptable Light Ball - 4

  General Skills:Pencil Sketg - 1Making Beer - 1Staff Fighting - 10Krav Maga - 10Archery - 14Minor Spell Adaptation - 1Maation - 8Develop ive - 2Print Photograph - 1

  Photography - 2Guitar Pying - 10Mining - 5Butchering - 1Skinning - 1

  Health: 3750/3750Mana: 6900/6900

  Strength: 27Agility: 29stitution: 35Vitality: 40Intelligence: 49Wisdom: 56Perception: 31Luck: 29

  Stat points: 0Ability points: 43

  I looked at the [In Progress] a judged. I took out the crystal and identified it again.

  Earth Mana CrystalMedium quality

  Medium quality is not bad, is it?

  I didn’t get an answer.

  I Checked Stretch’s progress as well.

  StretchAdult Bushnd Dress to awakening 82%

  Soon!!

  I decided to spend another day or two tee my mana fully, pack up camp, and leave. I could travel in the rain. It wasn’t cold, and if this rainy season sted for months, I’d go crazy.