When I got home, Lis was in the living room with a disassembled transistor spread out oable. He gnced up, his fingers still fiddling with one of the tiny pos.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, leaning against the doorway.

  “Trying to figure out how to make this thing work with mana,” he replied, his eyes narrowing in tration as he held a piece up to the light.

  “Good luck,” I said, giving him a thumbs up before heading to the kit.

  The day, I traveled between butchers, buyi. I’d put the meat in the car, go inside, and store it away when no one was looking. After visiting over twenty butchers, I came bae in the evening and took out the coolers one by one, arranging the meat i felt ridiculous, but there was something satisfying about this “proper” way of st meat—sometimes, it’s tough to shake off ingrained habits.

  The following day, I kept up the meat, poultry, and fish shopping spree until all my coolers were full.

  I did some i searg, ahat evening, I drove to the Evelina London Children’s Hospital, cast invisibility on myself, and snu quietly.

  Moviween the wards, I slipped into rooms whenever a door en, or someone ope just enough for me to get through. I’d touch the tip of my fio a child ahem. Some didn’t even wake up, and some scratched the spot where I touched them, almost toug me, but no one caught on. A few times, I had to wait for someoo open the dain before I could get out.

  It wasn’t easy sneaking ie almost getting bumped into a few times, I stayed ued. I kept this up until my mana was nearly empty. I left 200 units for Invisibility, just in case.

  Returning to the Gate, I parked the car in a hidden spot and crossed it once more.

  My els were fine, and my mana was tig up by 35 every sed.

  I dismahe spiral, and my mana regeion dropped to 20 per sed. I built a new spiral with ten rings in each orb araining my els. When I was full, I took out one cooler and saturated the meat with mana. After the sed cooler, the itg sensation almost disappeared, so I added mana with the Absorb aspey els a emptying and refilling them.

  After three more coolers, my els could handle more mana without a problem. I dismahe spiral again and built it as densely as I could.

  First Spiral pleted Quality: 95%

  My els started to tingle and itch again, but it was tolerable. I kept draining and refilling mana over and over until I had ten coolers with mana-rich meat. Exhausted, I left the Gate.

  It was evening oh. I tiptoed to the car and dropped the Invisibility. I checked my phone and saw that three days had passed oh. At this rate, I’d be a hundred years old on paper and fifty in practice. I went home and crashed.

  The m, I saw Lis at the table with the disassembled transistor and thick copper wires. He was ily engraving something on one wire with a jeweler’s loupe, his brow furrowed in tration.

  “How’s the transistoing?” I asked, taking a seat across from him.

  He looked up briefly, adjusting the loupe. “The irical wires were too thin, so I switched to thicker copper.”

  “Did you get the css?” I asked, curious.

  “Not yet,” he replied, fog ba the wire.

  “Good luck. Let me know if you need help,” I said, giving him a supportive nod.

  “Yes, thanks for the reminder,” he said, setting down the wire and removing the loupe. “Did you study the book on how to aspect magical materials?”

  “Yes.”

  He took out a pea-sized crystal and ha to me. “I need you to aspect this crystal to lightning.”

  “I still don’t know the lightning aspect. I don’t know its fvor,” I admitted, turning the crystal over in my hand.

  “Hmm,” he mused, scratg his . “We’ll have to find a lightning storm. It’s winter now, that shouldn’t be a problem. I’ll ched let you know.”

  “No problem, I’m here every few days,” I said, pocketing the crystal.

  “How’s training your mana els going?” he asked, his eyes curious.

  “Good. They’re almost four millimeters thick,” I said proudly.

  “Impressive. Soon, you’ll start expanding the sedary els,” he remarked, leaning ba his chair.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I fessed, shaking my head.

  “Find ahe book Mana Body – Supreme trol. It expins everything.”

  “Thanks.”

  That gave me an idea I hadn’t thought of before.

  I spent the whole day cooking for Rue and Lis, gave Lis all the food I’d made, ao the hospital again that evening.

  When I arrived at the al unit on the sixth floor, I noticed that someone had propped all the doors wide open. I shrugged and started my rounds. There were fewer children this time, which made me happy. When I finished with everyone, I still had 3580 mana, so I moved to the Sky ward and the Pediatric Critical Care Unit and drained my mana until I had 200 units left.

  I drove to the Gate again, parked in a secluded spot, and crossed over. This time, instead of saturati, I took out the books I’d copied, paid 1,000 mana to learn the nguage, and stored them back.

  I went through about twenty books, learning their nguage—spoken and written. At the same time, I built a sed spiral with five rings in each orb and increased my regeion. My els itched, but I was used to it by that point.

  When I took out the book to learn the nguage, I felt a warning from my Luck. Immediately, I stopped and began looking around and listening. I didn’t see or hear anything, but knew something was wrong. I sharpened all my senses a a disturban the mana about four meters away. Not wanting to take any ces, I jumped through the Gate back to Earth.

  Halfway through the Gate, I felt a terrible pain in my leg. I fell oher side, half paralyzed by the pain. Luckily, it was night oh, so I dropped the Invisibility and looked at my leg. My leg was torn to shreds and bleeding badly.

  I grabbed the blood to stop the bleeding, held the flesh with my hand to keep as mu pce as possible, and started casting Healing Touch over and over. I had trow the missing parts in some areas. It took over an hour until my leg was fine, and I finally stopped panig. My mana was down to 1300/8800.

  I looked at all the blood and didn’t want to leave it. God knows what they could learn from it. Cutting a few steaks into small pieces, I then pressed them into the bloody spots. I also decided to buy a few bottles of bleach, just in case.

  Although I walked cautiously to the car, my leg erfectly fine and worked as usual, but I was starving and tired. I mentally marked this Gate with an X. I’d taken advantage of it as much as possible, but it was time to move on. After getting home, I had an enormous meal, and slept.

  The following m, Lis told me a storm front roag Mainnd Europe, so we took the train to Paris. Rue wasn’t happy about his leash but accepted it was necessary.

  We found a pleasant hotel with a baly for me to “taste” lightning and explored the city a bit. We expected the storm to hit during the night.

  Lis turo me as we strolled along the Seine. “Remind me why we chose London?”

  “English,” I replied, gng at the boats passing by.

  “Right, right. We should move to Paris; the food is better,” he suggested with a grin, nudging my shoulder.

  I ughed, shaking my head. “No problem, but first, I want to finish visiting the Gates in the UK and boost my mana regeion.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “How’s that going? Any progress?”

  “Yes, but something attacked me st time, so I’m switg Gates.”

  I felt Rue’s worry through our bond aed him reassuringly. “Don’t worry, I’m fine. Like I promised, I was right o the gate and jumped straight through.”

  Rue gave me a side-eye, clearly not vinced. He knew I was full of it.

  I sighed and came , rubbing the bay neck. “Okay, I did get scratched a bit, but don’t worry. Remember, I’m a healer, so I fixed my leg, and I’m fine.”

  Rue huffed, but his worry eased slightly. Despite not being pletely vinced, he let it go.

  We visited five patisseries, got a sugar rush, a back to the hotel when the rain started. I waited for the main body of the storm, and when the lightning began, I went out to the baly. It was COLD! I shook my head, shivered, and wondered about the sacrifices I made for friends.

  I trated on the mana and tried to zero in on the fvor of lightning. Bit by bit, I could distinguish the lightning from everything else. Knowing water and wind helped a lot. I started to create the aspect with my mana, but it wasn’t quite right. I focused more and more, bringing the mana in my hand closer to the correct aspect. Whehing clicked, my hand shot an arc of electricity. Startled, I jumped, slipped o floor, and banged my elbow on the baly railing.

  Ouch!

  After rubbing my elbow and grumbling about the unfairness of it all, I created the aspect again to verify I had it, and shot another arc of lightning from my hand. It was a small arc, but I knew I could make it bigger.

  Ha! I’m a lightning Wizard! Beware my mighty arc! I knew I was absurd, but it still made me snicker.

  I went io get dry and saw Lis waiting with a question on his face.

  “Yes, yes, I got it. Let me get dry; I’m freezing.” He looked very pleased.

  I got dry but was still cold, so I took a hot shower. When I came back to the room, he handed me the crystal without a word. I ughed and started to aspect it. It felt different from eling mana into the crystals at his pce. There, it felt like the crystal was sug the mana out of me. Here, I had to force the crystal to cooperate—like it wao stay ral.

  After a tough battle of wills, the crystal finally got aspected and acted like a “normal” crystal, sug the mana in like a hungry baby. When it was full, it was silvery-white, with occasional small arcs of electricity inside. I was admiring the arcs, turning the crystal in my hand to catch the light, when Lis snatched it from my grasp.

  “Hey, I was admiring my creation!” I protested, reag out as if to take it back.

  Lis tossed me another small crystal. “Aspect this one, and you gaze at it lovingly as much as you want. I need my crystal,” he said with a smirk.

  “Spoilsport,” I muttered, rolling my eyes.

  He stuck his to at me, grinning mischievously.

  “Lis, my friend, you’re spending too much time with Zara from across the hall. You’re starting to act like a ten-year-old,” I said, shaking my head in mock dismay.

  “She’s a lot of fun, and some gestures are too expressive not to use,” he replied, his grin widening.

  I shook my head again, chug. Earth was ruining my Sensei and turning him into a hooligan.