I y in my tent, tossing and turning, uo fall asleep. Lis’s offer was tempting, but the thought of going back to Earth made my stomach . I’d done a lot of healing, mentally aionally, and I was terrified that returning might undo all my progress.

  Finally, I fell asleep, and my dreams were a jumbled mess of my past. In my dreams, I saw the officer who came to my kindergarten to pick me up after my mom was killed and the shod sorrow of her death. I saw my tormentor from the first foster home I lived in. He was twelve and pushed me dowairs twice. Once, I had a cussion and broke my arm. When it happened for the sed time, I ended up breaking the same arm, both legs, and having two cracked ribs. The father ihird home who smacked us around for made-up infras and called us “trash that nobody wants.” The social worker who called me a “criminal in the making,” and the house manager in the home after I was thirteen who used to search our stuff and pilfer everything valuable for himself, g it was a forbidden item.

  M arrived, and I woke up, surprisingly calm. In the past, when I had dreams like these, they were nightmares, and I used to wake up covered i and g. Now, I woke up like any other day. I wasn’t sad or afraid and khose things were in the past and had no more hold over me. While lying there, I told myself, “The past is dead and gone. You live in the present and create your future. The rest is just noise.”

  As a wave of crity washed over me, I felt this truth settle deep within. I felt the familiar ung in my beingness and the physical wave apanying it. I checked my mana, now I knew how it worked!

  Mana: 7200/7600

  Woo Hoo!

  Lis’s words about mana refleg our essence finally made sense. I was ready to return to Earth, this time on my terms.

  The following m, I headed to Lis’s house and knocked on the door. Hopefully, I wasn’t too early, but he answered fully dressed.

  “e in. Where is Stretch?” he asked, looking around as if expeg the dog to be nearby.

  “Expl,” I replied with a smile.

  “Would you like some breakfast? I was just about to start,” he offered.

  “Actually, I’m dying to try out your kit. you show me how it works, and I’ll cook us breakfast?”

  “Sure, I would be happy to.” He led me to the kit, pointing out the roual ptes and a raised dark red crystal.

  “el your mana into this crystal,” he expined. “When it is dark red, it is full. As it gets used up, the color fades. When it gets light pink, it is empty. This knob trols the temperature—the higher the temperature, the more mana it uses.”

  “Thanks. Go rex; I’ll call you when it’s ready.”

  I rubbed my hands in anticipation. I also wao examihe cooking system from the io figure out how it was done, but I told myself to be patient. It was fun to cook in a proper kit and not on a campfire. I made pancakes, ba, sunny-side-up eggs, and hash browns and had a bst. While cooking, I had a thought: I saw gas stovetops with two or three burhat didn’t use electricity; why hadn’t I sidered buying one? If my meical camera worked, there was no reason for a stovetop not to work.

  After everything was ready, I went to the pord shouted, “Stretch! Breakfast!” I spotted him sprinting toward me from a distance. Of course, he will never miss breakfast or any other meal. That dog was a bottomless pit.

  I arranged everything on the dining table, pced a big pte for Stretch with ba, eggs, and mukar burgers, and called Lis for breakfast. We enjoyed our meal, and I got a lot of pliments from Lis, with an apanying feeling of agreement from Stretch.

  When we finished eating, I said to Lis, “I thought about your offer, and I accept it with gratitude.”

  Lis’s face brightened with a wide grin. “I am delighted to hear that. I was hoping that would be your answer.”

  He leaned in closer, his expression turning more serious. “Last night, after you went to your tent, I looked in my library and pulled out seven books that I think you should study before doing the ritual. Three are about the basiana. Two are books about rituals, o a basic level and the other at a more advanced level. Oeaches the runiguage you need for the ritual. The st one discusses the whole subject of familiars and expins this cept in more depth, and has the binding ritual and the re-summoning ritual.”

  He rubbed his thoughtfully, as if weighing the importance of his words. “Unfortunately, each of the seven books is in a different nguage, so you will o learn seven nguages. Plus, you will need a lot of mana for the ritual, so I reend that we stay here as long as necessary because the regeion oh is atrocious.”

  “Thank you very much!” I said, my eyes widening in surprise. “I did not expeany books.”

  “Yes, you do the ritual with a basiowledge of ritualism and learn the runes needed just for the ritual,” Lis expined. “But then there will be a ce that it will fail, and if the ritual fails, it ot be repeated. So, I believe it is worth iing the time to study the subje depth and then doing the ritual properly with guaranteed success. Do you agree with me?”

  “Yes, you are right,” I agreed, nodding.

  “Before I get the books, have you thought of any more questions?” Lis asked with a mischievous smile.

  “Not really,” I admitted with a shake of my head. “I was busy thinking about my decision and didn’t take time for questions. And if we travel together, I’ll have all the time in the world to ask all the questions.”

  He ughed softly, his eyes kling at the ers. “So that is the reason you decided to travel with me, huh?”

  I chuckled. “That was one reason.”

  “Would you like to e with me to my library?” he asked, gesturing toward the stairs with a weling smile.

  “Absolutely!” I responded enthusiastically.

  He ughed and waved for me to follow. The sed floor was a long hallway with two doors on each side, o the end and oo the right of the stairs.

  Lis poio the right side of the hallway and said, “Those two doors are guest rooms, and each has a washroom.” Poio the left side of the hallway and said, “The door he stairs is the library, and the other door is my bedroom. The door at the end of the hallway and the door by the stairs are toilets.

  “You are wele to stay at my home. I saw you like to cook, so you enjoy my kit. You stay in one of the guest rooms, and you will have access to the library if you need more references. It will take you at least a month to study the books and do the ritual if you are a fast student, and ces are it will take you longer. I am thinking of traveling, meeting the locals, enjoying nature, aurning in forty days. What do you think?”

  “All I say is thank you. I feel a bit ied.”

  He ughed and patted me on the back. “You do not have to always thank me. I enjoy guidiravelers, and you will help me fulfill a dream I have had for a long time. You have no reason to feel ied; we will help each other.”

  He led me into the library. It was a rge square room with floor-to-ceiling shelves full of books and scrolls, a dder beside the door, a table in the middle with two chairs, and a couch by the window. His library had hundreds of books. Before I left, I also bought a lot of fi books and every professional reference book I could find, so I think I had more books than him—at least more books than he had in his library—but the fact that all those books were about magic put it in a different perspective. Those books really drove home the fact that I knew nothing about magid mana, and was just beginning to learn. I had a lot to learn and was impatient to start.

  Lis poio a pile of books oable and said, “These are the books I prepared for you. Notice that one book is alone, and the rest are arranged in a stack. The lone book is the runiguage. You will find that you ot learn runes oer the other. You learn two or a maximum of three, and then you will need a break. So I reend you start with the runes, learn as much as you , and then start reading the rest of the books in the order I arrahem.”

  He poio aack of books on the windowsill and said, “If you do not uand something, I have anized some reference books there. Unfortunately, they are also in different nguages, so you will have to learn them if you need more information. Do not rush to the reference books if something is not clear. Read ahead, and maybe you will figure it out; if not, go to the reference books.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You are wele. e, I will show you your room and how to use the washroom.”

  He led me to the room opposite the library. The room acious, with a double bed, a chest of drawers, and a small table with two chairs by the window. On the left wall was a door that Lis opened. Inside was a rge metal bathtub simir to copper but of a darker red color, with a faucet very simir to the faucets oh and two crystals on the sides of the faucet. There was also a sink with another faucet, ao it were crystals. One crystal was red, and the other was a light blue. I guessed that red is fire and light blue is ice.

  Lis poio the crystals and said, “Same as i, if the color is deep red, the crystal is full; if it is very light pink, it is empty and must be filled with mana. The blue crystal denses water from the air and flows it into the faucet. Vibrant blue means it is full. Very pale blue, almost white, means it is empty. The maximum amount of mana each crystal take is ohousand units. Before you bathe, ehe crystals have enough mana, then turn on the faucet and adjust the water. I have seen very simir faucets oh, so I am sure you will figure out how to use them.”

  He led me to the bathroom by the stairs and opehe door. The toilet differed from what I was familiar with. It had a dark brown gss stru shaped like an armchair with has and a backrest with a hole in the middle. Each of the has had a crystal on it. On the right was a clear crystal, and on the left was a bck crystal.

  Lis poio the crystals and said, “The clear is Purify, and the bck is Void. After you use the toilet, pour five units of mana into the bck crystal, which will the toilet’s inside. After the bck, pour ten units of mana into the clear crystal, and it will purify the entire room.”

  It looked simple and ingenious. I was very curious to see how this entire system worked, but I was afraid I would destroy something if I tried to look. Lis said he wants to be a Magieer, so maybe he show me how it works after he gets the css.

  We returned downstairs, and Lis said, “I am going to stock up on food and drinks. You go up and start studying. I will tell you before I leave.”

  He turo Stretch. “You get on the furniture but be careful not to ruin the upholstery with your nails. If you shed fur, please let your human know so he after you. Okay?”

  Stretodded.

  “Thank you, Stretch; you are a great dog, and you will be an eveer familiar.”

  I returo the library, paid five ability points for runiguages, and started learning the runiguage. Lis was right; the first rune was easy, the sed harder. After the third, I felt pressure in my head, and after the fourth, I had a headache. I cast Healing Touyself, and it didn’t help. I leaned my head bad waited for the headache to pass. After fifteen minutes, it weakened gradually, and within half an hour, the headache disappeared. I learo listen to Lis; he said two or three runes, and I wouldn’t push myself to learn more.

  I took the first book, paid five hundred mana to learn the written nguage, and opehe book. When I looked at the text, it was just shapes on the page. I checked my mana: 6,515/7600. Acc to my calcutions, the numbers aligned—500 for the written nguage and 50 for each rune. I started at a little over 7200. So why didn’t I get the nguage? I tried looking at the text again, but it didn’t work. The third time, it still didn’t work. Hmm. I went downstairs and found Lis i, taking food from the fridge.

  “Lis, you help me, please?” I asked, a hint of frustration in my voice. “I’ve hit a snag.”

  “Yes?”

  “I paid 500 mana to learn the written nguage,” I expined, holding up the book with a frown. “But I look at the text, and it’s just hieroglyphs. I ’t uand anything.”

  Lis’s brows furrowed in thought as he sidered my issue. “Did you pay only for the written nguage or also for the nguage itself?”

  I facepalmed, realizing my mistake. “Ahhh! Yes, that’s what was missing. I didn’t think about it. You ’t learn to read a nguage without learning the nguage. I uand. Sorry for interrupting.”

  I tried to escape from the kit to hide my embarrassment and red face, but Lis stopped me with a hand on my shoulder and said, “Stop feeling embarrassed. You have no reason to feel this way. Tell me, in your world, did you have a profession?”

  “Yes, I’m a doctor.”

  Lis’s eyes widened in uanding. “No wonder you got the Healer Css,” he said, a smile tugging at his lips. “When you started studying medie, did you feel embarrassed that you did not know the tent of the css before the css?”

  I shook my head, a hint of frustration creeping into my voice. “It’s not the same.”

  Lis leaned forward, his tone ear. “It is. You are new, and you are learning. Even I, who grew up with a Traveler father and some of his Traveler friends who sometimes came to visit, entered things I did not know or did not uand. Life is a learning process. Enjoy the journey, and stop feeling embarrassed if you do not know something.”

  I nodded; he had a way to make me resider things. “Thank you. I feel you’re my sensei.”

  Lis raised an eyebrow, puzzled. “What is Sensei?”

  “It’s a term that es from the cultures of the Far East, and it refers to a wise teacher who guides a student.”

  With a smile, Lis replied, “Yes, right now, I am your sensei. But one day, you will be someone else’s sensei. So, remember this experiend learn from it.”

  “I will. Thanks for the expnation; I’m going back to study.”

  “Have fun.”

  Lis came up with Stretch after an hour to talk to me. “One more thing I almost fot to tell you. Your name, John, is not so unusual and has many variations in many pces: Jon, Johin, Joh, Johein, and others. So, even if it sounds different, it still sounds like it inate from the world you are visiting. The retch is much more unusual, and I am sure that in many pces, the people will have trouble pronoung the name.”

  “Yeah ... here, most of the people call him Sresh.”

  “I suggest you ge the name and do it before the ritual. Ohe ritual is plete, his name will be set in stone. I talked about it with Stretch, and I have an idea he likes. Your family name is Rue. It is a short and simple hat sound like a dog’s name almost anywhere. By giving him your family name, you will be making him part of your family, so Stretch likes that. What do you think?”

  I thought about it briefly and asked Stretch, “You won’t have a problem getting used to a new name?”

  He shook his head no.

  “You want to be called Rue?”

  He nodded yes, wagged his tail, and flooded me with approval. I uood he answered with nods and head shakes for Lis’s be.

  Smart dog.

  “Okay, buddy, you’re Rue now.”

  He licked my fad wagged his tail even harder.

  Lis told him, “Let’s go back downstairs; Joho study.”

  They left, and I got bay book.

  ________________

  Lis left a few hours ter. Stretch Rue and I escorted him out. He took out a glider, strapped it to his arms, chest, and legs, and took a few running steps. I felt a rge burst of mana with an air or wind fvor, and it lifted him into the sky. I looked at it in amazement.

  Wow, I want ooo.

  I returned inside and tiudying.