Startled, I woke up to Rue’s voice shouting in my mind, “No! Bad! Mahya! Bad!” His voice reverberated painfully in my head, dragging me from sleep.

  I groaned, rolled out of bed, ao iigate the crisis. I found Mahya and Rue in the saloon. Rue’s head hung low, his tail between his legs, and he looked utterly dejected.

  “What happened?” I asked, rubbing my eyes.

  “Rue found out that after the boat’s renovation, we won’t be able to use phones and puters on board,” Mahya expined.

  “We won’t?” I asked, still half-asleep.

  “No, the mana will fry them.”

  “Won’t it affect the boats o us? I don’t want to damage other boats.”

  Mahya shook her head. “No, Lis taught me how to build a tai field, so the effect will only be on our boat but the whole boat.”

  “Movies! Movies!” Rue suddenly shouted, making me wince. God, he was loud, especially first thing in the m.

  I scratched his ears, trying to calm him down. “Rex, buddy. It will take us some time to finish the project, so you watch movies in the meantime. We will travel by nd to reach the Gates, allowing you to watch movies orain. Once we’re away from others on our sailing trip, I’ll bring my house out and activate the dead zone in the spell room so that you watch movies there.”

  Rue’s tail began wagging furiously, and he shouted, “John! Friend! Mahya! Bad!”

  Mahya lifted her hands in dismay, shook her head, and said, “Whatever! John, I have a shopping list for you.” She sighed, handing me a page with an exaggerated eye roll.

  I g the list and asked, “2,000 meters of copper wire? Isn’t that too much? Three meters of gold wire? Why gold?” My eyebrows shot up at the sight of it.

  “We don’t need all the copper wire for the boat, but I’ll for other things, so you might as well buy it in one pce. I he gold for the boat for specific parts that need better ductivity.”

  “Does it have to be those diameters?” I pressed, still trying to my head around the numbers.

  “Yes,” she answered, giving me a firm nod.

  “Okay,” I sighed. “Rue, do you want to e with me?”

  “Movie!” Rue barked, his excitemeurning full force.

  Mahya took the list from my hand, scribbled something, and ha back.

  “Portable geor?” I read aloud, puzzled.

  “When I remove the engine, we won’t have electricity,” she expined.

  “Do I o buy diesel for it?” I asked, already mentally calg the logistics.

  “No, I store the diesel from the fuel tank; we’re good.”

  The 9.266mm copper wire was easy to find, but the 1mm gold wire was more plicated and expensive! Especially sidering her requirement of at least 18k.

  I called Mahya and asked, “There is 18k gold-pted semi-hard copper wire, 1 mm in diameter. we use that?”

  “The pure gold is still necessary for the mana rey, but try to get as much pted wire as possible. It’ll repe copper to improve performance, and I use it for other projects.”

  Oh, well, I’m gd I sold the s.

  I didn’t o buy nuts, bolts, and all the small fasteners—I had an ample supply. It was quite a hassle to find the non-powered engraver. Mahya wanted nibs of various thiesses, but the pens with intergeable nibs were either powered or had only two or three options. I purchased five different pens, and to be safe, I bought twenty of each.

  When I returo the boat, Mahya told me, “Start eliore, specifically to the engine area, and when you’re out of mana, regee some and start learning runes.”

  “Yes, boss,” I said with a salute.

  After st all the electrical appliances aying my mana pool into the engine area, I took the rune book and started learning runes. My ability improved! In the past, my limit was three runes before a headache; now it was five.

  I asked Mahya if she needed help, and she handed me an enormous bunch of twisted metal things with the instru, “ those and fix any issue you see.”

  Onside, I started casting on eapo and then used my regeion to el Restore. By the time I finished, it was dusk. I waited patiently until my mana reached 500, studied five more runes, felt a slight headache, and then called it a day.

  The day was identical, with a slight ued twist. While eliore, I exami and made an iing discovery about its spell structure—or ck thereof. Surprisingly, I discovered the spell tained only cepts, with no shell or structure to ect or hold them together. I stopped eling from the shock. The book about mana structs for spells emphasized that every spell needs a struct to hold it together. I eled my Heat spell and made the same discovery: there was no mana shell. Upon iion, I found that the Adaptable Light Ball had a shell.

  Hmm, curious.

  I went back to the restoration and studying runes, fog on the more familiar tasks. It was not the right time to experiment with mana. Rue’s voice suddenly shouted in my mind, “John! Fix!” His urgency was unmistakable, so I sighed ao see what was happening now.

  The puter was dead.

  Oops.

  I wi the sight of it. Fortunately, the portable geor still worked.

  “Don’t worry. I have more puters, and the movie is on the disc, so nothing has happeo it,” I reassured Rue, who was staring at the dead mae. “But we o move to a hotel. Otherwise, the puters will tinue dying.”

  “Movie!” Rue barked, his eyes wide with hope.

  “Yes, at the hotel, you’ll tig the movie,” I told him, scratg his ears. He sighed dramatically, as if the weight of the world was on his shoulders, and pushed his head into my hand, demanding more scratches. I chuckled and obliged until he finally had enough. With Rue satisfied, I went looking for Mahya.

  “We o move to a hotel. I killed another puter,” I said, running a hand through my hair.

  “And the st light is in the engine area,” she told me, not missing a beat. “I had to buy the Adaptable Light Ball spell.”

  “It is a useful spell,” I said with a nod.

  She gave me a look, her eyebrow raised. “I know that. That’s why I bought it.”

  “I’ll take Rue, get us rooms, and send you and Alfohe information,” I said, already pnning ahead. “After I rest, I’ll tihe restoration at night. I’m worried people will notiuch ge.”

  Mahya nodded.

  “Leave the parts you need me to work on in the saloon.”

  “I’ve fihe parts we need,” she replied, crossing her arms. “The rest we either sell or throw away.”

  “Instead of getting rid of them, let’s keep them as metal scraps,” I suggested, gng around thoughtfully. “We’ll find a use for them, eventually.”

  Mahya shrugged. “Fine. But don’t clutter up your Ste with too much junk.”

  After returning in the evening, I restored and learned runes for five days. I tried to uand the aspects of the spell, but I had difficulty deciphering them. The cept of reversing something, which I assumed to be time, seemed peculiar to me. It felt like it did, but it had movement in it. It thhly fused me, and I gave up on uanding it.

  On the sixth night, after three thousand mana, I felt the spell wasn’t doing anything anymore. Iing the boat’s interior with the light spell, I saw it looked new. I verified that the water tanks and engine area looked new, and they were all perfect. It looked as if someone had built it today. I patted the ded said, “Good girl.”

  I spent awo days iel, alternatiween learning runes and keeping Rue pany during breaks. He was currently big the Lethal on movies and scoffing at every other se, with telepathic grumbles that broke my focus.

  “Why are you scoffing at the movie?” I asked.

  “Dog! Cookies! Yuck!” Rue responded, wrinkling his nose in disgust, his tail thumping on the floor in irritation.

  I ughed, patting him on the side. “Yep, they’re not a level fifty mana snake,” I teased, shaking my head.

  “Snake! Yum! Give!” Rue barked, his excitement fring up as his ears perked, clearly ready for a treat.

  Finally, I pleted my study of the runiguage. The nguage I learned for my ritual with Rue differed entirely from this ohat nguage had runes fh cepts such as friendship, unity, trust, love, uanding, and all the elements. This nguage was much more utilitarian, with runes for cepts such as dire, angle, pressure, analysis, circuit, and current and several rune variations for automating.

  I called Mahya to let her know I was done.

  “Get your butt down here, stat,” she said. Her voice had that no-nonseohat told me she meant business.

  When I got to the boat, she handed me all the metal pieces I had ed previously. “Go to the room with the blueprint and start engraving,” she instructed, pointing toward the door.

  “How would I know what to engrave where?” I asked, raising an eyebrow, a little unsure.

  “The blueprint is obvious. Just follow it,” she replied, her tone exasperated, as if it were the most straightforward thing in the world.

  “Yes, boss,” I muttered, giving her a mock salute before heading to the room with a smirk.

  W on the bigger pieces after watg her engrave was an immense relief. The process looked pretty awful. She used the smallest nib and a jeweler’s loupe to engrave the one mm-diameter gold and gold-pted wires.

  Friends are fantastic, especially when they give you an easy job.

  After four or five hours, my red light started blinking.

  You have learhe Skill [Engraving]

  I gave the system a thumbs-up and tinued engraving, the rhythmic sound of the tool filling the room. When I saw Mahya pause tee for the sed time, I couldn’t help but ask, “Want to learn the Absorb Mana spell tee faster?” I gnced over at her, noting the fatigue in her posture.

  “It helps?” she asked, wiping some sweat from her brow, clearly intrigued.

  “Yeah,” I said, nodding. “My regeion is fifteen per mihout the spell, but with it, it increases to eighteen per minute.”

  “Shit,” she muttered, her eyes widening. “Your els must be massive if yee fifteen per minute. Mine is only three.” She sounded envious as she leaned against the wall to rest.

  “At least something good came out of Tír na nóg,” I said, half-smiling, trying to lighten the mood.

  “There’s nothing good there,” she snarled, her face darkening as she spoke, a fierce look in her eyes.

  We had to wait until she had regeed at least a thousand mana before we could start, but I mao teach her ihan an hour. All that work with Lis made me an expert.

  She sat down tee but immediately jumped up, rubbing her arms with a grimace. “My els are itchy,” she pined, her voice sharp with disfort.

  “Deal with it,” I said, not looking up from my work. “That way, they’ll expand. If you feel pain, stop the spell.” I gnced over briefly, a small shrug. It art of the process, after all.

  After five minutes, I g her again and asked, “Did it make a difference?”

  “Yes,” she said with a nod, a small smile breaking through her earlier frustration. “I’m up to six.”

  “And your els?”

  “The itg subsided a bit, and they feel fine,” she replied, rolling her shoulders as if testing them out. She seemed pleased with the results.

  I gave her a thumbs-up auro my engraving. After three days, I finished all my parts, and she switched me to the thick copper wire. She tried to give me the thin wires, but I told her tet about it.

  It took us two weeks to finish all the engravings. During all this time, Alfotended workshops, and Rue watched television or movies on the puter at the hotel. I worried about his eyesight, but after diagnosing him, I saw he was fine.

  O day of the engraving project, my red light started blinking.

  You have shown dedicatioermination, and perseveran perf support tasks uhe guidance of a potential Magieer.A new css has been unlocked: [Rune Engraver].Would you like to take the Rune Engraver Css as a sub-css?Cost: 5 Ability PointsY/N

  Thank you, but noooooo.

  I didn’t tell Mahya about it, but curiosity got the better of me, so I asked, “How is yieer css progressing?” My tone was casual, though I was genuinely ied in her progress.

  “I hope that after pleting this project, I get it for free,” she said, her voice filled with hope. She g the metal pieces before tinuing, “But even if the Guidance offers it at a reduced cost, I’ll know I’m on the right track.” She gave me a determined nod, clearly focused on her goal.

  When we finished all the engravings, Mahya shooed me off the boat and told me she needed a few more days. I picked up Rue from the hotel ao explore Shanghai.

  We visited Shanghai’s old town, the Yuyuan Garden, and the Bazaar. At first, Rue felt bored a yelling in my mind, “Back! Hotel! Movie!” But his i sparked when he saw children in the garden, and I bought him treats at the bazaar, so he became very ied.

  I visited the Bund, People’s Square, and the Shanghai Museum. This time, I left Rue at the hotel. I wanted him to exercise, but knew he’d get bored because of our previous museum experience. I also visited the water town of Zhujiajiao alohere was no point trying to take Rue on a wobbly boat.

  After five days of expl, Mahya approached me in the evening, looking tired but satisfied. “I’m done,” she announced, brushing a stray hair out of her face, “but there are still small things we’ll o handle.”

  “Like what?”

  “vert the fridge and stove to Magitech,” she replied matter-of-factly. “That reminds me: go buy gas burners and gas so you cook on the boat.”

  “Why is it so I cook and not we cook?” I asked indignantly.

  “Because I’m not a liar.”

  This time, I stuy tongue in respoo her ent. Lis was correct; certaiures are too expressive to avoid.

  I purchased gas burners, a substantial gas supply to st me for several years, and five additional stoves and refrigerators to eheir survival during the version process. After a month in Shanghai, we were finally done.