Following Lis’s instrus, I boarded a flight to Toulouse. After nding, I rented a car and drove to Balma. When I got there, I called Lis and told him where I was.

  He sent me a p location half an hour’s drive from Balma and told me, “When you get to the driveway, stop, but don’t get out of the car. I’ll e to pick you up.”

  The location led me to a farm outside Balma with an access road that looked abandoned. After reag the gate, I parked and called Lis.

  After a few minutes, Lis arrived, his footsteps g on the gravel as he approached. He hugged me tightly, g me on the back, and said with a wide smile, “It’s good to see you, my friend.”

  After he petted Rue, scratg his ned ears while the dog wagged his tail furiously, Lis received ahusiastic round of face licks. He chuckled and asked me, “Do you trust me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Excellent,” he said, his tone suddenly serious. “I’m going to blindfold you and lead you inside. Don’t peek, and follow all my instrus.”

  “OK,” I agreed, feeling a mix of curiosity aement.

  He tied a thick bck cloth over my eyes, the fabric soft but imperable. Pg his hands on my shoulders, he guided me forward with a firm grip.

  Rue’s voice shouted in my mind, “No! Tell! Lis! No! Tell!”

  “Lis told you not to tell me what you see?”

  “Yes!”

  “No problem, buddy,” I assured him with a chuckle. “Don’t tell me. Friends don’t tell their friends’ secrets.”

  After about teers, Lis’s voice cut through the darkness, “Now there are a few steps, and then I’ll lead you inside.”

  I nodded, feeling the gentle ine as we moved forward. The air ged slightly as we entered a building, the ess of the indoors a sharp trast to the outside.

  “Do you trust me pletely?” Lis asked, his voice closer now, almost a whisper.

  “Yes, without a shadow of a doubt.”

  “Excellent,” he said. “I o cut your palm and draw some blood. You heal yourself right after. After that, I’ll need a few minutes, and then I’ll instruct you on the steps.”

  “OK.”

  I felt the brief sting as he cut my palm, his hands ge precise. He pressed my hand to draw the blood, the warmth of it surprising. After he finished, I heard his footsteps retreat, and then Mahya’s soft, familiar voice surrounded me as she hugged me tightly. “I missed you,” she said, her voice full of warmth.

  “I missed you too, both of you,” I replied, my tone refleg the truth of my words. “The first few days, I felt a little lost alone.”

  “Did it get better?” she asked, g her words.

  “Yeah,” I said with a small smile. “Rue helped, and I had homework to keep me busy.”

  Lis’s voice cut in, more distant now, “Did you mao build a ranged spell?”

  “No, not yet,” I admitted, “but I’m w on it. I built a fire dart, but now I’m learning how to make it fly.”

  “Excellent,” he replied, sounding pleased.

  Mahya and I tialking for another fifteen minutes, her voice a soothing presence, until Lis’s footsteps approached again. “Everything is ready,” he said, his tone now all business. “I’m going to pce you in the middle of a ritual circle. You o bend down, and I’ll pce your hands. Once you’re positioned, el the mana until you no longer feel the need; you’ll know when to stop. You’ll probably get a slight headache. Ohat headache subsides, you’ll bee aware of something new, but please refrain from expl this new awareness. Hold back. After that, I need another mihen we’ll take off your blindfold, and you see the surprise.”

  “OK,” I said, my curiosity piqued even more.

  He led me a few steps forward, his hands guidih practiced ease. “Bend down,” he instructed, and I plied, feeling the cool floor beh my hands as he pced them in position. “Start eling.”

  I poured mana until I felt I couldn’t anymore. There was a build-up of pressure in my head, which eventually intensified into a searing pain before ceasing. It felt like my mind had expanded and now tained something within it. I had the impression that it was a house, but I stopped myself and decided not to iigate further.

  Mahya took off my blindfold, and I looked around. I was standing on the first floor of a house. To my right was the kit, and I could see most of it. A breakfast bar and high chairs separated it from the living room, and there were some hanging light fixtures above it. One of them drew my attention, and I sensed a e with it.

  Lis saw where I was looking and said, “It’s always good to hide things in pin sight.”

  I didn’t uand, but decided to ask for crification ter.

  The living room had sofas, armchairs, and beanbags around a low table with a firep the far side inside a supp stone pilr, with stairs beside it. The wall on the left had rge windows, and behind me was a door with two more windows.

  There was a mezzanine above the kit with bookshelves and sofas. It was strange; I both saw ahe spa my head, as if it were a part of me.

  “Why do I feel the house? I uand it had to do with the ritual, but how?” I asked Lis, fused. “I don’t uand what’s going on here.”

  “This is your new home away from home. This is the project Mahya and I have been w on with all those blueprints.” He gestured around us, his voice filled with pride. “We built the house around a dungeon core, and we performed a ritual to transform you into the dungeon master.”

  “My house is a dungeon?” I asked, my eyebrows shooting to my forehead.

  “ly,” Lis replied, chug. “It’s built around a dungeon core, but it won’t behave like a typical dungeon. The house els the mana from the core into its funs, while special filters el the trash mana out to prevent monster creation.”

  Before I could ask more questions, Mahya stepped closer, a pyful grin on her face. “Want a tour?” she asked, her eyes sparkling with excitement.

  “Of course!” I said, grinning back, eager to see what else they had in store.

  They led me outside, and I looked at the house. It stood on a ptform with short stilts adapted to the ground’s tours. Wooden stairs led to a porch that surrouhe house on three sides. It had two floors, and I could see an attic with a window. It was beautiful!

  “Did you do all this in five weeks?” I asked, gng around in awe.

  “ly,” Mahya answered with a smile. She crossed her arms, leaning slightly against the doorframe. “We’ve been w on it for more than a year whenever you weren’t with us. Lis started vertirical appliao mana ba Engnd. He got his ot because of the mini radio but because all your kit appliances work on mana. The radio was just a cover. We bought the rest of the things and hid them in our Ste. Now we just had to assemble everything and do all the entments.”

  “This is amazing.”

  Lis grihat mischievous glint in his eyes again. “Raise the house a meter,” he instructed.

  “How?” I asked, my brow furrowing.

  “Just will it so. You’re the dungeon master,” Lis replied, his tone casual, as if this were the most normal thing in the world.

  I focused for a moment, and to my surprise, the house respohe stairs extended with the house; now, instead of six steps, there were eleven.

  “Cool! The stairs extend!” I excimed, looking down at the newly formed steps.

  “Look uhe house,” Lis said, his tone hinting at another surprise.

  I bent down and noticed rolled-up rubber things beh the house. “What is that?”

  “Heavy-duty ercial-grade inftable bridge pontoons,” Lis expined, croug beside me to point them out. “I added them to my house too. They’re virtually iructible—I checked. If something happens to them, they’re ented and will regee. You park your house on a ke or a river, but don’t try sailing in it; no steering.”

  “Every wood pnk the house is made of is ented, too,” Mahya added, stepping closer, her eyes meeting mih pride. “It take powerful attacks and shrug them off, and if something mao damage it, the wood will regee.”

  Lis stood up, dusting off his hands. “Activate the protes,” he said, watg me expetly.

  I willed the house’s protes to activate, and wooden shutters slid down over all the windows. At the same time, I felt a force field materialize around the house, following the line of the porch railings.

  Lis nodded approvingly. “The field you feel absorbs mana. So, any spell cast on the house will be absorbed instead of damaging it, and the mana will be eled into the core. Also, anything with hostile ihat touches the field will have its mana absorbed and eled into the core.”

  I frowned, still trying to grasp all the details. “How will the house know they have hostile i?”

  “Magi read iion; haven’t you figured that out yet?”

  “I didn’t think it could read io this level,” I admitted, rubbing the bay neck. “But if I have the house’s protective field, why are the shutters there?”

  “Physical attacks.”

  “Oh,” I said, nodding in uanding.

  “You have trol over the defenses,” Lis tinued, his tone more serious now. “I noticed you didn’t like my house killing the snakes, so I didn’t put active defenses in your house. But if your house is attacked, you activate the sed stage of the defenses, and whatever attacks the house will be struck by lightning.”

  They led me into the kit and showed me everything. I had a silver two-door refrigerator from Earth, and when I ope, it looked just like a standard refrigerator, but it turned out it ran on mana. There was a rge sink with hot and cold water, four cook burhat also worked on mana, a regur baking oven, a pizza oven with a stone, and plenty of ste space for dishes. In addition, the kit had six hanging light fixtures, one of which was the dungeon core. I uood what Lis meant by hiding something in pin sight.

  “You don’t have to el your mana to fill up the crystals; the core does it even with the low mana oh,” Lis expined, gesturing toward the kit as he spoke. “Underh the entire first floor is a water reservoir. I don’t know how many gallons it hold, but it’s quite a lot. All the water from the house circutes through the and Purify spells aurns to the reservoir in pristine dition. Every so often, when you’re near a river, fill it with more water. You even fill it from the sea or a s; the water will still go into the reservoir pristine.”

  “How do I fill it up?”

  Lis walked over to one of the kit cupboards and opehe door, revealing a very long, rolled-up fire hose ly stored inside. He turned bae. “Just put the end of the hose in a water source, instruct the house to take it in, and the house will do the rest,”

  He then led me to a door o the refrigerator, which opeo a room behind the kit that stretched the entire length of the house. Only tatami mats covered the floor of the otherwise empty room. Runes covered all the walls, and I noticed many mana crystals embedded in the walls, glinting faintly in the light.

  “Store the mats,” Lis instructed.

  I did and saw that runes and crystals covered the floor as well. This room tained most of the crystals we collected from the snake cave, and I harvested from the monsters.

  “This is a magic practi,” Lis expined, gesturing around the space. “All the wizards I’ve met had something like this. You work on spells here, and the room will stay intaatter what happens. This room els all the magic you use bato the core. It’s also pletely insuted for rituals.” He paused, then instructed, “Will the floor to transform into a ritual figuration.”

  It took me a sed to figure out how, but then I focused, and all the runes and crystals slowly sank into the floor, disappearing from sight.

  Mahya stepped closer, nodding approvingly. “Even if you o engrave a ritual into the floor,” she added, “the floor will return to normal after you ge it back to the practi figuration.”

  By this point, my jaw was hanging so low that I was afraid it might actually hit the floor. I was pletely speechless, uo believe what I was seeing.

  Lis tinued, his tone now instrual, “You will the crystals to absorb all the ambient mana in the room, creating a ral space for rituals. You also instruct the core to ihe room and absorb all the mana to create a dead zone where you py with all the eleics you keep buying. But remember to store them before you open the door, or the mana from the rest of the house will fry them.” He shot me a warning look to make sure I aying attention. “You also make the core release more mana into the room for better regeion, but don’t overdo it right now. With the mana levels oh, the core is pretty empty. In higher mana worlds, preferably above thirty, you go crazy.”

  He poio a pedestal in the room’s er, where the rge crystal we had collected from the mommy sood. “ge this crystal’s aspect to lightning,” he instructed.

  “Now?” I asked, gng at him for firmation.

  “Yes.”

  It took me a solid twenty minutes of struggling with the crystal—it really didn’t want to turric—but finally, I ged its aspect.

  “Done,” I said, wiping a bead of sweat from my forehead.

  Lis pointed out two rows of electric sockets along the pedestal’s legs. “Allow the crystal to refill from the core. After that, you drain the room of mana, making it a dead zone, and charge your electric toys here. To be safe, test it with something small you’re not afraid to lose. I couldn’t test it without the correct aspect, but it should work.”

  They then led me up the stairs to the mezzanine, which spahe full length of the house, lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. There were three armchairs around a cozy reading nook, with two giant beanbags nearby. Rue wasted no time; he leaped onto one beanbag, settled fortably, and shouted into my mind, “Mine!”

  I chuckled, shaking my head. “Enjoy, buddy; this is officially your beanbag.”

  The ceiling was low and reached a timeter above my head. A taller person would have to stoop, but for reading, it erfect.

  More steps led us to the sed floor, and we went up. On the sed floor, on one side, there were two empty rooms of medium size, with a shared shower and toilet. There was no bath, just a shower. The toilet, uhe one in Lis’s house, was a regur Earth-style toilet, with the Void and Purify crystals embedded in the wall to its right. Ea had a private small baly.

  Oher side of the hall was the master bedroom, also empty, with an enormous bathroom with toilet, bath, and shower. One wall had floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked a rge baly.

  At the end of the hall, there were stairs to the attic. The attic was the house’s total size. Bookshelves were along the walls, which sloped down with the shape of the roof. Some of them held folders full of papers. Oher side were several more bookshelves filled with rge, rolled sheets of paper and part.

  Two sets of seating areas were in the ter of the space, which was high enough to stand. Ihere were two two-seater sofas and two armchairs around a low table; iher, there were two chaise lounges and three beanbags around another low table. A massive desk with an armchair on one side and two chairs in front of it stood by the window, and a rge drawing table was by the door.

  Mahya said, “The folders tain all the knowledge I could gather from all the engineering skills I bought from Guidahe level of knowledge won’t be the same as that of someone who studied. Still, with the experience I’ve gained from space flight and w on the p we po ize, I’ve learned a lot about building power pnts to vert matter into energy, building spaceship engines, and building crystallirixes for AI. The rolled pages are the drawings that apany the written material.”

  Lis said, “All the parts are the blueprints of the house, whiclude all the entments arical appliances, as well as various blueprints of Magitech devices that I have ceptualized. I haven’t built or tested them, but they should work. Some folders taihing I’ve learned in engineering bined with my knowledge of magic with the help of my Mind Ihis should give you a deep uanding of how your house works and how to build things iure.”

  At this point, I just stood there, listening to them in shock. My mind struggled to process everything, and I had no words except to say “Wow” repeatedly, my voice barely above a whisper.

  I turo Mahya, my emotions overwhelming me, and pulled her into a tight hug. “I have no words to express my admiration and gratitude for everything you’ve done here,” I said, my voice thick with emotion.

  Mahya hugged me back, her embrace warm and f. “You saved my life, repaired my mana system, and served as a friend and guide for a long time,” she said softly, pulling back slightly to look me in the eye. “It’s not even a tenth of what you deserve. But I accept the thanks.”

  I then moved to Lis, ing him in a hug as well. “Thank you,” I whispered, my voice barely steady. “I have no words.”

  Lis hugged me back firmly, then pulled away slightly, meeting my gaze. “You don’t have to thank me,” he said with a gentle smile. “You were a friend who helped me with what I needed. I’m a friend who helped you with what you hat’s how friendship works.”

  I just nodded, uo speak, tears welling up in my eyes. Overwhelmed and with raw emotions, I stood there, uo speak, tears welling up in my eyes, grateful for the friends who had done so mue.

  TravelingDreamer