With great enthusiasm, Mahya and I tested all the ronic devices. I ected the crystalline disc to the stereo system, and we listeo music. The crisp and clear sound filled the room with vibrant melodies that danced in the air.

  Yes!

  Mahya plugged another disto the TV, and we saw the movie’s credits start. The s lit up with vivid colors, and everything worked as it should.

  Double yes!

  We tested the game soles one by one, and each sprang to life, the games stored ihe soles dispying their titles with bright, entig graphics. It was just amazing!

  While we were fiddling with the eleics, Rue bounded over, his tail wagging furiously. “Rue need oy to py with wind,” he said, his eyes wide with anticipation.

  “What happeo the paper airpnes?” I asked, gng at him.

  In response, a pile of chewed paper appeared on the floor in front of him. Rue looked up at me with a mix of pride and innoce.

  I scratched his ear and said, “Well done colleg all the paper.”

  “Mahya said no dirt. Rue picked up dirt,” he replied, his tail wagging even harder.

  “Good boy,” I said, smiling at his earness.

  I rummaged through my Ste, searg for something that might serve as a suitable game. Despite everything I had “collected” along the way and all my shopping, I found nothing appropriate. It baffled me how, with su array of items, I was still missing something Rue could use. The ws of physics behind this impossible situation made little sense.

  I wish I had bought kites.

  After going through all the tents of my Ste—a task that took more than half an hour—the only suitable thing was the ami penguins I had picked up in Las Vegas. I handed oo Rue and said, “See if it works for you.”

  The penguin disappeared into his Ste, and Rue ran outside, wagging his tail excitedly.

  I tio check the house. When I turned my attention to the reservoir uhe house, I realized it was much rger. Not only did it extend the length of the house, but it was also deeper. Its growth meant it was almost empty.

  “We o fill the reservoir,” I told Mahya.

  “Let’s fill it with the water we collected in the dungeon,” she suggested.

  “I don’t want to shower in magical water. What’s wrong with normal water?” I asked, puzzled.

  “Not for sh. Let’s move it to the reservoir ahe house to do something with it. I’m curious to see what will happen,” she expined, her eyes gleaming.

  “You’re treating my house like a sce experiment,” I remarked.

  “Of course. This is the first time I’ve had a ce to work with a dungeon core. There are many things I want to learn.”

  “You worked with the previous core.”

  “Yes, but it was a baby. This core is huge. Besides, this dungeon was very a and had a se guardian; it’s not every day you find something like that.”

  Relutly, I agreed.

  We removed all the water tanks we had filled with water from the dungeon, pced the hoses in them one by one, and instructed the house to pump the water into the reservoir. I didn’t want to risk losing the tainers by pg them on the floor and telling the house to absorb them.

  After the house had absorbed all the water, I ordered it to do something with it. At first, I felt something was happening but couldn’t figure out what. I had to sharpen my senses and spread them throughout the house to uand. The core extracted the mana from the water and ihe eructure of the house, saturating it with more mana than before.

  “What’s going on?” Mahya asked, her curiosity piqued.

  “The house took the mana from the water and saturated the entire house with it,” I expined.

  “Cool!” she excimed.

  “What’s cool about that?”

  “The more mana-filled the wood and stohe house is made of, the faster they will regee from damage or adapt to climate ditions.”

  I had to agree with her. It was indeed cool.

  In the step, we took the hose, pced its end in the ke, and instructed the house to fill the reservoir. The water level in the ke dropped an inch or two, which surprised me. Although the reservoir had grown, it shouldn’t have signifitly reduced the water level in a rge ke.

  “Doesn’t it seem strahat the ke level has dropped? The house’s water reservoir isn’t that big,” I asked Mahya.

  “Don’t try to uand your house by using physics ws from Earth. You’ll go crazy and won’t get any answers,” she replied.

  “I don’t uand.”

  “We fed your house a lot of materials. Some were used to build it rger, some went to shelves, etc. But if you pare the amount of materials we fed the house to the amount it created, you’ll see that the amounts don’t match. If you look for those materials around the house, you won’t find them,” she expined. “Where are they? I have no idea. Just accept it as fad don’t try to apply any ws you know. Magic works differently.”

  I scratched my head, pletely fused. This whole thing was one big mystery. servation of matter or servation of energy are supposed to be fixed ws, aren’t they?

  The hing we checked was the pontoons. I instructed the house to ihe pontoons, and it was immediately apparent that this would not work. There were enough pontoons for maybe thirty pert of the house. I instructed it to make more pontoons of the same type and ihem, and it only made two more.

  “Hey! It ate a load of psti all the devices we fed it. How e it only made two more pontoons?” I asked, frustrated.

  “I have no idea,” Mahya replied. “Just accept it, a’s give it more pstic.”

  “I’m not sure how much more pstic I have left,” I said, thinking about our remaining supplies.

  “Let’s check.”

  I collected different tires in Vegas. We went through them one by one, setting aside the ones we could use for our motorcycles or jeeps and feeding the rest to the house. This created four more pontoons—still not enough.

  We went through all our Ste, and I also asked Al to gh all his ste and give us all the pstid rubber he could spare. Then we fed the house again—three more pontoons—still not enough.

  “Maybe we cut down trees, give them to the house, and tell it to make a big wooden ptform to stand on with pontoons around?” Mahya suggested.

  “I don’t feel like cutting down trees. It’s hard work.”

  She ughed and said, “Yeah, but your house will be more amazing after this. It’s worth the effort.”

  I had to agree with her.

  We enlisted Al for the task ao cut down trees.

  On the way, he said, “I find it intriguing that you have no qualms about felling trees for the stru of the house, yet you advise against gathering mushrooms.”

  “Because they are beautiful,” Mahya answered, smiling at him.

  He gave her a sideways look and rolled his eyes.

  “Besides,” I added, “All the mushrooms we collected in the dungeon weren’t enough for you? We collected a lot.”

  “At the moment, yes. But I have an opportunity here to harvest many quality raw materials. I am very unhappy to give up this opportunity,” he said, looking around the lush valley.

  I had to admit he was right. We were a little selfish in limiting him.

  “Okay. You harvest as many mushrooms as you want. Leave the two beautiful mushrooms by the house until we leave. Before we leave, you harvest them, too,” I said.

  Al looked delighted.

  “How many levels have you gained from all the potions you’ve made? I’ve seen you work almost non-stop,” I asked him.

  “Not many.”

  “Why?”

  “I am an alchemist by profession, not by css. If it were my css, I would have attained many more levels. Si is a profession, I must initially distribute or provide the potions to individuals for their usage, and subsequently, I will attain levels,” he exhaled.

  That was the first time I had heard something like that.

  “Seriously?” I asked.

  He nodded and sighed again. “I achieved a level increase due to the sleeping potion I crafted in Las Vegas, as well as another level increase for the potions I cocted to restore the life force you expended in the dungeon and mend yical els. I am keeping the remaining potions I create. Once we reach a densely poputed area, I will sell them and signifitly increase my levels. Or, at the very least, numerous levels until level ten. The progression is noticeably slower, and advang to higher levels bees more arduous.”

  “Yes, I have noticed this phenomenon of level ten. I gained my first levels in the healer css very easily. Since reag level ten, I have only gaiwo levels i five years. And I had to perform some very plex healings.”

  “Stop whining,” Mahya remarked. “From level ten to twenty, it’s still retively easy. After level twenty, it gets even harder, and after level thirty, even more. All the fighting I did in Tuone, Rat Isnd, Vegas Base, and Dungeon only gave me one level.”

  Wow! It was depressing.

  “This system is very stingy,” I ented.

  I felt a rebuke directed at me.

  “Yes, yes, you protest as much as you want. It doesn’t ge the fact that you are stingy,” I thought.

  This time, I felt ion.

  “You have nothing to say?” I asked.

  Still no response. Of course.

  For two days, we cut down trees and stored them. After two days and over fifty trees, we pced them one by one on the first-floor porch—the only pce big enough for the trees—and I told the house to absorb them. After the house finished sug in all the trees, I gave it instrus to create a rge wooden ptform u and surround it with pontoons.

  The three of us looked at the result, which retty clear wouldn’t work. The surface was rge, seven times the surface of the house. This made sense because the house was tall, not just long, so it needed a rge surface to stand firmly oer. The problem was that there were not enough pontoons.

  “Maybe we’ll go to Earth and buy more tires?” Mahya suggested. “The Gate is right here. This is our opportunity to fill in all the gaps. Fortunately, we discovered it early.”

  “I don’t feel like going back there. I’m mentally ready for a new world, not going back.”

  “We don’t have to go back there to stay. We’ll gh the Gate, collect tires, and e back. It shouldn’t take more than a day or even less.”

  I sighed and accepted the iable.

  Al and Rue didn’t want to e with us. Al went to harvest all the mushrooms from the valley, and Rue had too much fun pying with the wind. He just asked for more penguins.

  “What happeo the penguin I gave you?” I asked Rue.

  A pile of chewed paper appeared in front of him.

  “Got you,” I said, smiling.

  I gave him all my penguins, aored them before running off to py.

  I fed all the chewed paper to the house, hoping it could do something with them.

  Before we crossed the Gate, I checked the mana level oh—still eight. Mahya and I crossed the gate while invisible. Luckily, it was night.

  “It’s a shame we killed the st jeep,” I said, gng at the empty road ahead.

  “We run; it shouldn’t take us long,” Mahya replied fidently, stretg her legs as if preparing for a sprint.

  “It took an hour and a half to drive here!” I excimed, rubbing the bay neck.

  “If we run as fast as we , it should take us even less,” she said, boung ooes, eager to get moving.

  “Maybe you ; I’m not that fast,” I admitted, crossing my arms and looking down the dark highway.

  “I’m not sure you’re right. When was the st time you ran as fast as you could?” she asked, tilting her head and raising an eyebrow at me.

  Hmm, she had a point.

  We ran on Highway 1, and I felt like I was flying. It was te at night, and the highway was retively empty. I could run as fast as I could, and I was fast! Very fast! I didn’t time it, but it took us less than an hour to get to Calgary.

  “Did you keep your phone?” I asked Mahya. “I fed mio the house.”

  Mahya ughed and handed me her phone. I ope, and after it turned on, I stopped in shock. It took her a sed to realize that I had stopped, and she came bae.

  “What happened?”

  “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “What doesn’t make sense?”

  “We left on August 7, now it’s August 8. We’ve been oher side for over a month, and only a day has passed here. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Same year?”

  “Yes.”

  “It happens sometimes. The time jump moves on Lumis instead of oh. You had something simir in Tír na nóg, didn’t you?”

  “Hmm, I didn’t think of that. You’re right.”

  We ran back to the gate, crossed to Lumis, and informed Al and Rue that the time jump was on Lumis’ side, which meant we’d only be oh for one day, but more time would pass on their side. They both wanted a stock of food and wished us a pleasant trip. During the hour we were oh, a whole day passed in Lumis. Those time jumps were crazy and fusing.

  We ran again towards Calgary. After an online search, I found three pces that sold used tires for recyg. My inal pn was to buy the tires, request a delivery, and only store them. But with the time jump, I didn’t want a year to pass oher side. roached it differently. A high feh barbed wire on top surrouhe first pce. We used the trampoline—always lovely to use skills—ran through the entire area and stored the tires. I applied force to the door handle of an office, ope, took five gems from the gem bag I had from Vegas, put the gems in a pouch, and pced them oable with a note.

  Thanks for the tires. That’s the payment. These are real gems. Appraise them before you sell them. They are worth much more than what we took.

  We ran to the sed pd did the same, including the note and the gems.

  Dawn started to break, so we gave up the third pce. Anyway, I was sure we had enough tires. I checked on the phone for a toy store on the way to the gate, and indeed, I found one. I ralized the store’s security system with mana, applied some strength to open the door, took all the kites they had, and pced three gold s with a note on the ter like iires’ pces.

  After all this “shopping,” Mahya and I returo the gate.

  When we crossed the gate again, we checked with Al, and a week had passed on the Lumis side. Those time skips were crazy. Rue was not happy that it took us so long, in his opinion, but he immediately fave me as soon as I gave him the first kite to py with the wind. Iurn, I got a stack of chewed papers and a lick from to forehead.

  We fed all the tires to the house, and I told it to create pontoons.

  Yes!!

  Now, pontoons surrouhe ptform, three to five deep. Mahya and I high-fived, grinning at each other like loons.

  I love it whehing es together.