In the m, before we took off, I decided to empty the house’s water reservoir and refill it with fresh water from the ke. I trusted Lis and was fident that the purification system he built was top-notch, especially since I khe Purify spell and its power. Still, it felt like a good time to rehe water.

  I took out the hose, pulled it up to the trees as far from the house as possible, and gave the and to drain all the water. The amount of water that poured out didn’t match the size of the reservoir, even in the house’s rge figuration. It turned out my core had already created a pocket dimension before I even asked for it. I remembered the water level dropping in the mushroom ke and facepalmed. Of course, I khat.

  It drove me crazy.

  How the hell do I fet things? Why do I fet things?

  In my previous life, before all the magid everything else, I didn’t fet things. I studied, remembered everything I learned, and applied it in my work. There was never a situation where I fot something, only to remember it ter or realize I’d fotten something important. Ever since my mana awakened, my mi as hollow as Swiss cheese. It made little sense. Mana, magid all that jazz were supposed to improve me, especially with my Intelligeat going up.

  So, how the hell do I fet things? Why do I fet things?

  Of course, there was no answer.

  What else is new?

  After all the water drained from the house, I put the hose in the ke. The ke level also went down, but less so. It made sehis ke was bigger.

  Mahya wao cut dowo replenish our iory. During the winter, we used up all the wood we had saved for heating, and we even had to cut down fresh wood, which I had to dry with the Heat spell to burn in the firepce. By evening, we finished cutting the trees, and I began drying. Quickly, I grew tired of it, and when I looked at the remaining wood that still needed drying, I felt disced by the magnitude of the task ahead.

  After drying the sed tree, I had a brilliant idea. If I was in charge of colleg crystals during the snow season, there was no reason I should also be responsible f the wood. I knew I couldn’t teach them the spell since I bought it. At least, I remembered that from my experieeag Lis. But they both had enough points to afford it.

  I approached Mahya and Al with a big grin. “You two are responsible f the trees,” I announced, crossing my arms.

  Mahya raised an eyebrow. “But we don’t have the Heat spell,” she protested, trying to look i.

  “Yes, her of us has it,” Al said, nodding early.

  “Well, yoing to buy it,” I said, smirking. “Numents.”

  Mahya stuck her to at me, then broke into a ugh. “Fine, fine. I’ll get the spell.”

  Al shrugged with a smile. “Very well.”

  At least that settled it.

  The day, while Mahya and Al were busy drying wood, Rue and I spent our time rag jet skis on the ke. I’m a little embarrassed to admit that Rue was much better than I was, though it wasn’t surprising. Before the ke froze, Mahya had only finished o ski, which the three of us shared. She pleted the other two after the ke had already frozen. Rue, of course, cimed the first one and spent every spare moment oer.

  It took them three days to dry the wood, and I served as Rue’s charger during that time. My reward for this service was enthusiastic slobber all over my fad oime, he even got his tongue up my nose. Sometimes, love truly had its challenges.

  Throughout those days, I made a quick fly-by in the ge every day to check if ry friends had shown up, but there was still no sign of them.

  Ohe wood was finally dry, I was kind enough to help them cut it into firewood. When we finished, Mahya asked how many crystals we had in total. Al went off to py with Rue o skis while Mahya and I, as he put it, “ted our riches.” I pulled out all the crystals we had collected, and there were quite a few. Many of them were tiny, no bigger than a grain of sugar, from the bats. Ane batch was the size of a grain of rice, taken from pims, manta rays, snakes, scythe is, and birds. The smallest batch was the bigger crystals, gathered from the acid-spitting pnts and bear-gorils. Mahya had already fiscated the rge ones from the fluardians for her projects.

  Mahya pushed the pile of tiny crystals toward me. “I need you to bihese inter ones, about the size of a pea.”

  I nodded ao work. She took about a third of the medium pile as I started bining the crystals.

  “What are those for?” I asked, gng up at her.

  “I’m going to feed them to the boat,” she expined, already heading toward the door and probably the ke.

  “What should I do with the rest?”

  “Keep them,” she said, her tone casual, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

  “Why?”

  “In higher mana worlds, those crystals are a type of currency,” She said ao “feed” her boat.

  As I merged the crystals, something tickled the edge of my memory. There was something signifit about these crystals, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. The thought lingered oip of my tongue, frustratingly out of reao matter how hard I tried to grasp it. It drove me crazy for half the day until I finally let it go, hoping that if I left it alohe memory might eventually percote to the surface.

  As we gathered for dinner, Mahya leaned forward, lookiween us. “So, the core we took from the st dungeon,” she began. “It’s a little bigger than the boat’s core, but not by much.”

  Al raised an eyebrow, curious. Mahya tinued, “I’ve been leaving the boat outside whenever possible and feeding it crystals. That’s sped up the growth of its core.” She turo Al. “Since John has the core for the house, and I’ve got the core for the boat, it only makes sehat you should take this third core—if you have a particur project, you for.”

  Al sidered her words. “I currently have no specific use for a core,” he finally said, nodding in my dire. “I already have a greenhouse that John built for me at his home.”

  He theured toward Mahya. “You take the core for one jeep. If I require a core iure, I’ll obtain it from the dungeon we quer.”

  Mahya smiled, satisfied with the pn. “Alright then,” she agreed, grinning wide. “I told you the Jeep would be epic.”

  Her words finally triggered the what had been b me. Leaning forward, I frowned.

  “Do you know how I add the crystal harvesting spell to the Guidance list?”

  Mahya shook her head, but then looked at me curiously. “How exactly did you build the spell?”

  “I created a round spell shell with mana, and i, I structed the spell using a magic script,” I expined.

  Al’s eyes widened in surprise. “You know how to make spell marbles?” he asked, leaning forward with sudden i.

  “What are spell marbles?” I asked, feeling a bit lost.

  Mahya jumped in. “Spells e in two forms—scrolls or marbles. Simpler spells are usually on scrolls, while more plex ones e in marble form. Spell marbles are much more expensive, even for Travelers.”

  “How expensive?” I asked, intrigued.

  Al expined, “In Leylos, every time the captain of the royal guard ged, my father would buy a spell marble for the netain. This spell allowed the captain to know where every person in the pace was, deteew arrivals, and dis their iions. If someone harbored ill will toward the royal family, the spell would even reveal the level of that ill will—whether they were angry or had iions of harm. After purchasing one of these marbles, the wizard tower wouldn’t pay taxes for five years.”

  I let out a low whistle, impressed. “That’s expensive.”

  Mahya nodded, a thoughtful expression crossing her face. “I didn’t realize you built the spell using a spell marble. If I had known, I could have told you how to teach it to me.”

  “How?” I asked.

  “Build the spell the way you did before, and then I’ll i mana into it to learn it,” Mahya expined, her tone fident.

  “Is it really that simple?” I asked, skeptical.

  They both nodded in unison.

  Huh! Live and learn.

  “Okay then,” I said. “I’ll start on it tomorrow.”

  Both of them looked like a cat that ate a ary.

  This time, it took me much less time to build the spell. I pleted it in just one day with no trial and error. After double-cheg that everything was in order, I closed the shell and called Mahya. She poured mana into the spell, and the orb disappeared. She pumped her fist in the air with a triumphant jump and excimed, “Yes! It worked!”

  Just then, my red light started fshing.

  Level up

  +3 to all stats

  Wizard Battle Master Level 9

  Now it was my turn to jump triumphantly, pump my fist in the air, and excim, “Yes! It worked!”

  When I opened my profile to admire my new level, I noticed a few more ges. “Lightning” had advao “Lightning [Apprentice],” and “Mana trol” had progressed to [Medior]. Under Wizard Abilities, I gained a new ability: “Spell Creation [Junior].” In the bat se, “Ranged ons” had also advao [Medior]. There were additional ges to general skills and spells, with the most signifit being “Exude Mana,” which had jumped four or five levels—I wasn’t sure exactly how many.

  Unfortunately, “Wind” was still just “Wind.”

  Oh well, you ’t have everything.

  It took me another day to create a marble for Al, and after he learhe spell, he was all smiles for the rest of the day. Unfortunately, I didn’t gain another level.

  Stingy system.

  This time, I didn’t feel any rebuke. Maybe the system had gotteo my grumblings and stopped responding.

  During my daily fly-by in the ge, I spotted our alligator “friends” stomping away from the ex-dungeon location, their voices carrying on the wind as they cursed up a storm. They were promisih aribution to the “three thieves.”

  Back at camp, I reyed the o Mahya and Al. “I saw our friends again. They’re not happy. They were swearing vengean the three thieves.”

  Mahya and Al exged gnces. “We should ge mor,” Mahya suggested, already thinking ahead.

  Al nodded in agreement. “Better safe than sorry.”

  Just then, Rue padded up to us, his ears perked with i. “Rue want to be bck,” he decred. “Bck look dangerous.”

  I chuckled at his enthusiasm, but nodded. “Alright, let’s give it a try.”

  Activating my ability, One Of The Crowd, I watched as Rue transformed. His fur darkened, shifting to an inky bck, and the result was indeed intimidating. He now looked every bit as dangerous as he had hoped.

  Rue looked in the mirror, then trotted around, clearly pleased with the transformation. “Rue scary now,” he said with a toothy grin, his tail wagging a mile a minute.

  The three of us ughed as we admired Rue’s new look.

  Mahya headed off to store her boat, while Al went to tend to some st tasks with his pnts—I wasirely sure what. Meanwhile, I took Rue for o p on the ke with the jet skis. Once everyone was ready to move, I ordered the house to close, stored the core, and then joined Mahya and Al to help ihe balloon.

  As we rose into the air, I gnced over at Mahya. “Need a boost from the wind?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “No need. Let’s fly slowly and enjoy the view.”

  Instead of taking the usual route through the ge, we flew directly over the mountains, heading in a straight lioward the s. The mountains were almost as dense as those surrounding the mushroom valley—no wohis valley had remained undiscovered for so long. After four hours of flying over the mountains, we finally reached the other side. Mahya directed us over the river that runs through Pemisor, tinuing on toward the marsh.

  “Isn’t it dangerous to fly over the city?” I asked, a bit ed.

  She shook her head fidently. “No. They ’t see us. I activated the cloak.”

  We tinued following the river, and as evening approached, we reached the s. It was massive. Even from our height—about five hundred meters above the marsh—we couldn’t see its end. The sun was setting, casting long shadows over the ndscape.

  Al looked out over the s and suggested, “I believe the optimal pn is to he edge of the s and spend the night outside of it. Tomorrow, we use the balloon to fly over and scout for a suitable spot deep within the s or, ideally, in the middle.”

  Mahya and I both agreed. We nded, I opehe house, atled in for a quiet evening. Dinner was a f meal of crab soup, and we ehe day with a movie. Every time we watched movies on my Magitech TV, I couldn’t help but send a silent message of admiration and gratitude to the core. I never received a response, but I kept doing it, anyway.