Before we left the meadow, I wao harvest all the snakes in my Ste. Since my loot spell wasn’t ready yet, I had no choice but to harvest the snakes one by one. I racked my brain, trying to find a solution, and then I had an inspiration.

  I told the house, “Give me a Magiteputer.”

  Nothing happened.

  I tried again, with different w this time. “Make me a puter that works on Magitech.”

  Still nothing.

  Getting annoyed, I said, “Hey! We fed you more than fifty stolen puters. I’m not asking for all fifty back, just ohat works on Magitech.”

  Again, nothing.

  Sighing, I took out one puter I bought for the future, pced it on the floor, and said to the house, “Absorb this puter aurn it to me as a Magiteputer.”

  The floor sucked the puter in, and then nothing.

  I got annoyed and snapped, “Give me back the damn puter.”

  Within a mihe puter materialized on the floor.

  I went to the spell room and instructed the house, “Seal the room and absorb all the mana. Create a dead zone.”

  Almost immediately, I could feel the room emptying. It was a deeply unpleasaion—like the air wasn’t enough. It felt like when I breathed; I wasn’t getting what I needed. But it wasn’t an oxygen problem; there lenty of that in the air. It just felt empty, anemic.

  When we crossed the Pacifid I activated the dead zone for Rue, I experie before, but now it hit me much harder. The reason, I figured, was that I had bee aced to the elevated mana levels imosphere. And when the mana abruptly disappeared, it felt unnatural, off-putting. Lis mentiohat travelers from mana worlds didn’t like tech worlds, and now I uood why. I imagihat if I traveled to a world with zero mana, I’d be out of there within a week, max. This feeling was deeply unpleasant and just wrong—unnatural.

  Shaking my head to clear the uhoughts, I grabbed the puter the house had returned and plugged it into the socket on the pedestal. Nothing happened. Despite repeatedly pressing the power button, still nothing happened. I took out another puter, plugged it in, tur on, and the startup s appeared. I tried again with the puter the house returned, but nothing happened.

  “You fried my puter,” I pio the house.

  It was annoying not getting a response, even though I didn’t really expee.

  When the “good” puter booted up, I thought about how I could use it to pn all the permutations and suy loot spell, but I quickly realized that wouldn’t work. I didn’t have i here, and the puter didn’t have any software that could help with that. It was just a basic setup with a install of Windows.

  Turned out my brilliant idea wasn’t so brilliant after all.

  But it got me thinking. After we fed the house all the eleics, it made a TV, stereo system, and game soles without a hitch. How exactly did it mao do that?

  I said to the house, “Make me a game sole.”

  Within a minute, a game aterialized on the floor, covered in runes. I examihe runes carefully and noticed something peculiar. Amidst all the ruhe sole had “PS7” inscribed on it. It wasn’t the regur logo, just the letters and the number. My spidey searted tingling. I rushed to the living room and checked all the game soles one by one, carefully. Sure enough, each of them had a “PS7” hidden among the runes.

  “No, he didn’t!”

  I still wasirely vinced, so I took a screwdriver and systematically opened up the soles one by one. Ihe circuits all looked the same, with identical runes and crystal pts. By this point, my spidey senses weren’t just tingling—they were practically bring trumpets and stomping their feet to the rhythm.

  I sprinted up the stairs to the third floor and headed straight for the shelf with all the blueprints.

  When Mahya and I copied them to feed the house, I took the bigger stack of everythied to the house, and she took the smaller stack of electrical appliances. I flicked through the stack I copied, noting that the order was the same. No one had touched it since I copied it. I knew what was in this stack, so there was no point in cheg further. I moved on to the stack Mahya copied.

  “Let’s see... refrigerator blueprint, pedestal, ha-ha! Television blueprint. Oven, pizza oven, ha! Stereo system blueprint. Lightning prote system, ha! I k!”

  In my hand was a Sony PyStation 7 blueprint. I shook my head and sighed. Of course, he made a blueprint for a PyStation,

  Suddenly, a vivid image fshed in my mind, like I was standing in the past. Lis was there, o a pile of part in the library, back when it had that old snted roof. He poio the parts and said, “These are the blueprints of the house, whiclude all the entments arical appliances, as well as various blueprints of Magitech devices that I’ve ceptualized. I haven’t built or tested them, but they should work.”

  Of course, he made a PyStation blueprint. He loved the damn thing. Especially thrashing me in Tekken, leaving me in the dust in Gran Turismo, or beating me in FIFA.

  That’s when it hit me—something important that Mahya and I missed. The house couldn’t just create things out of thin air; it needed a blueprint. I also suspected that we fed it all those engineering books for nothing. I retty sure of it. And if she argues with me, I’ll just show her the identical insides of all the game soles. Everything was exactly acc to Lis’s blueprint.

  I felt my dreams of turning all the electrical appliances I had “liberated” from the warehouse in Vegas into Magitech—using some and selling others for vast sums of money—crumble to dust.

  I sighed deeply. In my opinion, the most essential appliances were a food processor and a mixer, but of course, Lis thought a PyStation was much more important.

  Unfortunately, I had to harvest all the snakes manually. I didn’t bother colleg the things Al wanted, just the meat and skin. I retty sure we’d run into more shese mas seemed to be popur in the pces we visited. After I finished harvesting, I cooked the meat. I fired up a rge barbecue on the ded smoked some of the meat as well.

  Every so often, Rue would e over, steal a steak straight from the barbecue with telekinesis, wave it in the air to cool, and then swallow it in two bites. We stayed at the meadow for another week, maybe ten days, and I swear he grew another timeter taller from all the meat he ate. His head was already level with my neck, showing just how tall he’d grown.

  Finally, it was time to leave. I saw on the map that about two days’ drive to the northwest, there was a vilge along the riverbank, possibly stretg across both sides of the river, which tinued all the way to Prismatic Falls. The other option was to head northeast, towards Thor Forest.

  After thinking it over for a while, I crossed Thor Forest off my list. From the description, it was just a forest filled with monsters or mas, with a dungeon somewhere in the middle. I’d spent enough time tely in dungeons and arous—it was time to enjoy the pany of people for a ge.

  “Do you want to ride the ATV, or should we fly?” I asked Rue.

  “Rue like ride,” he replied, his tail wagging.

  “Ride it is,” I said with a ugh.

  I closed up the house, and we flew towards the road. Once we arrived, I took out the ATV, a off. The first day of the trip was uful; we passed through three small towns, but nothing caught my eye, so I didn’t stop. Iernoon, I had to recharge the ATV with my mana before we tinued driving. As night fell, we flew off the road into the wilderness, where I opehe house in a smaller figuration. The day, we kept driving, and by afternoon, we were closing in oown I was aiming for.

  Before we reached the town, I pulled over and stored the ATV. I didn’t have the energy to deal with questions. I also switched my css baert—an excellent opportunity to unload some items from my Ste.

  We arrived at the town after a bend in the road, and it unfolded before us like a se from a children’s storybook. At the entrahere was the ary area for carts and horses. Cobblestohs branched out from there, leading into the town. The town itself y in a valley, surrounded by mountains on three sides, with hills on the side we had e from.

  Tall, jagged peaks shaded the town, creating the illusion of being painted against the sky. The afternoon sun lit everything with a golden glow. Flowers and lush green grass covered the area, bursting with color. The air was and crisp, with a hint of pine from the nearby woods and the sweet smell of flowers around the wooden cottages.

  The cottages blended seamlessly into the enviro. Eae had its own small yard full ht flowers, some climbing up the walls. A narrow, clear river ran through the town. The water’s surface mirrored the sky, and the sound of the flowing water provided a rexing background.

  In the distance, snow-covered mountains stood tall and proud. The se looked like it was from a fairytale—too beautiful to be real. But it was, with all its sharp details and real people.

  I approached one man tending to the piggish horses and asked, “Hello. Could you poio the inn?” I kept my tone friendly, trying not to interrupt his work too much.

  He looked up from what he was doing and pointed. “Yes, just folloath straight ahead. The biggest house with pink flowers on it—that’s the inn.”

  “Thank you,” I replied with a smile.

  It was easy to find the inn, aepped ihrough a fancy wooden door. Entering the room felt like stepping into a warm hug. Soft light streamed through the rge arched window, casting a golden glow across the space. The dark wooden beams in the high, vaulted ceiling added a warm, rustic charm.

  To the far right, a stone firepce crackled softly, filling the room with warmth and the f st of burning wood. Scattered couches and armchairs in rich reds and blues filled the room, with potted pnts adding spshes of color and life, creating a cozy and inviting space. The dining area was on the left, with wooden tables and chairs. The far left wall had another firepce, unlit.

  On the same wall as the door, on the left, was a long bar lined with bottles and barrels behind it.

  As soon as we ehe innkeeper bowed slightly and said with a respectful tone, “Wele, esteemed mert. Wele to the Rose Flower Inn.”

  “Hello, sir. Do you have rooms avaible?”

  “Yes, of course,” he replied, nodding. “We also have a rge stable out back for yuard dog to sleep in.”

  “It’s not a guard dog; it’s a friend,” I corrected him, annoyed.

  Rue raised his head so his tag was visible and half-shouted in an indignant tone, “Rue adventurer! Rue not guard dog!”

  The innkeeper winced, clearly taken aback.

  What is going on in this world? Does everyone have telepathy?

  “My apology, esteemed familiar,” the innkeeper quickly apologized, his voice flustered. “I didn’t mean to offend. Of course, you stay in the room with your master.”

  “John not master. John is friend!” Rue insisted, his voice firm.

  “I apologize, esteemed familiar,” the innkeeper repeated, bowing his head. “You stay in the room with your friend.”

  Rue sent me a very definite sense of smugness, and I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the poor innkeeper.

  “Are you here because of the adventurers on the way? If so, I feel embarrassed to inform you that they haven’t arrived yet,” the innkeeper said.

  “What adventurers?” I asked, puzzled.

  “Because of the potential dungeon,” he expined in a matter-of-fact tone, as if expeg me to know.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Could you please update me?” I asked.

  “Yes, of course,” he said, gesturing towards the window. “Our town is built around a copper mine in the western mountains. If you look out the window, you see them—they have a very pointed shape. A week ago, the miners broke through a wall that led to a work of caves. Sihen, monsters have been ing out of there, and work in the mine has stopped. Based on the number of monsters and the fact that they keep appearing, we suspect there is a dungeon somewhere in the cave system. We’ve sent a message to the Adventurers Guild to send people to take care of the monsters and colpse the dungeon.”

  “You don’t want the dungeon?” I asked, surprised.

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “The mohat e out of there spit fire. Three people have already been killed, and a lot more are suffering from severe burns. We want our mine baot creatures that could burn down our town.”

  “Where are the people who are suffering from burns?”

  “At the valest house.”

  “Do you have a healer?” I inquired, already suspeg the answer.

  “No, just a herbalist. We also asked for a healer from the Adventurers Guild, but no one has arrived yet,” he said, his frustration clear.

  “Could you please direct me to the valest house? I’m also a healer,” I offered.

  “Thank you, thank you very much. I’ll take you there right away,” he said, his voice suddenly overly enthusiastic.

  The valest house was a medium-sized house just a few doors down from the inn. As we stepped inside, I noticed people lying on mattresses on the floor or sitting in armchairs. Everyone had bandages on various parts of their bodies, and an older woman was carefully applying something to a young man’s hand.

  As soon as the young man saw us, he called out, “Dad, what are you doing here?”

  Ah, so that’s why he was so enthusiastic, I thought.

  “I brought aeemed healer,” his father replied, his tone a mix of pride and relief.

  All the people in the room turo look at me, their eyes zeroing in on me like I was some sort of miracle worker. I eve a little embarrassed by all the attention.

  “But he’s a mert!” the woman g for the young man excimed, her brow furrowing in fusion.

  “I’m also a healer.”

  “Are you sure?” she asked skeptically, her eyes narrowing slightly.

  I ged my dispy css to Healer.

  Immediately, she bowed and said, “I apologize, esteemed healer.”

  “It’s okay, no harm done,” I replied, waving off her .

  I approached the young man and diagnosed him. He had a very severe burn on his hand and moderate burns on his legs. As I begaing him, I asked, “How did you get these burns?”

  “I was on duty at the entrao the mine when five monsters attacked us,” he expined, wing slightly as I worked. “We mao kill them, but me and Rochas—uh, you don’t know who that is—me and someone else got burned.”

  I treated each person with burns one by one, and as I did, I pieced together a more prehensive picture of what had happened in the mihe first day they broke through the wall into the cave work, there were rge waves of monsters, and most of the men iown had to fight. After a few days, the rush of monsters slowed down, and now, every few hours, a few would emerge from the mihe townspeople had anized shifts to guard the mirance, proteg the town from being burhe monsters were red lizards, about thirty to fifty timeters tall, levels seven to twelve, and they spat fire.

  After I fireating all the people in the valest house, the woman who had been tending to the injured approached me and asked, “Esteemed healer John, could you please also treat others with burns? There are so many that I didn’t have room for them here. I only kept the most severe cases or those who just arrived before I had to send them home.”

  I was momentarily surprised that she knew my hen I remembered. Of course.

  John, you really o practice using Identify more often, I reminded myself.

  I quickly identified her.

  Britrice MoinHerbalist, Level 13

  “I’d be happy to,” I replied with a nod. “Do you want to tell me where they are?”

  “There’s no need,” she said with a reassuring smile. “You go back to the inn, and I’ll send the kids to tell everyoo e to you. As I said, I kept the severe cases here. A home e to you.”

  “Very well, Lady Britrice,” I said with a respectful nod.

  “I am not a dy. Miss will suffice, or just Britrice,” she corrected me with a smile. “Tomorrow, go to the mayor to get paid for your services. I’ll report to him everyone you’ve cured here, but you’ll o keep a record of everyone you treat at the inn.”

  “Thank you very much, Miss,” I replied, appreciatiraightforwardness.

  After we exged a few more pleasantries, I headed outside to look for Rue. I found him lying on the grass with a pile of five kids climbing all over him. He looked like he was in heaven.

  “Rue, I’m going back to the inn. Want to e with me or stay with the kids?” I asked, amused by the sight.

  “Friends children!” he answered enthusiastically, wagging his tail with joy.

  “No problem, buddy. You stay. When you’re hungry, e to the inn,” I said, patting his head before turning to leave. I khat “hungry” was the magic word that would bring him running.

  I returo the inn, and this time, I finally made it to my room. The room was simple, but cozy. They built everything out of wood, which made me uand their fear of the monsters getting out. The bed was retively wide—not king-sized, but definitely more than a single. A rge chest with a key sat at the foot of the bed, and a door led to the bathroom. Inside was a rge copper bath, a table with a basin and a bowl, and, of course, the chair with the hole above a bucket serving as the toilet. The room wasn’t big, but it was big enough for Rue a least everything looked , and the bathroom didn’t smell too bad. It didn’t smell like roses, but it wasn’t terrible either.

  Throughout the evening, more and more people arrived with burns. Most of them had burns on their legs, which made sense given the height of the lizards, and a few had burns on their hands or other parts of their bodies. I took out a pen and paper, marking and wrote the name of each person I healed. The flow of people finally stopped sometime in the middle of the night. When I ted how many I had treated, it was over thirty. I wasn’t sure exactly how many I’d healed at the valest home, but I was fident it was over twenty.

  I checked my mana: 8,900 out of 11,100. There were no words for how much I appreciated the mana levels in Lumis. Sure, the width of my els and spirals pyed a role in my regeioe that, the regeion here was amazing.

  While I was busy taking care of everyone, Rue had his dinner a up to the room to sleep. At some point during the evening, I checked on him and saw him sittio the innkeeper. From the way the innkeeper was nodding and saying something to him, I guessed they were having a versation. I just hoped Rue didn’t tell him something he wasn’t supposed to. Rue wasn’t stupid, but he was i and childish. I decided I’d have a versation with him the day about what he could and couldn’t share.

  I could finally go to sleep. Before heading up to the room, I remembered my earlier resolution and used Identify on the innkeeper.

  Horim MossimInnkeeper Level 17

  “Good night, Mr. Mossim,” I said, a tired smile.

  “Good night, esteemed healer,” he replied with a respectful shallow bow.

  As I y in bed, I reflected on the day. My first day ba civilization had been felt good to help people. But now, I was trying to decide what to do about the dungeon. On one hand, I’d had more than enough dungeons in my life tely. Oher hand, we had three Jeeps and only two cores, and it was always fun to give Mahya gifts she wasn’t expeg.