When I got home, Lis was in the living room with a disassembled transistor spread out on the table. He glanced up, his fingers still fiddling with one of the tiny components.

“What are you doing?” I asked, leaning against the doorway.

“Trying to figure out how to make this thing work with mana,” he replied, his eyes narrowing in concentration as he held a piece up to the light.

“Good luck,” I said, giving him a thumbs up before heading to the kitchen.

The next day, I traveled between butchers, buying meat. I’d put the meat in the car, go inside, and store it away when no one was looking. After visiting over twenty butchers, I came back home in the evening and took out the coolers one by one, arranging the meat inside. It felt ridiculous, but there was something satisfying about this “proper” way of storing meat—sometimes it’s tough to shake off ingrained habits.

The following day, I kept up the meat, poultry, and fish shopping spree until all my coolers were full.

I did some internet searching, and late that evening, I drove to the Evelina London Children’s Hospital, cast invisibility on myself, and snuck in quietly.

Moving between the wards, I slipped into rooms whenever a door was open or someone opened it just enough for me to get through. I’d touch the tip of my finger to a child and heal them. Some didn’t even wake up, and some scratched the spot where I touched them, almost touching me, but no one caught on. A few times, I had to wait for someone to open the door again before I could get out.

It wasn’t easy sneaking in. Despite almost getting bumped into a few times, I stayed undetected. I kept this up until my mana was nearly empty. I left 200 units for Invisibility, just in case.

Returning to the Gate, I parked the car in a hidden spot and crossed it once more.

My channels were fine, and my mana was ticking up by 35 every second.

I dismantled the spiral, and my mana regeneration dropped to 20 per second. I built a new spiral with ten rings in each orb and kept training my channels. When I was full, I took out one cooler and saturated the meat with mana. After the second cooler, the itching sensation almost disappeared, so I added mana with the Absorb aspect to my channels and kept emptying and refilling them.

After three more coolers, my channels could handle more mana without a problem. I dismantled the spiral again and built it as densely as I could.

First Spiral Completed

Quality: 95%

My channels started to tingle and itch again, but it was tolerable. I kept draining and refilling mana over and over until I had ten coolers with mana-rich meat. Exhausted, I left the Gate.

It was evening on Earth. I tiptoed to the car and dropped the Invisibility. I checked my phone and saw that three days had passed on Earth. At this rate, I’d be a hundred years old on paper and fifty in practice. I went home and crashed.

The next morning, I saw Lis at the table with the disassembled transistor and thick copper wires. He was intently engraving something on one wire with a jeweler’s loupe, his brow furrowed in concentration.

“How’s the transistor going?” I asked, taking a seat across from him.

He looked up briefly, adjusting the loupe. “The original electrical wires were too thin, so I switched to thicker copper.”

“Did you get the class?” I asked, curious.

“Not yet,” he replied, focusing back on the wire.

“Good luck. Let me know if you need help,” I said, giving him a supportive nod.

“Yes, thanks for the reminder,” he said, setting down the wire and removing the loupe. “Did you study the book on how to aspect magical materials?”

“Yes.”

He took out a pea-sized crystal and handed it to me. “I need you to aspect this crystal to lightning.”

“I still don’t know the lightning aspect. I don’t know its flavor,” I admitted, turning the crystal over in my hand.

“Hmm,” he mused, scratching his chin. “We’ll have to find a lightning storm. It’s winter now, that shouldn’t be a problem. I’ll check and let you know.”

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“No problem, I’m here every few days,” I said, pocketing the crystal.

“How’s training your mana channels going?” he asked, his eyes curious.

“Good. They’re almost four millimeters thick,” I said proudly.

“Impressive. Soon, you’ll start expanding the secondary channels,” he remarked, leaning back in his chair.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I confessed, shaking my head.

“Find and read the book Mana Body – Supreme Control. It explains everything.”

“Thanks.”

That gave me an idea I hadn’t thought of before.

I spent the whole day cooking for Rue and Lis, gave Lis all the food I’d made, and went to the hospital again that evening.

When I arrived at the Neonatal unit on the sixth floor, I noticed that someone had propped all the doors wide open. I shrugged and started my rounds. There were fewer children this time, which made me happy. When I finished with everyone, I still had 3580 mana, so I moved to the Sky ward and the Pediatric Critical Care Unit and drained my mana until I had 200 units left.

I drove to the Gate again, parked in a secluded spot, and crossed over. This time, instead of saturating meat, I took out the books I’d copied, paid 1,000 mana to learn the language, and stored them back.

I went through about twenty books, learning their language—spoken and written. At the same time, I built a second spiral with five rings in each orb and increased my regeneration. My channels itched, but I was used to it by that point.

When I took out the next book to learn the language, I felt a warning from my Luck. Immediately, I stopped and began looking around and listening. I didn’t see or hear anything, but knew something was wrong. I sharpened all my senses and felt a disturbance in the mana about four meters away. Not wanting to take any chances, I jumped through the Gate back to Earth.

Halfway through the Gate, I felt a terrible pain in my leg. I fell on the other side, half paralyzed by the pain. Luckily, it was night on Earth, so I dropped the Invisibility and looked at my leg. My leg was torn to shreds and bleeding badly.

I grabbed the blood to stop the bleeding, held the flesh with my hand to keep as much in place as possible, and started casting Healing Touch over and over. I had to regrow the missing parts in some areas. It took over an hour until my leg was fine, and I finally stopped panicking. My mana was down to 1300/8800.

I looked at all the blood and didn’t want to leave it. God knows what they could learn from it. Cutting a few steaks into small pieces, I then pressed them into the bloody spots. I also decided to buy a few bottles of bleach, just in case.

Although I walked cautiously to the car, my leg was perfectly fine and worked as usual, but I was starving and tired. I mentally marked this Gate with an X. I’d taken advantage of it as much as possible, but it was time to move on. After getting home, I had an enormous meal, and slept.

The following morning, Lis told me a storm front was approaching Mainland Europe, so we took the train to Paris. Rue wasn’t happy about his leash but accepted it was necessary.

We found a pleasant hotel with a balcony for me to “taste” lightning and explored the city a bit. We expected the storm to hit during the night.

Lis turned to me as we strolled along the Seine. “Remind me why we chose London?”

“English,” I replied, glancing at the boats passing by.

“Right, right. We should move to Paris; the food is better,” he suggested with a grin, nudging my shoulder.

I laughed, shaking my head. “No problem, but first, I want to finish visiting the Gates in the UK and boost my mana regeneration.”

He raised an eyebrow. “How’s that going? Any progress?”

“Yes, but something attacked me last time, so I’m switching Gates.”

I felt Rue’s worry through our bond and petted him reassuringly. “Don’t worry, I’m fine. Like I promised, I was right next to the gate and jumped straight through.”

Rue gave me a side-eye, clearly not convinced. He knew I was full of it.

I sighed and came clean, rubbing the back of my neck. “Okay, I did get scratched a bit, but don’t worry. Remember, I’m a healer, so I fixed my leg, and I’m fine.”

Rue huffed, but his worry eased slightly. Despite not being completely convinced, he let it go.

We visited five patisseries, got a sugar rush, and went back to the hotel when the rain started. I waited for the main body of the storm, and when the lightning began, I went out to the balcony. It was COLD! I shook my head, shivered, and wondered about the sacrifices I made for friends.

I concentrated on the mana and tried to zero in on the flavor of lightning. Bit by bit, I could distinguish the lightning from everything else. Knowing water and wind helped a lot. I started to create the aspect with my mana, but it wasn’t quite right. I focused more and more, bringing the mana in my hand closer to the correct aspect. When everything clicked, my hand shot an arc of electricity. Startled, I jumped, slipped on the wet floor, and banged my elbow on the balcony railing.

Ouch!

After rubbing my elbow and grumbling about the unfairness of it all, I created the aspect again to verify I had it, and shot another arc of lightning from my hand. It was a small arc, but I knew I could make it bigger.

Ha! I’m a lightning Wizard! Beware my mighty arc! I knew I was absurd, but it still made me snicker.

I went inside to get dry and saw Lis waiting with a question on his face.

“Yes, yes, I got it. Let me get dry; I’m freezing.” He looked very pleased.

I got dry but was still cold, so I took a hot shower. When I came back to the room, he handed me the crystal without a word. I laughed and started to aspect it. It felt different from channeling mana into the crystals at his place. There, it felt like the crystal was sucking the mana out of me. Here, I had to force the crystal to cooperate—like it wanted to stay neutral.

After a tough battle of wills, the crystal finally got aspected and acted like a “normal” crystal, sucking the mana in like a hungry baby. When it was full, it was silvery-white, with occasional small arcs of electricity inside. I was admiring the arcs, turning the crystal in my hand to catch the light, when Lis snatched it from my grasp.

“Hey, I was admiring my creation!” I protested, reaching out as if to take it back.

Lis tossed me another small crystal. “Aspect this one, and you can gaze at it lovingly as much as you want. I need my crystal,” he said with a smirk.

“Spoilsport,” I muttered, rolling my eyes.

He stuck his tongue out at me, grinning mischievously.

“Lis, my friend, you’re spending too much time with Zara from across the hall. You’re starting to act like a ten-year-old,” I said, shaking my head in mock dismay.

“She’s a lot of fun, and some gestures are too expressive not to use,” he replied, his grin widening.

I shook my head again, chuckling. Earth was ruining my Sensei and turning him into a hooligan.