The Gate Traveler

After Alfonsen finished with Human Rights, I handed him a stack of documents—the Magna Carta, the U.S. Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. His eyes widened when he saw the stack, but to his credit, he dove in with only a few complaints.

Every time he finished one, we’d sit down, usually over a cup of tea for him and coffee for me, and chat about it. He asked some sharp questions, clearly trying to make sense of these new ideas compared to what he knew from his kingdom.

When we moved on to more philosophical stuff, the debates got pretty heated. He’d furrow his brow and argue against anything that didn’t fit his worldview. But something changed—his speech got less stiff, and he even smiled occasionally. Seeing him loosen up, even just a little, felt like a win, even if he was still skeptical about most of what he read.

During this time, Mahya and I visited many wholesalers in Beijing and bought most of our list. We both put aside twenty thousand euros and purchased merchandise with the rest. After one of our shopping trips, I returned with an ample supply of cat and dog food—I learned my lesson.

Rue wanted to taste the food. He immediately spat it out, turned on the faucet with telekinesis, rinsed his mouth, and yelled in our minds, “Yikes!”

The four of us laughed.

Lis gave me two thumbs up and said telepathically, “Whatever you’re doing with the boy, it’s working. He sounds almost normal.”

For a second, I thought he meant Rue and was utterly confused, but then I saw him looking at Alfonsen and understood.

Lis and Mahya finished their project. It turned out to be a Magitech device, so I could access all my electronic files on the external drive Mahya had built for me in a mana world. I couldn’t contain my excitement and kept thanking both of them until they finally told me to shut up; Mahya also hit the back of my head for emphasis.

“What are the chances you’ll build me something I can listen to music with?” I asked Lis.

He thought for a moment. “I’ll try, but first, I need to build Rue an E-foil. I promised him.”

We finished all our affairs in Beijing and boarded an express train to Xi’an. Alfonsen was thrilled when he heard we weren’t flying there; he still felt uncomfortable with planes.

Our first stop was the Terracotta Army, and the sheer scale of it left us all gobsmacked. Row after row of ancient warriors, each with a unique face, stood guard in eerie silence. The peanut gallery didn’t even complain about seeing things that were buried underground. I think the number of the terracotta warriors stunned them into silence.

We also visited the City Walls, Pagoda, Muslim Bazaar, Luoyang Longmen Grottoes & Shaolin Temple, and Mt. Hua. After the sightseeing, we rented a car and drove to the Gate. It was another high mana world. I shook my head. They were popping everywhere. To lift my spirit—or that was the excuse—I found two workshops we hadn’t done before.

• Table Tennis Playing
• Seal Carving Class

I think we changed the worldview of the table tennis instructor—or, more precisely, Lis and Mahya did. They did nothing crazy or acrobatic; they just hit the ball back and forth so fast and strong that it was invisible. The only way to track it was through the sharp pong sounds every time they hit it.

The workshops took two days, and we continued on our Chinese trip. We took the train to Sichuan and visited the Jiuzhaigou valley for three days, during which we also checked the Gate—the same high mana world as Xi’an. After that, we visited the panda bears. Mahia fell in love with them and tried to plan how to steal one and make it her familiar. Lis and I had to convince her for over an hour to give up the idea. She only agreed to drop it after we pointed out its size—repeatedly.

We went to see the Leshan Giant Buddha, Dujiangyan Irrigation System, Shunan Bamboo Forest, and Langzhong Ancient City. We enjoyed all the sights, and for a change, the peanut gallery had nothing negative to say. It was already two out of two—progress.

I found some workshops for us, and we attended all of them.

• Bamboo Painting Lesson
• Half-Day Chengdu Cooking Class with Local Market Visit
• Half-Day Chinese Bun Cooking Class with Local Spice Market Visit
• Private Sichuan Cooking Class including Local Wet Market Visit
• Half Day Private Chengdu Traditional Guqin Class

None of us got a point for the Guqin class, and I felt vindicated. I told them musical instruments take time, and now they knew it, too. For a minute, I considered saying, ‘I told you so,’ but held back—barely.

We all enjoyed Sichuan cooking, so we bought a lot of food for our Storage. The bellboy at the hotel kept coming up to our room to bring us more and more takeaways from various restaurants, and every time he visited us, his eyes got bigger and bigger and bigger. At some point, we took pity on him and bought the food in person. At every restaurant, we asked for a food order for a party of thirty people. We would load everything on my bicycle trailer, find a quiet corner, and store everything. That was how we toured for a week, focusing mainly on food.

Mahiya kept saying, “We’re going to eat so well; I can’t wait.”

We flew to Hunan to avoid spending thirteen hours on the train, despite Alfonsen’s protests. The moment we landed, we headed straight to Zhangjiajie National Forest Park. The park was unique, with those strange narrow and high peaks that looked like immense stone teeth rising from the ground. We discreetly checked the Gate tucked away in a secluded corner. This one led to a world with medium mana, level 42.

“How about this one?” Mahya asked.

“You want to travel it?”

“Not necessarily, just asking,” she replied with a slight shrug.

“Didn’t we agree on thirty-something?”

“Yeah … just a thought,” she said, waving her hand dismissively. “Thirty-something is better. Forget I said anything.”

Alfonsen, who had been quietly listening to us, finally spoke up. “Why do you consult among yourselves and not with Lis?”

“Lis wants to visit a Genomey world,” I explained. “And we’re looking for a good medium-mana option.”

“Are you not a permanent group?” he asked, looking and sounding utterly confused.

I sighed. “No. Lis is much older, more experienced, and stronger than we are. He’ll be bored with us,” I said, my voice tinged with sadness. “He’s moving on to a more challenging world, and we’re looking for something gentler.”

Alfonsen hesitated before asking, “Is there a possibility for me to accompany you?”

I tilted my head, studying his expression. “Don’t you want to go back to Austria, cross the Gate you came through, and wait for it to change back to Leylos?” I asked, curious about his decision.

“No,” he said with a slight shake of his head. “I enjoy traveling with you, and I have no intention of rushing to return home.”

“But how will you find a Gate that leads to your world if you walk away from a known Gate?” I asked, genuinely concerned.

“My family insisted on my memorizing numerous Gate chains, each consisting of ten or more Gates. I firmly believe that, at some juncture, I will encounter a world in one chain and be able to return to my world.”

I glanced at Mahya and asked her telepathically. “What do you think?”

“I don’t care,” she replied with a shrug. “At first, he made me laugh, but lately, he improved a lot. If he doesn’t revert to his old ways, I have no problem with him joining us.”

“Okay,” I said, turning back to Alfonsen. “You can join us.”

His face lit up with a huge smile—he practically beamed. “Thank you. Thank you very much. I appreciate it greatly,” he said with an almost infectious enthusiasm.

The drive from Hunan to Guilin was only four hours long, so we took a train. In Guilin, we visited the Reed Flute Cave next to the Gate: another high mana world, 63. We boarded a cruise on the Li River to Yangshuo. The cruise was a fantastic experience, with breathtaking views. Rue had no problem with the big boat and sat and looked at the view as fascinated as the rest of us.

At some point, Alfonsen said, “It is indeed a privilege to have been born solely to witness this.” We all nodded, including Rue.

In Yangshuo, we approached the Gate, and the second Lis touched it, everything changed. His eyes lit up, and a grin spread across his face—one of those huge, unguarded smiles that lit up a room.

I touched the Gate.

We looked at each other, and I smiled, too, because I was happy for him but also melancholic. The realization hit me hard—this journey was ending. I looked at Lis; his joy was contagious and made me smile, but simultaneously, a wave of sadness hit me. Our paths were about to diverge, and the thought of that hurt more than I expected.

Lis hugged my shoulders. “Don’t look like that; I’m not leaving right now. I have things I want to finish. Let’s find a place to park our houses.”

Mahia approached the Gate and touched it. “I don’t understand,” she said, her brows furrowed in confusion.

“Dragon Realm,” Lis said, his voice filled with happiness. “I’ve been looking for it for over fifty years.”

“Are we crossing this Gate?” I asked, glancing at it.

“With Invisibility, in and out shouldn’t be a problem,” Lis replied before giving my shoulder another reassuring squeeze.

After adding the Gate to our count, we went to find a spot to put our houses. The reality of it all started sinking in—four years of traveling together, and now we were on the final stretch. The idea of this journey wrapping up left a knot in my stomach.

I occasionally glanced at Lis from the corner of my eye as he walked beside me. He looked so happy and full of purpose. I understood the excitement—at some point, I planned to visit the dragons, too—but that didn’t make accepting it any easier. I knew we would keep in touch through the Archive, and it made the separation more bearable, but it didn’t wholly chase away the sadness. As much as I tried to focus on the future, I had a strong and crippling feeling that I was about to lose something very special.