The Gate Traveler

Following Lis’s instructions, I boarded a flight to Toulouse. After landing, I rented a car and drove to Balma. When I got there, I called Lis and told him where I was.

He sent me a WhatsApp location half an hour’s drive from Balma and told me, “When you get to the driveway, stop, but don’t get out of the car. I’ll come to pick you up.”

The location led me to a farm outside Balma with an access road that looked abandoned. After reaching the gate, I parked and called Lis.

After a few minutes, Lis arrived, his footsteps crunching on the gravel as he approached. He hugged me tightly, clapping me on the back, and said with a wide smile, “It’s good to see you, my friend.”

After he petted Rue, scratching his neck and ears while the dog wagged his tail furiously, Lis received an enthusiastic round of face licks. He chuckled and asked me, “Do you trust me?”

“Yes.”

“Excellent,” he said, his tone suddenly serious. “I’m going to blindfold you and lead you inside. Don’t peek, and follow all my instructions.”

“OK,” I agreed, feeling a mix of curiosity and excitement.

He tied a thick black cloth over my eyes, the fabric soft but impenetrable. Placing his hands on my shoulders, he guided me forward with a firm grip.

Rue’s voice shouted in my mind, “No! Tell! Lis! No! Tell!”

“Lis told you not to tell me what you see?”

“Yes!”

“No problem, buddy,” I assured him with a chuckle. “Don’t tell me. Friends don’t tell their friends’ secrets.”

After about ten meters, Lis’s voice cut through the darkness, “Now there are a few steps, and then I’ll lead you inside.”

I nodded, feeling the gentle incline as we moved forward. The air changed slightly as we entered a building, the coolness of the indoors a sharp contrast to the outside.

“Do you trust me completely?” Lis asked, his voice closer now, almost a whisper.

“Yes, without a shadow of a doubt.”

“Excellent,” he said. “I need to cut your palm and draw some blood. You can heal yourself right after. After that, I’ll need a few minutes, and then I’ll instruct you on the next steps.”

“OK.”

I felt the brief sting as he cut my palm, his hands gentle but precise. He pressed my hand to draw the blood, the warmth of it surprising. After he finished, I heard his footsteps retreat, and then Mahya’s soft, familiar voice surrounded me as she hugged me tightly. “I missed you,” she said, her voice full of warmth.

“I missed you too, both of you,” I replied, my tone reflecting the truth of my words. “The first few days, I felt a little lost alone.”

“Did it get better?” she asked, concern lacing her words.

“Yeah,” I said with a small smile. “Rue helped, and I had homework to keep me busy.”

Lis’s voice cut in, more distant now, “Did you manage to build a ranged spell?”

“No, not yet,” I admitted, “but I’m working on it. I built a fire dart, but now I’m learning how to make it fly.”

“Excellent,” he replied, sounding pleased.

Mahya and I continued talking for another fifteen minutes, her voice a soothing presence, until Lis’s footsteps approached again. “Everything is ready,” he said, his tone now all business. “I’m going to place you in the middle of a ritual circle. You need to bend down, and I’ll place your hands. Once you’re positioned, channel the mana until you no longer feel the need; you’ll know when to stop. You’ll probably get a slight headache. Once that headache subsides, you’ll become aware of something new, but please refrain from exploring this new awareness. Hold back. After that, I need another minute, then we’ll take off your blindfold, and you can see the surprise.”

“OK,” I said, my curiosity piqued even more.

He led me a few steps forward, his hands guiding me with practiced ease. “Bend down,” he instructed, and I complied, feeling the cool floor beneath my hands as he placed them in position. “Start channeling.”

I poured mana until I felt I couldn’t anymore. There was a build-up of pressure in my head, which eventually intensified into a searing pain before ceasing. It felt like my mind had expanded and now contained something within it. I had the impression that it was a house, but I stopped myself and decided not to investigate further.

Mahya took off my blindfold, and I looked around. I was standing on the first floor of a house. To my right was the kitchen, and I could see most of it. A breakfast bar and high chairs separated it from the living room, and there were some hanging light fixtures above it. One of them drew my attention, and I sensed a connection with it.

Lis saw where I was looking and said, “It’s always good to hide things in plain sight.”

I didn’t understand, but decided to ask for clarification later.

The living room had sofas, armchairs, and beanbags around a low table with a fireplace on the far side inside a supporting stone pillar, with stairs beside it. The wall on the left had large windows, and behind me was a door with two more windows.

There was a mezzanine above the kitchen with bookshelves and sofas. It was strange; I both saw and felt the space in my head, as if it were a part of me.

“Why do I feel the house? I understand it had to do with the ritual, but how?” I asked Lis, confused. “I don’t understand what’s going on here.”

“This is your new home away from home. This is the project Mahya and I have been working on with all those blueprints.” He gestured around us, his voice filled with pride. “We built the house around a dungeon core, and we performed a ritual to transform you into the dungeon master.”

“My house is a dungeon?” I asked, my eyebrows shooting to my forehead.

“Not exactly,” Lis replied, chuckling. “It’s built around a dungeon core, but it won’t behave like a typical dungeon. The house channels the mana from the core into its functions, while special filters channel the trash mana out to prevent monster creation.”

Before I could ask more questions, Mahya stepped closer, a playful grin on her face. “Want a tour?” she asked, her eyes sparkling with excitement.

“Of course!” I said, grinning back, eager to see what else they had in store.

They led me outside, and I looked at the house. It stood on a platform with short stilts adapted to the ground’s contours. Wooden stairs led to a porch that surrounded the house on three sides. It had two floors, and I could see an attic with a window. It was beautiful!

“Did you do all this in five weeks?” I asked, glancing around in awe.

“Not exactly,” Mahya answered with a smile. She crossed her arms, leaning slightly against the doorframe. “We’ve been working on it for more than a year whenever you weren’t with us. Lis started converting electrical appliances to mana back in England. He got his class not because of the mini radio but because all your kitchen appliances work on mana. The radio was just a cover. We bought the rest of the things and hid them in our Storage. Now we just had to assemble everything and do all the enchantments.”

“This is amazing.”

Lis grinned, that mischievous glint in his eyes again. “Raise the house a meter,” he instructed.

“How?” I asked, my brow furrowing.

“Just will it so. You’re the dungeon master,” Lis replied, his tone casual, as if this were the most normal thing in the world.

I focused for a moment, and to my surprise, the house responded. The stairs extended with the house; now, instead of six steps, there were eleven.

“Cool! The stairs extend!” I exclaimed, looking down at the newly formed steps.

“Look under the house,” Lis said, his tone hinting at another surprise.

I bent down and noticed rolled-up rubber things beneath the house. “What is that?”

“Heavy-duty commercial-grade inflatable bridge pontoons,” Lis explained, crouching beside me to point them out. “I added them to my house too. They’re virtually indestructible—I checked. If something happens to them, they’re enchanted and will regenerate. You can park your house on a lake or a river, but don’t try sailing in it; no steering.”

“Every wood plank the house is made of is enchanted, too,” Mahya added, stepping closer, her eyes meeting mine with pride. “It can take powerful attacks and shrug them off, and if something manages to damage it, the wood will regenerate.”

Lis stood up, dusting off his hands. “Activate the protections,” he said, watching me expectantly.

I willed the house’s protections to activate, and wooden shutters slid down over all the windows. At the same time, I felt a force field materialize around the house, following the line of the porch railings.

Lis nodded approvingly. “The field you feel absorbs mana. So, any spell cast on the house will be absorbed instead of damaging it, and the mana will be channeled into the core. Also, anything with hostile intent that touches the field will have its mana absorbed and channeled into the core.”

I frowned, still trying to grasp all the details. “How will the house know they have hostile intent?”

“Magic can read intention; haven’t you figured that out yet?”

“I didn’t think it could read intent to this level,” I admitted, rubbing the back of my neck. “But if I have the house’s protective field, why are the shutters there?”

“Physical attacks.”

“Oh,” I said, nodding in understanding.

“You have control over the defenses,” Lis continued, his tone more serious now. “I noticed you didn’t like my house killing the snakes, so I didn’t put active defenses in your house. But if your house is attacked, you can activate the second stage of the defenses, and whatever attacks the house will be struck by lightning.”

They led me into the kitchen and showed me everything. I had a silver two-door refrigerator from Earth, and when I opened it, it looked just like a standard refrigerator, but it turned out it ran on mana. There was a large sink with hot and cold water, four cook burners that also worked on mana, a regular baking oven, a pizza oven with a stone, and plenty of storage space for dishes. In addition, the kitchen had six hanging light fixtures, one of which was the dungeon core. I understood what Lis meant by hiding something in plain sight.

“You don’t have to channel your mana to fill up the crystals; the core does it even with the low mana on Earth,” Lis explained, gesturing toward the kitchen as he spoke. “Underneath the entire first floor is a water reservoir. I don’t know how many gallons it can hold, but it’s quite a lot. All the water from the house circulates through the Clean and Purify spells and returns to the reservoir in pristine condition. Every so often, when you’re near a river, fill it with more water. You can even fill it from the sea or a swamp; the water will still go into the reservoir pristine.”

“How do I fill it up?”

Lis walked over to one of the kitchen cupboards and opened the door, revealing a very long, rolled-up fire hose neatly stored inside. He turned back to me. “Just put the end of the hose in a water source, instruct the house to take it in, and the house will do the rest,”

He then led me to a door next to the refrigerator, which opened to a room behind the kitchen that stretched the entire length of the house. Only tatami mats covered the floor of the otherwise empty room. Runes covered all the walls, and I noticed many mana crystals embedded in the walls, glinting faintly in the light.

“Store the mats,” Lis instructed.

I did and saw that runes and crystals covered the floor as well. This room contained most of the crystals we collected from the snake cave, and I harvested from the monsters.

“This is a magic practice room,” Lis explained, gesturing around the space. “All the wizards I’ve met had something like this. You can work on spells here, and the room will stay intact no matter what happens. This room channels all the magic you use back into the core. It’s also completely insulated for rituals.” He paused, then instructed, “Will the floor to transform into a ritual configuration.”

It took me a second to figure out how, but then I focused, and all the runes and crystals slowly sank into the floor, disappearing from sight.

Mahya stepped closer, nodding approvingly. “Even if you need to engrave a ritual into the floor,” she added, “the floor will return to normal after you change it back to the practice room configuration.”

By this point, my jaw was hanging so low that I was afraid it might actually hit the floor. I was completely speechless, unable to believe what I was seeing.

Lis continued, his tone now instructional, “You can will the crystals to absorb all the ambient mana in the room, creating a neutral space for rituals. You can also instruct the core to insulate the room and absorb all the mana to create a dead zone where you can play with all the electronics you keep buying. But remember to store them before you open the door, or the mana from the rest of the house will fry them.” He shot me a warning look to make sure I was paying attention. “You can also make the core release more mana into the room for better regeneration, but don’t overdo it right now. With the mana levels on Earth, the core is pretty empty. In higher mana worlds, preferably above thirty, you can go crazy.”

He pointed to a pedestal in the room’s corner, where the large crystal we had collected from the mommy snake stood. “Change this crystal’s aspect to lightning,” he instructed.

“Now?” I asked, glancing at him for confirmation.

“Yes.”

It took me a solid twenty minutes of struggling with the crystal—it really didn’t want to turn electric—but finally, I changed its aspect.

“Done,” I said, wiping a bead of sweat from my forehead.

Lis pointed out two rows of electric sockets along the pedestal’s legs. “Allow the crystal to refill from the core. After that, you can drain the room of mana, making it a dead zone, and charge your electric toys here. To be safe, test it with something small you’re not afraid to lose. I couldn’t test it without the correct aspect, but it should work.”

They then led me up the stairs to the mezzanine, which spanned the full length of the house, lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. There were three armchairs around a cozy reading nook, with two giant beanbags nearby. Rue wasted no time; he leaped onto one beanbag, settled comfortably, and shouted into my mind, “Mine!”

I chuckled, shaking my head. “Enjoy, buddy; this is officially your beanbag.”

The ceiling was low and reached a centimeter above my head. A taller person would have to stoop, but for reading, it was perfect.

More steps led us to the second floor, and we went up. On the second floor, on one side, there were two empty rooms of medium size, with a shared shower and toilet. There was no bath, just a shower. The toilet, unlike the one in Lis’s house, was a regular Earth-style toilet, with the Void and Purify crystals embedded in the wall to its right. Each room had a private small balcony.

On the other side of the hall was the master bedroom, also empty, with an enormous bathroom with toilet, bath, and shower. One wall had floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked a large balcony.

At the end of the hall, there were stairs to the attic. The attic was the house’s total size. Bookshelves were along the walls, which sloped down with the shape of the roof. Some of them held folders full of papers. On the other side were several more bookshelves filled with large, rolled sheets of paper and parchment.

Two sets of seating areas were in the center of the space, which was high enough to stand. In one, there were two two-seater sofas and two armchairs around a low table; in the other, there were two chaise lounges and three beanbags around another low table. A massive desk with an armchair on one side and two chairs in front of it stood by the window, and a large drawing table was by the door.

Mahya said, “The folders contain all the knowledge I could gather from all the engineering skills I bought from Guidance. The level of knowledge won’t be the same as that of someone who studied. Still, with the experience I’ve gained from space flight and working on the planet we planned to colonize, I’ve learned a lot about building power plants to convert matter into energy, building spaceship engines, and building crystalline matrixes for AI. The rolled pages are the drawings that accompany the written material.”

Lis said, “All the parchments are the blueprints of the house, which include all the enchantments and electrical appliances, as well as various blueprints of Magitech devices that I have conceptualized. I haven’t built or tested them, but they should work. Some folders contain everything I’ve learned in engineering combined with my knowledge of magic with the help of my Mind Index; this should give you a deep understanding of how your house works and how to build things in the future.”

At this point, I just stood there, listening to them in shock. My mind struggled to process everything, and I had no words except to say “Wow” repeatedly, my voice barely above a whisper.

I turned to Mahya, my emotions overwhelming me, and pulled her into a tight hug. “I have no words to express my admiration and gratitude for everything you’ve done here,” I said, my voice thick with emotion.

Mahya hugged me back, her embrace warm and comforting. “You saved my life, repaired my mana system, and served as a friend and guide for a long time,” she said softly, pulling back slightly to look me in the eye. “It’s not even a tenth of what you deserve. But I accept the thanks.”

I then moved to Lis, wrapping him in a hug as well. “Thank you,” I whispered, my voice barely steady. “I have no words.”

Lis hugged me back firmly, then pulled away slightly, meeting my gaze. “You don’t have to thank me,” he said with a gentle smile. “You were a friend who helped me with what I needed. I’m a friend who helped you with what you needed. That’s how friendship works.”

I just nodded, unable to speak, tears welling up in my eyes. Overwhelmed and with raw emotions, I stood there, unable to speak, tears welling up in my eyes, grateful for the friends who had done so much for me.