The Gate Traveler

As I sat there, reveling in my awesomeness, the rain began to fall. Initially, it was a drizzle that I ignored, but the intensity picked up fast. I looked around, found elevated ground, and took out a tent.

On second thought, I wanted to rearrange my coolers and needed the space, so I stored it and took out a tent I hadn’t used before. I asked for a big tent and was told that this one was a “Glamping Tent” and the biggest available. It took me almost twenty minutes to figure out how to set it up and another thirty minutes to do it. It was HUGE. You could raise a family in it. Its yurt-like design featured a foldable partition for the sleeping space and a generous “living room.” It had three canopies that you could open or leave hanging like curtains. Big windows, two entrances, and two-layer flooring—one was thick bamboo flooring that you put on the bottom, and the second was a thick rubbery carpet. It wasn’t a tent; it was a portable palace!

Stretch and I were soaked by the time I finished setting it up. Not wanting him to soak the tent, I took a towel and said, “No shaking yourself inside. We want a dry tent. If you want to shake yourself to get rid of the water, go out, shake, and I’ll dry you.”

He listened to me!

He went out, shook himself, and came back in, wagging his tail. I dried him, told him he was the smartest and the best dog in existence, and got a facial tongue bath. After getting rid of my wet clothes, drying and redressing, I laid Stretch’s blankets and arranged a table and chair for me. We ate lunch, and Stretch took a nap.

I summoned some of my meat coolers and organized them. When I stored the meat on Earth, I packed it with ice and was glad I did. With me constantly summoning the coolers, the ice kept the meat fresh. The ice remained completely frozen in the coolers I hadn’t opened, but it partially melted in the coolers I opened and closed to retrieve food. I also had coolers with only ice that I hadn’t touched yet. I moved a layer of meat from one cooler, covered it with ice, put another layer on top, covered it with ice, and proceeded like this until the cooler was full. Like this, I re-packed and rearranged all the meat from Earth by categories—beef, lamb, chicken, and turkey. When I was done, I had nine empty coolers. I also took out the bison coolers and re-packed them with ice. I reused the half-melted ice from the other coolers and threw out the water outside. With the intensity of the rain, my puddles were invisible.

When I was done with my project, it was getting dark. I threw my light ball up to the tent’s ceiling, and it looked like an actual living room with a light bulb. We had a nice dinner—without beer—and went to sleep.

The next day, it was still raining, so I continued to arrange my Storage. I had some frayed personal clothes I put aside in a basket. With my Clean spell, I cast it every evening on myself, Stretch, and my clothes, and I wore the same things daily. As a result, the continuous wear caused some of them to become ragged. I mended them one by one with the Mend spell and refolded them in my suitcases. Yes, I had suitcases. I knew it was silly with my Storage, but it felt right to me.

I switched to arranging the rest of my food supplies. I freed another four coolers by moving the eggs from the coolers to trunks. Rearranged the fruits and vegetables in the baskets and freed some baskets. Rearranged all the baked goods in the boxes and collected all the reusable takeaway containers in one place.

By the evening, the ground under the front canopy was dry, so I lit a fire and cooked dinner from the new bison meat. After we ate, I continued to cook it and filled almost all my takeaway containers. I should have bought empty ones for such an occurrence. This time, I didn’t facepalm—progress.

In the morning, it was still raining. The dinner the night before with mana-rich meat gave me an idea. I re-summoned the coolers with meat one by one, channeled a little mana into the meat to feel what was happening inside it, and channeled mana into it to saturate it without exploding. Initially, I would stop when I felt some pieces were close to exploding. After a while, I experimented with excluding them from the channeling and continuing to saturate the rest. I had a few mishaps with some pieces that exploded, but I got the hang of it, and by the third cooler, nothing blew up.

Yay!

I had to stop twice to regenerate mana, but finally, all my meat and fish were mana-rich. I moved to the eggs and then to the fruits and vegetables, which were trickier for some reason. A few exploded, but again, I prevailed!

Next, I treated all my baked goods. This entire process took me nine days.

It was still raining. I engaged my active Luck and still felt the direction and “no hurry.” It seemed likely that someone was writing a book about mana. I needed to give them a chance to finish it.

After nine days, I ran out of food supplies to arrange and saturate. Hmm. I spent two days reading, cooking us three meals a day, cooking some more food reserves until I ran out of containers, playing my guitar, learning new songs on the guitar, and petting and scratching Stretch. He spent his days napping, being petted, or being very nosy about my actions.

It was still raining.

I also noticed that the temperatures dropped. It wasn’t cold yet, but colder than before. Judging by all the flowers, I thought I crossed over to Shimoor in the early spring. I tried to estimate my time here, but I wasn’t sure. Although I didn’t keep track of the days, I believed it to be late autumn or early winter. I didn’t think I was here longer.

Another rainy day.

Getting an idea, I took out all my empty packaging containers—trunks, baskets, cardboard boxes, etc. Luckily, I was smart enough to buy some folded cardboard boxes. So, I assembled them and began arranging goods I thought would sell here by price range: the cheapest, average, above average, and the hated “too fancy.” I didn’t arrange everything. I didn’t have enough containers and too much stuff in my storage, but I arranged quite enough. This took me another four days.

It was still raining.

Another two days of leisure. Remembering I had a completed film with photos, I took out my darkroom tent and developed the film. I didn’t print it—the sky was too dark, and I needed the sun to direct with mirrors into the enlarger. I didn’t want black-and-white photos.

After another two days of relaxing and reading, my mana reached full without active regeneration, and I was getting restless. Initially, I had two free coolers, freed another thirteen by moving and rearranging stuff, and another empty one that used to be full of ice. So, I had sixteen coolers to fill. I decided to ignore the rain, I wouldn’t melt, and go bison hunting.

Strech stayed in dry in the tent, no matter how much I called him. Smart dog.

After shooting and draining the first bison, I again filled the carcass with mana, followed its path, arranged the mana as I wanted it, and pushed. Again, the bison collapsed on itself. I had no idea how long it took. When I was “examining” and infusing it, my senses were muted to the outside world.

I should have bought a watch.

There were mechanical watches that should have worked here. But I thought that such a unique apparatus, with a different time display, would be suspicious and didn’t buy any. Judging by the sun, I was sure it took a while. Two? Three hours? Too long.

After cleaning, I checked my mana: 480/6900. I knew I couldn’t do another one that day, and I’d need three days to recharge. Oh, well.

During the next three days, I leisurely breathed in mana. It was still raining.

Another bison. This time, after taking it down, I stuck a peg in the ground and marked the line of its shadow. The looting felt easier and quicker. When I was done, I checked the peg. The line moved about 45 degrees, or at least I thought so. It was hard to tell with such an overcast sky. I had no idea how much time it represented, but I was sure it was a while. Mana: 710/6900. At least I used less mana this time.

Another three days of rain and regeneration. Another bison. I still stuck the peg in the ground for comparison, but actively tried to make it faster this time. The shadow moved only 38-40 degrees, but I was lightheaded. Mana: 50/6900.

Hmm, speed is more expensive?

Another three days of regenerating, reading, and endless rain. I worried the valley would flood, but after checking some areas, everything looked fine.

Another bison. I stuck the peg in the ground for comparison, and this time, I actively tried to make it faster and use less mana. The shadow still looked like it moved 38-40 degrees, but my mana was 1250/6900.

Progress!

I spent another three days regenerating, reading, and experiencing endless rain. For variety, I also played my guitar. The gloomy weather also affected Stretch; he didn’t howl-sing while I played.

Bison number five—I remembered the song “Mambo Number Five” by Lou Bega and resolved to look for it in my songbooks.

Intention: less mana and faster. Result: 30-35 degrees shadow angle, 1580/6900 mana.

Yay!

Three days to regenerate and endless rain. At least I found the song and had fun learning and singing it. This time, Stretch joined me, but maybe only because I gave him a beer beforehand.

Bison number six: angle 25 degrees, mana 3350/6900.

Bigger yay!

The herd looked smaller, and I felt like the villain in the story. I had another five meat coolers—maybe it was time to pack up.

I checked my profile and wondered why I got no levels in my wizard class with all the experiments. The wizard class section differed from other classes. I finally understood the “Learned” part of skill acquisition, but the rest was a BIG surprise.

I looked at the [In Progress] and felt judged. I took out the crystal and identified it again.

Medium quality is not bad, is it?

I didn’t get an answer.

I Checked Stretch’s progress as well.

Soon!!

I decided to spend another day or two to regenerate my mana fully, pack up camp, and leave. I could travel in the rain. It wasn’t cold, and if this rainy season lasted for months, I’d go crazy.