Chương 508: B8—Chapter 15: Nothing but Distance

Travelers Gate #552217907 Destination: Thal Status: Integrated Mana level: 29 Threat level: Low Mahya slumped so badly she nearly folded in half, bracing her hands on her knees with a long, dramatic groan.

"It's not that bad," I said. She turned her head and stare at me like I'd completely lost my mind.

"Don't look at me like that," I said.

"Yes, it's low mana, but it's 29, not 19. I'm sure we'll find something interesting there." Her mouth twisted, and she shook her head.

"No dungeons."

"In the two years we spent in Atsupa, we did not clear dungeons," Al said calmly.

"However, you cannot dispute that it was a time well spent." She didn't look happier, but nodded, and we crossed the Gate. Level up +1 to all Traits, +5 Free Points, +1 Ability Point Class: Gate Traveler Level 7 Free Points: 8 Ability Points: 217 Gates to the next level: 30 The other side was a low, wide cave, opening onto a sheltered stretch of shoreline, with bits of moss and small plants hanging from the rock above.

The opening toward the sea narrowed into an arch, and beyond it was another gap where the water flowed through. Inside, the water stayed calm. It made for a nice, shaded corner of the beach. The Map of this world had only one big continent, its shape reminding me of Africa, though a bit more triangular. We were in the continent's south, close to land's end, right on the eastern beach. Only two other Gates existed, both far to the north, almost on the other side of the continent.

I didn't have a way to estimate distances yet, but I suspected we had hundreds of thousands of kilometers to cross. What stood out even more was the lack of any markers except the Gates. No towns. No cities. Not even Traveler markers of interesting places. Nothing. The part we were in was green for a long distance, then a long stretch of yellow cut the continent in half, which I suspected was a desert, with more green on the other side that slowly became lighter until the entire upper part of the Map was white.

I shivered just looking at it. Yes, I now knew how to warm myself with the fire channels and had my amazing cloak, but based on the Map, we had a long frozen stretch to cross to reach either of the two additional Gates. We spent a few days at the beach, mostly to enjoy the sea inside the cave, then took off in the balloon and followed the coast, staying close enough in case we wanted to switch to the boat. For the first two days, we didn't see a single person.

We flew mostly above forests, an unbroken stretch of green rolling beneath us, with the sea visible in the distance on our right. On the morning of the third day, the forest ended. Almost abruptly, the terrain opened into an endless green savanna, flat and wide enough to make the horizon feel farther away. That was where we saw the first people. They walked on foot and rode strange animals that didn't resemble anything I'd seen before.

The creatures had bodies like elephants, with the same big, rounded torso and wide, stompy legs, but without trunks, tusks, or ears. Their heads were closer to an anteater's, packed with what looked like oversized horse teeth. I leaned over the basket's edge, scanning the savanna below as the balloon drifted on.

"Should we land?" Mahya followed my gaze, squinting as she shaded her eyes with one hand. She rolled her wrist in a vague, dismissive circle.

"What for? Do we need anything?" I shrugged, fingers drumming lightly against the basket.

"Not really. Just curious." We continued in the balloon for another four days, landing every other evening to rest, and during that time we saw a few more groups scattered across the savanna. From their movement and lack of any permanent structures, I got the impression they were nomadic tribes, always on the move. On the fifth day, we saw two groups heading toward the same stretch of land. Then they noticed each other. There was no pause or any attempt to signal or talk.

The moment they were close enough to make out each other, both sides broke into a run. Wooden spears came up, and the shouting started immediately, carrying all the way up to us. They charged straight at each other, screaming at the top of their lungs, attacking on sight.

"Not a friendly bunch," Mahya commented. After another three days in the balloon, some more nomadic tribes and one more fight that also started the minute they saw each other, the savanna ended abruptly, and the forests started again. By that point, all of us were sick of the balloon, so we switched to the boat and continued sailing north. The journey itself was uneventful in the way only long travel can be. Days blurred together as the coastline slid past beside us and the scenery slowly changed.

We passed only one tribe along the coast before the desert, this one without the strange not-elephants, but that was the only one. After that came the desert itself, a massive yellow stretch cutting across the continent. This was clearly the world's equator, and even on the water the heat was oppressive. On a good day, the temperature hovered around fifty degrees Celsius with endless sands stretching to the horizon. Beyond the desert, the green returned, different from the south.

The vegetation grew shorter and sparser, and the life along the shore changed with it. We started seeing signs of something closer to permanence. Not towns, and nothing that could be called a village, but in a few places along the coast skin tents stood in small clusters near the waterline. People fished from the shore with spears, wading into the water, or pushed off in narrow boats carved from hollowed tree trunks.

In every one of those places, they tried to attack us on sight, hurling spears in our direction, but they never came close to catching us. Throughout the entire journey, one thing stood out more than anything else. We didn't see cooking fires or smoke from the camps. Nothing. The only fire we witnessed was a forest burning after a lightning storm. At some point, I suggested we teach them about fire, like we did on the previous primitive planet. I think it was called Rock, but Mahya categorically refused.

She crossed her arms and scowled at the shore.

"They're assholes. They don't deserve fire." I shrugged and didn't argue. They were assholes who attacked on sight. Their loss. During the sea voyage, we mostly played board games, fished, occasionally rode the jet skis or played in the air, and worked on small projects. I made over thirty healing artifacts, a few more light plates, and some air fresheners. Mahya made more wooden toys, and Al mostly worked on alchemy in the galley. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval.

Report sightings. The farther north we headed, the colder it got. First came almost constant rain, then snow. Past the equator, we ran into two storms, but they were mild compared to the tropical storms we had lived through in the world with the cannibals. Still, every time we spotted dark clouds on the horizon, we headed for shore, I opened my house, and we waited the storms out in comfort. All told, it took us about two months to reach the northern part of the continent.

By then, we had to switch back to the balloon, since the sea closer to the land was frozen solid and sailing any farther wasn't an option. That last stretch forced me to come up with a new technique, mostly because the cold kept getting worse the farther north we went. First came thicker jackets, then extra layers, then gloves, hats, and scarves. Everyone stayed bundled up, shifting and fidgeting, trying to trap whatever heat they could. It worked, up to a point, but flying like that was miserable.

I started playing with the idea of creating an air bubble around the basket, shaping it with wind and heating it from the inside. The concept itself wasn't new. I had already made a similar bubble before to protect us from the rain. This one just needed a more cylindrical shape, meant to trap the heat we used to add lift to the balloon. Forming the pocket turned out to be relatively easy. Wind behaved nicely as long as I paid attention to it, holding its shape without much resistance.

Still, I had to keep a close watch. If I relaxed too much, the bubble thinned out, lost cohesion, and broke apart, spilling the cold air right back in. Heating it was another matter. Directly warming that much air was inefficient and drained mana faster than I liked, so I cheated a little. First, I used the Heat spell inside the bubble, carefully watching how the effect spread and stabilized. Once I had a feel for it, I started leaning on the spell less and copying what it was doing instead.

Rather than using the secondary channels the spell relied on, I switched to the fire channels and let mana flow through them, shaping the effect by hand. The structure stayed mostly the same, just powered differently. It took a few tries, some adjustments, and more than one moment where the temperature dropped suddenly, but eventually it clicked. Once I cracked that puzzle, flying became much more pleasant.

The air bubble held steady around us, warm enough to be comfortable, and the cold outside stopped being a problem. For the first time in days, nobody complained about the weather. After another two weeks in the balloon, we finally reached the Gate. Travelers Gate #872651382 Destination: Korr Ash Status: Unintegrated Threat level: Low Now I groaned with Mahya. I hated the feeling of worlds without mana.

"The other Gate remains a viable option," Al said. Mahya shot him a look and hooked a thumb over her shoulder, back toward the frozen land we had crossed.

"It'll take at least a month in that cold." She shifted her weight and scowled at the Gate.

"Let's check this one first," I said.

"If it has more Gates, we can suffer through the lack of mana with stops to regenerate in the house." Mahya exhaled sharply and shook her head.

"We'll need a ton of crystals to feed the core." I shrugged, tapping my knuckles against the stone.

"Not really. My core's got enough mana to survive on a manaless world, and if it doesn't, we've got enough crystals to feed it." Well, the other side had six Gates, so it was a better option, despite the lack of mana. Spirits! I hate circulating mana to keep it in. It took us ten days to reach the first Gate on the balloon. Below, patchwork fields spread out in uneven shapes, divided by dirt roads and low stone walls.

Small villages clustered around rivers and crossroads, their houses packed close together, roofs of thatch or dark shingles, with smoke rising into the cool air. Castles and fortified towns dotted the landscape, most of them built on high ground, with tall walls and moats around them. Church, or maybe temple, spires stood out from almost every settlement, taller than anything nearby.

People worked the fields by hand or with animals, carts creaked along muddy roads, and men armed with swords and bows patrolled on foot or rode animals that looked like oversized barbary sheep, at least judging by their horns. In this world, I discovered something I'd never even thought to check before. I couldn't connect to the elements. No matter what I tried or how hard I pushed, the wind stayed just wind, completely unaffected.

With no mana and no way to regenerate without opening the house, we switched to regular gas for lift. I hugged Mahya for being smart enough, and stubborn enough, to insist on not giving all the gas contraptions to Sanctuary and keeping two for us. And as always, her reaction was, "Of course, I'm a genius." The first Gate we reached led to another unintegrated world, also without a tech level. So did the next one. And the one after that.

This whole cluster was manaless, and I got worried, especially since reaching the next continent, the one with two more Gates, meant crossing an ocean. None of us liked the idea, but we didn't have a choice, so we set sail for the next continent. With no mana to rely on, we had to depend entirely on wind and sails, and the crossing took about a month. We did activate the engine twice, feeding mana crystals to the core just in case. The first time was to outrun an approaching storm.

The second was to get away from what turned out to be honest-to-god pirates. At first, we didn't even realize that was what they were. They had no flag or markings, nothing obvious to give them away. Just four ships coming in fast and way too interested in us. Annoying creatures. Didn't they know pirates were supposed to have a black flag with a skull and crossbones? The ships appeared as dark specks on the horizon, growing larger far too quickly.

At first, I thought they were just cutting across our path, but then they adjusted their heading. Once. Then again. Always toward us. Mahya narrowed her eyes and leaned over the railing.

"They're matching our course." Al pointed at something.

"What is that?" He was pointing at a contraption mounted at the bow. It looked like a giant bow made of wood and metal, thick arms curved back under tension, a cable running through pulleys to something heavy and wicked-looking resting in the cradle.

"I have no idea," I said. The answer came a heartbeat later. The bow snapped forward with a deep, ugly twang that reached us, and something shrieked through the air. A massive harpoon slammed into the water off our port side, close enough that spray splashed across the deck.

"Well," I said, already moving, "now we know."

"Pirates," Mahya snapped, and activated the engine. I hurried below, popped the core housing open, and fed crystals in by hand, one after another, just in case we needed more mana than the core could provide for speed. We ran flat out for half an hour. By the time I climbed back up, the pirate ship had disappeared over the horizon. Mahya eased the engine down and then shut it off entirely. We all exhaled in relief, except Rue.

He sighed deeply, both mentally and audibly, then said in mana speech, his tone distinctly morose, "No more zoom." Once we reached the next continent, we switched back to the balloon and flew for another five days to reach the Gate. Right away, the difference from the first continent was obvious. The land below looked harsher and drier, the colors shifting toward sand, stone, and dusty greens. Heat shimmered in the distance even at altitude, and the air felt thicker.

Settlements hugged rivers, oases, and the coast, packed tight behind pale walls. Buildings were low and flat-roofed, made from stone or sun-baked brick, their colors blending into the landscape. Narrow streets twisted between them, shaded by cloth canopies or overhanging balconies. There was less wildlife, and what we did see kept close to water or human settlements.

The open stretches between towns were empty, broken only by caravans moving slowly across the land, long lines of animals and people wrapped against the sun. A day before we reached the Gate, we flew over a city that was under assault. Smoke rose from several points inside the walls, and riders charged through the streets on strange birds, their formations breaking and reforming as they pushed deeper into the city.

The birds resembled ostriches, but with shorter, thicker necks, and they ran on four powerful legs, flapping their wings as they sprinted through the city. The riders leaned forward, some shouting and hurling spears, others firing arrows into the crowds. People scattered in every direction, bursting from doorways and alleys, dragging carts, grabbing children, and trying to reach cover.

One bird slammed into a gate, bursting it open as it barreled inside, while another skidded across a rooftop, tiles shattering under its weight. For a moment, I thought about landing and helping, then shook my head. I couldn't save them all, and we just wanted to reach the Gate as fast as possible. Circling mana nonstop to prevent leakage was hard, and I was dealing with constant low-grade headaches. On top of that, navigating the old-fashioned way, without cores or mana, had grown old weeks ago.

Travelers Gate #872651382 Destination: Ishkareth Status: Integrated Mana Level: 40 Threat Level: Moderate We all exhaled in relief.