My personal bath rivaled any tub I’d ever bathed in before. About the size of an Olympic swimming pool, it had nooks around the edges with seating for four or five people in the water. In the center of the tub was a fully stocked bar. It reminded me of the one time my mother and I had gone on vacation. She’d told me she’d received a coupon for an all-expense paid trip to a resort. While it was only in San Diego, it might as well have been Hawaii for us. We never went anywhere.

I floated around for a while, thinking about how much fun it would be to share a bath with Kalli again. Having a moment to myself for the first time since the incident, I closed my eyes and tried to remember what exactly happened. I couldn’t forget the look in her eyes as she clung to Rasputin’s back. The explosion was strange. It wasn’t something I knew she was capable of. Then I felt it. Kalli was just as confused as I was when it happened. She hadn’t meant to do it. Then she was gone. There was no pain or agony or any of the thousands of other things I associated with death. She was just gone.

Kalli, can you hear me?

I called out to her again even though I somehow knew she couldn’t answer. It still made me feel good to have hope. Were the parental controls keeping me from her? I closed my eyes and searched for traces of her within myself. The chains of my vow were oddly soothing as they dug almost painfully into my core. Their existence meant she had to exist somewhere. She just had to.

I pushed mana along the connection, flooding it with emotion in hopes she would feel me and reciprocate. While the tether between us was strong, it cut off suddenly, disappearing into nothingness.

I didn’t understand. How could the vow and the connection still exist if there was nothing on the other end? Was it some kind of phantom illusion? An echo of what once was? Why was I able to feel it at all if the system was blocked?

Wait a second…the system?

I thought out loud in my head. It was a bad habit. Was my core perhaps not part of the system? Or was the way I felt mana outside of it? What I wouldn’t give for someone to explain things to me. One of the big three from the ring would have been ideal teachers. Malric, Longinus, and Nirvana all claimed to exist before the system and would know what to do.

Could I get off the planet without the system? Teleportation seemed to be locked to the throne room. Deciding to test my abilities outside of the system, I focused on a spot at the other end of the pool and wrapped mana around myself.

SPLASH

I arrived in the lobby outside of the throne room along with what felt like half the water from the pool. On top of that, I was buck-naked. Since there wasn’t anything to do about it, I covered myself and began the walk of shame back to my room. Fortunately, it wasn’t far and only a few women saw me, giggling and whispering to each other as I slunk past.

“Oh my!” Marcelle gasped when I walked into the room. “What happened to you?”

Not bothering with an answer, I marched back to the bath. Only once I was back in the relative safety of the warm water did I feel comfortable.

So, teleporting is off the table? What about other things I can do with my mana?

There was no response from Kalli, not that I expected it. The first thing I tried was infusing the bath water with mana. Adding elements to my mana was still working. Bubbles rose from the water when I gave it a fresh infusion of air. Next, I tried spells by chanting Kalli’s favorite.

“Pvruzth”

Nothing happened.

“Pvruzth”

“Pvruzth”

Still, nothing happened. The magic wasn’t responding to words, so I tried doing it manually. I went through the motions of altering my element to fire and letting it form in a wave over my hand. Then I pushed it around, letting the fire flow through the air as though it were seeking a target.

That works. I guess words of magic are part of the system. Why doesn’t teleportation work? I don’t have a skill for that and I didn’t use a spell.

I stewed over the dilemma for a while before eventually laying on my back and enjoying the bath. The water was the perfect temperature. It felt as though it was alive and knew just how hot I liked it. Either that or it was slowly getting hotter in an attempt to boil me alive. Another thing I noticed was the intoxicating flavor the water had. Whoever enchanted my bath has incidentally flavored the water as well. It was kind of like magic chlorine, only this chlorine tasted good and probably wouldn’t poison me. It also removed impurities from the water which I made sure to test thoroughly.

It was only when I started to prune up that I climbed out of the tub and got dressed. Rather than putting my old clothes on which smelled of Rasputin and death, I chose to put on one of the robes that lined the walls of the bath chamber on conveniently placed hooks.

Both Marcelle and Ulli looked up when I emerged. Ulli blushed and looked away and Marcelle smiled. “I see you decided to exit the normal way this time. Are you all refreshed? Is there anything I can get for you?”

I shook my head. “No thank you. I’m fine. So what happens now? You said you live here with me, but I only see one bed. Where are the two of you supposed to sleep?”

Ulli continued to look away while Marcelle answered. “Where do you think your father expects us to sleep? Don’t worry though. All of these couches are comfortable enough. Just tell us how you’d like to arrange your room and I’ll see to it that it’s done.”

“I guess it wouldn’t help if I asked you to find a room elsewhere, would it?” I asked, looking around the spacious chamber for a way to make them more comfortable. “Would it be okay to have someone bring in beds for the two of you?”

“We could do that,” Marcelle replied. “I don’t have any problem sharing your bed if you wish. Perhaps just a bed for Ulli?”

I shook my head. “I’m sorry but there’s only one person I want to share a bed with and she’s not here.”

The thought of Kalli was threatening to overwhelm me again, so I cleared my throat to change the subject. “So, about those beds? If we can’t get you some right away, you two can take my bed and I’ll figure something out.”

It was then that I remembered my trusty fanny pack. It was still clinging to my waist. It was so unobtrusive, I often forgot it was there. After digging through it for a while I found what I was looking for.

Both girls stared at me as I pulled a hammock out of a bag that was far too small to contain it. It didn’t take me long to find a place to hang it. After making myself comfortable, I looked through the bag again for a second item.

There it is. The M-Phone!

I powered the device on and fed it some mana to make sure it was fully charged.

Connection lost. Please go to a planet or dimension with a better signal and try again.

I groaned at the phone. What was the point of magic phones if there was almost no service? Two of the three planets I’d visited had none whatsoever. Deciding to take what I could get, I pulled up the magi-wiki app and looked up Origin. The first thing that popped up was an advertisement.

As you know, we strive to keep this wiki free of charge. However, mana costs money and money is something we desperately need. Please consider donating to keep this app free.

I declined and clicked NEXT.

Origin - Little is known about the forbidden planet. Placed on the restricted list of hostile planets in 2014, the planet is best known for the disappearance of the Credence Expedition in late 2013. Since then, the governing bodies of 314 guilded worlds have issued decrees banning further exploration of the mysterious planet.

I glanced over at Marcelle and Ulli to see what they had gotten up to. While Marcelle hadn’t moved from the chair she was sitting on, Ulli made herself right at home on the bed and was snoring loudly. Deciding I probably wouldn’t wake her by talking, I asked, “Marcelle, have you ever heard of someone called Credence?”

“Credence?” She asked in reply. “What are you talking about?”

I held up the phone to show her. “The wiki about this planet says they disappeared here almost ten years ago. That’s why the planet is off limits.”

She got up and walked over, taking the phone out of my hands. “Hm, this says almost nothing about Origin. If anybody tried to get in, I’m fairly certain The Creator would deal with them. It’s not something we would ever hear about.”

I rolled over on my back, placing my hands behind my head. “I want to know more about this place. Specifically how to get out of here.”

“Have you tried asking The Creator?” She tried. “He is the only one that can grant that request. I don’t see why you’d want to leave though. People on this planet would give everything to have what you have. They would be willing to share your bed just to get a taste of what is essentially your birthright.”

That didn’t make sense to me. “Why me? How is it my birthright? Don’t I have thousands of brothers and sisters? What about them?”

“Nobody knows,” she admitted with a shrug. “The Creator only admits a few of his children. Nobody knows why.”

“Then why am I the only one here?” I asked, knowing she was just in the dark as I was.

She hesitated, handing the phone back to me. “There have been others in the past. I believe this room has been vacant for half a century before you arrived.”

That just added to the list of questions I had for my dad. Sitting up in the hammock, I grinned at Marcelle. “No time like the present. Let’s go see the old man.”

Marcelle gasped. “Are you referring to The Creator as a common old man? That’s blasphemy.”

I laughed. “But he’s still my dad.”

My third entrance of the day into the throne room drew a series of gasps from the women in the alcoves. I’d teleported directly from my room, leaving Marcelle behind. I was still wearing just a bathrobe, which seemed strangely fitting for the atmosphere my father kept in his audience chamber.

He watched me approach with a bored expression on his face as one of his servants attempted to feed him cheese on a cracker. I waited patiently until his mouth was full to ask, “Can I get a grape?”

The servant behind him froze and I watched my dad become off balance for the first time as he struggled to swallow. “Erm, don’t you have your own servant for that? Why don’t you go back to your room and ask one of them.”

I laughed, pleased that my words were having an effect on him. It was a tactic I occasionally employed on my mother when I wanted her to answer questions about something she was hiding. “Am I grounded, dad?”

“Dad?” He asked, clearly uncomfortable with the informality. “You’re free to go anywhere you like, son. Have any of the servants been rude to you?”

“Only you,” I replied with a smirk. His face darkened at my remark. “I want to go to Earth real quick. Maybe bring mom back so she can see all your concubines.”

“Do you know where your mother is?” He asked, ignoring my taunt.

I shook my head. “I’m pretty sure she is looking for you. Just let me go back and I’ll-“

“Don’t worry about that,” he replied, brushing me off. “I already have people out looking for her. She is precious to me so I assure you no harm will come to her.”

“What about my magic?” I asked. “Why am I cut off from the system?”

“That,” he replied with a big smile forming on his face. “Is for your benefit. Your training begins tomorrow.”