The Gate Traveler-Chapter 41B5 - : Why Did I Think Teaching Mana Would Be Easy?

For the last two days, I didn't close up the house—Al was holed up in his lab, working on potions. I stood outside, waiting for Mahya and Rue to join. Only Rue trotted up to me.

I glanced at him. “Where’s Mahya, buddy?”

Rue's ears twitched. "Mahya stay home."

I gave him a quick scratch behind the ears. “Alright then. Let’s go.”

Rima waited for me outside, practically vibrating with excitement. Her eyes sparkled, a wide grin stretched across her face, and she moved like she was barely holding back from bouncing on the balls of her feet. Once again, she didn’t know what to do with her hands—they fluttered everywhere, fingers curling and uncurling. It was endearing in a way, making me smile.

At first, I tried to tell her to relax, but it never seemed to help. So, I let her be herself, figuring she’d settle with time and familiarity.

We didn’t have any patients yet, making it a good time to start the next stage. Standing behind her, I placed my hands over hers. “Channel mana out of your hands.”

She turned back to me, confused. “How?”

That was unexpected. After a moment of thought, I gestured for her to sit, sat across from her, and gently held her hands. “Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and try to sense the mana flowing through you—like blood in your veins, but lighter. Then, guide it to your palms.”

She squeezed her eyes shut, inhaling so forcefully her shoulders rose. A second passed. Then another. Her fingers twitched, curling slightly as she exhaled. I waited. She tried again. And again. Her hands trembled with effort each time, her brow creased.

Finally, with a sharp sigh, she slapped her lap. “Why isn’t it working?”

Her voice wobbled, thick with disappointment. She shot me a look, like I had some magic fix, but all I saw was the frustration of someone who thought this would be way easier than it was.

I leaned back, scratching my jaw. “Because it takes time,” I said simply. “Your mana’s there, but you’re trying too hard to force it. It’s like gripping sand—squeeze too hard, and it slips away.”

Rima let out a groan. “I hate sand.”

I chuckled. “Then stop squeezing.”

We kept at it until my next patient arrived—this one missing a leg from the knee down. I handed him some pemmican, which I considered a tremendous success. The last patient had kept most of his body mass when I regrew his arm.

While he ate, I grabbed a big sheet of paper and sketched out the house clusters in the settlement’s residential area. There were over a hundred clusters, each with at least two hundred houses. I didn’t actually draw the houses, just circles to represent each cluster.

"While I'm working on our next patient, I want you to head over to this cluster in the residential area," I said, tapping the spot on the sketch. "Go house to house and check each person—pulse, breathing, skin tone, and any other visible signs I taught you. Use the stethoscope to listen to their heart and lungs, then write down everything you find in this notebook."

I handed her the notebook and a stethoscope. "You're checking the general health of the people. Once we have that, we’ll see if anyone needs help—even the ones who don’t realize they have a problem."

“But you promised to teach me spells,” she said, her tone morose.

“Don’t worry, I will,” I assured her. “But first, you need to learn how to channel your mana. So, once I’m done with my next patient and you’re done with your house calls, we’ll continue.”

Well, teaching her to channel mana turned out to be way more complicated than I’d expected. Regrowing the leg took me three days, mostly because I stopped whenever the patient started burning through his own body mass for the healing. In between, I worked with Rima—before and after each session—but no luck there. The only genuine success was that she became an expert at checking general health through external signs.

She actually found seven people who needed help. One had an underdeveloped lung, two had severe circulatory issues—most likely lingering effects of illnesses that hadn't fully healed—and the rest had chronic conditions that had slipped under the radar. In a world where mana kept the body running better than it should, issues like slow-growing infections, internal scarring, or weakened organs didn’t always come with obvious symptoms. The body adapted, compensated, and masked the problem.

Rima was getting better at spotting hidden health issues, which was progress. Still, I couldn’t shake the disappointment of failing to teach her how to channel mana through her hands.

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After some thought, I realized the problem—I needed someone without natural inclinations or, at the very least, a talent for wizardry. Maybe it sounded arrogant, even in my head, but facts were facts. Some things I struggled with, but others came so naturally I barely thought about them.

Even back on Earth, before I ever became a healer, I channeled mana through my hands without effort. No trial and error, no figuring it out—I just did it. And because of that, I had no idea how to teach it.

When I got home in the evening, I went looking for Mahya and found her behind the building, crouched beside a portable forge. Heat radiated from the glowing metal as she guided a thin stream of molten liquid into a mold, the hiss of steam filling the air. She wore her goggles pushed up onto her forehead, streaks of soot marking her face.

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She barely glanced up when I approached, adjusting her grip on the tongs. "You're back late."

"Yeah," I said, exhaling. "Long day." I leaned against the wall, watching as she worked. "Did you always know how to channel mana, or did your parents teach you?"

"My mom taught me," she replied, focusing on the molten metal.

"Can you teach somebody else?" I asked, my eyes following the steady flow into the mold.

She tilted her head, considering. "Yeah? Who?"

"My apprentice. I can't figure out how to teach her to channel mana through her hands," I admitted, rubbing the back of my neck.

She paused, looking up at me. "How did you learn to do it?"

"That's the thing—I just did it. I never had to learn or experiment. It just worked," I said, exhaling in frustration. "And that's the problem."

Mahya scrunched up her nose, shaking her head as she turned back to her work. The glow of molten metal reflected off her goggles. “Wizards are weird,” she muttered, adjusting her grip on the tongs.

“Yeah, yeah. I’ve heard it all before.” I crossed my arms, watching her pour the last of the metal into the mold. “So, can you teach her or not?”

She set the tongs aside, her brow furrowing as she turned to face me, expression unreadable. “Do you want her to know about the house?”

I shook my head. “No, I don’t think so.”

Mahya crossed her arms, tapping her fingers against her elbow as she glanced toward the forge, considering. “Alright… so where do you want us to work?”

“The house they gave me for healing has two extra rooms I’m not using. You can work there.”

She nodded, wiping a streak of soot from her cheek with the back of her hand. “Okay.”

Since she was nice enough to agree to help, I returned the favor by being extra nice—casting Clean spells on her and her equipment until everything sparkled. Mahya glanced down at her now spotless hands, then back at me, and gave me a satisfied thumbs-up.

The next day, all of us headed to the settlement again—even Al, who had finally resurfaced from his lab.

As we ran, I glanced at Al. “How come you’re coming with us today?”

“The potions are ready,” Al said, keeping pace with us.

I glanced over at him. "How much did you make?"

“Enough. No need to worry. With these, they can make the trip to the fields, gather supplies, and return a hundred times over without issue. And if they deal with the snakes along the way, the potions will be sufficient to rid the entire area of them.”

“Did you make up your mind? Are you going to teach your ducklings to be alchemists?”

Al adjusted his pace slightly, his expression unreadable. "I haven't made up my mind yet. I'll decide after I meet with the leader today and speak with her. Then, we'll see."

My treatment house quickly became our central hub. One room served as the healing house, where I provided treatments throughout the day. In another, Mahya worked with Rima, guiding her through the frustrating process of learning to channel mana. And in the third, Al worked with his ducklings—the two teenagers hung on his every word as he taught them the fundamentals of potion-making.

His meeting with the leader had gone well. After speaking with her, he agreed with me—her intentions seemed genuine, and she truly wanted the best for her people. Still, he remained unsure about fully training them as alchemists. For now, he had settled on a compromise: he would teach them to brew basic health potion and anti-venom that didn’t require mana, and therefore, didn’t need the Alchemist class. Whether that would eventually lead to more, he had yet to decide.

An hour after working with Rima, Mahya strode over to me, arms crossed, a familiar look of exasperation on her face. "She needs better clothes," she announced.

I blinked at her, then at Rima, who stood awkwardly in the doorway, tugging at the hem of her worn shirt.

I groaned and facepalmed. Of course. Her clothes were old, threadbare in places, and here I was, sitting on a stockpile of unsold clothing without thinking of offering her some.

Yes, I know. Embarrassing.

I handed Mahya a neatly stacked pile of clothes for Rima, then did the same for Al, giving him a bundle for his two ducklings. With that handled, I finished treating my current patient, cleaned myself, and set out to find Lady Almatai.

I found her near the central well, speaking with a few guards. She noticed me approaching and excused herself, stepping aside to meet me with that same blank expression she always wore.

“John,” she greeted, folding her hands in front of her. “Something you need?”

“Actually, something you might need. I know food’s the priority, but I’ve got other things that might be useful—clothes, shoes, some furniture, fabrics. Thought I’d offer before figuring out what to do with them.”

Her expression didn’t change much, but something in her posture eased. “That would be… greatly appreciated. Come with me.”

She led me out the gate toward the same warehouse as before. The inside was still clean, but the food I unloaded was gone.

From my Storage, I pulled stacks of clothes—some still in good condition, others worn but sturdy. Shoes in various sizes, fabrics ranging from thick wools to delicate silks, and scuffed furniture I hadn’t bothered restoring yet. Chairs, tables, a few bed frames, rugs, and curtains. All the things I’d collected from the abandoned castle and Tolarib, and set aside because they weren’t valuable enough to sell or were damaged in some way, but were still too valuable to discard.

Lady Almatai knelt, running her fingers over the fabric of a thick carpet before picking up a wool coat and inspecting the stitching. She nodded to herself, then looked up at me. “This will help.” The relief I felt from her was less pronounced now, but it was still there.

I smiled at her. “Good. I’m glad.”

She didn’t say anything else, just surveyed the newly filled warehouse. It wasn’t food, but it was still something this settlement desperately needed.