TravelingDreamer
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Chapter 8: My Second Gate—Destination: Perfect Boredom
🕑 Added 2024-05-01 17:28:45 +0000 UTCThe Frankfurt Gate was only thirty minutes from the city. The second I drove past, a tingling awareness prickled at the edges of my senses. I didn’t stop. Instead, I drove for two minutes, pulled into a gas station, and walked toward the Gate.
The location wasn’t much to look at. Fifty meters off the road, five unremarkable boulders lay scattered in a cluster. Two of those stones were the Gate’s anchors. Just past them, dense trees and a thick line of underbrush blocked the field of vision from the road. Glancing around, I verified no one could see me and let out a breath, relieved. No one would see me vanish.
I touched the Gate to view its information:
Travelers Gate #468217257
Destination: Shimoor
Status: Integrated
Mana level: 17
Threat level: Minimal
No tech level, interesting. Does it mean they’re in the Stone Age or something?
While still maintaining contact with the Gate, I opened the Archive to view the world’s information. The first entry was from the same guy who wrote the entry I read about Earth. That should be good—I liked his grumblings.
Summer, year 9 of King Lure IV—Traveler Guar Shum
I’m leaving through a Gate in the northern part of the major continent. I have no idea what kingdom it belongs to. You can find the location marked on the Map.
This is my second time here, so I have little to add. I found a sweet, sweet deal with copper coins and came to convert them to gold. If you want to know what deal, find a Gate to a place called Dirt, Ground, and something else and read my entry.
I looked for his other entry.
Winter, year 8 of King Lure IV—Traveler Guar Shum
Hello, fellow Traveler. I hope my words will help you on your journey.
Came through a Gate from Tulidar. Don’t need identifications or glamour. Good. Spent 500 mana to learn the language. Mana levels are relatively low, so regeneration is slow. Something like 100 a day. Tolerable.
This world is nice but boring. Because of low mana levels, there are almost no monsters, and they are relatively weak. The strongest monster I saw from afar was level 2. I didn’t bother killing it. I want to get the Warrior Class as a sub-class, but don’t think it will happen with such a low-level monster.
Life is unfair sometimes.
This is my second world—or maybe my first. I’m the son of a Gate Traveler, and my father prepared me all my life. Before he let me through a Gate, he made me travel our world to gain experience. So, my first? Second? Doesn’t matter.
So, this world.
The good stuff:
My father was right that it’s a great starting world. The people are nice and friendly, the wild animals are not especially dangerous, and there are few monsters.
The locals are humanoid like us, but have a strange light brown color instead of blue. I didn’t need glamour, and they had no problem with my color. They assumed I was from the “unknown kingdoms over the sea” and kept pestering me with questions about how I crossed the sea. I invented a new story in every new town to break the monotony. Great Spirits, it’s boring here.
The money system is straightforward: copper, silver, and gold. 10 coppers=1 silver, 10 silvers=1 gold. They don’t even have platinum or mithril coins here. Boooriiing.
Most places have a basic inn, nothing to tell stories about. A night in an inn costs 3 coppers, a meal or an ale 2 coppers, tea 1 copper.
The bad stuff:
BOOOOORIIIIING
There’s nothing here except endless wilderness with some towns in between. The few capital cities are just like the towns, just bigger—no interesting magic, no dungeons, just boring, boring, boring. I’m feeling my mind going numb.
I’m leaving through the first Gate I find.
Goodbye. May your road be happy and your adventures gentle.
Well, Earth definitely broke his monotony.
His “Booooring” sounded like heaven—a world filled with endless green landscapes, small towns where everyone knew each other by name, and life like something from an old movie. Right then, a decision settled in my chest. I’d wrap up every tie to my life on Earth, turn my funds into jewelry, merchandise, or anything portable and valuable, and leave for Shimoor. A world with magic and untamed nature was calling me, and returning to Earth seemed a distant, half-hearted notion. If I ever came back, conjuring up some ID would be the last of my worries.
The first step was simple: a trip through the Gate to see my new beginning.
Emerging on the other side, I found myself in the heart of a ruin, engulfed in silence. The two anchors of the Gate loomed above me. The sharp, pointed rocks looked like they’d once been a single, colossal stone, cleaved perfectly down the center by an immense fire sword. When my hand brushed the sides facing each other, I felt a smoothness as cold and flawless as glass, an almost unnatural polish that sent a shiver through me. They weren’t just rocks; they were relics, frozen testimonies to an unfathomable strength.
Around me lay the stone skeleton of a once-mighty structure, swallowed by green. Thick moss clung to every block of stone, vines draped over doorways and loose rocks, and towering trees pressed close, their lower branches serving as the roof, with trunks wide enough to rival a truck. The building, long lost to time, had clearly been massive in its day. They built it from enormous stones, now scattered on the forest floor, half-hidden by moss and wild plants. I stood near one stone, and it reached to my waist. Wandering through, I pieced together its layout. It was circular, with smaller rooms radiating outward. All the rooms eventually led to a vast central chamber where the Gate stood. Every detail spoke of a past civilization. They had known about the Gate, revered it, and built this sanctuary around it as if it were a temple.
Centuries or even millennia buried their work in thick roots and creeping greenery. Even the air felt ancient, heavy with the scent of damp earth and stone. Cautious exploration convinced me there was nothing dangerous here—just the faint sounds of birds and insects, hidden high above in the towering branches and the steady rustling of leaves. It was quiet and secluded.
I felt lighter on this side, as if the ground’s pull on me was weaker. Less gravity? Or was it the mana’s influence? The difference wasn’t drastic, but noticeable enough. Is there a way to measure gravity? I wondered.
I checked the Gate from this side.
Travelers Gate #468217257
Destination: Earth/Gaia/Terra
Status: Unintegrated
Mana level: 3
Technology level: Low
Threat level: Humans–moderate. Other species–very high.
The information was like the other Gate, and the number looked similar. I wrote it down to compare.
When I stepped back through the Gate, the familiar weight of Earth’s gravity settled over me. It reminded me I had work to do. My time here was short now. I needed to tie up loose ends, gather supplies, liquidate my funds, and start my new reality. A journey awaited me, and I was excited.
