When I get back home, I begin packing. Before I start I make sure to lock the door, to avoid a scenario similar to when Emily burst into the room when I was practicing noers. At least that time she didn’t really notice anything, if she caught me packing my clothes all of a sudden she will sure get suspicious. When I finish packing I head downstairs for dinner, my mom isn’t at home so it's just Emily and I that eat. As she eats she uses her phone. It makes me think of the last time I really used my phone, which is two weeks ago before I started schooling in the Metorium. If I were to go on social media right now I am sure to be barraged by countless notifications.

After dinner, I go back to my room and begin my usual daily practice. When I am done practicing the circulation technique, I pick up the Basic Noer Studies and begin studying. Since my fight with Keldin, I have been taking the textbook very seriously. I realize that part of the reason I lost to him was that I didn’t know enough combat noers. Keldin knows far more than I do and that was part of the reason he could defeat me so easily. Because of that, I have been taking Basic Noer Studies more seriously than before, hoping to increase my strength. Apart from that, I have been trying to figure out the effects of different noers and how I could use them, in a fight or otherwise.

I have learned and made up quite a bit of noers because of that, though most of them cannot be used in a fight. For instance, a noer that basically acts like a switch. But what I am studying this night has nothing to do with any of that. I had recently come across two different types of noers. Active and passive noers. To simplify what I learned, active and passive noers are the same with just one main difference: active noers cannot last long on their own without an almost constant supply of Uua. Passive noers on the other hand usually have a way to store large amounts of Uua, which they can then use even when cut off from a constant supply, enabling them to last long periods of time alone.

Passive noers can be made as long as any of particular set of Alphabets, which are designed to store Uua, are included in the main noer. After learning the Alphabets needed, a thought pops into my head and I turn to one of the noers I had recently developed, excited. The noer is made up of two parts and has a simple function, to cause any two surfaces with the noers on them to be attracted together. If I could make them passive noers, then I can bind any two objects for as long as I wish without having to constantly supply the noers with magic.

I conjure the noer before me and begin to tweak it. After a few minutes, I am done and begin to test it. I grab two books and place the noers on them, making sure to only input a little bit of power in them so that they won’t spend the next few years stuck together. Almost as soon as I use the noers, the books jump together and stay stuck.

“Good,” I say excited. I can already imagine placing this on Keldin in a fight and binding him to the ground. After five seconds, the books fall apart and I pick them up, eager to continue experimenting. I hold one book above me and place the other one on the bed before putting the noers on both of them. I expect to see the one on the bed jump and stick to the one I am holding but I am disappointed. The end of the book on the bed just rises slightly before falling back to the bed after five seconds.

I can immediately deduce the problem. The noer isn’t producing enough attractive force to overcome gravity, and that was probably because it didn’t have enough Uua. Noers can naturally store a limited amount of Uua in them but that is obviously not enough. I’ll need to find a way to store large amounts of Uua. Apart from that, the fact that it acts immediately is still another problem. I would prefer being able to place it and activate it anytime I wanted and not it activating immediately. I can probably solve both problems by only injecting Uua continuously when I want to use them, but that still isn’t enough. Still, I am happy with the results I have achieved. I decide to work on the noer later before picking up my phone, intending to play some games before I go to sleep.

* * * * * *

“Hey Ian, it’s Drew.” Is the first thing I hear as soon as I answer the phone. This is the first time Drew has called ever since I gave him my number, and while I am a bit surprised, I am not too surprised.

“Hey, what’s up?”

“Where are you right now?”

“At home.”

“Where exactly?”

“In my room. Why?”

“I want to come over, can I?”

“Sure?”

I have barely finished speaking when the space near the window distorts. A portal appears and Drew walks out of it. In his hand, he is holding a red traveling bag and he is dressed in a casual manner. “Are you ready?” he asks and I nod, getting and grabbing the bag with my clothes. Surprisingly, I am a bit excited to be going to the Lands of Time.

He nods and begins walking towards the window, I follow after him, remembering the last time he took me to the Lands of Time. He walks through the wall and after a brief hesitation, I do the same. I meet no resistance. Outside my room, I am a bit surprised to see myself walking on air, a few meters above the ground. I pause for a moment, looking down at the people walking on the street below me.

“This is really weird,” I say as I begin walking again. “It's like we’re not even here.”

Drew shrugs. “We aren’t.”

“Hey, if a Laen begins to go to the Lands of Time in front of you, will you notice it?”

He shakes his head. “I won’t, but PM should?”

“Really? Why?”

“He studies things related to space, that’s what his Trump is centered on. He and everyone that studies his trump can see the way to the Lands of Time.”

“Wait, why can they see it and you can’t?”

“The way to the Lands is on an entirely different space from earth, it’s also like one-way glass, we can see through it on the way there, but people on earth’s plane can’t, that’s also why it looks like we are walking on air, it’s because we aren’t really on earth. PM and those of his Trump are sensitive to things related to space so they can see the way to the Lands. They’re also the only ones that can turn back without getting lost in the space in-between.”

“Oh,” I say.

The world around us begins to fade away as the traces of another, greener world begins to appear. After a while Drew stops and takes a deep breath. We are not in the city anymore. We are now in the Lands of Time. I follow Drew’s lead and take a deep breath. The air somehow feels sweeter and fresher than the one I am used to in the city. After a few seconds, I turn to Drew who is looking around, as though trying to find something.

“So, where next?”