Michael kept looking around the shelves until he found a small Tesla coil. Perfect, with this, I am set to start the exchange tomorrow. Now I need to sort out my supply chain so it doesn’t trace back to me.
He set the coil on his desk and leaned both hands on the table as his mind raced.
A gun or two? Fine. Tools? Easy. But long-term? I need many of these. Stuff I can’t just walk into a store and buy without raising flags.
And worse
I need money. Real money. Quietly.
He tapped his fingers against the table.
Banks were out. Corporations would report anomalies. Government contracts were a death sentence. Anyone sane would panic if a letter dropped out of a portal.
Michael paused, looking at the Tesla coil.
…Anyone sane.
◇◇◇
Early morning light hit Michael as he adjusted the focus on his binoculars.
He lay belly-down on a grassy hill overlooking a massive stretch of metal hangars, test pads, and fenced-off concrete yards. The translation cube rested lightly in his palm, glowing in faint pulses-almost like a heartbeat.
Below, engineers in white helmets moved in organized groups. Vehicles crawled across the grounds. Robotic arms lifted steel segments the size of cars.
And in the middle of it all walked the man he’d been searching for.
Elom Nusk.
Dark jacket. Hands clasped behind his back. A small entourage shadowed him: two assistants, a security tech, and a woman flipping through a digital clipboard as she kept pace.
Michael exhaled.
Finally. Took me 3 hours of hopping around like a lunatic… This guy owns facilities all over the place.
He had jumped from coastlines to industrial complexes to anonymous warehouses until he recognized this place from old drone flyovers announcing the new upcoming SpaceK’s private testing scheduled for today.
A perfect location.
Remote. Secured. No random pedestrians.
He spent nearly an hour assembling the letter without ever touching it directly. Gloves on, alphabet stickers carefully placed, every component sourced from different places through portals-nothing shared a common origin. It felt excessive, but he’d seen enough documentaries and crime shows to know how small mistakes unraveled people. Printers leaving microscopic signatures, handwriting analyzed down to pressure and angle. Paranoia, maybe, but anonymity wasn’t something he could afford to gamble with when his parents could be involved.
Michael gripped the cube in his palm.
Alright, let’s do this.
He concentrated, shaping the exit point of the portal in his mind, keeping it small, basketball-sized, nothing threatening.
Don’t screw this up.
Michael swallowed hard, then whispered:
“Let’s begin.”
◇◇◇
The morning briefing was going smoothly.
Weather clear.
Wind manageable.
No anomalies overnight.
Booster B-27 is scheduled for static-fire at 11:00 AM.
Elom walked with long, quick strides as his secretary read off numbers beside him.
“-and the cooldown cycle has increased efficiency by three percent, so the heating rate across the grid fins-”
She stopped.
Elom’s ear twitched at a faint sound.
Wind?
Then-
A voice.
Not English.
Not a language he recognized.
Yet, somehow… he understood it perfectly.
“I have a proposal.”
Elom halted instantly.
The secretary nearly bumped into him.
Security froze.
An engineer half a field away looked up in confusion.
And then, right in front of him, he noticed a black, perfectly circular phenomenon, edges rippling like oil.
A portal.
Hovering at eye level.
Slightly bigger than his head.
“What the hell-” one of the guards whispered, reaching for his radio.
Before he could touch it, something slipped through.
A single envelope.
It drifted down like a leaf, landing on the concrete at Elom’s feet.
And just as silently as it had appeared, the portal collapsed in on itself-
A point of darkness shrinking to nothing.
Gone.
Elom stared.
The secretary’s voice was shaking. “S-sir? Should I-should security-”
But Elom slowly crouched and picked up the envelope himself.
His heartbeat thudded in his ears.
A wormhole? He deduced immediately.
He swallowed.
Stickers marked the front.
“For Elom Nusk. Urgent. Private.”
He felt the weight of a billion impossible questions pressing on him.
Only one made it past his lips:
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
“…What just found me?”
◇◇◇
To Elom Nusk,
I require a standard, outlet-powered color printer.
No specialty components, just needs to operate without an internet connection for further communication.
Here is what you must do:
-
Purchase the land at the following coordinates.
(GPS coordinates listed, isolated wilderness, purchasable through one of your companies.)
-
There, you will find a big boulder.
Place the printer on it. Leave it plugged into a simple portable generator or battery unit. It will be retrieved at midnight tonight.
You can bring whomever you choose. Record whatever you want.
I am not asking for secrecy between you and the people you trust.
However, let me be clear:
If the government becomes aware of this exchange, it will be taken from you immediately.
No corporation, no private citizen, no billionaire can hold on to something like this once authorities learn it exists.
This is not a threat, only a statement of reality.
For your cooperation, I offer only this:
Two portals like the one you saw today will be left stable and open, connected for you to study. They will remain stable as long as you cooperate with my requests.
At some point in the future, I may be willing to sell you a permanent portal linking two locations on Earth.
Not today.
Not tomorrow.
Not soon.
And not guaranteed.
What happens next depends entirely on whether you choose to follow these steps.
Signed,
Arcanist M.
Elom reread the letter twice.
Then he quietly shut his office door, lowered the blinds, and pulled up the security feed for the exact moment the envelope appeared.
Frame by frame, pixel by pixel.
Nothing.
Just open air.
Then, in a single frame, a perfect circle of darkness with rippling edges silently but quickly grew into existence. The envelope dropped through. The portal snapped out of existence the next instant.
No trace.
He exhaled through his nose.
“Whoever, or whatever, wrote this understands how the world works. But a printer?”
A bridge between any two points on Earth.
His mind raced with implications-logistics, transport, war, energy, science, borders, ownership, chaos.
He tapped a finger against the desk.
“Yeah… this is worth it.”
He picked up the phone.
“Buy the land at these coordinates immediately. Handle it through one of the smaller subsidiaries.”
“Understood, Mr. Nusk,” they replied instantly
A moment later, he added
“Also, send someone to pick out an untraceable color printer usable offline and a large enough storage battery to power it for a few hours.”
There was a pause in the reply.
“…A printer, sir?”
“Yes. The fate of humanity may depend on it.”
◇◇◇
Michael was back in his apartment, taking off his ski mask and changing into a formal suit to look presentable as we walked into a portal to Valoria.
The moment Michael stepped through the portal outside the main gate, dressed sharply, the gate guards snapped to alertness. Bows and swords didn’t rise, but every man shifted into a ready stance.
Then a familiar voice cut through the tension.
“Arcanist Michael!”
Captain Julius strode out from the gatehouse, armored and immaculate, clearly waiting for this exact moment. His expression was tight, half-caution, half-respect.
“You return sooner than expected,” Julius said with a firm nod. “His Majesty ordered that you be escorted directly to him the moment you arrived.”
He stepped forward, gesturing for Michael to fall in beside him as the soldiers subtly relaxed.
“The Tower Master has already been summoned,” Julius continued.
“He will join His Majesty by the time we reach the throne hall.”
He turned, raising an arm.
“Open the gate!”
A few minutes later, Michael was in the throne hall, where he saw King Roland on the throne, with Elion standing just below the elevated platform where the throne was, and Tower Master Nelius opposite Elion.
“Welcome back, Arcanist. I assume you come ready to trade.” Said the King, turning to look at Nelius.
“And we are prepared to learn. The question is… where shall this exchange begin?” Said Nelius, caressing the end of his white beard.
Michael adjusted the strap of his backpack. “Before anything else, I’d like to know what you want first. What knowledge or artifacts interest you the most?”
The king leaned forward slightly.
“As agreed, Valoria desires advancements that strengthen our armies and increase our prosperity. If your world has tools, simple ones that can be made or reproduced here, I would see those first.”
Nelius tapped his staff lightly on the floor.
“My interest is different,” he said. “I seek understanding. The principles behind your manaless artifacts. The logic. The structure. Your people built complex artifacts that work without mana. That should be impossible.”
Michael nodded. “Fair enough. Before I ask for anything, let me give you the first piece.”
He opened a portal. The guards tensed, hands hovering over steel, as he pulled out a crossbow and a thin stack of papers.
“This is a crossbow,” Michael said. “In my world, it came after the bow. Easier to aim, easier to train with. You only exert strength while drawing the string, not while holding it. Though the more powerful, the more bothersome to reload.”
He passed the papers to Julius.
Roland raised an eyebrow-not shocked, just attentive.
“That design…” he murmured. “The Duraki use something similar. They guard it jealously. No one outside their forges has ever held one.”
Halden frowned. “Their crossbows are not available to outsiders.”
Michael used his feet to pull back the string, making it look effortless compared to a war bow of similar power, locked it, loaded a bolt, and fired at a wooden practice target. The bolt hit hard, dead-center.
Julius examined the impact. “Consistent. No aura. No mana.”
“Exactly,” Michael said. “And there are larger stationary versions that fire heavier bolts at greater distances.”
Before they could respond, he opened another portal and unrolled a broad sheet of paper on the table.
“For agriculture,” he began, “I can offer more than a few tricks. My world has developed entire systems to increase yields. Three-field crop rotation to prevent soil exhaustion. Selective breeding for stronger, more weather-resistant crops. And some I wouldn’t even be able to explain right now.”
Nelius raised an eyebrow at the unfamiliar terms.
Michael continued, warming to the subject.
“We’ve bred strains of wheat, corn, rice, and fruits that grow faster, handle drought, and produce far more food on the same land. Some were shaped purely through careful cultivation, others through more advanced techniques you don’t yet have.” He lifted his hands in a measured gesture. “But the results speak for themselves.”
He reached into the portal and withdrew a wrapped bundle.
“Your Majesty,” he said, “could you have someone bring one of your kingdom’s tomatoes? Preferably, the best you have.”
Roland frowned slightly in surprise but motioned to a servant. “Bring one. Quickly.”
While they waited, Michael placed a cardboard box on the table.
“When we compare what you grow now with what we’ve developed through generations of refinement,” he said, tapping the lid lightly, “size, flavor, everything improves with the right methods and seeds.”
A minute later, a servant returned speed-walking with a plate holding a bright red Valorian tomato, plucked fresh from the royal gardens.
Michael nodded his thanks, then opened his own box.
Inside sat a tomato nearly twice the size, smooth, uniform, and vividly colored. Even uncut, it practically glistened with moisture and cold, having been taken out of the fridge.
The King’s eyes narrowed, and then he looked at Elion before going back to the tomatoes.
Nelius leaned forward slightly.
“Both are tomatoes,” he said, “but this one-” he gestured to the larger fruit- “comes from a lineage refined over hundreds of years. Selected for yield, nutrition, and taste. And this is only one example.”
Roland inspected them closely. “They appear… vastly different.”
“Try it,” Michael offered, cutting it in half with a kitchen knife as he ate his half to show it was safe. “Compare them.”
The King tasted his kingdom’s first: familiar, slightly tart.
Then he tasted Michael’s. His eyes widened slightly.
“This is… sweeter. Richer. No seeds bursting out. And the flesh holds together better than ours.” Roland leaned back, studying Michael with new calculation. “Your world grows these in abundance?”
“These are what is available for sale at the commoner’s markets daily,” Michaels showed off.
“And if you’re concerned about bringing foreign seeds into your fields,” he added, “don’t be. The methods I mentioned - crop rotation, soil balancing, and selective breeding - work perfectly well with the crops you already have. They’ll all yield more without introducing anything new to your fields.”
He closed the wooden box with a soft click.
“As for livestock…” He gave a small, knowing smile. “That is a discussion for another day. I’ll only say this: in my world, the only days I’ve gone without meat were by choice, not necessity nor scarcity.”
“What do you want in exchange?” Questioned Roland.
“As agreed, I want an estate to live in, with enough land to test artifacts and staff to maintain it. I also want permission to train willing recruits using my world’s physical methods. Your soldiers may observe. An aura user to guide my training. Lastly, I need someone to teach me Common and help me teach them English.”
Nelius tapped his staff. “And for my part of the trade, what knowledge do you seek from the Tower and what do you offer?”
Michael exhaled and stepped forward. “I know about almost every natural phenomenon, what they are, how they work, and even replicate them without mana. But first, I want to understand what mana actually is, its source, its limits, and its origin. Are people born with it? How are they shaped into mages and knights? And how do I know whether I can learn to use mana myself? I have as many questions for you as you have for me. Oh, and I require your magical assistance in retrieving something from my homeland tonight.”