The small metal statue raised its hand in the air, pointing its index finger straight ahead. The air began to vibrate and distort before it, as if reality itself were wrinkling. A few seconds later, a crack of incandescent red slowly opened, expanding in a circular pattern until it reached the size of an average person and stabilizing over almost a minute.

  “What do you think? Is it stable enough?” asked Joel, standing directly behind Nana, his arms crossed and a mixture of pride and tension on his face.

  —Judging by its appearance, I'd say it's a perfect portal—replied Connor, who was watching the scene next to Joel—. “The execution was a little slow, but the result is better than anyone would expect, considering how little time it took Nana to get to this point.”

  “He’s telling the truth,” added Ashoka’s soft voice from the medallion around Joel’s neck, vibrating with a subtle note of approval.

  Joel nodded and turned his gaze to the statue. "Are the coordinates the same?"

  “Correct” Nana replied in a precise tone, although there was a hint of restrained emotion in her voice. “Ten kilometers east, twenty meters high. The same spot where we sent all the test objects and animals.”

  “Perfect. Then it’s time for the real test.”

  Joel took a step forward, while Connor, almost reluctantly, also approached nervously.

  “I don’t think this is entirely appropriate…” the former agent said, narrowing his eyes. Wouldn't it be wiser to test it on someone else... more expendable?

  Joel offered a faint smile. “I trust Nana’s abilities. Besides, you and I are the only ones who have gone through portals before, and we should be able to detect any stability issues. So far, I don’t see much difference from the portals I’ve traveled through previously.”

  Connor clicked his tongue. “I still think you should run more tests before taking the plunge.” Many things can go wrong with portals of this type. Even I don't feel confident using them at a distance my eyes can't see.

  The man was referring to the fact that he had never specialized in the astral positioning method for opening portals. A method usually reserved for the most experienced mages in the empires to explore beyond the four worlds. The truth was, if he wanted to reach a particular place, there was always a permanent portal or some other traveler with the necessary mark to get there safely.

  Joel raised an eyebrow, amused. “Relax. If a rabbit survived the journey, we shouldn’t have any problems.”

  “Joel, don’t you dare—”

  Before Connor could finish his sentence, Joel shoved him hard toward the portal. The former agent vanished in a crimson flash, swallowed by the rift as if he had never existed.

  For a moment, the air in the room was completely silent. The portal hummed softly, its red rim pulsating like a heart. Joel immediately looked at Nana, searching for any sign of alarm, but the statue simply looked back at him, impassive, then nodded confidently.

  That was all Joel needed. Without another word, he stepped forward and vanished as well, crossing the threshold into the unknown.

  He still vividly remembered his experiences during his time with the Cult of Dawn. He knew perfectly well what a portal could do to the human body: the sensation of being torn apart and reassembled by opposing gravitational forces, the absolute vertigo of a psychedelic journey through the bowels of the universe. That's why, upon crossing Nana's portal, he prepared for the worst.

  But none of that happened. Instead of discomfort or disorientation, he felt an almost ethereal calm. It was like floating inside a luminous tunnel, a silent and linear journey, so smooth that for a moment he compared it to driving through one of those highway tunnels on Earth, in a car, with the steady hum of the engine and the faint twinkling of the lights on the walls. A sensation… even pleasant.

  When he emerged on the other side, the fresh air greeted him with a slight rush of pressure. Standing before him was Connor, his face completely stunned, staring at him with an expression Joel remembered seeing only a few times: that of someone who had just witnessed a miracle and didn't know whether to fear or admire it.

  "That was the most stable portal I've ever traveled through," the former agent finally said, his voice filled with surprise.

  “It was the same for me,” Joel replied, still processing the smoothness of the journey. “But… is that so surprising? I refuse to believe that the most powerful walkers can’t do something similar.”

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  Connor shook his head slowly. “It’s true that the stronger the mage, the easier it is for them to produce stable portals… But in my experience, having traveled through portals even made by Level 9 Dimensional Walkers, without any risk of being wrong, no one is capable of creating something as stable as Nana did.”

  Joel nodded, unsurprised, though with an analytical glint in his eyes. “You’re thinking from the perspective of a human mage,” he said calmly. “And Nana is neither human nor normal. Her emotional intelligence may be minimal… but when it comes to calculations, I don’t know anyone who can compare to her.”

  Connor’s face hardened. There was a mixture of respect and fear in his expression. "I've never wanted to ask too many questions," he confessed, lowering his voice, "but... what is Nana really? For a while, I thought she was some kind of spirit guide, like the guardians of wizard towers. But she… she's in a league of her own. And her ability to steal power from other wizards… it defies all logic and categorization.”

  Joel forced a smile, an ambiguous glint in his eye. “To be honest, even I don’t know what she is.”

  Connor looked at him suspiciously. “But you created her.”

  “And that,” Joel said, lowering his voice, “is what makes it so hard for me to accept.”

  Silence settled between them. Only the distant echo of the dissipating portal accompanied their thoughts. For a moment, neither of them knew what else to say. Then they simply headed for the shelter. Connor, of course, unable to use magic to move fast enough, ended up being carried by Joel like a sack over his shoulder.

  Back at the shelter, Nana received the good news of the success of the first human journey through one of their portals. The evaluation of the interdimensional tunnel’s stability exceeded all expectations, which only served to fuel her curiosity.

  The small statue wasted no time: she began tweaking parameters, recalibrating coordinates, and changing destinations, increasing the distance of the test portals with each movement. Her enthusiasm was evident in the speed with which her metallic hands danced through the air.

  Meanwhile, Joel sat across from Connor at the central table in the room, his expression familiar to the former agent: the kind of look that signaled an important conversation.

  “Have you ever been to the world of Gaea?” Joel asked bluntly.

  Connor, who was happily drinking from a can of beer with a straw—a habit he had learned to enjoy after all the great success in the experiments—stopped abruptly. His expression hardened, and his posture shifted.

  “I wasn’t expecting that question,” he finally said, with a curious smirk.

  Joel remained silent, waiting for an answer. There was no hurry or impatience in his eyes.

  Connor sighed. “Information about that place is jealously guarded by empires,” he admitted. “I can’t tell you many details, but yes… I was there. Twice. During my advanced training and later on a military operation I was forced to participate in.”

  Joel nodded slowly. “Do you have any way of opening a portal to that planet?”

  Connor shook his head firmly. “Impossible. I have no idea about the coordinates, and they made me erase all the dimensional anchor marks I used there.”

  Joel didn't answer. Instead, he carefully placed a piece of paper on the table. The sheet was new, but its contents were a complex code of symbols written in black ink. "So, what about these coordinates?" he asked.

  Connor raised an eyebrow, lowered his gaze to the paper, and began to examine it closely. It took him a while to process what he was seeing. When he finally understood what it was, his face changed completely: surprise, disbelief… and a hint of fear.

  “Is this what I think it is?” he whispered. “Where did you get it?”

  “From our friends, the Musalls,” Joel replied, his tone neutral.

  Connor chuckled. “So this is what you were looking for in that place… who would have guessed?”

  “Can you decipher the code?” Joel asked, unfazed.

  “I can’t tell you exactly what it says,” Connor replied, rubbing his chin with the stump of his arm, “but I can show you how to decipher it. Although before I do, I need to know something… are you planning to go to that place?”

  Joel interlaced his fingers on the table. “First, we’ll see if we can open a stable portal. Then I’ll decide if it’s a better destination than the others I have in mind.”

  Connor looked at him with a mixture of respect and alarm. “I can only warn you that that world is chaos. Not even the four empires, joining forces, have managed to establish stable, permanent settlements.”

  “Are its inhabitants really that powerful?” Joel asked, intrigued.

  “It’s not a matter of power,” Connor replied gravely, “but of numbers. They have nothing like our great mages, especially those of level ten… but their civilizations are colossal. Capable of mobilizing armies so vast that no empire could sustain a prolonged campaign there. And even if they could, they wouldn’t: the great nobility wishes to keep their existence a secret.”

  Joel nodded, understanding. “Secrecy is a form of control. If the general population knew that a world larger than all ours combined existed, full of resources and free from the dominion of empires… it would only be a matter of time before free mages, disaffected kingdoms, or organizations tried to get there on their own.”

  “Exactly,” Connor said, with a hint of irony. “But the worst thing would be if the inhabitants of Gaea managed to replicate or capture someone capable of creating portals…”

  The man paused, letting the thought linger in the air.

  “That would be a disaster,” Connor concluded. After a moment, his expression softened, and he added with a sigh, “Fortunately, that world was already in chaos long before we arrived. Otherwise, our presence there would have been simply impossible.”

  Joel frowned. “What kind of divisions could be so deep as to prevent them from uniting against such an obvious and dangerous enemy?”

  Connor leaned back slightly in his chair, squinting as if accessing certain memories was unpleasant. “Racial, cultural, religious… pick one. Gaea is a colossal planet, with too many continents, too many nations, and, above all, too many races that aren’t exactly human.”

  Joel froze, surprised. “Are you telling me there are other intelligent races on Gaea? How many are we talking about?”

  “I can’t give you details,” Connor replied cautiously, “but the empires have evidence of at least six different races besides humans. Probably more, considering we haven’t even managed to fully explore the planet.”

  Joel leaned forward. “Are they very different from humans?”

  “Not so much in appearance,” Connor admitted. “I'd say they're all similar enough to be easily mistaken for humans… though I must admit several of them are quite strikingly beautiful, especially the women.” He attempted a slight smile, though he couldn't quite mask the tension in his voice. “Empires have captured quite a few over the centuries. I… had the opportunity to see some of them up close.”

  “Were the empires able to communicate with them?”

  Connor looked away. “I can’t say. But keep in mind that we’ve been there for several hundred years. Draw your own conclusions.”

  Joel remained silent, processing each word. Part of him was uneasy; another, inevitably fascinated. It was then that images from books, movies, and video games about Earth began to flash uncontrollably through his mind: fantastical worlds, ancient civilizations, mythical races. And then, an absurd but impossible-to-ignore idea formed clearly.

  “By any chance…” Joel began cautiously, almost fearing what he was about to ask, “does one of those races have long blond hair and pointed ears…?”