Dinner is almost ready!

"I can't believe that something that I have been trying to bring down for centuries takes him a flick of the wrist to bypass. it's like he is making fun of me."

"Please. if you had used lifestorm, any other ability or one of your spells that barrier wouldn't stand a chance. only using your physical strength is kind of insulting for me. the dome is the weakest of the house's safety measures but still." INT shook his head.

"By the way how did you get here without your wife noticing. if none of your disciples or assistance rated you out yet you must have snuck away somehow."

"You talk like you don't know me at all. of course, I knocked them out before I came here. as if I'd survive coming here, without telling her, otherwise. I don't even understand why she is that embarrassed when I break stuff. it's not like I …", the sound of a jingling bell cut her short.

INT waved his hand and an amulet the size of his palm appeared in midair and stayed that way. it was riddled with runes of varying shapes and one of them was blinking.

"Speak of the devil and hear she calls." INT said before pressing the rune. " Melina, what a lovely surprise. how are you."

"I'm fine. thank you for asking. now where is she. I already asked around and you are the last one on my list." the voice that came from the amulet sounded composed, but INT knew better than to play dumb.

"She is right here. should I give her the communication amulet?"

"No need. tell her she has five minutes to get here. for every minute longer I am giving one batch of adamant or magic crystals to her disciples. we have way too much of that lieing around and she is too stingy with rewards anyway." at those words Karathya turned pale and rushed out the door while covered in silvery lightning.

INT managed to open the Dome by a hair's breadth, preventing it from shattering. After adverting the sudden crisis, he took a deep breath. "Well, time to start preparing," he said to nobody in particular.

Damien was brought back to his room and despite the nutrient potion that had been injected into his body, his recovery took a while. Eventualy he opend his eyes agan. He didn't feel as torn apart as the last time he had woken up but was still nowere near his ideal constitution.

Fortunately for him there was a delicious oder permeating the air and now that he had less trouble walking, he went downstairs to find that one room he hadn't notice before head appeared and Judging by the smell it was a kitchen.

When he opened it, he saw a Fairly normal looking stove on which a pan was located. The room wouldn't have looked out of place even on earth. Apart from the usual stove, sink, dishwasher, oven, shelves and fridge there was also a big dining table with enough chairs to accommodate 10 people.

"Oh good, you are awake. the food will be ready soon so just sit down. you can start asking questions whenever you feel like it." INT appeared in a flash of white light. he looked different from what Damien had seen earlier.

There was no longer a featureless silhouette that vaguely looked like Damian. He fully looked like him before he had undergone his transformation. He even wore the same loose black shirt and black jogging pants

There were too many questions spinning around in Damien's head and he didn't really know where to start so he just choose the last question that had popped up.

"Why do you look like me, exactly." He tried to ask as casually as possible, but he could not hide his disdain for his own appearance.

INT looked down at his body and seemed to be quite flustered by it, "I have honestly no idea. your guess is as good as mine. maybe I should introduce myself properly for once. I am the 'Intelligent Nuisance Tracer' or INT for short. the sage created me too not be disturbed in his research even when someone came to visit him.

"I am also in charge of keeping the surrounding area safe and managing the houses defense measures. normally I look like an energy silhouette that resembles the sage. I was surprised when it changed to a silhouette of you and I realized that I had changed again just now.

"Normally I would think that my appearance depends on whoever is the owner of the house. being that I still look like this and not like you now disproves that theory, though."

"Can you change it. it would be really unpleasant to look at that all the time." Damian stilt failed at suppressing his scorn for himself.

"No can do. even if we don't realize it yet, my appearance probably has a damn good reason. the sage rarely did anything that didn't have a deeper meaning and I'm sure in due time we'll find out what the intention behind this is." INT waved at his new appearance.

"Can you at least change your clothes. Something that's a little less…" he took a pause to try and formulate his thoughts into words: "That." He failed miserably and just opted to point at the outfit.

INT was frustrated by his lack of explanation but knowing that Damien had gone through a lot recently he sucked it up and did as asked of him. he plopped away in a small explosion of white light. when he appeared a few seconds later the outfit had been replaced with a white, plain looking rope that covered him from neck to toe .

"Is that better captain Fashion Police." he said making Damien feel guilty for needlessly making INT change. INT noticed and after taking a deep breath he apologized.

"I'm sorry. the sage never cared about snarky remarks and since you are not technically a visitor but the new owner, I'm still adjusting so please cut me some slack." he gave Damian a deep bow which made Damien even more flustered.

"Who exactly were those nut jobs that visited earlier." he, to, change the topic in order to make the interaction less awkward.

"You have been out cold for about 42 hours. so technically they visited 2 days ago. As for your question they were respectively Karathya, Lord of might and the mother of all Baihus and Xasar, the father of all Liches and the oldest pain in the ass that I know."

"What does mother of all Baihus mean exactly and what about that Lord of might stuff." The fact that every single answer just opened another question started to get on damien's nerves.

"Simple, the first one means that she it's the first of her race and the second one is just the most prevalent nickname she has been given. Next question."

Damien wrecked his brain for the next question but the only thing that was frequently popping into his head Was one question that had nothing to do with most of the strange phenomena he had witnessed.

"What am I supposed to do here exactly. You said something about artifacts but then you also said that it's not really mandatory so why the hell Is there a need for me."

"There's not really a need for you. the only thing that's non-negotiable is you learning magic. The rest you can decide practically by yourself. I think it's inevitable that you will clash with something that the sage created. if that happens you can decide on your own how to proceed.

"We are going to have about five hours of magic lessons a day and you can decide what to do with the rest of the time yourself. I'm more than willing to help you with everything you need. I can also teach you about this new world if you want but it will only be the basics.