A couple of days after the circus, I lounged on the porch with my feet dangling in the cool water. The morning sun warmed my back, and the scent of fresh flowers drifted from somewhere upriver. A half-empty mug of coffee rested beside me, still steaming.

Mahya came over, barefoot, with her braids in a towel on top of her head.

She crouched next to me. “Do we still have the electric appliances from Vegas?” she asked.

“Yeah, they’re stored in the house.”

“Great. Open the house, I need them.” She didn’t wait for a follow-up and went back in.

I got up with a sigh and dusted off the back of my shorts.

I opened the house against the wall of the living room and pointed down the hallway to the right. “All the Vegas stuff’s in there.”

Mahya disappeared inside without another word, already in foraging mode.

Next, Al came over and glanced at the open doorway with approval. “Excellent,” he said. “Please leave the house open. I wish to take care of my greenhouse and mature some plants.” He gave a polite nod and stepped inside.

I was just about to leave when Rue came trotting over, tail swaying like a lazy metronome. With all the grace of a boulder rolling downhill, he flopped onto his oversized beanbag with a loud thump that made the floor vibrate slightly.

“Rue stay home today,” he declared proudly. “Rue want movie.”

I turned and raised a brow. “You’ve been watching Fast and Furious, right?”

“Yes!” he barked, eyes wide with excitement and tail thumping rhythmically against the beanbag.

“What number are you on?”

“Twenty-four. Rue like movie zoom!”

With a chuckle, I dug through the menu and queued up number twenty-five. The logo flickered to life on the screen, engines revving in surround sound. I gave Rue a mock salute and headed toward the porch again, craving that unfinished cup of coffee.

Three steps out, I stopped. Turning around, I walked back inside. Sticking my head in the door of the storage hall, I called Mahya, then climbed the stairs to the second floor. I found Al in the greenhouse misting the air with a sprayer and waved him down.

A few minutes later, we all sat in the living room, Rue watching us with one eye and the movie with the other.

“Why are we paying this crazy price for this residence?” I asked, glancing at the well-furnished room around us. “We could rent something much cheaper and just open the house every day.”

“For the experience,” Mahya said, spinning a whisk like a gunslinger and pointing it at me.

“House no have pool,”

Rue added solemnly, nodding twice as if he’d just revealed a sacred truth.

“We can afford it,” Al said smoothly.

I sighed. “Yeah, alright. I’ll go exchange more gold for mithril.”

Coin errand done, I continued to tour the city. There was so much to see. They built the whole place around water. From what I could tell, the city sat at the intersection of five rivers—two large ones and three medium-sized ones. They’d left the two big ones as ship routes, wide and deep enough to support ship traffic, while the smaller ones they diverted to flow through the city in a network of canals, aqueducts, and cascading waterfalls that tumbled down buildings or slipped between walkways like ribbons of motion.

Wherever I stood near a building with water climbing its walls only to fall majestically into a curved aqueduct below, the presence of magic was undeniable. These weren’t simple mechanical pumps. The flow moved with too much grace and precision. I could feel clusters of mana whenever I got close enough, if I managed to reach the outer wall with my mana sense. But unfortunately, nothing was visible to the naked eye. I couldn’t see any runes or magic script. Just flowing water and shimmering fish in my mana sight. I couldn’t learn the enchantments, which was frustrating. I wanted to study the script and understand how the magic was applied, but it was either hidden behind shielding spells or buried too deep in the infrastructure to examine without taking a wall apart.

With all this water around, Rue’s comment about the house not having a swimming pool kept circling in my mind. We had a water reservoir under the house, complete with filters and purification spells, but it was connected to the practical stuff, like showers, the kitchen, and toilets. I wasn’t sure if we could repurpose it as a pool. It seemed like a bad idea to swim in our drinking water system. Additionally, I doubted that I could instruct the house to build a pool from scratch. All the additions I’d made so far were based on existing elements. Rooms, balconies, glass panels, that kind of thing. I’d seen the blueprints Lis left behind and, at one point, even studied them thoroughly. When he built it, he’d designed the structure with flexibility in mind, but only for predefined modules. There was no “custom pool” option. Still, it was worth a try. Maybe there was a loophole somewhere. Or maybe I could cheat a little, reclassify a bathtub module, and tell it to scale up. Worth experimenting, at least.

When I got back in the evening, Mahya was in a bad mood. She paced the living room like a storm cloud looking for somewhere to strike, then dropped onto the couch with a huff and started kicking it repeatedly with the back of her foot.

She glared at me like something was my fault.

“What happened?” I asked, staying cautiously near the door.

“Nothing,” she snapped, shooting me a glare that could have melted stone, then got up and thundered up the stairs without another word. The door slammed shut a second later.

I looked at Rue, who was curled up on his beanbag with his head resting on one paw. “What got into her?”

“Mahya buy spells and try use spells,” he said . “Spells burn but Mahya no get spells.”

“Ouch,” I muttered, wincing. “Yeah, I get it.” I dropped onto the arm of the couch she’d been abusing. “That was her third attempt. Still no luck?”

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

Rue nodded solemnly. “No luck.”

Recalling my previous thoughts, I instructed the house to build a pool. Nothing happened.

Next attempt, I told it to create a bathroom on the level below the living room and enlarge the tub to the maximum size. This time, I felt mana stir. It moved like a pulse under the floor, flowing downward through the house.

I headed downstairs and was disappointed.

Sure, the tub was bigger, maybe five times the original size and about fifty percent deeper, but it was still just that—a tub. It looked like it wanted to grow up to be a pool one day, but for now, it just looked ridiculous, like a kiddie pool.

I scratched the back of my neck and glanced around. Fine. If I wanted something better, I’d have to do it manually.

Back upstairs, I rummaged through my library for hours. Finally, I found a promising book: Builder's Guide to Swimming Pool Construction by Max Schwartz. It had diagrams, pump specs, plumbing plans, and even filtration system layouts. Totally mundane, but a great starting point.

I flipped through it, taking notes on the flow system, skimmer placement, and the chemical treatment cycles. It took me a day to study and understand everything I needed to know. Next, I spread out a big sheet of parchment and began sketching. Not just the pool dimensions, but the magical systems needed to run it.

I drafted a layered blueprint: foundation first, then the internal array for water purification. I used a triple-loop rune structure to control mana cycling for continuous filtration, added cleansing runes, and marked purifying sequences keyed to a three-phase spell circuit. Mana crystals would serve as power anchors—one embedded near the intake, another under the drain, two under the filtration panel. Here, I cheated. I copied Lis’s system. There's no need to reinvent the wheel if your sensei has already done it for you.

Finally, I planned heat-adjustment runes and a central hub for temperature regulation. Yes, I cheated. Sue me.

When it looked halfway reasonable, I rolled up the blueprint and went to find Mahya. She was on the porch sunbathing, but looked up when I handed her the parchment.

She sat up straight, gave it a scan, and raised one brow. “You’ve got a dead loop in the filtration matrix. This part here,” she pointed, “will cycle clean water back into the purifier nonstop. You’ll end up using ten times more mana than needed.”

“Damn,” I muttered, flipping the blueprint back around. “Anything else?”

“Also,” she added, tapping the bottom of the page, “you’re missing the suction for debris and solid dirt.”

Back to the drawing board.

I spent the next two hours reworking the layout. This time, I consulted her before finalizing anything. We adjusted the rune placements, added a secondary overflow route, and double-checked all insulation sequences. Almost there.

“Try inverting the power sequence here,” she suggested, circling one rune cluster. “That should handle the backflow, and you can tie the temperature regulation into the house core directly. Less strain on the crystals.”

We fed the house almost all the mana crystals we had left, then I fed the blueprint into it with a mental command, ordering it to assimilate the design.

The house’s mana surged in response, rippling through the walls with a mana hum.

It was already dark outside. I grabbed the hose, uncoiled it, and threw it over the glass partition that separated the aqueduct from our pool. The end landed with a soft splash, and I shoved it down into the current. Water began rushing in, the sound echoing faintly through the hose.

In my mind, I gave the house its final order: Use the blueprint. Build the pool.

I went downstairs to investigate the result.

And yeah… I was still disappointed.

It was technically a pool, but it sat awkwardly in the middle of a plain, square basement room, with maybe a meter of space on each side between the edge of the pool and the walls. A bare, stuffy room. A blocky box full of water.

I frowned. “Extend the space around the pool five times.”

The walls shifted, dragging outward in slow, seamless motion.

“Add tile floors, and make the ceiling higher.”

The house complied instantly. The ceiling rose, the floors gleamed.

“Add wood paneling on the walls.”

I felt a strong hunger from the core.

“Hey,” I protested, narrowing my eyes. “I fed you a ton of wood. Where did it all go? Don’t tell me you ate it all, you glutton.”

An image flashed in my mind—clear, vivid, and completely unexpected. The fireplace.

The shock hit me so hard I dropped onto my butt with a thud. I’d complained at the house before, sure, but I never expected an answer. They kept telling me the core wasn’t sentient. So, how the hell had it just replied?

I sat there, frozen, staring at the spot where the image had appeared in my mind. My heart pounded against my ribs like it was trying to escape. That had been a message. Not a vague feeling or an accidental trigger. An actual, clear response.

My thoughts scrambled for an explanation. Had I imagined it? Was it some leftover mana fluctuation bouncing around in my head? No. I knew what I saw. It had shown me the fireplace. Deliberately.

I ran a hand through my hair, trying to ground myself. If the house really could answer... then what else could it do? What else had it been hearing this whole time?

I blinked, still seated on the tile. “Are you alive in there?” I asked out loud.

Silence.

“Can you hear me?”

Still nothing.

“Show me some sign you're aware in there.”

Zero reaction.

“Where’s all the wood?”

Again, the image of the fireplace.

I sat there in a daze, staring at the water, completely thrown. I had no idea what to do next. After a while, I shook my head, added it to the ever-growing pile of things I didn’t understand, then climbed the stairs to find Mahya, hoping to scrounge up some wood.

No luck. She was asleep. So it had to wait until morning.

The next day, after breakfast, I caught her while she was braiding her hair on the porch.

“Do you have wood or trees you don’t mind giving up?” I asked.

She glanced over, one eyebrow raised. “What for?”

“The pool.”

“You built it?!” She sat up straighter, eyes lighting up as she twisted around to face me. “Why didn’t you call us to see? How did it come out?!”

“Stop, stop,” I said, holding up both hands. “It’s not ready yet. I’ll call you all when it’s done. Right now, I need more wood.”

She tilted her head. “What happened to the wood you fed the house?”

“The house used it for the fireplace.”

“Oh. Okay.”

She didn’t question it further. Just nodded, stood, walked into the house, and summoned five full trees one after the other, touching each trunk to the floor. I told the house to eat them.

Back downstairs, I gave the next round of instructions. “Add wooden panels on the walls. Build a bar, similar to the one in the kitchen, but smaller, in the left corner. Add lights.”

Mana surged again.

The result made me grin.

Warm wooden panels lined the walls and ceiling, casting a cozy glow from ceiling lights and wall sconces. The crystal-clear pool stretched wide and deep, lit from beneath with a calm blue shimmer that danced across the surface. Along the far wall, I’d placed several lounge chairs in a neat row, their cushions angled just right for relaxing after a swim. To the right, a sleek wooden bar stood ready. I placed three tall stools beside it and added a bottle of wine for the ambiance.

I was about to call them down, but then I had an idea. I told the house to build a shower with a toilet along the far wall. Tucked away behind a door, but easy to access. After checking that everything was in order, I stood there for a moment and admired my handiwork once again. My pool was perfect.

I called them down to see.

Mahya stepped into the room first, her bare feet quiet against the warm tiles. She took a slow lap around the edge of the pool, fingers trailing along the polished wood paneling. Al followed close behind, hands clasped behind his back, his gaze sweeping the space.

“Hmm,” Mahya said. “Kind of stuffy. The room needs windows or something.”

I nodded and pointed toward the left wall. “I’ll move it parallel to the living room when we set the house outside, open up the left wall, extend the deck, and place the loungers out there. Anything else?”

Mahya shook her head, her eyes still scanning the space. She gave a small, approving smile and stepped back beside Al.

“It looks very good,” Al said, nodding once.

Rue didn’t say anything.

He just barreled past all of us, tongue lolling, tail wagging, and launched himself into the water with a gleeful yelp. The splash hit like a small tidal wave, soaking us and cutting through the quiet appreciation with laughter and groans.

Mahya gasped. “Rue!”

Al flinched and stepped back with a frown. I just wiped my face with my shirt, already grinning.

Typical Rue.