[Xander – 13 years]

"Hello, Sig," I greet him when he opens the door.

He's dressed and ready to go, but not to my place. Today is our field trip to the zoo, so he's dressed in a hoodie and sweatpants rather than a long-sleeve and pants. He's got his backpack on his back, his sneakers on his feet, a beanie on his head, and gloves on his hands. My outfit is similar, but all of my clothes are from MountainStorm Gear.

They make good cold-weather clothes, even better than the stuff I used to get from the boys' home. I think I'll keep wearing them because of how comfortable they are. Only my face is a little cold at the moment, and that's my only exposed skin.

There are spells I can use to make my face warm again, but I'm trying not to use them right now to see if I can make it through the field trip without doing so.

"Hi!" He greets me. "Are we sure the field trip's still on? It's supposed to snow."

Since the zoo takes almost an hour to get to, I'm picking him up early today, and it's quarter-to-seven right now. The classes going on the field trip are all supposed to be meeting right now as well. The one we're going to opens at eight all year, even if some open later once summer ends.

Everyone wants to be there as soon as it opens. That will make it easier to thoroughly explore the place while there are a bunch of groups of students present.

"The schools haven't canceled yet," I tell him. "At least, not as far as I know. And it was going to snow last night, but I made it wait until tonight instead so that the roads would be sure to be good and the zoo wouldn't potentially close if there was too much snow."

"You can do that?" Sig seems surprised.

"Yeah," I answer. "It wasn't that hard, once I figured out how. Anyway, we're letting a lot of cold into your house, are you gonna come?"

"Right!" He hurries over to his aunt. "Bye, Aunt Rachel! See you!"

"Behave for Mr. Caldwell, will you?"

Dad is our chaperone for the field trip, though Mom is coming as well.

"I will!" Sig promises, then hurries over. "Come on, Xander!"

Sig and I leave and walk over to Dad's SUV, which is stopped by the curb in front of their front yard. We both get into the back and buckle up as Sig exchanges greetings with my parents, then Dad starts driving.

Connor messages the group chat to let us know when the school buses leave, and they depart at about three minutes after seven. Isaac does the same a minute later. That's more than fifteen minutes after us, so we'll definitely be arriving before them unless something weird happens.

We arrive at the zoo extra early, which allows Dad to find a good parking spot for us. It would be difficult to not find a good spot to park since there aren't any other cars in the visitors' parking lots right now.

"There aren't likely to be too many visitors outside of the schools," Dad says as he parks. "What with how cold it is and the prediction of snow. How sure are you that the it won't snow today, Xander? Could your spell possibly not delay it until tonight?"

"Grandpa Adrian called me earlier and asked me why I did it," I tell him. "Then congratulated me on figuring out the spell on my own. It wasn't entirely on my own, since I did have to look up some different magics, but I put them all together on my own. He apparently got called by three different dragons who wanted to know why I put a spell over the area to prevent clouds from precipitating until tonight."

I asked him why they didn't just ask me, and he said they didn't have my number. They're dragons, they can just fly over and visit me to ask. It's not like anyone would notice them if they didn't want to be noticed, that's how they've remained mythological creatures to most people for so long.

"Oh!" Sig bounces a little. "Speaking of dragons – I didn't want to mention it with our friends around, but felt like it wasn't a conversation by text – Mr. Roger told me he's a dragon."

"He did?" That's surprising. "How come?"

"I dunno," he shrugs. "But he says he's your paternal great-uncle, your grandma's brother."

"One of them, yeah," I nod. "He was apparently going to move away not long ago, but then he met me and realized I was his grandnephew, so he decided to stay for longer. Part of that was to keep an eye on me, part of it was to encourage me to get stronger, and part of it was to get to know me. But apparently, when he takes a vacation, he's going back to Sweden, to where he grew up. So he knows my cousins and other family there."

"You've got family there?" He asks.

"Yeah," I answer. "My birth father's mom is from there, and his father and her live there. After he thought I died and got the ashes he thought were mine, he took those and my birth mother's body to Sweden so he could watch over it there until she resurrected."

"Until she… did what?"

"Resurrected," I repeat. "She's half-phoenix, so she'll do that naturally as long as she's not out of resurrections, and she wasn't. I apparently have some little half-siblings now, according to Grandpa Adrian. And a bunch of other cousins and second-cousins out there from that part of the family. The dragon part, I mean, not the phoenix part. Most of the ones from the phoenix part are in the Kingdom of Britain or here in Kenzibri."

"So your birth mom can just… come back from the dead?"

"Sort of," I nod. "But it takes her seven years to do so. That's why my birth father wanted to watch over her while she did. And it happens automatically. The number of resurrections she has is based on how much mana she has. It starts with one resurrection at one million mana, then two at two, three at three, four at five, five at eight, um… six at thirteen, seven at twenty-one, um… I don't remember if there's more. There probably are, Grandpa Adrian says it increases the more mana we have."

"That's the Fibonacci sequence!" Sig tells me. "So the next one would be at thirty-four, since the sequence works by adding the two previous numbers together. One, one, two, three, five, eight, thirteen, twenty-one, thirty-four, fifty-five, eighty-nine, and so on."

"Oh," I say. "I guess if it's working that way, then the next one would be at thirty-four."

"That's cool," Sig says. "Wait. You said 'we'. Does that mean you can resurrect, too?"

"Yeah," I nod. "I apparently did when I was a baby. That's why my dad thought he had my ashes. He'd thought I died and wasn't resurrecting, so he arranged for my body to be cremated. But then stuff happened and I wasn't."

I don't feel like explaining all of it right now.

"So since you have three mil mana," Sig says. "That means you can resurrect another two times?"

"Yeah," I say. "But I have over four million. I'm actually close to five million."

The more mana I have, the more I can use to do magic with so I do. Grandpa Adrian said most people end up plateauing because they don't use enough mana with their magics for that. They just… end up reaching a point where the average amount of mana they use in any given day doesn't increase.

Meanwhile, I use a lot of extremely advanced spells which can consume quite a lot of mana all the time. Even with my efficiency improvements to their formulas, the spells can still cost quite a lot when added up. The spell to stop the clouds from precipitating for twenty-four hours was a mixture of temporal and others and cost me roughly a tenth of my capacity, for example.

Well, I also cast it inefficiently, but it was my first time so that's fine. I won't need as much mana for it in the future since I know what I did wrong.

Temporal acceleration costs more the faster I run it with a small exponential increase, and I use it plenty to give myself more time to work on projects so that they don't take up too much real time.

"Sheeeeeesh!" He says. "Wait. You died when you were a baby?"

"I was born dead," I tell him. "But resurrected. Apparently. It's why I'm in the situation I'm in now, but I do still love my dad. And don't ask me if I wish things were different and I hadn't died when I was born. That's an unfair question."

"Uh… okay."

"I wanna stretch my legs," I tell Dad. "Can I get out?"

"We all can," Dad says. "Let's head to the entrance and wait. That should make it easier for us to get in once they open."

"How?"

"Because if several hundred other kids and adults are here," he tells me. "That means there will be a bigger crowd."

"Oh. Right."

I put in my earplugs which affect loud noises so things don't get too loud for me, then we exit the car and pull on our backpacks. Even Dad and Mom have backpacks today, which Dad said is to store any souvenirs we buy.

That didn't make any sense to me, since I have plenty of space to store them, but I guess he's thinking of his and Mom's and not wanting to ask me to store their stuff for them.

"Here," I summon a quartet of lanyards from my backpack and hand one to Sig.

"What's this for?"

"Classes on field trips have to wear something to show who they're with," I tell him. "Since we're wearing hoodies, it's easier if we do lanyards, right? So I bought some lanyards and made IDs. One for you and one for me and one for Dad and one for Mom. See? It has our face and our name on it, and then a dragon. Oh. I forgot to ask you about using one of your pictures, didn't I?"

The one I used was a plain selfie he sent me, which was hard to find even with all of the selfies he sends both me and into the group chat.

"Yeah," Sig says, then pulls it on. "But I like it!"

I hand Dad and Mom theirs, then pull my own on. Once those are on, we make our way to the entrance and wait for the zoo to open. Something I checked with the zoo before we came here is that I can take pictures and make recordings, for personal use. I can post them online if I want, but I can't do it for money or other stuff, and I can't stream it.

Apparently, there's also an inherent permission given for others to do the same, so no censoring is necessary. To make it easier, I swap my glasses for a similar-looking pair, but they're far from similar.

They're magitech, they just don't look like the normal magitech glasses. These ones resemble normal glasses, but with my own frame design so that I'm not stealing someone else's.

As we wait, groups of kids start walking over as well. The school buses have a special parking lot for them to park in so it takes a few minutes for the other classes to arrive, but I start feeling crowded even with them standing a little bit back.

Right at eight, an employee begins opening up the gates. This zoo is free for entry, so we're able to walk right in. We don't start exploring it right away so that we can greet our friends who are here. They're with their own field trip groups so they can't wander around with us, but we can join them as we like since we wouldn't have to leave our assigned group as we do so.

Just like us, the students from the four schools in the area have lanyards on with IDs, though their IDs don't just have a picture of their face and have their name and school on them, they also have their group designation. That probably makes it easier to know if someone belongs in the group they're with or not.

Connor and Sam are in the same group, with Mr. Thompson and Mr. Richardson their assigned chaperones. Most of the school groups consist of five youth and two adults, and friends were allowed to request being in the same group. If someone's parent or guardian was approved as a chaperone, they could ask to be one for their kid's group.

Ethan and Macy are in their group, as is a boy who's hung out with us at the park a few times. His name is Chance, and he has brown hair and green eyes. His mana level is a little higher than average, and he has a slight magical bloodline with force magics in it.

"Hey, guys!" Sig greets them as we approach their group.

"You've got Trenton out?" Ethan asks.

"Yeah," I wave one of Trenton's paws. "There are a lot of people here."

"That, there are," he says.

"And Trenton's never been to a zoo before," I say. "Since I've never been, so I wanted to let him see the stuff here. He says he's mildly curious about it."

"You've never been to a zoo before?" Macy asks.

"I haven't," I answer. "It's complicated. But I'm really excited about it. Sig told me they have snow leopards here and I wanna know how strong these ones are."

"How strong?" She asks.

"Yeah," I nod. "Snow leopards are called that because they use snow magics. Some of them are weak and can barely do much other than mess with the nearby snow, but some of the stronger ones can actually conjure it and do a lot more. They can even make it cooler around them to help deal with the heat."

"Wait," Sig looks at me. "They can use magic?"

"Yeah," I nod. "I saw a documentary on them. Is it okay if we walk around for a little bit without the friends who've been here before first? I've never been to a zoo before and I'm sure they already know what they want to look at. I wanna take some time to figure out where to go. It'll let me experience the stuff I want for the first time while they go and look at the stuff they want."

"Sure!" Sig says. "Let's go say hey to Isaac! See you guys later!"

"See you!" They all say.

We locate Isaac, who's in a group with Travis, Austin, Russel, and a boy I don't know. Mr. Michaels and Mr. Baker (Austin's dad) are their chaperones. Considering that Isaac, Travis, and Russel enjoy drawing, and Austin likes acting, the boy I don't know is probably into one of those things. Maybe art.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

"Hi, Isaac, Austin, and Travis!" I greet them.

They all greet me back.

"Hi, Xander," Russell says.

His mind feels weird to me, but not in a bad way. It's like he's feeling a lot of complicated emotions all at once. That's been normal for him the past few weeks, when I see him at Youth Group. It also gets more intense when he sees me, but I don't know why and don't want to ask.

He dumped me because he's a dummy, so we aren't friends anymore.

"Hi."

"We're gonna wander around for a bit," Sig tells Isaac as they bump fists. "Xander wants to take some time before joining any groups, since he's never been here before and the rest of you have."

"Alright," Isaac says. "Text us when you wanna know where we are!"

Mr. Michaels clears his throat.

"Or, uh… text Dad?" Isaac's face flushes a little. "We're not supposed to use our phones unless it's an emergency or we're taking pictures, though they strongly encouraged us to get cameras if we wanted pictures."

"I've got one," Austin says. "It's in my backpack."

"Cool!" Sig says. "Can I see some of them once you're done?"

"Sure!" Austin answers. "I'll show you tonight!"

The sleepover schedule is completely off and we're having it at my place tonight. There are also going to be more than just the usual group present, as Austin and Nathan are joining us for it. Ethan will be there, too. So will some others that the rest of them don't know will be joining us. The sleepover being at my place is to account for the much bigger group of boys hanging out.

I didn't want to keep it a secret, but Dad said it would be okay and that it'll be a happy surprise for them. Surprises are bad… but not for others. I don't understand that at all.

We walk away from that group and head over to look at the big map of the zoo. As we do, the others joining us for the sleepover arrive and approach us. They didn't have school today, so they were able to come out here.

"Hey, Xander, Sig!" Carter greets us, and Sig whirls around to face him.

Carter, Tate, Bo, Knox, and Cooper are all here, with Mr. Cox as their sole chaperone. They all rode in his truck, and the reason they arrived a little bit later than the rest of us was because they had to leave a lot earlier and Mr. Cox was dropping off meat at some shops. I think they were also talking to some of the others here, I noticed them by one of the groups before they came over to us.

All six of them are wearing backpacks, just like us. Nearly everyone here for a field trip is, so I guess it's normal for even the adults to do so.

"Hi!" I turn to face them.

"Oh!" He says. "Hey, Trenton!"

"What are you guys doing here?" Sig asks as I wave one of Trenton's paws. "Your school's doing a field trip, too?"

"No," Carter says as I summon lanyards from my backpack to hand to them, Trenton temporarily sitting on my shoulder. "Next week's Spirit Week, and our school decides to do a Teacher's Institute day the Friday before that, so no classes for us! When Xander found out, he invited us over!"

I nod as Trenton returns to my hands, the six lanyards passed out. The timing for this field trip and their Teachers' Institute was coincidental, but I felt like I should invite them to hang out, in case they were able to come out this way.

And they were, since Mr. Cox was going to be coming over to Dragon Falls to do another meat delivery this morning.

"They've also never been here," I tell Sig. "So we were gonna explore together. I wanted to tell you, but Dad said I should hold off on that so that it'd be a surprise."

"That's not exactly what I said," Dad says. "But I guess that's how you understood it."

"Wait," Sig looks at the others before looking at me. "So are they coming to the sleepover tonight, or…"

"They said they would," I tell him. "So I think they will."

"Still planning on it!" Carter tells me. "What looks interesting to you?"

"Huh?"

"On the map!" He says. "What do you want to visit?"

"Um," I look back at the giant map. "The Wolf Prowl. It has a bunch of different species of wolves in it."

"Oooh!" Carter says, and I can feel his excitement. "I want to visit that, too."

"Lemme look!" Cooper says. "Hey! What are puffins?"

There's a building on the way to the Wolf Prowl labeled as the Puffin Coast.

"They're a species of aquatic bird," I answer. "They live up north. There are several magical varieties, but I dunno if the zoo has any of those. From what I've heard, it's got a ton of nomagical creatures in addition to some magical ones. But that could be wrong and they might have a lot of magical creatures."

"Oh, neat!" He says. "Can we stop there on the way to the Wolf Prowl?"

I want to see the wolves first, and this is a field trip meant for me, but it would be more time-efficient if we stopped at the Puffin Coast before going to the Wolf Prowl, if we go to both.

"If we go to Puffin Coast," I trace a finger over (not on) the big map. "We can follow the path along Riverbank Road and go around that and the lake and look at the animals kept there, then over to Big Cat Crossing. I think Sig wants to see the turtles and snow leopards, and I wanna see how strong the snow leopards are.

"Depending on how long all of that take," I say. "We can stop at the Lakeside Cafe for lunch, or we can stop at one of the other places to eat. Oh, and there are gift shops in each zone, so we can stop in those as well."

"Where we eat doesn't matter to me," Sig tells me. "I don't have much money left, since I kind of burned through most of it already, so I brought my lunch."

"Don't worry about that," I tell him. "I'm paying for everyone's food."

"What?" He asks, feeling concerned, surprised, and confused. "Why?"

Why does he feel concerned?

"Because I decided to," I answer. "Dad already increased my limit for daily spending, in case doing that for everyone today goes over the $250 a day limit."

"Wait," Dad says. "Xander, I think you've been misunderstanding me. I didn't increase the limit to $2,500 for the day, I've been telling you that the limit is $2,500. I increased your daily limit since you're earning so much and spend quite a bit, and the spending isn't an issue."

So I was wrong?

"Oh," I look down. "Sorry."

"Don't be," he says. "That's my fault, I should've been more clear. Does the plan he gave sound good to the rest of you?"

The others agree on it.

"You're really going to pay for our lunches?" Carter asks. "You don't need to do that."

"I know," I say. "But I invited y'all to come hang out with me here so that it's not just me as the only kid for my field trip, or me and Sig. And it would be rude to intrude on the schools' groups with my friends for too long, too. So I asked Dad about it and he said I could if I wanted to. So I'm gonna pay for everyone's foods."

"Thanks!" He says.

"Oh," I add as I move Trenton back to my shoulder. "And Dad and I went to the bank yesterday and got some cash," I summon envelopes into my hand. They're regular mailing envelopes, and there are seven of them. "This is souvenir money. It's my treat. Dad says that's what it means when I'm covering the cost for someone else, like with food. And whatever you don't spend, you can keep. There's $500 in each envelope."

Sig feels really uncomfortable with that, while the others are only mildly uncomfortable. The others all feel happy and surprised, though. I hand out the envelopes, which go to the person whose name is written on them. I wrote names on them to make sure I had one for each of us.

"And then," I summon another three envelopes. "The adults each get one. These only have $100 in them, because I felt bad not including you but y'all are adults and can buy your own stuff."

That makes almost all of them start laughing, but Sig's just staring at the envelope in his hands.

"Is something wrong?" I ask him. "Dad said that should be more than enough money for souvenirs, but if I was wrong and it's actually way too little, you can let me know. I made sure to get extra just in case."

Since he's the only one of us who's been here before, he would know if the amount is too little.

"What?" Now he seems confused.

"You're feeling really uncomfortable and hesitant," I say. "I'm not reading your mind, though, so I don't know why. The only thing I can think of is that this is actually too little for souvenirs from here but you don't want to say that because you think it might come off as greedy."

"Oh," his face turns a little red, which looks even more obvious since he's slightly pale from the cold and his tan has faded slightly. "No, not that. This is definitely more than enough for souvenirs. It's just… you're just giving me money. And it's a lot of money."

"But it ain't even ten percent of what you earned last month," I tell him. "And it's souvenir money. I'm giving it to all of us. See? I even gave myself an envelope for it. That way, I don't spend more than what I budgeted for it if the souvenirs end up costing a lot. That was Dad's idea. And that gave me the idea to make envelopes for all of you, too. It makes sure that everyone can buy souvenirs. I don't know how much any of you actually have or can afford on it, and y'all came for me. So it's only fair that I do this. That way, nobody gets left out of buying souvenirs when this wasn't a planned group outing but so I ain't the only kid in this field trip group.

"Anyway," I say. "If that walking plan sounds good to y'all, let's get going. I wanna see the wolves."

The zoo offers both paper maps and digital ones, and I opt for the digital one since I can view it on my glasses and not have to worry about a physical map. Some of the other boys grab a paper one, though I know I'm not the only person using the digital one. Dad made sure he can pull it up quickly on his phone.

We make our way to the Puffin Coast, which is kept cold inside because puffins apparently like the cold. Their cooler temperatures aren't super cold, though, so it's not too different from what it feels like outside right now.

The birds within the building are just milling about on their rocky shores, though some of them are swimming in the water.

"They're not very active right now," an employee here to make sure no one breaks the rules tells us. "But if you stick around awhile, they might become more active. If you get lucky, they might even use some magic. The ones with the white specks on their wings can use snow magics, while the ones with golden beaks can use light magics.

"Oh," I look at some of the puffins.

"That one's huge!" Cooper says.

"A bit like your head, right?" Bo snickers.

"You're the one with a big head!"

"No fighting in here," Mr. Cox says.

"We're not!" They say in unison.

"No play fighting, either."

"Yes, sir!"

"That big one is a rarer breed," the employee tells us. "She can use both light and snow magics, but she rarely uses them."

"Hi," I wave one of Trenton's paws to the big puffin, and she lifts a flipper-wing. "Oh! Dad! She waved to me!"

"She did," Dad smiles at me when I look at him.

"Many species of magical creatures are a little bit more intelligent than nonmagical ones," the employee tells me, and some of the other boys snicker, their amusement pretty strong. "She can understand basic gestures, though it's rare for her to react to someone. Maybe she likes the bear? What's his name?"

"Trenton," I answer, then look at the big puffin again. "Are you okay with telling me what kind of magics you know?"

"She can't speak like we do," the employee chuckles.

"That's really interesting," I say. "My favorite spell's shapeshifting, because it means I can be a human around most people but a wolfkin when I feel like it. Or I can grow wings to fly better than just using a flight spell. Are you okay with telling me yours?"

The employee seems to be feeling confused, awkward, and a little uncomfortable, but also slightly amused. I ignore her, though, because that's confusing to me why she'd be feeling all of that when I'm having a conversation with a puffin.

"That's interesting, too," I say. "Oh! You don't have to do that, I was just curious!"

"Do what?" Sig asks.

The big puffin raises her wing-flippers up a little, then slaps them to her sides before lifting up her head and letting out a grunt-like sound. A large snowflake begins to form above her, spreading out until a foot in diameter. Rather than flat, it's three-dimensional and the fractals are really pretty.

But that's not all. Rainbows flow through the branches of the icy fractal until they reach the tips, which shimmer in different colors.

"Whooaaaa," a lot of the kids in here say.

"She says that's her favorite spell," I tell Sig once she stops the spell and the snowflake drops onto the rocks, shattering. "But I didn't want to know that it's how she attracts mates… It really does look nice, though, even with the inefficiencies in the weaving."

The big puffin starts playing with the ice fragments, and we watch for a few minutes before starting to move on.

"Excuse me?" The employee who was talking with us says, and I look at her. "How did you know she was going to cast that?"

"She told me she was."

"You do know that puffins can't talk with us, right?"

"You do know he's a powerful mind mage, right?" Carter snickers. "He can understand magical creatures, often better than he understands people."

Magical creatures are a lot easier to understand than people.

"He's a what?" She's now really uncomfortable.

"A very gifted young boy," Mr. Cox tells her. "Look up the name 'Xander King' with the creature 'unicorn' and you'll get some stuff. Boys, let's move on so others can come in."

They only allow up to forty people in the Puffin Coast's building at a time. Anyone else wanting to enter has to wait in a line outside, where there are some small cliffs and waterfalls and ponds for the puffins to play in, if they feel like it.

While we can take as long as we want to in here, it's better to not take longer than necessary to look at the puffins and see them doing their thing. It's courteous to others to let them have time to look at the animals as well.

We continue through Puffin Coast, then make our way along the path until we reach the Wolf Prowl. There are a few animals on the way there, but I don't pay attention to them even as the others look at them. Those ones are boring and I want to see the wolves.

When we finally see the wolves, I wave one of Trenton's paws to each of them. They're mostly mundane ones, but then we come across the section with the magical wolves. Most of the wolves here are mundane, they only have a few magical breeds.

"Oh!" I say look at Dad when the first of the magical wolves comes into view. "He's sort of like the plushy Luke gave me over the summer! He's got lots of lightning magic!"

The wolf is silver with golden streaks, and he's actually quite strong. I'd estimate him to have around 1,200 mana on the standard scale, which definitely explains why his enclosure is designed to resist some strong lightning magic.

"He's a shock wolf," the employee nearby tells us. "He's rather calm right now and won't use his magic, but one of the things his species will do is perform an electrical discharge, which releases a lot of electricity into the air around them. It's a defensive attack they use when something is attacking them, or a way of taking down a lot of prey at once. The spell will often damage other attacks and throw them off-course, which makes it quite useful against projectile attacks. It also makes it dangerous to get close to him. However, he generally sticks to a weaker version of it here, and it's rare to see him perform it outside of thunderstorms."

"Oh," I walk over to the fence outside of his enclosure. "Hi!" I wave one of Trenton's paws, and the wolf looks at me. All of the animals have when I greeted them. "Are you okay with sharing how you do the electrical discharge? No, it's where you put out a bunch of electricity," I look at the employee. "He calls it a shock aura. Oh!"

I look back at the wolf, who's begun moving to another spot.

"Really?"

"Wolves can't talk," the employee chuckles.

"They can to Xander," Carter snickers. "What'd he say?

"He said he'll demonstrate a shock aura for me," I answer. "I wanna see it so I can learn it. That would be useful if a bunch of people try to hurt me."

"You have other ways of dealing with that," Dad says.

"Yeah," I say. "But I'll be able to modify it to do other magic types, too."

The wolf finishes getting into position, then stretches for a moment before looking at me. A moment later, his magic forms and sparks shoot out in a sort of dome-like form around him. It stretches almost thirty feet in diameter, which must be why he moved locations. The only thing it affected was the ground around him, but the soil and grass are both rich in lightning magic so they were unharmed.

"That was awesome!" I start bouncing and wave one of Trenton's paws. "Thanks for showing me!"

"Don't try it out here," Dad says. "You can wait until we get home for that, alright?"

"I won't!"

Walking through the Wolf Prowl took a lot longer than I expected it to, but we should still have time to make it to the big cats so Sig can look at the snow leopards before lunch. Before going there, however, we stop in the gift shop for the Wolf Prowl and look at what they have.

The stuffed animals cost $40 each. Is Sig really sure that $500 is more than enough to buy souvenirs here?

I buy five of the wolf stuffed animals. They're all magic breeds I don't have stuffed animals for yet and I might be able to return and buy more on another zoo trip. If this isn't my last one.

If I do get to return for another visit, then I'll definitely make sure to give myself a bigger souvenir budget.

On our way to the area with the big cats, we stop at a dessert stand and I buy everyone funnel cakes. They even have powdered sugar, chopped pecans, and strawberry compote we can put on top!

Once we have our funnel cakes, we finish making our way to the big cats. Only a couple of them have magic, including the snow leopards. The male snow leopard, Apollo, has quite a lot of magic.

He's just pretending to be weaker because he didn't like the wyvern in his old home and is worried that he'll be sent back if it's found out that he's strong. Ordinary wyverns are significantly more powerful than normal snow leopards, so it's understandable he'd be scared.

After finding out that Sig is a fan of snow leopards, Apollo puts on a small show of conjuring and manipulating snow for him. It looks really amazing, and it's given me some more information about magic I didn't have before, too.

"You know," Carter looks at Tate. "You'd think that by the eighth time, the employees would maybe radio about the group of boys with dragon-decorated name tags and no school listed having a blond-kid who can talk to the animals and who the magical animals will put on a show for."

"I guess they just want to let it be a surprise to the others?" Tate suggests.

Okay… I'm not sure why my friends are saying that, but it really is annoying that the employees are being doubtful every single time. They really should talk to each other so that they don't try to insist I can't talk with the animals.

There are no rules against it, they just don't believe it's possible. Every single time, they find out that it is possible.

It's awesome that the magical ones demonstrate their magics for me. I wasn't expecting for any of them but I probably should since they're all doing it. And it's teaching me so much more about magic, too!

Is this how the first mages to ever exist for most worlds learned? From magical beasts? I'll ask Grandpa Adrian another time, if I remember to. Right now is for viewing the animals, buying souvenirs, and eating food.

"It's past my normal lunch time," I say as we exit the big cat area. "Can we go to one of the restaurants to get food now, please? After the souvenir shop for this section."

"Lunchtime!" Sig pumps his fists up in the air. "We might be able to meet up with one of the other groups there, too!"

I hope the food here is good.

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