AN: Sorry for the wait. I was busy writing my thoughts down in advance, and have finally managed to refine this part. So, it is published now.

Exiting the Council Harry proceeded to teleport to his personal ship above the planet. He had to conduct an exploration mission towards an uncharted region of space, following which the Stargates would be seeded amongst the worlds of that region capable of sustaining life. He willed himself to an energy-like state and transferred to the command center of his ship where he re-built his body into his normal form. He could have done the same by mind-linking with the teleportation device on board the ship and ordering transportation, but he preferred to exercise his magic and train to control it every time he could, if the situation allowed. Connecting with his ship Harry sent a telepathic command and set the navigation computer to calculate the path, speed and travel time towards the required coordinates. After having done so he activated the drives and entered the hyper-space on course to his destination. The travel time estimation was two hours and 40 minutes with the moderate speed he preferred to use, and so he had some time to continue his work on knowledge repository device.

Exactly two hours and 40 minutes later he stopped and saved his progress into the data banks of the ship and activated the long-range sensors right after exiting hyper-space. Here was coming another exercise, part of his very hard training to improve his magical control and mind power. Channeling magic through his ship and utilizing all of the ship's scanning powers to maximum he was bombarded with the data on the surrounding star systems and worlds. Every bit of information – the age of the star, the stability, the energy output, prognosis on the flares and other activities, the composition of the planets, availability of the specific resources, potential for planetary terraforming and much more was gathered. However, instead of simply using powerful computers aboard the ship, Harry proceeded to categorize and store the information with his mind working in collaboration with ships computers. By being part of the process himself his mind and magic were adjusting to the high speed calculations and reasoning involved. Of course, the major part of the work was still performed by the computer core, alone he would not be able to deal with the large volumes of incoming data. Still, little by little his mind adjusted itself and control of the magic was further strengthening.

To his surprise he had discovered a civilization of reptile-looking creatures, which had lived in what clearly looked like settlements of various sizes and had access to the low-power level energy sources. Making a short jump at the full speed in hyper-space Harry arrived to the orbit of the planet in question and started a more detailed scanning of the world. As his scans progressed, on the planet below the reptiles one by one would stop what they were doing and look up into the skies. Inside his ship in orbit Harry suddenly realized that his presence and scanning were detected, although the reptiles have not been able to pinpoint his location due to ship's cloaking abilities. A telepathic message was suddenly broadcasted from the planet's surface, in which the sky traveler was invited to come forth and become friends with the Ngaascshi. Dumbfounded, Harry has initiated a priority level information record in the ship's logs - he had discovered an advanced race. Making a split second decision Harry activated a long range communication and created a link between the ships' computers and the Alteran base on Terra. From that moment forth every action and every piece of information would be recorded and transmitted back to the base. A Council meeting would be probably called to review the information in real time and advise if necessary, while all other stations would re-translate the signal for all Alterans to witness how he would be responding to the invitation and initiating the contact.

The history of the Alteran civilization was vast and rich with events, and along its course they have explored vast regions of Universe and met many civilizations in different stages of development, populated by numerous creatures that possessed enough intelligence that they could be called intelligent life forms. However, being intelligent and having a civilization did not necessarily mean that the species would mature and evolve into a race of beings. Often, Alterans would watch a civilization that had plenty of potential to become a race, only to witness degradation or in some cases extinction. Such was the way of life and Universe. Essentially, every race of beings, disregarding their origin or species, had a unique path of development they could follow and build unique culture and civilization, and it was considered extremely bad practice for an Alteran to contact and influence such a race until they have reached their maturity, because more than anything Alterans valued freedom, and being a very advanced civilization any intervention on their part no matter how small could be seen as something divine or godly, and irreversibly change the course of development of the race. And while Alterans were certainly advanced, they were no gods and did not want to have such level of power over less advanced species, and neither they wanted to have it on their conscience that because of their actions, because of some seemingly good intervention a civilization could degrade or even become extinct.

From the experience Alterans have determined that a race of beings could only start to acquire certain extra-sensory abilities, if they have passed a certain level of development and reached a certain level of understanding of the Universe, as it was in essence a manipulation of Universe, an imposition of one's will to control the fundamental powers that comprised the reality. Every such a race had unique civilization, culture and history and Alterans were always happy to establish friendly relationship, share their own history and culture, along with learning the history and culture of their partners. Sadly, as they progressed in their history Alterans met very few civilizations, which have passed the stage of Formation, the last of those being the Alfars, and after the tragic end of their planet a discovery of a new advanced civilization was a monumental event, a reason for celebration. A telepathic broadcast into the space surrounding the planet, capability of sensing the ship's presence despite its cloaking abilities, understanding that they are being scanned and immediate response in form of invitation for contact - those were definitely signs of a race that was highly advanced. It was considered important to establish a contact with such a race, and form a friendly relationship, an alliance.

Having teleported down the planet surface towards the destination provided in the broadcast Harry had encountered the first Ngaascshi in his life. The being was a tall creature of reptilian origins, obviously in a great physical form as demonstrated by a well-developed musculature. Ngaascshi had leather clothes richly decorated with gold, which Harry assumed were the signs of his high social standing amongst his people. For several moments both Harry and Ngaascshi were studying each other with a great interest. Then the eyes of the Ngaascshi started to glow in golden light and Harry felt a telepathic greeting. Harry immediately replied with his own telepathy, forwarding a brief greeting and wishes for well-being and friendship. Tentatively, he also communicated desire to learn more about Ngaascshi. The eyes of Ngaascshi glowed again and the answer came in a form of series of images of the corridors of the building ending in another richly decorated room and a table where there were plates of what looked like cooked fish. Smiling, Harry followed the host towards the room.

When the pair reached their destination they have settled around the round stone with a black smooth surface. In the small silence which reigned after they were seated Harry mentally reviewed his plan of further actions. Ngaascshi have probably guessed there was some kind of dilemma as he broke the silence by waving his hand and to Harry's surprise series of symbols lighted up in a sequence. He then pressed one of the symbols and a plate with some kind of fishes appeared from the thin air. Magic! Having tight control of his own powers Harry could not help but sense that the appearance of the dish had been the result of the magical transportation. This was an unexpected, but a welcome surprise, so Harry smiled and also waved his hand, pulling on his magic to conjure a replica of one of the small tridents, which he noticed and assumed that they were utilized to eat the fish. Ngaascshi took the conjured trident, studied it briefly with his glowing eyes and nodded to Harry. It appeared that the first contact was progressing well, and both sides have made a satisfactory assessment of each other.

The name of the race, Ngaascshi, has been communicated telepathically, as it was not possible to pronounce nor the hissing reptilian under tones of "scshi", and neither the strange guttural sound of "Nga" using the human throat. The closest Harry was able to imitate was Nag'A'Shi, and it seemed that the creature has found it satisfactory enough. Their race was much younger than Alteran, only a few dozen thousands years. However, it turned out that their advanced stage of development was easily explained by their capability to impart their knowledge to the next generations when giving birth, and as such each individual Nag'A'Shi had the memories of everyone in their bloodline before them. The accumulative knowledge and wisdom of their civilization was indeed great, as each generation would start where the previous stopped and continue their work. Due to their memories there were only a few wars in their history, and after they passed there were no more. Technologically, Nag'A'Shi did not advance a lot, as they have payed much more attention to the development of their unique magical language - the runes. As far as Alterans were concerned this was the first time they have encountered a civilization that was using the magic in this unique way. Magic was a special ability after all to apply one's understanding of the Universe's fundamental forces and control of them to achieve the desired effect. A rune was a construct of magic, which had a specific purpose and effect. From what Harry managed to understand Nag'A'Shi have been developing this language for as long as they remembered, having started with simple basic constructs that required massive amounts of energy to achieve very small effects, and gradually improving and creating more and more complex structures until it formed into what it was now - a complex language, where they could use a combination of runes and achieve pretty much everything they needed.

Nag'A'Shi did not acquire any space travel capabilities, because they were simply content with remaining on their own planet. They did however study the space surrounding their planet using the artifacts, which were created and empowered by the runes. In particular, they have demonstrated a viewing basin capable of showing the images from the distant planets - it was mainly used to study some plant and animal life cycle, in order to better understand the nature. The architecture of the city was very interesting to see, as there was a large tendency for golden insertions on the walls, which were showing various pictures. It was very different to the architecture of the Alterans, and so Harry found himself wondering around the city, viewing and recording the walls. Arrival of a traveler from the distant stars spiked a lot of interest among the reptilians, and Harry was feeling a little uncomfortable due to all the attention he was getting, as well as the telepathic chatter that raised wherever he went. After the initial meeting at which there was a lengthy telepathic discussion between Harry and the leader of Nag'A'Shi, they have managed to agree to the terms of a establishing an alliance. The Alterans were quite interested in learning of the runes and their applications, as well as creation of rune-empowered artifacts, while Nag'A'Shi wished to know more about the technology, the Universe and perhaps the space flight. In a short time a group of Alterans would arrive to settle an embassy of sorts, in which all further negotiations and sharing of knowledge would be conducted, and overall it looked like it was a start of a beautiful friendship. As the first Alteran to establish contact Harry was going to be spending quite a lot of time amongst their new friends, both learning from them and teaching them in exchange. He was quite fascinated by the opportunities presented by the discovery of the runes and their potential in improving the efficiency of any device they were used on.

One of the first devices that would utilize the newly learned runes would be his repository of knowledge. He was certain that with the application of runes the device would finally be able to pass all of the safety protocols and become operational. He already had multiple ideas for either discovering if Nag'A'Shi had already developed runes that facilitated learning, improved memory and recall of information, and if not - he was eager to repeat the whole process of creation of the rune, by starting with basics and improving over time and finally creating a new set of runes that would answer to his requirements. With the device ready and operational Alterans would be able to greatly increase their numbers and expand into numerous colonies and outposts, as they would no longer be limited by the availability of the masters to teach and impart knowledge on the students. Other than that, Harry also had an interesting idea to create runes that would increase the shields and weapons power, or maybe even improve the connection between the ship and Fleet Commander while Channeling. There were many interesting ideas to consider and he certainly looked forward to it.