The two-person biplane's struggling engine sounds like an angry mosquito, and the aircraft itself feels about as substantial as one. It's been patched and tinkered with so many times that you doubt there's a single piece of the original machinery left. Ruby, its pilot insists on calling it, after the garish red coat of paint he has amateurishly smeared all over it.
You are soaring over impossibly majestic mountains below, the cloud-capped Himalayas, with India at your back and China over the horizon ahead. Only the battered, antiquated Ruby is keeping you safe from the fatal claws of gravity.
But it isn't only your precarious position and the spasmodic lurching of the plane whenever it hits the slightest pocket of turbulence that sets your stomach aflutter. These mountains, endless and imperious below you, hold the promise of adventure and the lure of treasure, a thrilling combination you haven't experienced since your time in the Holy Land.
That was three months ago. You had not been idle in the intervening time; you'd honed your skills, shaping yourself to be ever more capable for your next adventure.
What was your main focus?