An advantage of needing to communicate by writing was that the twins could throw in an occasional picture when needed, and I found myself staring at a scribbled circle with lots of lines poking out. Not a masterpiece by any means, but enough to tell me the room I'd seen on my reconnaissance trip was one in which I had stood before. Or been carried, perhaps. But all three of us had definitely been there. Four, given the reason we were there was chasing after Owen.

They even remembered the blue glow, so we'd been in there while the equipment was active. It had been substantially brighter than what I'd seen, though, and had an irregular flicker. They also remembered an ear-splitting roar, but my scouting hand-drone didn't go equipped with any ears, so I couldn't comment on whether that was still present. They didn't remember cameras, but perhaps Owen's invasion had caused them to be added. Or they were there all along, and my former parents just hadn't noticed.

I couldn't remember the event at all, but I'd only been eight. It wasn't a complete surprise it had drifted from my memory. Owen ran off a lot back then.

That implied they'd been conducting these experiments for more than thirty years, yet these rifts were had only recently started appearing. What had they been doing back then, and what were they trying to do right now? Had they started something new, or were they just getting better at whatever they were doing before? Given my own propensity for silly experiments, I wanted to believe that there was no malicious intent there, and they were just like me, poking the universe to see how it worked. It would be dangerous to assume that, though, so we still needed to prepare for further rifts.

Thanking the twins for the information, I teleported back to the group of dragons, who were now back in Synklisi.

"Your trip bore fruit," stated Tilyana, before [Redistribute] had even finished.

"If you know that, don't you also know what they said?" I asked, honestly curious about what, exactly, the voices she kept talking about were telling her. "And if so, couldn't you have told everyone before I even got back?"

"I can't know until you tell me," she replied, still with her unflappable smile.

"Well, when I described what I'd seen on the other side, they recognised it. It's a place on Earth similar to the Dawnhold research institute. On top of that, every reincarnate I'm aware of has been in that room while the equipment was active. I can confirm the source of the anomalies are human researchers on Earth, and that they're responsible for me being here."

"You've been there?! You didn't say!"

"I don't remember it. I was young back then, and Earth children don't have System-enhanced memories."

Or at least, they didn't use to. Once again, I remembered the foreign soul notifications I'd started to get before they shut down the rift. People shouldn't poke holes in the universe. There's no telling what might poke back.

Serlv exhaled in some sort of draconic huff, freezing a patch of road. "Well, we have learnt much today, yet that which is most important, we still know not. Already we had concluded that an intelligence was responsible for the anomalies, but it is their motivations and future intentions that elude us."

"I saw nothing to suggest an..." I paused, realising that 'invasion' wasn't a word I knew in the local language. The entire topic and vocabulary of war was missing. "attack," I concluded lamely.

The party gave me blank looks. Oh. Now I really hoped there was no invasion planned, because I'd royally screwed up. I'd told them Earth was on the other side, and humans were responsible, and apparently that had been enough for the Law to kick in. Now, no-one here could understand the concept of them invading, which would make organising a defence rather difficult. How did the Law differentiate between people and monsters? Was there anything I could do to convince them a human from another world should be considered a monster rather than a person for the purposes of imagining them being potentially evil? They knew I could lie, so it must be possible.

Would I end up joining a counterattack in a party of dungeon monsters, not-Blobby at the head?

"I hope they are simply in pursuit of knowledge," I said. "But again, I have nothing to prove that. They've been at this for a long time, so there must be some considerable driving force."

"Hope and speculation," complained Bruleg. "We have no actionable information."

"Stop talking back and forth, and let's get Peter to hospital!" exclaimed Cluma, reminding me I was down one eye and a hand.

"Yes, you should get yourself seen to sooner rather than later," agreed Krana. "I shall return Darren. I believe the pair of you can find your own transportation."

"Mmm, we can," agreed Cluma.

"But I wanna visit Peter's old house," said Darren. "Can we go later?"

We all paused for a moment, trying to think up a response to that. I still wasn't sure how much Darren understood about what was happening, and the fact he was here at all was testament to the dragon's desperation. "I don't think we'll ever be walking through one of those anomalies," I hazarded.

"That one was mushy and broken. I can fix them!" he exclaimed, waving a hand and causing a deafening crack, like the largest plane of glass in the world shattering. The air in front of us shimmered and distorted, the ripples rotating in a disk around a central point, which somehow gave the impression of racing away from us despite remaining exactly where it was.

ding

I'd watched the creation of portals in the Emerald Caverns, and this looked far too similar for my liking. "Stop it!" I yelled. From the grunts and roars of surprise from the others, they shared my sentiment.

Darren flinched and dropped control over his magic. Through my [Mana Sight] I watched Bruleg skilfully take over, harmlessly dissipating the half-formed portal. The party fell into stunned silence as the distortions faded and space returned to normal.

ding

Cluma was the first to react, sweeping up Darren into a tight hug. "It's okay," she said. "You didn't know that was dangerous."

In my stunned state, I hadn't noticed how Darren was on the verge of tears. I joined Cluma, rubbing his head with my remaining hand. "I'm sorry for shouting at you. You didn't know that wasn't safe. If you can learn some other magic, that's fine, but you shouldn't open portals to Earth on your own like that, okay?"

"Mmm," said Darren, sniffing.

"That... That wasn't possible," mumbled Horail. "You can't do that."

"Recall that Darren's presence here was due to him having access to magic that is traditionally impossible. Nevertheless, I will admit that was surprising."

Yes, he had access to it, but that wasn't the same as being able to use it. He'd never displayed the capability of structured spell-casting before! He'd probed my spatial spells multiple times, and even interfered with my [Weft Walk], but he'd never been able to duplicate the effect. Yet, after a single view of a rift, he was not merely able to duplicate it, but improve it. And a glance at my System messages was enough to show me it had worked.

Administrative notification: Foreign soul detected at coordinates <Error>
Administrative notification: Foreign soul detected at coordinates <Error>
Administrative notification: Connection lost to foreign soul.
Administrative notification: Connection lost to foreign soul.

That one had caught two souls, despite the portal not even fully forming.

Previous magic he'd seen had all been System based. That rift wasn't. In fact, with Earth having no mana, it shouldn't have been magical at all. Was that what made the difference? I'd seen enchantments in the ark that were not System based, and they hadn't involved runes. They worked in some fundamentally different way.

The System was designed to prevent research and advancement. Did it deliberately obfuscate the inner workings of magic?

"You are looking thoughtful," commented Krana to me, dragging me out of my tangled knot of ideas and theories.

"Nothing relevant to the anomalies," I said. "Just that Darren has never displayed an ability to replicate structured magic before, and I was wondering if the System deliberately hid how spells worked."

"An interesting theory indeed, but I agree, irrelevant to this situation."

"Well, now we have something that is actionable. Darren can open a portal to Earth at any time."

"Peter speaks truth. If we wish to know the motivations of those responsible for the anomalies, we have only to ask."

"And if there is no mana on the other side, how do you propose we return?" asked Serlv.

"I did not suggest we travel there in person. We could exchange messages."

"I propose we wait," opined Serlv. "If no further anomalies occur, we should leave the matter alone. If these Earth humans continue on their course, we should engage in discourse."

"Agreed," replied both Bruleg and Krana.

I was torn. The Law was interfering with their decision making by hiding from them some facts—that the humans on the other side had the capability to be malicious—but that didn't mean the decision was wrong. Mostly, I was thinking that if I could cross over to Earth, I could bring back enough stuff to make the celerity with which the research institute had been acting look positively sedate. But... perhaps they were right that we shouldn't poke things. Opening up free travel between here and Earth had all sorts of potential to go wrong, even without considering the possibility of accidentally Law-ifying Earth in the process.

Before they knew it was humans on the other side, they'd been considering malicious intent, and Serlv had still given me the go-ahead for my spying mission. But the damage had been done already.

"Good, I'm glad you're all agreed. Now can I please drag Peter to the hospital?!" exclaimed Cluma.

"Yes, I'd better go before she decides to resort to blackmail," I agreed, worried that she was going to start breaking out comments about maids and lace panties if I put it off any longer.

"Very well. We shall be in touch if further aid is required. In the meantime, please ensure Darren knows not to play with forces that are better left untouched."

The group split apart, Cluma dragging me through the Synklisi streets as Krana took back off with Darren. Of course, Cluma had no idea where the hospital was, never having been there, leaving me to give her directions while being dragged. Thankfully, Synklisi, being the large city that it was, had a third rank healer on duty, and it wasn't long before I was going through the uncomfortable experience of having my hand regrown. An experience that was going to last a couple of days, given the amount that needed regrowing.

ding
Skill [Rapid Healing] advanced to level 5

Having sent Cluma back home and promised not to leave my bed until I was fully healed, I poked at my status. I'd gained eight soul points from that incident. It was enough for [Eye of Judgement]. It was, however, one point short of being able to purchase both [Eye of Judgement] and the freshly unlocked second tier skill [Extended Health Pool]. I didn't even know how much health I'd lost when the rift had snapped shut, severing me from a chunk of my body, but being forty points down after two healing potions was scary.

I'd wondered from the very beginning how the System quantised something as nebulous as health, and that event was another point towards my currently favoured theory; the maximum size of my health pool wasn't indicative of some form of 'maximum healthiness'. Rather, an increased pool size made me harder to harm. Cutting off a hand therefore didn't deal a fixed amount of damage, but cost more health the larger the size of my pool, taking off a fixed fraction rather than a set number. By the same logic, a decapitation would cost a hundred percent of my health pool, regardless of its size.

According to my theory, attacking two people with the same blade and strength would deal the same number of points of damage to each, but the one with the larger health pool would suffer a less grievous wound. With the aid of [Endurance] and my enchanted rings, I should be able to put the theory to the test, but doing that in a hospital was likely to generate some amount of ire from the poor healers. I'd try it out one day when no-one was watching, and Cluma was safely on the other side of the continent.

As well as [Extended Health Pool], it was also worth saving points ready for [Artisan]. If it unlocked the skills of every rank two crafting class, I'd be left with dozens of the things. Which ones would I want? Smithing and enchanting definitely. Cooking, tailoring and alchemy maybe. Dismantling would be handy, too. No matter how many soul points I managed to gather, it never seemed to be enough. What happened to the days when the skill shop was empty? But for now, I'd stick to my plans. I had plenty of time to gather more points before my next class change.

ding
New skill acquired: [Eye of Judgement]