Groaning, Sarah awoke. The dreams had plagued her longer than she had expected, though she had also hoped that she was rid of them altogether, since one didn’t need to sleep in the realms. An assumption which had now unfortunately been disproved. At least the pain in her chest had vanished even though her body was still weakened.
“So… can anyone tell me what just happened?” The girl then asked into the room, after making sure that there were no other imminent issues with her mortal shell.
And explanations followed; sadly they were mostly just assumptions from Nia and with the rather hard to achieve conditions, it would be next to impossible to repeat the experience.
“That means i have a core now? And those cores then become mana crystals? Can’t you mention those things earlier?” Sarah was a bit annoyed by the surprise. She liked to have such information earlier.
“If i thought it was necessary… It usually isn’t relevant till you are twice your current level and even then it’s just a rather minute change. That you passed out because of it was also surprising for me.” Nia tried to defend herself.
“Fine… Though getting informed about such changes sooner would have still been nice. Are there any other topics you haven’t mentioned, which are common knowledge in the realms, could cause issues and you found irrelevant to mention because of our level, affinity, faction or whatever else?” The mage had to admit that their guide had a point, for most people getting knowledge they don’t necessarily need can be more of a hindrance than help, and she did follow their contract. Though the lack of information was still annoying.
Thinking about it for a moment Nia then answered. “One can get a quest to end the world from Eas for enough privileges, which would likely cause a war spanning all realms. It is assumed that the quest was cleared at least once, as the Realms are much younger than most worlds from which heroes are summoned and it would give logical explanations for the ruins found in many realms.
There is a final quest one receives once one becomes a god, but so far none managed to complete it, according to public knowledge.
Each cycle some event happens where the various factions fight over the ownership of a new realm. Level requirements, limitations and number of participants per faction vary.
You need to unify all classes into one to reach level 1000. The same is true for affinities.
Also-“
“Okay, i get it, there is a lot. Is there some way to more efficiently filter those infos?” Though before the guide could continue, Sarah interrupted her.
“Hey, i’m no search engine!” She complained.
“I guess…” The ice mage needed to find a way to question Nia a bit more focused. The random bits of information were good. But while some might turn out to be actually relevant, like the war for new realms, most probably wouldn’t be for the time being. With her memory and skills, she wouldn’t be overwhelmed by the disjointed infos, yet she could already assume that it would take years to convey all the knowledge their guide had. A better approach at questioning her was necessary, but she currently couldn’t think of one.
So she turned to something else she wanted to know.
“Okay, other question, Sera, we still have potions, right?”
“Yes, got a lot from the dungeon.” The girl answered. However she still checked her bag, since she had used some during the war and she tended to not pay too much attention to resources she assumed she had enough of.
“Good.” Sarah started to disrobe.
“What are you doing?” Nia questioned.
“Well, since i now have a core, why not use that opportunity to farm more mana crystals?! Also i want to know what my core looks like! Shouldn’t be too dangerous if Sera cuts carefully.” While fighting with her clothes, the girl conjured up a mirroring icy surface. While not a perfect mirror due to the limitations of the element, it would do with their currently limited resources. She also could have gone with silver, but weirdly, with her affinity, it was easier to use ice for the task.
However before she could continue, the guide interrupted her. “Wait, wait, wait, just because you have a core, you can’t just remove it. As long as you are alive, it can’t be extracted and should an attack destroy it, it would just scatter throughout your body until the wound heals. Which is also one of the main reasons why they are rather rare, even though most beings in higher realms have one. If you can’t finish off your target fast enough and either accidentally destroy the core or have them use too much mana, no crystal will be left behind.”
“Ah…” Sarah paused. It would have been too convenient. Trading potions for a mana cores would have given her a lot of additional mana storage for experiments. But… “…that doesn’t mean one can’t find one’s core while still alive!”
So Sarah quickly continued removing her clothes. No need to get them unnecessarily damaged and bloodied.
“Sera, help me!” Nia tried to get the twin’s sister into the discussion.
“What? It’s finally something interesting! Much better than just sitting around and waiting for the realm to stabilize and potential remaining enemies to vanish! Also finding out what a core looks like does sound fascinating!” Maybe Sera’s expectations would lead to a rather disappointing discovery, but she was willing to risk it, just for the chance to find something exciting.
“Right?!” Sarah concurred.
It seemed Nia had a rather limited success with her attempt. “Why is everyone here insane?!”
Somehow Nia and her party had managed to survive the last days without any dumb incidents happening, or how the sisters would call it, “attempts to use the time meaningful”.
While she had to admit that being locked in a small room under ground could easily be mentally exhausting and was in fact a waste of time, wounding oneself in the name of science or, even worse, fun, went a bit too far. Thank Eas there were no resistance skills or similar buffs which would reward such actions. At least none she knew of.
Fortunately the guide got Sarah to listen to her. Mentioning her greed skill as well as the fact that, even with potions, she would likely have to fight with the wound for a few days did the trick. Afterwards the girl started to work on something else, hopefully not the next war-declaration. …Although it was a good way of leveling up.
And with the mage less interested in an in-depth examination of her body, her sister also got persuaded to not try to cut open her allies … until she got bored.
Thinking back, Nia could only sigh. It was a miracle that she didn’t get the insanity skill herself. Though she had made it through and now the changed realm had the twins attention.
After breaking open the sealed entrance of the room, contrary to the previous cave system, they reached the surface after just a couple of meters. However calling it surface was maybe the wrong word.
No, in front of them the mountain simply fell away and gave place to an abyss, yet a way forward was still present, now in the form of numerous vines, tendrils and branches of plants. Plants, which could be easily mistaken for their cousins from higher realms by their size alone. Tree trunks the size of Towers. Bridges formed by lonely vines. Giant boulders entangled in and held in the air by greenery.
The previously mostly dark and gray realm had been tainted in new colors.
However the fiery roots of the realm remained. While it was hard to make out from their current vantage point, deep below most of the realm was covered in an ocean of lava. New molten rock flowed down some of the remaining mountains which had been turned into volcanoes. Though the plants flourished despite the heat and flames. Some even only because of the elements. Bushes closer to the red liquid were spreading by absorbing the heat. Trees were growing directly out of the molten substance. A picture, which should be all but impossible by the standards of the twins old world, was in the realms pretty normal. Though compared to what some of the higher and divine realms looked like, this was still rather tame.
At least as long as one disregarded that a human, not even level 20, had been the cause for a majority of the changes to the realm. Be it intentional or not.
“So… where to next? I still need a few levels until i get my affinity quest and the same should be true for you, Sera. Therefore… should we continue our grind for levels? The dungeon and creatures of this realm have likely also changed.” Nia asked.
“Sounds good.” The mage replied. “Though you wanted to show us the slave market before that, since you were against us experimenting on ourselves.” Sarah then reminded the guide.
“Right…” Internally cursing that she had mentioned it, not that she had much of a choice with the contract, the guide answered. She had hoped the twins would have forgotten about the topic by the time they were leaving the realm, but apparently she had no luck.
Now she could only hope they didn’t have the money, unlikely, since they just won the war, or they couldn’t find whatever kind of contractually-bound-workforce they were searching for, also improbably, as there were always ways to get people into signing such contracts.
In the end, she could only pray that, whoever ended up in the hands of the twins, deserved such a fate.
