ding

Working...

I was glad I'd included my eye in the impromptu biological reconnaissance drone, because [Mana Sight] was blind even when used from the inside. There was simply no mana to see. Not that eyesight was much better; the only light was an odd blue glow, and even that seemed to be fading.

"What did you just do?!" complained Cluma. "You pulled your eye out!"

"I am aware," I answered, trying to focus on moving my hand forward. [Danger Sense] was whining at me, but that came as no surprise whatsoever, so I ignored it. The rift was narrower on the inside, and while the walls weren't solid, like the strange space on the inside of my [Item Box], pushing against them felt like trying to move through treacle. It didn't help that my link was weakening. It wasn't on the same level as storing a body part in [Item Box], but I was still losing dexterity and strength.

"Why did you pluck your eye out?" asked Serlv, sounding more curious than confused or angry.

"I was hoping that something separated with [Detach] would keep its connection to me even inside the anomaly. So far, it seems to be working. Should I continue to the other side?"

"What interesting magic," said Bruleg. "I can see the link still in place. You can see within the rift?"

"I can't see anything interesting so far. I'm still trying to drag my hand forward."

"Yes, continue," said Serlv.

"How long have I got?"

"Three minutes."

"And when the rift closes?" asked Krana.

"I imagine there will be a lot of blood. Cluma has healing potions."

"What?!" exclaimed Cluma, getting more hysterical by the second. "Bring it back!"

"No time. We wanted to see what's on the other side, so that's what I'm going to do. Needing a bit of healing afterwards is a small price to pay."

"We should have discussed this plan fully prior to the appearance of the anomaly," sighed Krana. "Yet I agree there is now insufficient time. Discover what you can."

"I only just thought of it, or I would have!"

A minute later, what I'd discovered was a wall. Not the sticky half-walls of the rift, where existence itself frayed and space became viscous, but a cold sheet of metal. I hit it with [Analysis].

No help there, then. "The other side is blocked by a metal wall," I reported. "Shall I stop there, or try to cut my way through?"

"That would certainly make our presence known," replied Krana. "It would be a grave risk."

"They may equally be able to see through the anomaly, or at least inside it, in which case our presence is already known," countered Bruleg.

"Very well."

"Cluma, please lend me a dagger."

She did, wordlessly, and I used [Item Box] to teleport it to my hand, carefully tucking my eyeball under one finger. One swipe carved through the wall like butter. The second was harder, and the third wouldn't cut at all. [Mana Sight], which had initially shown the dagger clearly, now drew a blank. It had become as invisible as everything else. The enchantment had faded?

I teleported it back and watched as, over a few seconds, it lit back up. Did enchantments require ambient mana to function? Sending it back to my exploratory hand once more, I made a third slash, once again carving through the metal easily and completing the triangle I was cutting out. The wall fell away, revealing a well lit room. Sending the dagger back for the final time, I made my hand dive out of the remote side of the rift. I had a brief glimpse of the metallic sphere I'd just crawled out of, stabbed through with a selection of rods. Thick wires were laid over the top of the room.

ding

On one wall was a large but simple coloured decoration. A logo of some sort? Not one that I recognised, though. I also saw what looked very much like a CCTV camera, pointed right at my hand. The camera and my disembodied eyeball stared at each other for a few, long seconds.

ding

Administrative notification: Connection lost to foreign soul.

Administrative notification: Connection lost to foreign soul.

Administrative notification: Connection lost to foreign soul.

The rift snapped shut far sooner than the promised three minutes, and, as expected, my links went with it. Losing a hand turned out to hurt quite badly. Losing an eye was worse. "Potion!" I exclaimed desperately as I cast [Endurance], blood pouring down my face. I should have cast it beforehand...

ding

Working...

With Cluma's help, I managed to pour two of them down my throat, staunching my bleeding.

"You are a complete and utter idiot!" yelled Cluma. "You could have killed yourself!"

"I had an idea, and I carried it out. There wasn't time to explain."

"Then you should have waited for the next rift! That was stupid!"

"I'm not going to die to losing a hand and an eye. It only took..." I checked my status, and found myself down by more than forty points, despite the pair of potions. "Okay, that was a surprising amount of damage. But still, not dangerous, even without the potions!"

Serlv rumbled quietly, attracting our attention. "As sorry as I am to interrupt your lover's spat, may I ask what you learnt? Did you see any sign that the anomalies are deliberate?"

"The rift closed more than a minute ahead of schedule. I believe we can conclude that not only are they deliberate, but we have attracted the attention of the perpetrators," interjected Krana.

I recalled the camera I'd seen. Someone had been watching. Tearing open a hole to this world, and watching as it happened. Why?

"I didn't see anyone alive, but the System notified me about foreign souls, so there must have been some there. I saw some things that looked like Earth technology, and others I had no clue about. So yes, what was happening was deliberate. From the setup, it looked like they weren't trying to send anything through the rift in either direction. Their end was not only smaller than this side, but it was completely enclosed in a metal sphere."

Those foreign soul notices the System had given me had potentially massive ramifications. The anomalies had been ongoing for a while, but I'd only had my first notification on the last one. This time, I'd had three. Would I get nine on the next? The System had lost the link once the rift had closed, but there was no way around the conclusion that it was infecting Earth. How far would it spread? How far would the Law spread?

"Life exists on the other side of every shadow," said Tilyana, breaking her uncharacteristic silence. "Our existence is as surprising to them as theirs is to us."

"I thought [Nature's Voice] was unable to pierce the rift?" asked Krana.

"A path was opened. Narrow and brief as it was, it was there, and the voices reached through."

I pondered Tilyana's riddle. I could understand what she meant by a path; the System had started spitting out messages about souls on that other world, after all, even if it was rather confused about it. "Are you saying they didn't know they were tunnelling through to another populated world?"

"I... cannot comprehend the voices. There is much I do not understand."

ding

Skill [Detach] advanced to level 11

Skill [Detach] advanced to level 12

Skill [Shelter] advanced to level 9

Skill [Enlarged Health Pool] advanced to level 10

Skill [Enlarged Health Pool] advanced to level 11

Skill [Enlarged Health Pool] advanced to level 12

Skill [Danger Sense] advanced to level 12

Skill [Rapid Healing] advanced to level 4

Skill [Mana Sight] advanced to level 13

Class [Eldritch Mage] advanced to level 20

Class level increased intelligence by 1

Class level increased strength by 1

Class level increased dexterity by 1

Class level increased endurance by 1

Class [Eldritch Mage] advanced to level 21

For your research into the secrets of the world, [Test Subject] awards 5 soul points.

For performing a class related feat, you gain 1 soul point

Woah... Totally worth it for that, even if I did just accidentally introduce Earth to alien life.

Okay, so that was a bit flippant. It had certainly been a rash move, but there really wasn't time to discuss it beforehand. I'd got what permission I could before starting, and the foreign soul notifications injected some amount of urgency to the situation. I'd desperately wanted to find out if Earth was on the other side, too. But why so many skills from such a little trip? I could understand the health pool skills, albeit not so many of them, but surely it hadn't been worth two levels of [Detach], let alone two class levels.

Also, the alien life I'd introduced Earth to was a bit... wrong. Now they were going to find a dead hand and an eye... The blood vessels and stuff unconnected to anything should inform them that's not what things were supposed to look like, but they could still end up drawing some very incorrect conclusions. Perhaps I should have passed a message. I could have written one with paper from my [Item Box] and then teleported it over. Something to consider the next time.

Would there be a next time at all? If they really weren't deliberately trying to tunnel to an occupied world, that may well have freaked them out badly enough to shut down their operation. Alternatively, if they were acting deliberately, it could cause them to intensify their efforts and launch an invasion.

"On this occasion, we have learnt more than our previous efforts combined," commented Serlv, breaking the silence. "And yet, the best course for the future has become no clearer."

"Is there anything else you learnt?" I asked Darren. While his abilities were there, he was hampered by age. Had he been ten years older, perhaps my scouting trip wouldn't have been necessary.

"Nnn... Don't know," he said, hanging his head and releasing his grasp on the surrounding mana, which immediately rushed in to fill up the void.

"The child has already provided useful information," said Krana. "I believe we have confirmed the other side lacked mana, and was opening the rift through a means other than magic."

"Yes, I can agree with that. My [Mana Sight] was blind on the other side. There was no mana there to see."

"A world without mana..." commented Horail, who had been taciturn the whole trip. "It is difficult to imagine. And now they are taking ours?"

That was another scary thought. Were they deliberately trying to introduce mana to Earth? I couldn't see that ending well for either side of the rift. But something about it didn't ring true. Yes, that rift had sucked up mana like a vacuum cleaner, but it was hardly enough mana to saturate a world. The rift would need to be left open for centuries, even if they managed to open one up in a dungeon.

Or they'd need hundreds of rifts...

What else would they be doing with mana? Maybe nothing at all. The vacuum cleaner analogy was actually an accurate one; mana flowed from regions of high density to low, and with no mana, Earth was basically a vacuum. The mana suction might be an incidental side effect of what they were really after. But what could that be?

Or maybe, instead of making mana generally available, they were putting it to immediate use on the other side? That would explain why [Mana Sight] saw none whatsoever, despite the rift having been sucking it in for five minutes before Darren shut it off. I'd put it down to it spreading out and becoming too diffuse to see, but perhaps that equipment I'd seen wasn't just for opening the rift, but also for processing the mana into... what? A spell? How would they have learned how to do that?

Regardless of what we'd discovered today, we'd raised ten more questions for each one answered. There was still one more line of inquiry I could follow, though.

"I saw a symbol drawn on one of the walls," I announced. "I didn't recognise it, but it would be worth checking with the other reincarnates."

"Please do so," requested Serlv, who seemed to be the leader of the group, even if that had never been officially announced.

"Okay, be right back," I said, extracting a tooth and tossing it to Cluma.

"Eww!" she exclaimed. "Don't throw teeth at me! And you can't go looking like that! You need to see a healer!"

"This is important. Getting my eye back can wait," I said, but she was right about me probably looking awful, so I fished around in my [Item Box] for a scrap of fabric and bandaged up my missing eye. Or tried to. It was hard with only one hand.

Cluma sighed in resignation and offered the help of both of hers. "You'd better be back in five minutes. Don't make us come over there and find you."

It was a scary thought that Cluma probably could talk this group of three rank five dragons and two rank four elves into coming for me, so resolved to hurry up, I teleported to the Sapphire Peaks, where the door was answered by Tirrani.

"Peter? On your own tod.... What happened to your hand?!"

"I sent it on a suicide mission," I answered. "I need to get it healed, so I can't stay long, but first I have a very important question for the twins."

"Then come on in. And your eye... Is it...?"

"Yes, I lost that too. It was for a good cause."

Tirrani just shook her head as we found the twins playing together, attempting to assemble a puzzle.

"Good morning, Tennacti and Dirrana," I said, greeting them by name, as they wanted. "Do you recognise this?"

I took out a sheet of paper, and drew on it as best as I could. My artistry wasn't the best, even without having lost a hand, and the logo had plenty of complicated curves. It was enough for the twins, though.

"That's the Blue Skies Institute," wrote Tennacti, looking distinctly unhappy.

"Even when he wasn't much older than a toddler, Owen was causing trouble," added Dirrana, writing a lengthy message. "You probably don't remember, but we were on a camping trip when you were about eight. That place was nearby. Owen snuck off while we were walking past, and by the time we noticed, he'd got in through an unlocked door. We were lucky to find him and get back out without getting arrested for trespass."

"They didn't care about that sort of thing, anyway. I looked up information on it afterwards, and it was just some place for rich physicists to mess around doing what they wanted, while calling it 'science'."

The name was somewhat suggestive, but despite Tennacti's opinion, some of their research had apparently born fruit.

"And you brought me in with you when you went looking for him?"

The twins nodded.

"I think I've discovered why our family reincarnated..."