An administrative notification? I'd never had one of them before. And what was that about foreign souls? Hadn't Erryn referred to me in that way before? Wait, was it telling me that someone else just reincarnated?! Why the heck was it telling me?

... Because Erryn was gone, obviously. Or at least no longer in a position to do anything about it. I was the only non-monster in the world currently able to comprehend that there were now two more people unbound by the Law. She must have set this up. Dammit, she could at least have warned me! She left me a damn letter, but still didn't mention it! I really did need to go and visit the baby human Erryn at some point, just to have a rant at her.

Either the message glitched, or there were two reincarnates this time, born in roughly the same place and time. Twins? From the coordinates, somewhere north and very slightly east of the ark. Further north than I'd ever been, not that I was particularly well travelled.

"Hey, Peter? Is something wrong?" asked Cluma. "You've been staring off into space for far too long for that to be a normal level up."

"The earth mother set something up to alert me if anyone else reincarnated into the world," I answered truthfully. I was long since past hiding anything from Cluma, as long as the Law didn't interfere. "It just fired."

"Wow, that's so awesome!" she exclaimed, bouncing up to me and giving me a big hug. The hug itself wasn't a surprise, but I did wonder what logic she'd based her exclamation of awesomeness on. "You'll finally have someone to talk to who understands your weird references!"

"What? I don't make weird references!"

"You've been calling this game magical (volleyball) all morning, and I'm pretty sure (volleyball) isn't a word from around here."

Okay, that was a valid point. I'd never really thought about it; this had been my home for long enough now that I rarely even remembered I had once lived somewhere else. I'd even started thinking in the local language instead of English. Not deliberately, and not all at once, just using the odd word to start with, but as time went on, it took over more and more. Apparently I was still throwing out the occasional English word without noticing, though. A chance to talk to other earthlings wouldn't be entirely unwelcome. They might finally be able to fill me in on the endings of some of the shows I was watching before my untimely murder.

Not that I had any guarantee they spoke English, or even that they were from Earth. Since there were two worlds, why not three? Or three trillion?

In any case, they were a long way away. I'd need to work out exactly where they were before I could even think of making my way there. Given how far north it was, it was possible they were in the sea, which would make a visit very hard indeed. There was no point acting immediately, and I was heading for Dawnhold tomorrow anyway, so things could wait until then. Once there, I'd need to find someone with a good to-scale map to do some measurements on.

"Come on! Your turn!" shouted Darren, not really understanding the significance of what we were talking about. Well, that was fine, too; he was only five. I continued my efforts to beat him, but now that I'd started using [Distortion] he was careful not to launch the ball faster than he could cope with. I scored a few more points when my own [Expert Mana Control] caused him to misjudge, but on the whole, I continued to lose badly.

ding

Skill [Expert Mana Finesse] advanced to level 7

"Eightyish to four," called Cluma. "But it's time for me to head home, before Mum starts wondering where I am."

"Aww. Bye bye," answered Darren, waving.

"We'll be at the institute tomorrow, so maybe see you there."

"Yeah, yeah. We both know you can't get enough of me," said Cluma, giving us both goodbye hugs. In retrospect, maybe not hiding anything from her had been a mistake. Even if I did it to encourage her to tell me her traits, admitting my [Xenophilia] may have been a poor life decision... Not that my having it surprised her at all. Rather, telling her how I got it—wondering if transformation magic existed to turn myself into a cat-girl—was my mistake.

At least it had worked. Not that it told me much that I didn't already know; her trait list was pretty much just a plain description of her personality. A loyal, hyperactive, dexterous hugger.

I returned home with Darren and did my checks for the next day. Five gold ingots and ten of steel. Also one of mythril, in case it had a second evolution. All were safely stashed in my [Item Box], along with a packed lunch, stored in a preservation enchanted lunch-box to keep it fresh. Anything else I needed? I made a note of the coordinates before I forgot them and stashed that in there, too.

Travelling with Darren required me giving him a piggyback. Unlike his magic, his physical abilities were nothing special, and he'd never got the hang of [Weft Walk]. It didn't help that I now had it maxed, which made using it for the first time rather harder than it had been when it was lower level. We could have walked, if I kept [Endurance] up on him, but that was too slow for my tastes. Even in my new uneventful life, I still seemed to want to rush everywhere.

"Yay! Faster!" he shouted, not minding in the slightest.

I stumbled slightly as he reached out into my spell, disturbing my magic, probably trying to see how it worked. "Careful," I told him. "It'll be dangerous if you make me trip. You can look, but don't touch. Besides, if you want to experiment, start with something safer than spatial affinity."

He wasn't trying to burn things down anymore, but he could still be a menace...

We made it to the institute with no further incidents and ended up in a small room with Grover. I didn't have the experience to tell precisely what dungeon floor I was on from the ambient mana, but it was certainly denser than floor ten of the Dawnhold dungeon, and twenty seemed reasonable.

"Okay lad, do you know what to do?" he asked Darren.

"Yup!" Darren answered, casually pulling on the ambient mana as if it was as easy as breathing.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"Gold first, then," I said, pulling out one of the gold ingots.

I cast [Endurance] on Darren, in case anything exploded, then watched as he started pouring mana into it, far more than I'd managed in my experiment. When I saw it reach an equilibrium, with mana leaking out as fast as Darren could stuff it in, I joined in too, and could immediately feel how close to the edge we were. Just a little more, and...

Thunk

ding

Skill [Expert Mana Control] advanced to level 10

Class [Eldritch Mage] advanced to level 12

Class level increased intelligence by 1

Class level increased strength by 1

Class level increased dexterity by 1

Class level increased endurance by 1

The gold bar had taken on a pinkish hue and was still completely intact. Given my sudden level-up, it was pretty obvious the experiment was a success. What did [Analysis] say?

Orichalcum Ingot (Rank 4)

"Orichalcum? I've never even heard of it."

"Nor me," commented Grover, sounding almost proud of the fact as he picked up the ingot and hefted it into the air. "I literally have no idea what it is, or what properties it has. Heavier than mythril..."

He pulled out a small hammer from his belt and gave the ingot a few taps. "Harder, too."

"Well, that's one down, but still four to go. Let's get going!"

We did the same to the remaining four ingots, with Darren not quite able to manage them on his own, but with my help it was easy enough, leaving me with five bars of orichalcum. It was, however, still only rank four. We could do better. Time to work on the steel.

Darren turned an ingot into mana infused steel faster than I could blink, then mana reinforced steel a few seconds later, but after that, nothing happened. I joined in too, but still couldn't get it to jump another level. Maybe rank four was the maximum for materials? Or else rank five stuff required unique conditions or needed to be taken from silly-deep dungeon floors instead of manufactured. Rank five was generally special after all... I gave up and stopped pushing.

"No, don't stop, almost there!" exclaimed Darren.

"What? How do you know? It doesn't feel like we're doing anything to it to me."

"The edges are cracking."

I wasn't sure what he meant; I hadn't seen anything. Although, I did have eight soul points now, thanks to the orichalcum powered level-up.

ding

New skill acquired: [Mana Sight]

Skill [Mana Perception] consumed by superior skill [Mana Sight]

Skill [Mana Sight] advanced to level 3

I staggered as my perception of mana underwent a state change of its own, flooding my brain with thousands of intricate details I couldn't see before. The organ sitting above my heart was now visible in vivid detail, pulsating as it drove mana throughout my body. I could see the hints of colour within it, corresponding to my attuned affinities. I could see the same organ in Darren and Grover, albeit not in sufficient detail to tell their affinities, but I could see the sheer quantity that Darren had available. It was terrifying...

I could see the dungeon, a bright light shining despite the distance. Concentrating, I could see everyone in the institute. I could see the null-mana room, a black, lightless cube in a world of flowing colours.

"Oi, you okay Peter?" asked Grover.

"I bought [Mana Sight] to see if I could see what Darren was talking about. Give me a minute. It's a bit... much."

I could see the ingot, and the shell of mana around it that Darren was trying to crush it with. I added my own on top, crushing harder, and I could see the layer of resistance that kept the mana out of the metal starting to fray. Darren was right... We were so close. And again, it was rather scary that he could not only see that, but intuitively knew what it meant.

"Darren's right; we're very close to something interesting happening. Kari must have [Expert Mana Control]. Can we get her down here?"

Pausing for a moment while Grover went to find Kari, I pulled out whatever rank one stat rings I had in my pack and loaded Darren up with them. I had no idea why extra strength or endurance should make any difference, but given how close we were to something interesting happening, every little would help. They were so oversized that he had to hold them on, but it wasn't as if he was using his hands.

Kari turned up and the three of us restarted the attempt.

Thunk

For your research into the nature of materials, [Researcher] awards 2 soul points.

Adamantite Ingot (Rank 5)

"It's invisible!" exclaimed Darren, in direct contradiction to the evidence of my own eyes. It looked more or less unchanged to me. Maybe a tad less reflective, but still very much opaque. Then it occurred to me that to Darren, eyes were more or less optional. I took another look with [Mana Sight].

"Wow..." I muttered. "It's not just invisible to [Mana Sight], but I can't see through it either. It's like there's a hole in the middle of the room... Even your null-mana room isn't this strange to look at."

In fact, the effect reminded me of the ark. Was this what the door had been made from?

"The heck?" muttered Kari, who must have been looking through her own mana perception skill. "What even is that?"

"[Analysis] calls it adamantite, and it's rank five."

Grover just stared in silence.

"Well then," I continued, pulling out the other nine ingots I had with me. "Shall we continue?"

We ended up doing rather more than nine, with Grover running off and fetching more ingots of his own. We could saturate mythril, but nothing happened when we did. He also pulled out a tiny platinum nugget from somewhere, which behaved very much like silver and gold, but even the three of us together couldn't saturate it, leaving him to go running off to fetch a couple more dwarfs I'd never seen before and start drawing up plans for upgrades to this mana concentrating room. I'd have thought that two completely new materials in one day would be enough, but apparently not.

I left him with one of my orichalcum ingots and his own pile of adamantite to investigate the materials' properties, but assuming it was actually useful stuff, I could end up with a truly ridiculous weapon this time. My lightning glove was cool, but it had shown its limits in the Emerald Caverns attack. Against higher level monsters, it just couldn't muster the output to hurt them.

That left my second goal of the day; to find an accurate map. I tried the delvers' guild, but while they had maps, they weren't accurate enough for me to measure to find out where the coordinates I'd noted down were. They suggested trying Lord Reid, which left me hanging around outside the side entrance, wondering how the heck I was supposed to explain this.

"How may I help you," came the instantly recognisable voice of Cliff the [Master Butler] as he opened the door. I hadn't even knocked! Surely that was breaking some fundamental butler rule, to put a guest on the spot before they were ready!

"I..." I started before giving up and deciding to just go with the truth. I would have preferred to check in with the reincarnated individuals first before spilling their secrets, but it wasn't like anyone would do anything bad with the information.

"I had a System notification about new reincarnated individuals, but I only have map coordinates to go on. I was hoping you had an accurately scaled map around, so that I can find out where they are."

If not, the only alternative I was left with would be to just walk in the correct direction until [Clock] told me I was there. After level twelve had started showing longitude, level fourteen had started showing my latitude, and fifteen displayed altitude. I had full GPS, albeit one that wasn't particularly precise; its granularity was somewhere over a kilometre.

I needn't have worried; Lord Reid did indeed have a suitable world map, a huge thing that required him to clear his desk just to put it down. I didn't even need to extrapolate between places I knew the coordinates of, because it had grid-lines already marked. Either I wasn't the only one with [Clock] over level ten, or else there were other skills that did the same thing. Or other skills that were even more accurate, given that [Clock] only displayed two decimal places, but the coordinates I was hunting had three. After a bit of careful measurement, I was able to roughly extrapolate the new location.

It seemed I would soon be visiting another of the original settlements. The Sapphire Peaks.