Realms of Eas

Since they weren't hunted by anything and with the mage still being tired, the distance between them and the moderately swampy clearing was slowly increasing. The three were now also equipped with the new rings.

"So where should we go now? You said the nearby settlement isn't good. Do we have any other locations where we can rest? It was in the evening that we entered this world, so we probably should search for a place to sleep, especially if this forest is forever locked in twilight."
Nia was confused by the question for a few moments, before remembering that they came from another world where humans probably worked differently.
"Not sure how it was in your world, but sleeping is optional in this one. If you rest for a while the mana in the environment will take care of physical and mental fatigue. That being said, sleep will help with mana recovery and if you rest in an inn run by Eas, which you can find in most settlements, your health as well as most negative conditions will be restored. Though you would need money to enter those.
Eating, drinking, breathing and whatever else you may have required in your old world is optional. Usually it is connected with positive effects, as your base is still the same species, but the high mana level in the environment will take care of the needs.

So... for what to do now, i would suggest we visit a system-managed dungeon. You need the levels and, as a new instance is created for each party per visit in that type of dungeon, it's a good shelter for the moment. Oh and we probably should form a party."

[Nia has invited you into her party. Join?]

"We use party as a term for a team of up to six hunters, warriors, mercenaries, adventurers, whatever else you want to call those who visit other realms to fight for money and resources. When you are in a party, you will know the location of your team members as long as they are nearby and you can see their 4 resource attributes: health, sanity, stamina and mana as well as current condition. It makes it easier to coordinate and help those members in need during combat. While we shouldn't have any issues with us being only three now, i heard it can get chaotic in a full party or when multiple parties work together."
Sarah quickly contemplated whether she wanted to share her status with their new companion. Her mental status values were definitely higher than they should be, but exposing the weakness of her low sanity and condition wasn't necessarily good. However unless she stumbled upon some way to improve them, they would stay like that for the foreseeable future and according to their current plan they wouldn't visit any inns in the next few days, to check if they could cure her.
She would have to expose it sooner or later anyway to find a way to solve the issue, so she accepted.

[Sarah Goldschmidt
        Lv 6
        Condition: Mindmelted
        Hlth  80/ 80
        Stmn  21/ 80
        Snty  32/560
        Mana  20/630
]

[Sera Goldschmidt
        Lv 2
        Condition: Good
        Hlth 297/320
        Stmn  75/320
        Snty 130/130
        Mana  16/160
]

[Nia
        Lv 16
        Condition: Good
        Hlth 133/140
        Stmn 134/140
        Snty 190/190
        Mana 131/190
]

The attribute values of the party members appeared in her mind. The high physical values of her sister didn't surprise Sarah, as she had already expected that Sera would possess the opposite title of her Genius of Mind one.
"So... you wanted to show us a dungeon?" Sera asked their guide, who seemed to have been frozen upon forming the party. After not receiving any answer she quickly got close to her and waved her hand in front of the other girl. "Hello?"
"Ah... sorry..." Nia finally returned to reality. "I expected high numbers, but nothing like that!" After quickly orienting herself, the girl adjusted the direction they were heading to slightly, now with their goal in mind.
"Normally people with purely physical focused classes get to 600 mana between level 100 and 200 while mages reach it around level 50. Maybe sooner if they have a weird class which for some reason focuses on resource attributes. But having such high values this early is very surprising. At least it should make clearing the dungeon easier... I'm also surprised that you manage to walk around with your condition and low sanity, Sarah."
Prompted by that statement Sera also looked at the scientist questioning. Sighing she forced herself to answer. "Got a Skill. Do you have any idea how to mend the condition and restore sanity?"
"Aside from some very rare items and plants, which we definitely can't get in the lower realms, i know of nothing which could restore sanity. It rarely happens in the first place and when the value gets reduced the people usually just wait it out. Maybe the inn could help with your condition, but i also can't promise that, as it's more for physical wounds."
Nia paused, thinking about their options.
"Well, with your attribute values it wouldn't surprise me, if we manage to clear the labyrinth within 20 hours. We would lose out on some of the combat experience, but we can take care of that later. That should leave us with enough time to get to the town, visit the inn and get back before the news of the Usurpers death goes around. I really don't want to be there, when Eas opens the realm in a day. This will be tough 32 hours..." At the end Nia got quieter and seemed to just talk to herself.

Interrupting their conversation, a [Twilight Boar Lv 12] broke through a nearby bush. Though with them being at present on a tight schedule, Nia quickly approached it, before it could assess the situation and act. Moments later the handles of two daggers stuck out of the eyes of the now lifeless body.
Sarah was thankful for the beast being taken care of. If boars were anything like the animals in their old world, they would probably have good offenses, defenses and intelligence, not necessarily the attribute but in regard to the mind in general. They didn't have reach, but who knew what ace their counterparts in this world had up their sleeve. She could easily assume magic.
And now she started to regret that their new companion had slain the enemy that quickly.

"So, what is your fighting style, affinity and maybe class, if you want to share the latter? We can probably also fight individually, but especially in dungeons, where enemies like to appear in groups, having some kind of strategy would be advisable. As you have more or less seen, my affinity is darkness and i'm a hunter. While i have good burst damage, most attacks from enemies are also dangerous for me. My secondary class is mage, though for the moment with my affinity that one has more a supporting role. Basically i'm good at finishing off distracted opponents, but don't expect me to defend or participate that much in drawn out fights. However, i guess i can help you when you need stealth in darker areas."

Finishing her explanation, Nia was waiting for the other two to continue. The twins looked at each other. After a short pause and a few more whispered words from Sarah, Sera then answered the question. "Don't expect too much from Sarah. Think of her as a specialized mage with supporting abilities. If you give her time, she can probably remove the whole dungeon, but otherwise it'll be hard for her. Contrary to me she doesn't have much combat experience.

As for myself, i currently favor the sword, but i also don't mind using other weapons like knives or whatever else is lying around. Somewhere in the mix i'll probably also throw around some flames, depending on how much i figure out about magic and the fight allows. Sis did try to explain it to me a few times, but her speeches usually end up being bor-... hard to follow."
Even though Sera corrected herself, Sarah did notice what she nearly said. Not that she cared much for it. She had to think about more important subjects, like how she could improve her magic or use it in an offensive or defensive way during combat. Throwing a lot of her element at the opponent was certainly an option, yet it didn't seem to her like the best approach. Drowning would have been an option in their old world, yet if breathing was also optional for beasts, the usefulness of the tactic would be very limited. Not to mention that enemies who needed to breathe would struggle and make it harder for her to control the air restricting water.

"Anyway, class-wise i've Swordsman, Assassin, Gladiator, Warrior, Bodyguard and a few less combat focused ones. My affinity is fire, hers' water, though she already used magic without that whole affinity stuff, so if necessary she can also use other elements."

Nia was holding her head. "You shouldn't have chosen that many different classes... Especially not ones as similar as swordsman and warrior, or ones with goals as different as gladiator and assassin. Getting some weird second or third class for a hobby isn't bad, but one should stop taking additional classes before they cannibalize each other and make it therefore harder to level. Well, at least it isn't that bad currently. Without levels it shouldn't cost that many privileges to remove the cannibalizing cla-"
"Hey, those are my classes! I took them and i will level them!"
The assassin could only shake her head and sigh. "Fine then. But don't complain later if you can't increase your level. I warned you and did my part. And you shouldn't mention the assassin class anywhere. The Followers of Law dislike the class." She also threw a questioning glance to Sarah, but then decided against asking whatever she wanted to.

Using the opportunity of the lull of the conversation, Sarah poked her sister, who probably had already forgotten about the questions she should ask on behalf of the scientist. "By the way, Sarah wants to know if anything like a soul affinity is known as well as whether there are affinities with unusual events surrounding them."

"Hm... Not that i know. However there are a lot of affinities out there, many of which are unknown. While one of the 6 of the first stage can be freely chosen and based on that one a different subset of the 21 second stage affinities becomes available for the next evolution, everything after that seems to depend on how the affinity is used. There were some people who tried to estimate the number of third stage affinities, but after creating lists, they easily surpassed all their assumptions. Not sure how many they counted at the moment, but if i remember it correctly, they should be somewhere in the higher triple digits. However as not everyone shares their affinity with others and some are very similar, the number should be even higher. It is further assumed that the amount of possible affinities further increases with the stages after that. So a soul affinity could definitely exist...

As for the other question, aside from the cursed 6th phase affinity nothing appears in my mind. There were various speculations about what that one could be, like antimatter, curse, death, yet everyone who seemed to gain it vanishes. So at some point people stopped trying to unravel its mystery. Well, some still try and vanish from time to time. Not that anyone would care for a few more low level people missing." Nia finished her report.

Getting annoyed by the amassing questions, Sarah decided to just ask them herself, otherwise she would never get anywhere. "Do you have a list of second stage affinities? And one of the known 5 phase affinities?" She had a pretty good idea what they were, but wanted to make sure her assumption was also correct in the Realms. "Why didn't you list soul affinity as a possible candidate for the 6th one? Could some organization try to hide the affinity? Do you-"

"Stop! I can't answer all the questions if you don't give me some time. I should still have the paper from school with the second stage affinities. Just give me a moment to find it."
Nia was quickly going through various parchments which she pulled out from her small leather bag, obviously a spatial one. She seemed to look at some for a bit longer and scanned their content while dismissing others without a second glance. Then after a few moments she presented an abused appearing scroll to Sarah. "That one should also have information about the phase affinities. Thanks in no small amount to the courtesy of the 11 big churches and their attempt to make sure that who ever tries to use their affinities, would also come under the protection of their gods, if they know what is good for them."

Opening the scroll, again it's content was displayed in a window. Yet now it was just a list. Quickly scanning its content, she saved it into her memory for later use. While looking over the text, she had however also noticed that a lot of her assumptions about how the elements could evolve where right.
As for the third stage affinities, the list was as expected solid, liquid, gas, plasma and mana. Each obtainable by reaching the third stage with a second stage basic element. If Nia hadn't any good explanation to offer, Sarah was certain that the missing affinity was soul.
Having finished memorizing the text, she also wordlessly offered the list to her sister, who however declined by shaking her head.

Getting back her scroll, the owner put it into her spatial bag, before continuing.
"As for why soul affinity is unlikely to be part of the phases? That is simply due to general mind affinity being part of the third stage already and healing affinity being second stage magic accessible from water and light. Since those two affinities are the closest to any soul affinity, if i had to guess, maybe the fourth stage or even fifth stage could contain soul affinity, but no idea.

And organizations hiding affinities is more than unlikely. They want to advertise them-self, gain more members and claim territory. Even if they could hide an affinity, other organizations could still try to replicate them. Claimed realms can prevent people or organizations from entering unless war is declared. So in the center of a territory people can experiment with affinities as much as they want, yet still no accounts of the 6th phase affinity have been disclosed so far. Unless whoever hides the affinity is hidden them-self and basically ignoring the whole power structure of the higher realms, which would also result in massive losses of resources and is therefore more than unlikely."

"Okay. Soul affinity is the missing 6th affinity." Sarah answered without thinking long about her response. "I may have still a lot of unanswered questions about souls, yet seeing them as a phase wouldn't be that farfetched since mana is also one. And in regard to the missing resources, let's assume that people with soul affinity could heal sanity damage, couldn't they gain resources from existing organizations by healing the highest members? Not to mention that they could simply extort them, just by mentioning that they wouldn't help them out. Admittedly soul affinity would also need to be lethal enough to prevent their enemies from exposing them."
She knew enough about how countries and companies in the open as well as hidden powers which shouldn't exist worked from her old world. Even though they had only the Alexandrian Empire, the Allied Union as well as a few big companies as public contenders there and not 11 or more churches, the Followers of Law and probably a lot more organizations. There would always be people trying to exploit small and unknown markets, whether it's legal or not, as long as there is profit to be made.
Ignoring her own aversion to verbal communication and other people, as she was already talking about an interesting subject, the scientist continued. "Do you want to try to reach soul affinity? I am pretty sure that you can evolve your darkness af-"

"No! Definitely no!" Nia interrupted Sarah. "Whether it's just a cursed affinity or there is actually some hidden organization behind it, as you assume, i don't want to risk my luck with something like that. Besides, i want to get space affinity." Before the girl got any funny ideas Nia shut her down. She didn't care what the truth was behind the affinity, the risks far outweighed the rewards. In the end it was just an affinity. While there were better ones and worse ones, none of them threatened the very existence of whoever practiced them, at least as long as one was careful.

Being disappointed by the fervent denial of her suggestion by her new test subject, Sarah's mood quickly cleared again after a few moments. Emotions clouded ones reasoning and progress, as such she tried to suppress or get over them when and where necessary, especially the negative ones.

As they continued on to the dungeon, they discussed a lot of topics about the new world. Sarah however mostly kept herself out of any conversation and let her sister deal with the new addition to the team. She had things to think about and with her memory it was enough to listen to them for the most part.