After eating what would have filled one hundred men, Ray started to do his job as the master of the subspace. The first thing that he did was guide the mana in James', Yogan's and Laura's bodies to form a natural flow, after a few months of adjustment they would all be possessors of a heart of mana. Jason's current body was much too frail for such a thing for the time being, but he had his own solution for that.
After that he let them all but James go, letting Laura guide Jason back to his room. Yogan immediately went into seclusion as he had to cultivate his golden flames, they were his main source of power and having been stunted for over a year he had to make sure that nothing went wrong with their development.
Living for so long in such high mana density worked wonders for his body and now with a pseudo heart of mana he had to make sure his flames could keep up.
As for James, Ray had a few questions for him.
"Listen I have a few things to ask you that pertain to both you and your brother. I noticed when I first saw you that we have a few similarities. We are both brown skinned, we are both humans and most importantly we both have this little star shaped mole under our left eye. As a matter of fact, both you and your brother have it."
He pulled out a mirror and gave it to him. As Ray had now pointed it out, James couldn't unsee it. At first it just looked like a normal mole but when you looked at it carefully a 21-edged star appeared.
"Before I couldn't tell why I felt so familiar to both you and your brother and thought that it was simply the mole. But now I can tell that it's not just the mole." With his saintly power and strong soul Ray could see much more than he could before. "Let me ask you, do you remember what your parents look like, specifically your father."
A bit speechless, James quickly gathered his thoughts. "Yes, yes, I do. I remember everything that I have ever seen, heard or experienced whether I want to or not. My father disappeared when my brother and I were 6 and 5. My mother passed away soon after." He said diligently.
'So, about the same time as me huh, this is getting weird, and I don't like it.'
"And do you remember his name?"
"Of course, it was Xavier."
'Same as mine, fuck.'
Ray didn't want to continue questioning as it might topple his entire life up until this point, but he steeled his nerves and asked anyway. "What is your family name?"
"Hart, both me and my brother. We got it from our father even though having family names is so uncommon."
'Fuck, then there's no mistaking it. I didn't tell them my last name and I can't deny this feeling.'
"Did he look like this?" With a wave of a hand Ray created a 3D image of his father based on his memories. He was a very handsome man but looked more reserved than anything else, he stood at about 6 '3 ", about as tall as Ray was now in his human form. And like the two of them a 21-sided star sat below his left eye.
His memory wasn't as good as James', but it was leagues better than a normal human or even a high human for that matter.
A light shone in James' eyes, but then they were quickly covered by a layer of fog. "Almost exactly, except he had a long gash running on the right side of his face and he was missing the ring finger on his left hand." He said with confusion as he pointed out the discrepancies, at this point even he was putting two and two together.
"Then there's nothing else I can say. I always thought that I was an only child, but then here come two younger brothers falling into my lap." Ray stared into the distance as he looked back onto the hard life he had lived because of the absence of his parents. At first, he didn't blame them, but now that he learned that not only had his father not died all those years ago, but even managed to start another family that he also ruined, he couldn't help but think himself foolish.
For all he knew his mother had also ran off with him, maybe she even helped him seduce even more women, leaving countless parentless children in their wake. He even felt the name dirty and wished that he hadn't given it to Laura, but after remembering that she was a caring single mother of three and did so diligently, he thought that maybe she could help him cleanse the name.
"Are you serious? That's not possible. My father promised my mother that she was his first love, and had it not been for that horrible accident he would still be here with me. Even if my mother had a child out of wedlock before me, he welcomed them with open arms." James was visibly upset. "Maybe it's just a coincidence. Yeah, that's it, just a simple coincidence, humans look alike all the time. No big deal." He comforted himself.
"Let me guess, was it a hunting accident?" Hearing Ray so accurately predict his fathers supposed passing he could no longer run from the truth. "Look I also don't want it to be true but there is no denying it. The fact that you are human in a veyrunnian society is already suspicious enough, but the star shaped mole is too much of a coincidence. But I want it to be certain."
He pulled out a flat square plate made out of mithril as well as a bowl. In the bowl he put an assortment of different herbs as well as a drop of his heart blood which he grounded into a paste.
On the plate, he started to draw a circle with a few simple symbols.
"Drop your blood in the center of this, based on the reaction we will be able to tell."
James pulled out a dagger and slightly cut his wrist. A little bit of blood flowed out and landed in the middle of the metal plate. "What is it?" He asked.
"The base of a bloodline curse. If we are related in any way, there will be a reaction and we will be able to tell how close we are based on how strong the reaction is." As Ray said this, James' blood started to move.
At first it just wiggled in place, but very quickly it spread itself thin and attached itself to the markings that Ray drew earlier. "This just says that we are both human. Now watch."
The mixture of Ray's blood essence, James' blood and the herbs started to glow softly. "This level of light just shows that we are at most cousins, maybe our fathers…" Before he could finish his sentence a red blood light suddenly filled the room and without hesitation Ray casted a basic mana shield around himself and James.
In a split second a loud bang and a giant explosion rang out. It lasted for all but half a second, but it was truly powerful as this wing of the mansion was instantly vaporized.
Ray was counting his lucky stars that he insisted that they separate the living quarters from the utilities, otherwise such an explosion would instantly vaporize everyone else.
In an instant, Laura and Yogan appeared. All that they saw was that half the building was gone and floating there was Ray, James and a flat metal plate.
In the distance Ray could hear the crying of babies, the explosion had obviously woken them up and coming from one of the hallways, Jason could be seen.
"What happened?" They all collectively screamed.
"Not to worry, just a little bit of an experiment." Ray laughed out loud. "But you might have to change how you address James and Jason in the future. As my blood brothers they might deserve at least a little bit of respect.