With a wave of a hand, the damage done to the mansion was instantly repaired and with a single thought the 5 of them appeared in the central living room.
This room alone was larger than most mansions in and of itself and it was littered with furniture of different sizes. Ever since his talent stabilized the mutated inventory spell and created the subspace, he had this unexplainable urge to populate it with different species and the size of the mansion as well as the variety of the furniture was just a reflection of that.
The central living room had a human sized table with hundreds of chairs that sat higher than the rest of the furniture and this is where they were currently seated.
"What do you mean James and Jason are your brothers, that doesn't make any sense. Besides being human, the three of you have no connections." Laura was the first one to speak up, James was already a bit bossy in nature and if he had such a direct tie to Ray then her so far peaceful life would come to an end. "If I remember correctly, you said that you came from a minor world and that your parents died before you even entered here. James and Jason were both born here long after your parents died."
With the new world, or astral plane as it was referred to by the natives, having so many connections to other, relatively weaker, worlds it could be referred to as a major world with all of the collecting worlds being minor worlds.
Minor worlds, and weaker major worlds, would connect to powerful major worlds to stabilize themselves and slowly grow stronger.
This naming sense wasn't in reference to size however, as Ray's home world was of the universe type, meaning that it was infinitely expanding; the astral plane, as the name suggests, is of the plane type meaning that while unimaginably massive, it had an end.
What the distinction referred to were two things in particular, laws and mana. The laws of the world dictated the limits and capabilities achievable in that particular world. The maximum speed, the strength of gravity, how high mountains and how deep seas could be, the frequency of abysses, all of these were affected by the laws of the world; even the toughness of rocks would change.
The average rock in the new world was about as hard as diamond in the old world, that's why even after falling from so high up at such great speeds Ray only managed to create a very small crater when he was forced into the new world.
The other thing that differentiated a minor world from a major world was the density of mana. The ratio of powerful laws to dense mana was an important one, as while the laws dictated the upper limit, mana was the only thing keeping you alive. Without the natural strengthening of mana an organic body wouldn't stand a chance against the ambient power of laws.
Inhabitants of worlds with powerful laws but thin mana were stunted evolutionarily, and any change in the laws would be too much for them to handle and they might all die out at any time. Such worlds are often barren, but the lack of mana paired with powerful laws create unique resources that are very valuable.
Even amongst major worlds there was a difference. The existence of a will of the world or not was a major dividing line; the will of the world was a manifestation of the laws and could only exist when the laws were strong enough.
So Laura was right to be a bit skeptical, one was a powerful major world with a condensed will of the world and the other was some random minor world. It had to be known that crossing worlds is usually a very difficult endeavor, especially going up the ladder, so Laura just assumed that the few humans that she knew of that crossed the border managed to just be extremely lucky. Unless of course you were a Supremacy, then tunneling to a major world was simple.
"Well, we humans are a bit special, in my home world there are portals that open up ever so often. These portals are filled with various monsters and when cleared, everyone in the portal at the time is teleported to the new world." He stopped to make sure that everyone was listening before continuing. "When we gain access to the new world, what we call this world, that way we can freely teleport back and forth. And no, before you ask, I can't go back, I was forced through a man-made portal."
"What do you mean that humans can just come and go however they feel like, that doesn't make any sense. The barrier between worlds is a very stiff one and passing through it even once can destroy your soul." Said Jason, as he was bed bound most of the time, he spent a lot of time reading, so even if he was only 12, he was very well spoken.
"Well, I was forced through that barrier and it didn't feel all that dangerous to me, like moving through a thick film. But anyway, we are getting sidetracked." They still wanted to hear more about it but seeing that Ray wanted to move on they did.
"The fact that the three of us have the same father is undeniable, I confirmed so via a simple bloodline curse. It wouldn't have reacted so violently if we weren't."
"But what does this mean? Like, what do we do now?" Said James.
"Well, you guys can continue on like how you were before. I still have a few urgent things to do here." Ray got up from his seat and walked to one of the many stairs leading out of this room.
"What do you mean continue? This is important, you can't just not acknowledge it!" James spoke up. He was only 13 years old and since he was six he had to live on his own and provide for a younger, sickly brother. He wanted to complain but he had nowhere to do so. His parents were dead, at least he thought so, and no one else gave a damn. He wasn't the only orphan in this town and others were even more miserable than he was.
"Well, what do you want to do? Find him? He could be dead for all we know. Based on how you remember him looking, he wasn't in the best shape so he might have had a hunting accident a few times and finally dropped dead." Ray berated him "Look I know how hard it is to have to survive on your own from so early on, and it had been especially hard on you since you had Jason to take care of as well. If I ever see that bastard again you best believe that I am killing him myself, but you can't let such things hold you back."
Ray started to walk away as he let James consider what he was saying, he was young and irrational so it would take some time. "Jason, follow me. I don't have much more time here and I'd like to multitask."