"Apparently it's a species thing," says Martin, suppressing a laugh.

"Wait... really? So your species is something out of anime? That is cool, kinda of hot too."

"… I'm, um. No?"

"D'you not have anime?"

"We do– most of it is from Serenta, but you get stuff in other countries too – but I don't think it tends to include people with dyed hair? Then again, I don't actually watch it much."

"Not dyed hair, but hair in colors we don't have. And now that I think about it, I don't ever remember seeing colorful body hair in an anime character and why I am even thinking about it?"

Fernando returns, with a couple of books and a box of materials that include crystals, herbs and what looks like some kind of animal skull.

Presumably also some more clothes.

"Well that looks like fffun," says Itaruko. "What tests do you plan on? Anything specific or just, like, a battery of them to find out more about my apparently-magic-that-everyone-has-in-my-world – that continues to be weird, for the record."

He in fact wearing shorts now.

"The most important thing I want to figure out is if lumen counts as a natural gift. One thing about our magic is that it can be dangerous if the person doesn't have a natural gift or is co-casting with someone that does."

"Ooooh, an entire world of people with natural gifts, even if they are all the same light based one, that would be... wow."

"Meaning – we would be good to cast magic ourselves, but we're not good to co-cast with? I'm not totally clear on why that would be useful except presumably you have limited numbers of people who can cast magic, or is that it."

"Casting spell influences the inertia in the magical field, which can have weird effects. So anyone in our world can cast magic, it is just not safe to do it without someone with a natural gift helping, or you might end up with something weird going on."

"There is a limited number of people who can cast magic safely," Fernando summarizes.

"Huh, okay." Pause. "Feel free to check if it counts as a natural gift, yeah."

"Sure. Martin, would you mind if I tested you too? It might be useful information as well."

"Whether I have a natural gift or whether I have lumen? Because, no I don't have the latter but sure you can test for the former."

"Well, I was presuming that you didn't have a natural gift and it would be interesting magically analyzing a presumably human from another world."

"Ah, okay," he nods. "So long as it's not destructive or harmful, go ahead."

Okay, this set of spells is going to take a while and to save time Fernando enlists Felix's help to cast the one that is going to be used on Martin.

And Thor is curious about Martin and Itaruko's worlds and the other set of triplets.

Itaruko explains some things about his world! Nice government, low on war which is apparently surprising, magic doesn't exist except apparently lumen, three species, all humanoid, various countries, population somewhere in the hundred to two hundred million range.

Thor's world diverges more from Martin's world than the one infected by the Ternion Agent. The broad strokes are similar to the point of recognition, and differences are apparently getting stronger thanks to the popularization of magic, helped greatly by the internet, today there are amateur magic clubs that practice on weekends using downloaded instructions and helped by people with natural gifts that want to make some extra money but not pursue a career. Magic has a lot of benefits and versatility over technology and the way spellcasting works benefits from large coordinated groups and the societal effect is overall positive, specially because it allow things like people coming together to put anti-pollution wards around neighborhoods and the like - large cities in developed countries are pollution free - or small but convenient things like self-cleaning or unbreakable objects. Magic can be used destructively, but technology is much better at scaling that up, so there less incentive to create the magical equivalent of an atomic bomb.

This set of triplets is from Brazil instead of the United States, which might account for the name differences.

Huh. Any idea how their world got it, since there's a point of recognition, or did it just suddenly appear and get usable by everyone? Did people have to be born with natural gifts after the magic appeared, or did they have them but couldn't use them, or is there a way to get them later in life…?

Itaruko's curious about what it actually means if lumen does count as a natural gift.

Magic and natural gifts have existed through out all of recorded history and likely from waaaay before that, most are weak - the triplets' power level is not common - but even those minor gifts help spellcasting. The occurrence of natural gifts is determined by complex genetic and environmental factors and there is no known way to give them to people.

What exactly does Itaruko wants to know? The theoretical metaphysics explanation or the practical application? Keeping in mind that Thor is a highschooler and not a metaphysicist.