"I'd argue all of those are still kinds of madmen, albeit artificial in the cases of being brainwashed. Anyway, are we doing this now or is waiting for after supper?"

"After, I don't want to do sorcery on an empty stomach."

"After. I am going to need to make calls across worlds, and I don't want to do that on an empty stomach."

"Hey! Maybe I want to tell our grandparents about the juicy interworld gossip."

"Doing any sort of work on an empty stomach does not seem wise, yes." Opero will peer into the kitchen. "Anything I can do to help with the cooking?"

"No worries. It's almost done!"

"So... what is life like in your world?"

Opero grimaces lightly and gestures with his hands as he attempts to conjure the words. "It's hard to say? I'm a well-traveled man, but that brings its own biases to what I see and how I see it. What is ordinary for me is probably not ordinary for most people from my world, or even most people from my country. I suppose, things are mostly good, at least in parts of the world I travel most. There aren't any big wars going on at the moment, even if there are some skirmishes in the more exploited parts of the world between warlords and puppets and the like. Food scarcity is less of a problem than it's ever been, especially in the wealthier countries. The senate's still basically owned by the oldest and richest families, who exploit this ruthlessly. I don't know if that paints much of a picture."

"Aww, sounds just like our Earth. And Elan. And we don't know much about ancient Elsewhere society and worlds, but I bet it isn't that different."

"Do you have an ideal of the global population? Literacy rates?"

"I think the last estimate I remember was around ten billion? I haven't checked in a while, though. And literacy globally I think is around 60%, but it's close to 100% in my country and most wealthy countries. There're are some charitable efforts to teach it in other countries, but they don't tend to cooperate with local operations that want to make a writing system for their own language, so there's quite a bit of resistance."

"Huh... we have around twelve billion, but that is divided mostly between Earth and Elan. And I haven't checked, but our literally is around 85% worldwide. Why they don't cooperate with local operations?"

"Interesting. I'm not sure what exactly would lead to such a difference in population. Nothing about spiritism or humorism seem like they'd obviously encourage it over sorcery. Perhaps just a quirk of history? And, I may be a bit of a cynic, but a combination of paternalistic ethnochauvinism and ulterior economic motives is my guess."

"I am sure that is part of it. But without looking more closely at your world, I would guess that your magic had positive effects earlier own? On Earth, the population exploded in the last century, alongside several technological leaps, but some of the richer countries are foreseeing population replacement problems. On Elan, they had a head start on the population because of better quality food, medicine and... well, just plainly healthy people, but also birth control." Shrug.

Opero strokes his chin thoughtfully again. "That is possible. When was magic, of any sort I suppose, first discovered in your worlds, if you know? Spiritism has been practiced since time immemorial, though it's experienced a considerable expansion in practical knowledge and feasibility since the discovery of humorism, which took place about two centuries ago."

"Not counting when Elsewhere introducing sorcery to the worlds. Synth has always been around, alongside with simpler augmentations, and has been a steadily progressing ever since. Same for Efross' heat magic, but with less room for research."

Opero nods. "I suppose that makes sense, especially with them appearing somewhat in other animals." He gives his chin another scratch. "And there's no magic native to Earth, to your knowledge at least? I wonder if that relates to how spiritism and humorism aren't as," he produces another uncertain hand gesture, "biological, as Synth, Augmentation, and Heat manipulation?"

Collective head shake. "Like, unless you want to enter the realm of conspiracy theories that say that Earth's magic is extra hidden. Which, you might as well say that the other worlds also have super-duper extra hidden magic. Or that ancient Elsewhere reptilian overlords control everything."

"Assuming that Spiritism and Humorism are Earth's magic, that could be the case. Huh, is there really no biological component to either?"

"Not that I'm aware of. Or, well, it's fairly well supported that brain damage in certain areas can hamper or destroy your ability to achieve spiritual or humoral meditation, but only in the same way that damaging certain parts of your brain can hurt your ability to, say, form sentences or coordinate your movements. I suppose it's possible there's some difference in brain-structure between my people and yours, but given the other similarities I'd be rather surprised if that were true. I don't know if such a thing would be detectable to the analysis ritual?"

"It should be able to detect a brain difference if there is something about the brain-structure that relates to your magic. Or at least differentiate between a 'maybe' and a 'definitely not'."

"Sounds like another good reason to give it a shot, then." Opero smiles, or perhaps smirks. "I'm honestly rather excited to find out. I didn't really have any expectations about going to another world but a mystery like this certainly isn't the worst thing I could have encountered."

"Dinner is ready!"

"Oh, we needed to set up the table."

There is the sound of wind coming from an adjacent room. "Already set up the table!"